Leaders commit to improve foundational skills
Left to right: Benjamin Piper (Head of Education, Gates Foundation), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili (CEO Human Capital Africa), H.E Mr. Umaro Sissoco Embaló (President of Guinea-Bissau), Arielle Kayabaga (Canadian MP), Hon. Agnes Nyalonje (Malawi Minister of Education), Jakaya Kikwete (Former President of Tanzania & Chair Global Partnership for Eductaion), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian Author) at Human Capital Africa’s event on FLN in New York.
The Transforming Education Summit in New York saw a growing focus on foundational learning including commitments from leaders to implement proven strategies to ensure all children are learning.
Launch of new Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning secures spport from United States First lady Jill Biden and Ministers of Education.
During the Human Capital Africa Roundtable, Malawi announced it will be the first country to publish Human Capital Africa’s FLN scorecard.
Last week at the United Nations’ Transforming Education Summit world leaders, education experts, and activists spotlighted the urgency to recover pre-pandemic and COVID-related learning losses and made various commitments to ensure children all over the world are given the building blocks to acquire the ability to read, write and count.
Access to education doesn’t always mean learning
One of the biggest challenges facing education is the fact that more than 60% of 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple story.
This is a significant challenge. Children who cannot read and understand a simple text will struggle to learn anything else in school. They are more likely to repeat a grade and more likely to drop out of school. They are less likely to benefit from further training and skills programs. At a national level, this will lead to worse health outcomes, greater youth unemployment and deeper levels of poverty.
Proven solutions exist
Fortunately we know how to tackle this – we need to give children the basics they need to then build off of and the opportunities for them to continue to learn. They need foundational learning skills – the building blocks to thrive later in school and throughout their lives — literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills.
The Transforming Education Summit saw a growing focus on this challenge and commitments from leaders that they will invest in proven strategies to ensure that all children are in school and learning.
The Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning
One initiative which was launched at the Summit was the Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning.
The CtA recognizes that foundational learning provides the essential building blocks for all other learning, knowledge and higher-order skills.
It is also a formal way for countries around the world and the global education community to demonstrate a commitment at the highest political level to securing foundational learning for all children and to implement policies that will help to achieve targets under SDG4.
Jill Biden, First lady of the United States, announcing US endorsement of the Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning during the Transforming Education Summit Leaders’ Day.
During the Summit, First Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, announced that the US endorsed the CtA and plans to improve access to learning for over 15 million girls via its development programming by 2025.
She was joined by education ministers from Niger, Ecuador, Jordan and the Central African Republic in endorsed the Call to Action and shared the work they are doing to support children acquire foundational skills in their respective countries.
Meanwhile Human Capital Africa assembled a distinguished panel of African leaders for a discussion on the specific challenge of foundational learning in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Speakers included H.E Mr. Umaro Sissoco Embaló, President of Guinea-Bissau, Jakaya Kikwete, Former President of Tanzania and Chair of the Global Partnership for education, author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the Malwai’s Minister for Education Hon. Agnes Nyalonje.
Minister Nyalonje announce that Malawi will be the first country to publish Human Capital Africa’s FLN scorecard. The Minister said that the score card would help Malawi take action in key areas including, improving teacher quality,adjusting the curriculum, increasing digital learning, addressing health disparities and ensuring inclusivity and accessibility.
IPNEd’s commitment to foundational literacy and numeracy
Ensuring every child can read and understand a simple sentence by age 10 is crucial to helping them thrive later in life. With the right evidence, support and leadership, parliamentarians can play a vital role in growing public and political support for foundational learning programmes by leveraging their functions as advocates, legislators, shapers, and approvers of funding, and scrutinisers of governments.
IPNEd is a member of the FLN Hub, a growing coalition of organizations working together to improve foundational learning and we will be growing our work on this issue in the coming months.
Learn more about IPNEd’s past activities connected to foundational learning here and here.
