In the long run, only education can bridge the gulf between richer east Asian countries and their poorer south Asian counterparts. The potential of education in Asia and the Pacific is as huge as the challenges it faces. The universal availability of primary and secondary schooling in Europe and North America has not solved the problem of unequal access to education. Nor does it guarantee social cohesion. While Western Europe grapples with issues of social exclusion and the relevance of education to the job market, central and eastern Europe struggle to cope with dwindling resources and the decline of the formerly state-supported system of free education.
Functional illiteracy is still high.
Even in rich societies, education does not guarantee a job. The average unemployment rate is high and many young people are neither in school nor in unemployment. Central and eastern Europe face an economic crisis which has deeply affected the quality of education. As a result of increasing social exclusion, violence in schools is rising in many countries of the region. The HIV virus has now infected a total of 23 million Africans.