Fifty years ago, Lyndon Johnson stood before a joint session of Congress and declared war. “It will not be a short or easy struggle,” he warned the lawmakers. “No single weapon nor strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won.” He was talking about a war on poverty – he was saying that a politician can change the world.  That through their words and deeds, they can make a difference and make the world a better place.

President Obama (Number 44 – LBJ was 36) stood up last Wednesday night and gave his annual State of the Union address. He talked, albeit in passing, about education, saying how we need a race to the top.  He was right. Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), released a report this week saying it will be more than 70 years before every child has access to primary school.  No politician should be able to sleep at night knowing that.

Education is and always has been a silver bullet.  It opens doors, opens opportunities and opens the horizons of young people.  It teaches them, not just basic skills, but allows them to know that they can be anything they want to be.

As a Dad, I love hearing what my children are up to in school and seeing them grow and develop.  I want every child to get the chances that my children get.  Education should not be a luxury for hundreds of millions of children.  It is a basic human right.

World leaders have pledged that access to primary school would be achieved by 2015. However Unesco found that 57 million remain without primary schools. At the current rate it will be 2086 before access for all is achieved. The report goes on and says that it won’t be until 2111, before every girl will have a place in secondary school. That is totally unacceptable.

Throwing more money at the problem won’t be enough to solve it. There are 130 million children who remain illiterate and innumerate despite having been in school. We need to spend our money better and more wisely.  We must act and use our development funds to support more educational projects in the developing world, help to train teachers and advocate for increases in their pay and status so that more people will want to join the profession.

But these policies won’t solve it alone. Many countries that have the highest rates of children not attending school are areas of conflict around the world.  We must be stronger in our efforts to resolve armed conflicts.  We must use our foreign policy and our muscle within the UN and the EU to change the lives of millions of children.

Like Lyndon Johnson, we should declare war. Let’s say together that we want our generation to meet this challenge, the big challenge to allow every child to go to school.

* Tim Farron is Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Agriculture and MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale.