Japan’s international cooperation programmes in basic education, reflecting its own historical development experience, have emphasized the use of existing systems and resources to help build institutions. This blog draws from a background paper prepared for the 2024 Spotlight Report on foundational learning in Africa: Learning Counts.

Japan’s approach to international cooperation, as reflected in its ODA Charter introduced in 1992 and last updated in 2023, has been shaped by its own historical modernization experience. Emphasis is placed on helping partner countries’ self-help efforts. Cooperation has been directed at improving capacity using local systems to ensure independence and sustainability. There have been three policy documents in education in the past decade. The latest one published in 2015 is Learning strategy for peace and growth: Quality education through learning together, which added human security as a reason for investing in education in line with Japan’s ODA Charter.

Although initially Japan’s programme did not focus on basic education, this changed gradually in the late 1990s increasing the number of the projects for basic education with a focus on mathematics and science education. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has implemented 52 technical cooperation projects on mathematics to this day, which can be grouped under two types.

Japan’s primary and secondary education mathematics projects in Africa, by starting year and type

Some projects have focused on mathematics teacher education

The first type of project focused on teacher education. In Kenya, the Strengthening of Mathematics and Science in Secondary Education (SMASSE) project began in 1998 and was the first basic education cooperation project in sub-Saharan Africa for Japanese cooperation. SMASSE aimed to shift from the traditional lectures and management to a new teaching approach and a management cycle emphasizing reflection and improvement. It used the cascade training approach. The government sustained the in-service training system with its own resources (setting aside 1% of each secondary school’s tuition fees and some funds at the national level).

In Zambia, the project, which began in 2005, used resource centres to support professional development. This approach was followed partly to build on existing institutions of school-based training and partly to address some of the weaknesses of the cascade approach. The project focused on school- or cluster-based activities and the lesson study approach. The National Science Centre was designated to be the focal point for the national rollout.

The Kenya and Zambia projects were similar in many ways. Both began with secondary education in a small number of pilot districts and expanded to the entire country and to primary education. Both projects attached special importance to sustainability: partner country governments provided personnel and resources from their budget. Both projects also encountered similar challenges in the expansion to primary education. The core teams had been composed mainly of teachers in secondary schools and sufficient emphasis may not have been assigned to primary school contexts.  Although both projects conducted a sort of impact surveys on learning, the results did not show the impact clearly.

The two projects were also different from each other. Kenya’s in-service cascade training system was centrally controlled for content development and implementation quality assurance. Training quality was monitored by national trainers and reported to the national headquarters by training organizations. Zambia adopted a decentralized approach to ensure continuous professional development through school-based training combined with lesson study to improve practical skills. Subject teachers developed better classroom activities as models for others to emulate.

Other projects focused on school management committees

The second type of project, starting with Niger in 2004, focused on engaging school management committees (SMCs) in identifying problems and implementing a plan to tackle them. SMCs focused on improving children’s basic mathematics skills and organized remedial classes using workbooks after school hours.

A prominent example was in Madagascar, where the project evolved in two phases. During the first phase (2016–20), a participatory and decentralized school management improvement model was established in one target region. Schools generally decided to focus on remedial education, which combines the ‘minimum package for quality learning’ (PMAQ) and the ‘Teaching at the Right Level’ (TaRL) approaches. Under the PMAQ, developed in Niger, a school initially assesses basic reading and mathematics, and shares the results with teachers, parents and the community at a general meeting to motivate action. Under TaRL, developed in India, children are grouped based on these results, regardless of their grade. Remedial activities are undertaken after school hours on the school premises mostly by teachers.

An evaluation in 140 schools that were split into a control group and a group that received PMAQ and TaRL interventions found a strong positive impact on basic calculation and reading skills. It has, therefore, been estimated that these skills have improved for 1.2 million primary school students since 2017/18. As the model proved effective, scalable and replicable, the Ministry of Education has been expanding it to 11 regions during the second phase since 2020. Recurrent costs are expected to be borne by national budgets and institutions.

Singling out Japan’s contribution to project activities, including the cost of Japanese experts and their activities, capital equipment purchases and training costs, shows that these three projects have had a low and sustainable per student cost. In the case of Madagascar, “JICA cost” includes the cost not only for improving mathematics learning, but for strengthening SMCs.

Costs of selected JICA-funded primary and secondary education mathematics projects in Africa

Note: During Phase 3 in Zambia, interventions also extended to primary grades.

In recent years, the evaluation of mathematics and early learning projects has focused on demonstrating their short-term impact on learning outcomes. However, drawing conclusions only from such assessments can be misleading because short-term success may not trigger sustainable long term mechanisms for self-improvement. Endogenous curriculum development, teacher competence, knowledge and beliefs, communities of practice, and reflective professional learning have proven important factors in the development of mathematics education and should not be neglected.

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Imagine a world where every young person, regardless of where they are born, can confidently solve problems, make informed decisions, and envision a future filled with possibilities. This is not just a dream – it is a vision grounded in the power of numeracy skills, the focus of the 2024 Spotlight Report Learning Counts, and a cornerstone of foundational learning.

Numeracy is the language of logic, the art of numbers, and the key to unlocking potential. It is about much more than arithmetic and algebra; it is about critical thinking, problem-solving, and navigating life with confidence. Sadly, for at least four in five young children from across Africa, this aim remains just out of reach, locked behind barriers of inadequate education and limited resources. 

The African Union has declared 2024 the Year of Education, a bold statement of our commitment to breaking down these barriers. This theme is more than a policy: it is a call to invest in the education of our youth.

Across Africa, young people are answering this call with creativity, passion, and determination. From cities and remote villages alike, youth-led movements are sparking change. A simple example is the innovative educational tech startup O’genius in Rwanda that is turning smartphones into classrooms. Such platforms are revolutionizing how we learn, making numeracy skills accessible to children who might otherwise be left behind.

Grassroots organizations are also making waves. An example is Starlight Africa, an organization I co-founded seven years ago. We host workshops, Math Olympiads, summer camps, mentoring, and other programs that demystify science, technology, engineering and mathematics to inspire a love for learning. Proving that with the right support, every child can develop the numeracy skills they need to thrive.

But we cannot address this systemic problem through grassroots interventions alone. We need a holistic approach that brings together governments, educators, and the private sector to build resilient educational ecosystems. This means investing in teacher training, modernizing curricula, creating partnerships, and leveraging technology to bridge educational gaps.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate these efforts, but also to challenge ourselves to do more. Imagine an Africa where every child can calculate the trajectory of their dreams, and where numeracy skills pave the way for innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development. This is the future we must build — together. 

As we celebrate the AU Year of Education, let’s commit to concrete actions. Let’s empower our youth with the tools they need to succeed, ensuring that numeracy becomes a universal language of opportunity.

Together, we can transform education and, in doing so, transform our future.

Alice Mukashyaka was a featured speaker in a GEM Report webinar co-hosted with the African Union, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa and the African Young Educators’ Network to celebrate the Day of the African Child on June 14. Watch the event video.  

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Produced in partnership with the Association for Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), the report is being launched today, 7 May, at the 2024 Conference of the African Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities. Along with the continental report, the country report for Zambia will be launched at the same event, along with H.E Douglas Munsaka Syakalima, Minister of Education, Zambia. It is the first Spotlight session on foundational learning as part of the African Union Year of Education.

One in five children achieve minimum proficiency levels  

Learning Counts compiles the latest out-of-school and completion rate statistics to show the challenge that countries face every day. For every 100 children in Africa, 18 children are out of school– twice the rate of the rest of the world. However, there is sign of improvement, with completion rates growing at a steady pace of almost one percentage point per year throughout the past 20 years. Still one in five children do not complete primary school today. 

Albeit data gaps remain large, what evidence exists suggests that learning rates at the end of primary school have improved faster in Africa than the rest of the world since 2011. However, the challenge remains notable, with at most one in five children attaining minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics at the end of primary school today.

There is often a lack of connection between countries’ aspirations and their plans

For instance, having up to date and relevant textbooks is critical. Yet the report found that textbooks are often out-of-date and not available in the languages of instruction. Textbooks were not in the language of instruction for 80% of students in Zambia and in less than half of classrooms visited in Uganda. Given many students have limited reading skills, graphic explanations of mathematics concepts could help, but are often lacking.  

Textbooks and teacher guides may not be fully aligned with the curriculum and their design needs to be reviewed to prevent confusion and improve implementation. In Mauritania, algebra is missing from the lower primary curriculum, while it is covered in textbooks and teacher guides. In Niger, textbooks and teacher guides include statistics and probability but the curriculum does not. Assessments often cover a different set of competencies from those outlined in the curriculum, particularly at the end of primary, where an examination culture prevails, and the level of cognitive difficulty increases. 

Remedial education is highlighted as a critical approach for ensuring that all students are learning with understanding. Yet, of the five countries analysed only South Africa and Zambia contain guidance for teaching students who are falling behind. In Chad, a programme introduced in 2017/8 trained teachers to provide remedial support and they all implemented new strategies, such as rearranging classroom layouts and using more supportive approaches for struggling children, which ultimately saw children’s repetition rates fall.

Many countries need to contend with a teacher workforce whose qualifications and knowledge levels are well below what is required 

Ongoing professional training is also important to improve teachers’ subject knowledge and refresh their qualifications, which the report shows technology is helping with in the case of Burkina Faso, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia among others. In Africa, 17% of countries require a bachelor’s degree to teach in comparison to 62% of countries globally, while teachers’ qualifications are also often lower than requirements.  

The importance of training is highlighted in the report. Among surveyed primary school teachers in the 14 countries in the 2019 PASEC learning achievement survey, only 35% mastered basic procedures in mathematics. Differences in teacher subject knowledge accounts for more than one third of the cross-country variation in student achievement. But training approaches need to be sustainable and engaging teachers. Technology can help professional communities emerge, as a case study from Burkina Faso shows.

More funds are needed to bolster foundational learning  

As explained in more detail in the special edition of the 2023 Education Finance Watch for Africa, education is dropping down the list of governments’ priorities despite there being an annual financing gap of USD 28 billion to achieve countries’ own targets to achieve 85% primary completion rate by 2030. External financing is meanwhile declining as a source of revenue for governments, and less likely to support foundational learning as to support secondary education.  This makes it ever more important that it focuses on institutional building and not on short-term projects. 

The report recommends the following: 

At the individual level

1. Give all children a textbook – and all teachers a guide.

Ensure that all children and teachers have teaching and learning materials that are research-based, aligned with the curriculum, and locally developed. 2. Teach all children in their home language – and train teachers accordingly.

Give all children the opportunity to first learn to read in a language they understand and all teachers the confidence to support them.

3. Provide all children with a school meal.

Give all children the minimum conditions to learn at school. 

At the system level

4. Make a clear plan to improve learning.

a. Develop a common continental framework to monitoring learning outcomes.

b. Establish clear learning standards and align assessments to evaluate how well students meet them.

c. Ensure learning is not abstract; children need full understanding before moving to advanced concepts.

5. Develop teacher capacity.

Ensure all teachers use classroom time effectively through cost-effective training.

6. Prepare instructional leaders.

Restructure support mechanisms offered to teachers and schools. 

At the continental level

7. Learn from peers.

Reinvigorate mechanisms allowing countries to share experiences on foundational literacy and numeracy. 

At the international level

8. Focus aid on institution building.

Shift from projects to provision of public goods that support foundational learning. 

Download the report: https://bit.ly/2024-spotlight 

Download social media cards and materials: https://trello.com/b/1CYw5ork/spotlight-report  

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Following the approval of the SDG monitoring framework in 2017, two comprehensive reviews were scheduled by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), the UN-coordinated group of countries that is charged with indicator development. The first review in 2019/20 focused on indicator methodology. The second, upcoming review in 2024/25 will focus on indicator coverage. Last October, the IAEG-SDGs issued the review criteria: ‘data must be available for at least 40 percent of countries and of the population across the different regions where the indicator is relevant; and a plan for how data coverage will be expanded must be included if current data coverage is below 50 percent’.

In the case of SDG 4, two indicators have coverage below 40%: early childhood development (4.2.1) and youth and adult literacy proficiency (4.6.1). But it is indicator 4.1.1, the percentage of students who achieve the minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics, that has attracted the most interest. Coverage of indicator 4.1.1 is sufficient at the end of primary (4.1.1b) and the end of lower-secondary education (4.1.1c): 46% of the population and 60% of countries. But it is low at grades 2/3 (4.1.1a), which led the IAEG-SDGs to reclassify it from Tier I to Tier II: 16% of the population and 20% of countries. They come from two cross-national assessment initiatives: LLECE in Latin America (grade 3) and PASEC in francophone Africa (grade 2).

Many viewed this reclassification with alarm because of the signal it might send that early grade learning matters less, even though it is an issue of global significance. A handful of blogs were written to protest – and they almost invariably asked why three other assessments have not been used to report on indicator 4.1.1a. This blog explains the issues with these assessments, recent efforts to address them, and how more countries can report on this indicator.

Three assessments have been proposed as ways to increase coverage

Of the two authors of this blog, one was one of the creators of one of these assessments (Early Grade Reading Assessment, EGRA), and an advisor to the two other assessments (Foundational Learning Module of the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey, MICS; and the citizen-led assessments of the People’s Action for Learning, or PAL, Network). The other author is responsible for the definition of standards for reporting on the indicator – and a champion of the process to encourage and ultimately convince the IAEG-SDGs to add the early grade level to indicator 4.1.1 in 2018. We are therefore writing with both experience and a sense of responsibility in outlining the issues.

The first thing to note is that these three assessments were not originally designed for global, comparative reporting. Their potential to generate such comparable results has also not been sufficiently documented in a clear, standardized and centralized way. These assessments are administered on a one-to-one basis, either at school (EGRA) or at home (MICS and PAL Network), rather than to a group of children in a classroom.

EGRA and PAL Network assessments were created in the mid-2000s with the original intent to generate policy awareness, almost always on a country-by-country basis, by measuring concrete and easy-to-communicate skills that are precursors to reading with understanding. EGRA was used to evaluate the effectiveness of donor-funded projects, often in selected regions of a country. The PAL Network assessments were citizen-led initiatives intended to put pressure on governments to pay attention to low levels of learning. They both gained popularity and spread. They were often also used in research.

Soon after the SDGs were declared and the concept of a learning outcome indicator was floated, in the mid-2010s, the multipurpose MICS household survey team also decided to develop a module to increase the amount of measurement, at the time when definitions of the minimum proficiency level were being initiated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the custodian agency of indicator 4.1.1.

What are the issues?

Against what seems to be a current of opinion voiced in the above-mentioned blogs, it is important to note that there was never any reluctance to consider the potential of these assessments to be used for global reporting and be an alternative that countries could consider. But it was also noted that issues related to the original intent of these assessments, which affected their design and rigour, may make them unable to withstand the scrutiny of global reporting.

These assessments:

• are not backed by evidence that is documented in an agreed-upon and centralized way on how the transparency of each language’s orthography affects reading accuracy and therefore how results would need to be adjusted to make reporting comparable;
• tend to measure precursor skills to reading with understanding: the level they assess is below minimum proficiency, according to the globally agreed definition as visually described in the figure;
• vary in how they are administered, and such processes are not always centrally documented: for example, whether different assessors in one-on-one assessments reach the same conclusions on children’s learning tends to be not measured, not reported or not reported in a standardized way;
• often do not have clear, accessible, and centralized documentation of their sampling (e.g. who was excluded, which children can replace those that have been sampled but cannot take part, whether children that could not be assessed the first time could be approached again etc.), even though such differences in survey design affect results, while many samples are not nationally representative.

What are ways forward?

Some blogs have suggested to ignore these issues – in other words, to ignore the definition of minimum proficiency agreed by global consensus – in order to boost the number of countries that can potentially report. They have pointed to, for instance, how measurement of child mortality is carried out. But while there is some leeway in, say, defining what counts as a live birth, a death is a biologically clear event. In contrast, the accumulation and progression of learning is a long and culturally determined process. Accepting the results of assessments that we positively know are not measuring the minimum proficiency level and are loose in their documentation is not likely to lead to progress. What needs to be done?

A first step to overcome all the issues noted above is detailed criteria for reporting to help guide these and other assessments that are looking more at foundational and precursor skills on how to improve in the future. This work has begun. In early December, the UIS convened a meeting of the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning, a constituent group of the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) on SDG 4 Indicators, to chart a way forward. Criteria were proposed and then vetted by a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) in early March. Building on the TAG’s feedback the criteria will be refined and published.

