“Africa has a complex past that has left parts of it with linguistic fragmentation, conflict, poverty and malnutrition that have weighed heavily on the education systems’ ability to ensure universal primary completion and foundational learning. Our partnership is shining a spotlight on this issue together with education ministries to help find solutions that work. The social and economic consequences of low learning outcomes are devastating for Africa. This report’s findings give us the chance to find a new way forward, learning from each other,” said Albert Nsengiyumva, the Executive Secretary of ADEA.
The report finds that, in addition to socioeconomic challenges, the limited availability of good quality textbooks, lack of proper teacher support, inadequate teacher training and provision of teacher guides, limited progress in the introduction of home languages in teaching and insufficient school feeding programmes, are key factors that have resulted in poor learning outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet, recent interventions show that progress is possible if efforts are focused on classroom practices that are informed by evidence. These positive practices highlighted in the report and other experiences are to feed into a peer-learning mechanism on foundational learning hosted by the AU that has been launched alongside this report, the Leveraging Education Analysis for Results Network (LEARN), building on the Continental Education Strategy for Africa clusters.
Mohammed Belhocine, African Union Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology and Innovation said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has thwarted our efforts to ensure all children have fundamental skills in reading and mathematics. This is why a focus on basic education within our continental strategy’s policy dialogue platform is warranted. The work of the new LEARN network on basic education within the AU launched this week will draw from the experiences of countries that have taken part in the Spotlight report series”
As noted by Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report, “Every child is born to learn, but they will not do so if they are hungry, if they don’t have a textbook to learn from, if they don’t understand the language they are being taught in and if their teachers are not supported appropriately. Every country needs to learn too, ideally from its peers. We hope this Spotlight report will guide ministries to make a clear plan to improve learning, setting a vision for change, working closely with teachers and school leaders, and making more effective use of external resources”.