This is an IHeart podcast.

I'm Maeve Higgins and this is Solvable.

Interviews with the world's most innovative thinkers,

working to solve the world's biggest problems.

My name is Salman Khan.

I'm the founder of the not-for-profit Khan Academy.

And my solvable is ensuring that everyone on the planet

has access to a free world-class education.

Our guest this week is a teacher who has thousands of students all over the world and who says education needs to be radically different in order to empower millions of people to thrive.

Salman Cairn's Cahn Academy reaches 100 million people a year all over the world, where remote students are able to watch online

videos that cover a wide variety of subjects from maths and English to computer animation and art

history. They and Sal agree that students' results are better than those of their peers.

The Can Academy focuses on what Sal calls mastery education, so you move

through the courses online at your own pace, only going on to the next step when you've got it

100%. Sal is talking to Ahmed Ali Akbar about new ways to address education so that everyone

can develop the skills needed to navigate a future of AI and automation.

Education systems have transformed wildly since the earliest universal primary education system

was established in Prussia in 1717 when I was only a child. Many countries followed suit in the 20th century and later. India passed

laws introducing universal, free and compulsory education in 2009. Some countries still don't have

laws making education mandatory. It's really extraordinary to look at literacy rates over time.

The trend is hugely positive.

Take literacy rates among young people, and we say that's people age between 15 to 24, so sorry

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