Monday August 12 was World Youth Day and to mark the day, Young Lives researchers have written two comment pieces: Education Researcher Caine Rolleston asks why similar-income countries struggle to get the foundations of literacy and numeracy right in primary school while Research Officer Gina Crivello explores the hopes and dreams behind youth migration. Read the posts:

• Will education be the Achilles heel of growth economies?
• 'There's no future here': Youth migration, hope and inequality