A new African Union, UNESCO Global Education Monitoring report and African Centre for School Leadership Spotlight Report, Lead for foundational learning, launched at the ADEA Triennale in Accra, Ghana, on October 29, has shown that learning levels in Africa are lower than previously thought, whereby only 1 in 10 children in Africa complete primary education and achieve minimum learning proficiency.
According to the analysis of recently released data from the early grade reading assessment shows that, by grade 3, most Congolese, Nigerian and Zambian students could not read a single word.
The report also says that the out-of-school population in Africa may have stopped rising in the last few years, reaching 44 million in 2023.
The report calls for school leaders to prioritise learning tasks over administrative tasks in order to improve foundational learning, saying that school principals in 14 low- and middle-income countries spent 68% of their time on routine management tasks.
“Pedagogical advisors often spend too much time helping principals with discipline and administration instead of on pedagogy. Strong school leaders are also required to navigate often low learning standards.” Report stated
Learning materials and equipment too are scarce compared to the ever surging numbers of learners enrolled every year. The report revealed that textbooks are scarce—in Cameroon, up to 23 students share one textbook on average, although Côte d’Ivoire has managed to ensure the provision of a textbook for each student.
“Over half of countries still do not provide textbooks in children’s home language making early literacy acquisition hard.”
School meals is also a problem, whereby the report indicated that while 81% of countries in Africa provide school meals, they only cover, on average, 43% of primary students.
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To bolster instructional leadership for learning, the report has sets out urgent actions which include;
Ensure school leaders monitor learning with data to help struggling learners improve. Effective school leaders set clear learning goals, focus on teaching and learning, support and motivate teachers, and promote collaboration across the school community.
Select, prepare and support school and system leaders as future instructional leaders. Currently, 35% of countries have competency frameworks, which shape selection; training and professional development and only 19% require principals to have prior training before taking on their role.
Develop education officials’ capacity to understand learning objectives and support schools to achieve them. District education officers should have clear learning objectives linked to their evaluations and receive targeted professional development to strengthen instructional leadership and data-driven quality assurance.
Beyond leadership, the report also shows that only 20% of countries have a national assessment framework, meaning that most countries have no clear learning objectives. It calls for countries to use the new African Union Continental Assessment Framework, which can help them shape their objectives towards generating robust, reliable data on learning.
A new policy dashboard, under the auspices of the African Union’s LEARN peer learning mechanism, accompanies the Spotlight report’s recommendations and outlines member states’ approaches to a range of policy challenges, from curriculum to school leadership, to promote collaboration and policy dialogue on foundational learning.
By Our reporter
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