It is one thing to see whether an assessment measures well, but a second step is to map their ‘score’ onto the UIS-generated Global Proficiency Framework and Minimum Proficiency Level statements.

A third step envisaged for the future is for the UIS to vet reports to make sure they meet the criteria set out in steps 1 and 2 above.

In parallel to – and independently of – these efforts, countries will need to develop plans how they might report this indicator to UIS. Equipped with those plans that will make firm commitments on how to increase reporting, the UIS can engage the IAEG-SDGs and the UN Statistical Commission in dialogue to argue in favour of reclassifying indicator 4.1.1a back to Tier I.

Finally, in addition to all these steps, it is ultimately each country’s decision and responsibility to choose which eligible assessment it wants to use to report on the indicator – and for organizations associated with particular assessments to support country decisions by providing them with the best possible documentation

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Now halfway to the deadline for achieving SDG 4, this blog looks at the progress that has been made against each since the goal was set in 2015. Are we progressing fast enough?

Setting foot in school

Before we start to look at the quality of education, we must address the fact that there are 250 million children not in school at all.

New numbers out this morning from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the GEM Report show that this is an increase from the year before of 6 million, largely as a result of the mass exclusion of girls from education in Afghanistan but also of slow progress around the world.

These numbers means that if you took six children at random from around the world, one of them would likely not be in school today.

This undermines the entire SDG 4.

Not being on track with countries’ targets already means that 58 million who should have been in school already by now, if progress were steady, have been denied their chance to go to primary school.

But we can turn progress around. #EverySchoolDayCounts. We need to enrol a child every 2 seconds between now and 2030 if countries are to achieve their targets.

There is no time to lose.

Continuing through the education system

There has been no real change in the chances of children going to pre-primary school since 2015, even though there has been some progress in sub-Saharan Africa and Northern Africa and Western Asia, the two regions furthest from the rest.

Not being on track with this target means that 6 million children did not go to pre-primary school who should have.

Progress needs to accelerate. If countries are to reach their national targets, they need to enrol an additional 1.4 million children every year in early childhood education. In sub-Saharan Africa, rates must grow four times faster, or more if COVID-19 is found to have had a long-term impact.

A child going to school today is more likely to complete their education than a child that stepped into school back in 2015 when SDG 4 was set. But progress has not been up to par: the annual progress in primary completion rates needs to almost triple between now and 2030 for countries to reach their national targets. Without faster progress, even this modest target will not be achieved until 2040.

The rates of those going to higher education have also increased since 2015.  It is particularly worrying, however, that there is a drop of 10% in adults taking part in learning activities since 2015 in high-income countries, with quite sharp drops between 2019 and 2020, because of COVID-19.

Receiving a quality education and learning!

Teachers are the backbone of a quality education, but progress in making sure there are enough teachers in classrooms with the right qualifications has been uneven. Sub-Saharan Africa has made the greatest improvement since 2015, but the region still has the lowest percentage of trained teachers across all levels of education.  If countries were on track with their targets, there would be more than 1.7 million trained teachers teaching children in primary school today.

At the very least, we want to know that, when children go to school, they will emerge able to read with comprehension at the end. This is perhaps one of the areas most in need of urgent action. Many countries still have no concrete measure showing whether children are learning or not. There are 31 low- and lower-middle-income countries that have such a record, and of these Viet Nam is the only country able to say that most of its children are achieving minimum proficiency in both reading and mathematics by the end of primary school. Learning levels declined in richer countries partly but not only because of COVID-19.

We know that the COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on learning, but not the full extent yet. Some countries, however, are already showing that children lost at least one year of learning because of the crisis.

Meanwhile, youth and adult literacy rates have each only improved around 1% since 2015. Still today, still one in four youth in sub-Saharan Africa cannot read a simple sentence. The number of illiterate adults also climbed by 9 million in the region since 2015.

Education FOR ALL

Where you live, your income, your gender and your migration status still strongly dictate your education opportunities.

