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Unexpected Elements from the BBC World Service.
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Hello, I'm Lucy Hawkings from the BBC World Service.
This is the Global Story.
A good education can make us richer, healthier and help us to thrive.
And governments around the world compete in global rankings to see which nation is deemed to have the best school system in the world.
Our main responsibility is to nurture the students in such a way that they will be ready for the future to become productive citizens of tomorrow.
Asian schools often get the best results, with some Nordic countries also highly praised.
But in many parts of the world, there are often huge barriers to getting children into the classroom at all.
It's cruel not to open schools for girls.
We have as much right to learn as boys do.
It would be cruel of the Taliban not to allow us to return to our schools.
So what does the best school system in the world look like?
And which country educates its children best?
With me today in the Global Story studio is Sean Coghlan.
Some of you will have heard Sean and I talking already on the Global Story about the UK royal family, as he's one of our royal correspondents.
But before that, Sean, for many years you were one of our education correspondents and you led BBC news coverage of what we're going to talk about today, which is global education.
So welcome.