Worldwide, 250 million children – many from disadvantaged backgrounds – are not learning the basics because of a lack of attention to education quality and a failure to reach the marginalized. The 2013/4 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all, shows that as a result, many girls and young women unable to read or write, let alone acquire the skills they need to get decent work and lead fulfilling lives. Poised on the threshold of 2015, this summary of the 2013/4 EFA Global Monitoring Report provides a critical assessment of trends and challenges in meeting the Education for All Goals as well as an overview of the issues framing the teaching and learning crises from a “gender” lens. As the international community prepares to formulate post-2015 development goals, the Report makes a compelling case for giving education a central place in the global and national frameworks. It presents the latest evidence from around the world of the power of education – especially of girls – to help improve health and nutrition, reduce poverty, boost economic growth and deepen the foundations of democracy. It describes how policy-makers can put an end to the learning crisis – by supporting and sustaining a quality education system for all children, regardless of background, through providing the best teachers. For accelerating girls’ education, this means recruitment of female teachers, especially in rural areas who are supported and motivated through appropriate incentives; and a focus on gender-aware and responsive teacher training and professional development, among others. Unless special efforts are urgently taken to extend educational opportunities to the marginalized, girls in the poorest countries may take several generations to achieve universal completion of primary and lower secondary education as well as universal youth literacy.