Everyone knows at least one rhinoceros is coming, but there may be a whole herd on the way, with each more dangerous than the next. And while they might not arrive in two seconds, they could be in our faces in a matter of months or weeks or even days. Yet some of the most important players— the ones critical to building the defenses to keep the beasts at bay—act as if they might have 20 years to spare. “I have been in public service—most of which involved public finance—for over four decades,” said Donald Tsang, president of the Executive Council of Hong Kong. “Let me share with you:  I have never been as scared as now about the world.”

The panel on which he spoke, the definitive “Outlook for the Global Economy 2012,” moderated by the ever-brilliant, ever-caustic Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, had a great range of stars from politics and finance, including Ali Babacan, the deputy prime minister of Turkey, Christine Lagarde of the IMF, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

But there was not a single representative of the eurozone countries or the United States. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had opened the conference by cautioning that Germany will not make promises it cannot keep—which suggests that it won’t make commitments that Europe needs but the German people don’t want. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble reiterated that position with his talk of “steady policies,” rather than massive firewalls of the kind that Lagarde and others are promoting. The absent German voice on the closing panel quickly became the elephant that wasn’t in the room.

“We think the talent-and-skills mismatch will become more acute. That’s a structural change,” says Jonas Prising, the president of the Americas for the staffing company ManpowerGroup, who notes that the U.S. lags far behind other countries in science and technology, areas where new jobs are most likely to be created.

Already, PricewaterhouseCoopers chairman Robert Moritz has heard from “CEOs who have now said, ‘I have taken a different strategic path, because I didn’t have the skill set in this organization.’” He expects the problem to intensify and lists “the need for a better appreciation for the talent-skill-set mismatch that’s out there” as one of top two wish-list items to accomplish at this year’s meeting, along with focusing on solutions for Europe.

President Obama noted the impending crisis in his State of the Union address Tuesday while pitching his plan to use community colleges to retrain workers: “Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that—openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work. That’s inexcusable.”

At Davos, the issue is tangentially on the agenda, with sessions on youth unemployment. A few participants, including Harvard’s Larry Summers, have raised it, too. But considering how large the issue will loom going forward in the U.S.—and even more so abroad, with youth unemployment rates in some countries topping 40 percent or even 50 percent—you’d think this problem would make a lot more noise around here.

Friday’s hottest economic sessions reflected the somber mood as leaders turned introspective. “Fixing Capitalism” led by Angel Gurria of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and “The Future of the Eurozone” with finance ministers from France, Spain, Brussels, and Germany spurred heated debate in the halls. Friday’s televised debate focuses on the provocative question: “Big Banks: Cure or Curse for the Global Economy?” Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank is sure to draw an attentive audience as he tries to lay out the future in an address called “Europe’s Economic Outlook.”

Off the economic circuit, topics are not much brighter. An interactive session called “A Day Without Satellites” will focus on society’s growing dependence on satellite technology by painting a picture of just one 24-hour period without it and how the dark the day would be. A panel called “What if All Known Antibiotics Lost Their Effectiveness” will warn against the effects of over-prescribing antibiotics.   “Preventing Burnout” led by an impressive panel of international mental-health specialists will be a timely panel in today’s always-on-always-available world.

Even the Art and culture offerings for Friday are bleak.  The highlight will be a demonstration of repurposing garbage as art led by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz.  

We merely have to look at the numbers to grasp the scale of the crisis. There are 68 million primary school age children out of school - and global progress towards universal primary education has slowed since 2005. If current trends continue, the out-of-school population could increase to 72 million by 2015. Another 71 million adolescents are out of school, many of them lacking a basic education. And while governments across the world are concerned about the quality of education, the evidence on learning achievement levels in many of the poorest countries is profoundly disturbing.

Less than four years from the 2015 target date, the world is not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of decent quality universal primary education. The ultimate responsibility for changing this picture and delivering on the promise of education for all rests with national governments. But donors also have a role to play - and they have not delivered on their aid commitments.

In contrast to the health sector, where the global funds for HIV/AIDS and immunization have mobilized resources and galvanized political action, the education sector has suffered from a weak multilateral core. The Fast Track Initiative (FTI), renamed the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) last year, which operates under the auspices of the World Bank, has achieved some important results. But it has not delivered at a level of ambition commensurate with the scale of the crisis. Moreover, the World Bank itself has struggled to translate its commitment to education into financing decisions. The end result is that the GPE has been delivering too little aid—around $249 million in 2010—to too few countries, far too slowly.