One in six adults on the planet cannot read or write. Some 600 million women and 300 million men, 99 percent of them in developing countries, remain illiterate. Some 115 million children between six and eleven-one in five-are not in school. Of those who go to school, one in four drop out before completing five years of basic education.

Education for all, in the broad sense just described, is an important global issue with strong win-win aspects. The bill would not be large on a global scale, and in this field, you would expect international collaboration and exchanges of ideas to come naturally. Yet education for all is badly neglected.