By Nicholas Kristof, Lucy King, and Jonah M. Kessel
Around the world we talk a good game about the importance of education, but we rarely act as if we mean it.
Here’s an unlikely exception: Sierra Leone, one of the world’s most impoverished countries. In the video above, I travel to Sierra Leone to chronicle that country’s campaign to get all children in school — and then to get them to actually learn to read, even in ramshackle schools with no electricity or plumbing.
The children broke my heart and also inspired me. If Sierra Leone can do this, other countries can — and surely the United States can emulate that same determination to help every child learn.