At the primary and secondary level, globally, the world has achieved gender parity – meaning equal numbers of girls and boys in school. In upper secondary education, there has been gender parity since 2010, but by 2017 boys started falling behind. However, in sub-Saharan Africa girls are far behind at all levels of education.

Funding children’s potential

We will never achieve our education ambitions if we do not resource it. Yet, currently, a third of countries are not achieving the two important global finance benchmarks for SDG 4. The proportion of lower income countries either in or at high risk of debt distress has increased from 27% in 2015 to 58% in 2022, while aid to education also fell by 7% in the last year.

In total, we still lack around USD 100 billion per year for low- and lower-middle-income countries to achieve their national SDG 4 benchmarks by 2030. This is achievable. Per child, it amounts to just $80, roughly the same amount it costs to fill a car with gas.

Educating for a better future

Getting back on track matters for more than just education. Education is essential for progress across multiple areas of development, from health, to peaceful, democratic living and prosperity. It plays a critical role addressing the climate emergency by teaching us how to live harmoniously within our planetary boundaries. This is increasingly recognized by countries, however, today, only around 40% of countries have a national law, policy or strategy specifically focused on climate change education, despite the challenge it poses.

Overall comment on this report card:

We need to do things better, faster and differently in the remaining years to 2030!

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My first reaction to the figures released in the latest GEM Report released last month was sadly not surprise or shock, but disappointment. The COVID-19 pandemic shook the entire world and made traditional methods of teaching and learning obsolete overnight!

A developing nation like Pakistan had to face, counter and solve many challenges, very, very quickly and I can honestly say that we tried our best. The report states: ‘In Pakistan, a survey of 16 districts found similar learning losses in foundational skills in grades 1 and 3 but not in grade 5’. We understood that early-years education was likely to suffer more as younger children took longer to get used to e-learning and teleschool initiatives. Our feedback and analysis also showed that parents of younger children were also a bit more relaxed when it came to their studies and focused more on older siblings in more advanced classes.

It was indeed a trying and testing time. We were also trying to coordinate efforts for our new Single National curriculum initiative, within which we want to eradicate the discrepancies of the current 3 modes of education in Pakistan (private, public and madrassah) and bring them all on one page so that no child gets left behind in the current and any subsequent lockdowns.

However, Pakistan’s response to the COVID pandemic and our handling of it has been lauded internationally. I feel that, in part, that was because of our immediate handling of the situation, where we did not waste time in taking the necessary steps and making the needed changes. We worked on switching schools to online platforms or closing them. We did what was best for the lives of Pakistani citizens and I think we did well considering all extenuating circumstances.

To mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still now involved in a number of activities. For example, we are making sure that dropouts do not materialize. We are organizing enrolment drives and leveraging vaccine drives to encourage enrolment or re-enrolment of children to provide them a safe environment, now that they are back.

We are using student assessments to gauge the true size of the problem. This is why this year we did not cancel exams, as we did last year. We cut down on the syllabus but encouraged examinations all over the country, to truly understand how much learning loss has been suffered and how to reverse it as quickly as possible. We are also helping teachers by providing them with support and training to understand how to get back on track.

Additionally, we are working on improving access to remote learning by expanding connectivity, device ownership and by ensuring families know when programming is available. We understand that internet usage and access to digital communication devices like laptops is low so we are trying to increase access to those. Similarly, we will try to improve the quality of remote learning by further developing the content, its sequencing, and by making the content more interactive because that was some feedback we received on our teleschool initiative.

Overall, we aim to strengthen curricula and support teachers to facilitate rapid catch-up with learning losses. I believe now is the time to build back better. While there have been some improvements in both access and learning levels in recent years, the pandemic is a substantial setback against hard-won gains. Collectively, we need to step up our support to the school system, protect education as an essential service, and preserve the budget for education. COVID-19 affected everyone, but we cannot let the youngest and most vulnerable members of society suffer from a crisis that threatens their present and their future.

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In 2020, the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators approved a UNESCO Institute for Statistics proposal to adopt the primary, lower secondary and upper secondary completion rate as a second global indicator for target 4.1. The proposal anticipated the possibility of a statistical model being needed to address challenges related to using household survey data, such as time lags and inconsistent estimates among sources, but also opportunities such as the ability to build coherent long-term time series and to disaggregate by population groups.

