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dc.titleBuilt to Last: Advancing Education, Equity and Economic Development through Literacy and Numeracy
dc.contributor.authorContreras, Dante
dc.contributor.authorDe Hoyos Navarro, Rafael Eduardo
dc.contributor.authorArias Ortiz, Elena
dc.contributor.authorMarquez Ragonesi, Fernanda
dc.contributor.authorGoldin, Andrea Paula
dc.contributor.authorNäslund-Hadley, Emma
dc.contributor.authorDueñas, Ximena
dc.contributor.authorZoido, Pablo
dc.contributor.authorGodoy Mateus, Silvana
dc.contributor.editorNäslund-Hadley, Emma
dc.contributor.editorDueñas, Ximena
dc.contributor.orgunitEducation Division
dc.coverageLatin America
dc.coverageThe Caribbean
dc.date.available2026-09-09T00:09:00
dc.date.issue2026-09-09T00:09:00
dc.description.abstractLatin America and the Caribbean remains the world's most unequal region, and its productivity has stagnated for decades. Both challenges share a common root: the failure to build sufficient, high-quality human capital. This volume assembles the evidence on why foundational skills matter and what actually works to build them. It documents the economic case for investing in learning, showing that cognitive skills rather than years of schooling drive long-run growth, that private returns to education in the region exceed those of financial markets, and that well-designed investments in foundational learning largely pay for themselves through higher productivity and an expanded tax base. It then traces the scale of the region's learning deficit across the life cycle, drawing on ERCE, PISA, and PIAAC data to show that low proficiency emerges in the early primary grades, widens through secondary school, and persists into adulthood, with the steepest gaps falling on low-income, rural, and Indigenous students. Turning to causes and remedies, the book examines the neurocognitive foundations of reading and mathematical reasoning, then synthesizes nearly 280 impact evaluations of mathematics, literacy, and tutoring and remedial education programs to identify which instructional approaches, delivery modes, and program designs produce the largest learning gains. Across syntheses, structured lessons, explicit pedagogy, code-based reading instruction, and well-targeted tutoring emerge as consistently effective, while combined or "balanced" approaches tend to dilute the impact of their components. A final chapter turns from design to delivery, drawing on interviews with implementers across six countries to map the recurring barriers that erode program effectiveness at scale, few of which lie in program design itself. Rather than leaving policymakers to piece together scattered individual studies, the volume consolidates the global evidence on what works in building foundational skills. Its conclusion is that closing the region's learning gap is at once the most compelling moral obligation and the most profitable investment available to its governments.
dc.format.extent118
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0014497
dc.identifier.urlhttps://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Built-to-Last--Advancing-Education-Equity-and-Economic-Development-through-Literacy-and-Numeracy.pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherInter-American Development Bank
dc.subjectFoundational Skills
dc.subjectSkills
dc.subjectEducational Institution
dc.subjectChildren
dc.subjectEquality
dc.subjectEconomic Development
dc.subjectHuman Capital
dc.subjectPrimary Education
dc.subjectSocial Mobility
dc.subjectProductivity Growth
dc.subject.jelcodeI21 - Analysis of Education
dc.subject.jelcodeI24 - Education and Inequality
dc.subject.jelcodeI25 - Education and Economic Development
dc.subject.jelcodeI28 - Government Policy
dc.subject.jelcodeO15 - Human Resources • Human Development • Income Distribution • Migration
dc.subject.jelcodeO54 - Latin America • Caribbean
dc.subject.keywordsLiteracy;Numeracy;equity;Cognitive skills;Intergenerational inequality;Learning poverty;learning crisis;Reurns to education
dc.typeMonographs
idb.identifier.pubnumberIDB-MG-01370
idb.operationRG-T4663
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