Foundational learning outcomes during the early primary school years are seen as a linchpin for achieving SDG 4, but the extent to which this justifies an exclusive focus on these skills is hotly debated.
The 2021/2 GEM Report showed that, despite differences, countries’ progress in ensuring that children acquire minimum proficiency in reading by the end of primary school is correlated with progress in other factors: pre-primary education enrolment rates, out-of-school rates for children of primary school age, and qualified teachers. The various elements of an education system are fully interconnected in other words. A focus on learning means a focus on system strengthening.
These links are found at every turn. High-quality pre-primary schooling has a positive effect on schooling outcomes, but just raising pre-primary attendance may not. Higher upper secondary participation may reflect primary schooling of good quality rather than the other way round. Increased staffing ratios do not on their own improve learning.
This makes the acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy skills a vital priority for policy makers aiming to fulfil the commitments they made in SDG 4. All children are #BorntoLearn and we must help them reach their full potential.
This is the drive behind a new Spotlight report series on Africa that the GEM Report launched in partnership with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) last year. Envisaged as three overlapping cycles, each cycle will cover 12 countries per year, of which five – or one per region – is being covered in depth. In these focus countries, the research is guided by education ministry leadership and is based on the work of a local country research team, which identifies challenges but also good practices to be scaled up or replicated, as well as the work of the GEM Report team. This partnership helps build consensus about solutions and intervention areas.
A continental Spotlight report will be the linchpin of each cycle.
The case for foundational learning in Africa is clear. One in five primary school-age children in sub-Saharan Africa are out of school; their number is nearly as high as it was in 1990. Only two in three children in the region complete primary school by age 15; three in four complete eventually. Among those who do, only 3 in 10 achieve the minimum proficiency level in reading, meaning that barely one in five children do so overall.
In Burkina Faso and Senegal, 1 in 4 grade 6 students reached the minimum proficiency level in mathematics, but results were much lower in other countries, notably below 5% in Chad, Cote d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Added to this is the additional layer of complications caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
Target 4.1 focuses on completion ‘leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes’, linking the two results. If you assume that children who do not reach the end of primary school will not have basic skills, it makes sense to combine information on completion and learning. For instance, while 41% of Senegalese and 30% of Cameroonian students achieve minimum proficiency in reading, the two countries are level at about 24% when dropout rates are taken into account, as dropout is high in both countries but higher in Senegal. In Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea, 22% of all students but 13% of all children achieved minimum proficiency in 2019.
During these three cycles, we will focus on the fact that all children are #BorntoLearn. We will engage a wide range of partners to discuss concrete solutions for this potential to be realized. Join us in building a movement together.