The GEM Report team has developed a model that adapts to education some principles previously used to address the issue of multiple sources for estimation of health indicators, such as child mortality and maternal mortality. The estimates are used to support the UIS in reporting regional and global aggregates for indicator 4.1.2.

VIEW introduces this model and its results for completion rates to help make the approach more accessible to countries. It maps plot differences among countries while graphs highlight the sources that enter into the calculation of national estimates.

In addition to presenting the model results, the purpose of the website is to:

• showcase the challenges of low and late completion many countries are facing; and
• familiarize users with the idea that a model is needed to estimate completion.

To date, estimates of out-of-school rates, which is SDG thematic indicator 4.1.4, and out-of-school numbers reported by the UIS have been based exclusively on administrative enrolment data and UN population estimates. A collaborative project between the GEM Report and the UIS is under way to integrate household survey data into these estimates, triangulate sources, fill gaps in the administrative data and develop a coherent time series. The out-of-school model estimates are scheduled to be added to the VIEW website in March as well.

VIEW www.education-estimates.org sits alongside three other websites run by the GEM Report:

• WIDE www.education-inequalities.org, in partnership with UIS, brings together data from surveys and learning assessments to compare education outcomes between countries, between groups within countries (gender, location, wealth, ethnicity etc.), and over intersecting characteristics.
• SCOPE www.education-progress.org contains interactive data visualisations and commentary to accompany the monitoring part of the GEM Report focusing on five narratives over access, equity, learning, quality and financing; and
• PEER www.education-profiles.org contains country profiles of key policies and laws on specific themes in education to feed into policy dialogue: inclusion, financing for equity, climate change communication and education, and regulation of non-state education provision.

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Ensuring early universal access to education is the foundation for inclusion in the lifelong journey to learning and a decent life but, despite progress, an estimated 2 in 5 children, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries are still not enrolled in pre-primary school.

Despite encouragement for countries to make at least on year of pre-primary education compulsory in the Framework for Action and Incheon Declaration, currently only 28% of countries have done so, ranging from none in the Arab States to 55% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The new paper is published along with a paper by UNESCO produced in partnership with the Open Society Foundations, Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education: From Commitment to Action!, which also calls for a renewed global commitment to early childhood inclusion. They are released today ahead of the launch of a new Global Partnership Strategy for Early Childhood in September. Coordinated by UNESCO, the partnership will bring together more than 40 organizations active in early childhood care and education (ECCE) to support governments in providing effective ECCE services and in tackling new challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Numerous benefits for children attending quality early education are transmitted from one generation to the next with positive impacts on society as a whole. Meanwhile, the absence of early childhood education can lock children into a lifetime of deprivation and marginalization. The new paper, Right from the Start, however, calls for all children ne be able to access a minimum level of services, regardless of socio-economic status, ethnicity, language, disability or remoteness. But large participation gaps still exist between the richest and poorest children, rising to over 60 percentage points in some low- and middle-income countries such as Benin, Cameroon and Mali. The widest gap is in North Macedonia where 91% of the richest but just 12% of the poorest benefit from early childhood education.

Other groups face particular barriers to access. Over half of Roma children in Europe are still missing out on pre-primary school.

Aside from access, too little attention is being given to ensure high quality standards in pre-schools for the most vulnerable children. Children need safe schools with access to basic hygiene and teachers who have received training to care and support them adequately so they could thrive.

In Malawi, for example, a survey of caregivers found that most were female volunteers and only one in three had relevant qualifications. Pre-primary education is also critical in identifying students with special needs and assigning them appropriate interventions, but such screening systems were found to be rare in a study of 21 eastern and Southern African countries. The lack of data for certain groups of children at this level is even more critical. The reality of some marginalized children, particularly those with disabilities, is poorly documented or not at all.

Countries should address barriers to inclusion, such as ineffective or inconsistent laws and policies, lack of teacher preparation, non-inclusive curricula, absence of data on those excluded from education, lack of political will and untargeted finance. Issues of inclusion in early childhood care and education need to be addressed through cross-sectoral policies that consider the diversity of learners, including refugee and asylum-seeking children.

