Every day, sixth-grade students at the Organización de los Estados Iberoamericanos School Center in Santa Tecla, on the outskirts of San Salvador, work through reading and mathematics lessons supported by a new generation of digital learning tools.
As they complete exercises aligned with El Salvador’s national curriculum, teachers can see in real time where they are succeeding, where they are struggling, and what additional support they need. Students also have access to an AI tutor that adapts to their individual level and learning needs.
Scenes like this are becoming increasingly common across El Salvador.
For a country where employers often report difficulty finding workers with the skills they need, education has become more than a social priority. It is an economic imperative. Recognizing that human capital is critical to sustaining growth and boosting productivity, the Government of El Salvador has launched an ambitious effort to modernize education at scale, combining evidence-based teaching practices, data, and AI to strengthen learning and prepare young people for the jobs of the future.
The World Bank is supporting this effort through a Program-for-Results Financing, which links disbursements to progress and results rather than the delivery of inputs. The reform is helping transform how students learn, how teachers teach, and how the education system measures and delivers learning. Over the next few years, it is expected to reach approximately 500,000 students in public schools across the country.
Putting Learning First
The challenge is urgent.
Before launching the reform, seven out of ten Salvadoran children could not read and understand a simple text by age 10. Around 40 percent of young people did not complete secondary school, and one in four youth were neither studying nor working. These numbers represent not only missed educational opportunities but also constraints on future employment, productivity, and economic growth.
El Salvador’s response has been to focus relentlessly on what happens inside the classroom.
Technology has been put at the service of the learning process. The government has built a system designed to help students enhance foundational skills such as reading and mathematics, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The reform combines structured teaching practices, continuous assessment, teacher training, and reading-fluency tools, all supported by AI-powered applications and platforms designed around national learning objectives. An AI tutor guides each student with questions and step-by-step hints so they reach the answer on their own, and builds the dashboards and alerts that show teachers and decision makers where support is needed.
