Monday's news that Asia had received top marks in the 2014 global education index was received warmly right across Asia, and by many of us in the development community too.
Asian countries - led by South Korea- came out top in the Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment, published in the Learning Curve 2014 report, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit and published by global learning company Pearson, which compares the educational attainment of 39 countries.
This result is of particular importance to the development community because notably it wasn't that long ago that South Korea was deemed a 'developing country'. The huge progress in South Korea has been remarkable and down to a combination of good national governance, innovation and international community support. In fact, South Korea is still the only country to move from being reliant on overseas aid to being a donor itself .
As we approach the Global Partnership for Education's (GPE) replenishment conference later this month, the next few weeks will be critical in convincing the UK government to support global education so that other countries can, like South Korea, drive down the number of children out of school and reduce poverty levels. Education is a key driver to so many of our development goals that any reduction in global funding could have a devastating impact on rates of violence, teen pregnancy and even early and forced marriage - one of this governments priorities.
In many ways education is the centrepiece of global development - continued progress in this area could see global poverty reduced by almost 12% and a child born to a literate mother has a 50% better chance of survival past their 5th birthday . Progress is steady but there are still 57 million children across the world without access to primary education and 69 children without access to early secondary education.
In the past the UK has shown incredible leadership on the issue and must do so again. At Global Citizen, we've teamed up with RESULTS UK and Plan UK to form the 'Write to Learn' campaign to advocate for renewed funding to the Global Partnership for Education -the only global organisation dedicated solely to tackling the global education crisis.
We've been asking our friends and supporters, including Australia's Former Prime Minister and new chair of GPE, Julia Gillard, to tell us what they achieved #BecauseOfSchool.
You can support the Write to Learn campaign by taking our email action on the Global Citizen website - www.globalcitizen.org/writetolearn