Mind the 100-Year Gap in Education

Developing nations may be growing faster than wealthier nations and overtaking them on the pace of mobile-phone and luxury-car sales. But there's at least one area where they lag by a wide margin that will persist for years to come: education.

Globally, the number of children attending primary school has grown to 700 million from 2.3 million over the last 200 years, accounting for almost 90 percent of school-age children. But it will take another 100 years for children in developing countries to reach the levels of education in developed countries unless drastic measures are taken, according to a study by The Brookings Institution.