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I was enthralled to read this year’s Global Education Monitoring Report, focusing on inclusion and education. Being, first, a person with disability, and, second, brought up in India, I had to pause to reflect on what the report’s recommendations meant for inclusive education for children with disabilities in my home country as I have done in this blog.

Three decades of rigorous progressive policies on inclusion

It would be unfair not to mention the progressive and rigorous policy framework India has set over the past three decades on inclusion. The 1986 National Policy on Education aimed to extend literacy to everyone, including children with disabilities, by integrating them through the provision of special schools and voluntary, specialized programs. The 1992 Rehabilitation Act focused on enabling manpower to provide education to all children with disabilities. The 1995 Persons with Disabilities Act made yet another step forward in mandating states to make special provisions for the integration of persons with disabilities in mainstream schools. It also mandated that all educational institutions receiving financial aid from the Government of India should reserve 3% of their seats solely for persons with disabilities.

The decade from 2000 onwards saw a plethora of policies linked to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the government program aimed at achieving universal primary education by 2010, including the appointment of specialist teachers to reach out-of-school children with disabilities. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed and ratified by the country in 2007, while the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was enacted in 2010. While the Act laid down responsibilities for the government to ensure that all children had access to free and compulsory education, it made no mention of the right to education for persons with disabilities. However, an amendment proposed in 2012 mandated that they had a right to education in accordance with the Persons with Disabilities Act of 1995.

It was only then in 2016, that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act shifted focus away from special education and embraced the term inclusive education, defining it as a system, wherein students with and without disability learn together, while teaching and learning is suitably adjusted to meet the individual learning needs of students with disabilities. While this would indicate that inclusive education is still in its infancy in India, its connotations and essence, even if partially, had been felt, adhered to and realized in education since 1995, as the above history shows.

Despite the progressive policy framework, statistical data tell an entirely different story

In 2011, the census revealed that 45% of India’s people with disabilities were uneducated compared to only 26% of all Indians. Amongst those people with disabilities who were educated, 59% had completed education up to class 10 in comparison to 67% of those without disabilities. According to the National Survey of out-of-school children (2014), 600,000, or 28% of children with special needs aged 6-14 years were reportedly out of school. A 2019 UNESCO report revealed that three-fourths of the children with disabilities at the age of five years and one-fourth of those between 5-19 years did not attend any form of schooling at all.

Enrolment in schools is only part of the problem

Despite being mentioned in the various acts and policies, user–friendly instructions, and suitable and accessible teaching equipment continue to be missing. Lack of adequate school infrastructure, unawareness of teachers on accommodating children with disabilities, a shortage of accessible teaching and learning materials, and a disability-unfriendly attitude, are only few of the multiple barriers children with disabilities and their families regularly face in education.

There are two significant failures of the inclusive education system in India. First, albeit inadvertently, policies have tried to fit the child to the school, and not the school to the child; and second, there is no mechanism to analyze access to and the quality of inclusive education.

These, combined with inconsistent and incompatible policy approaches and a continuous fixation with special education mean that it is not uncommon for children to be denied admission to mainstream schools on the basis of their disability.

In a country, where challenges such as these lie at the heart of the education system, combined with inconsistent and incompatible policy approaches and a continuous fixation with special education, it is not uncommon to deny admission to children in a mainstream school on the basis of their disability. This means that children with disabilities who find a place in a mainstream school are expected to be grateful to the school for accepting them, even if inclusive education remains limited to only giving them a seat in a mainstream classroom, but not full participation at par with their non-disabled peers.

At a more personal level, my prospective on inclusive education for children with disabilities enhanced and boosted, taking a shift from mere placement to full inclusion as I studied the Scottish inclusive education system during my master’s program in Inclusive Education at the University of Edinburgh. Neither it is possible to have a full discussion on what the Scottish inclusive education looks like for it would be outside the purview of this article, nor it would be wise to suggest that India, with its multiple challenges, can fully emulate the Scottish inclusive education system. However, a key take away from the Scottish inclusive education system relevant to India is to learn to segregate special from inclusive, and to achieve any form of inclusion in education, to recognize the “special”  rather as “additional” support that certain learners can require to access and benefit from the same flexible, relevant and accessible curriculum.”

The challenges to inclusive education for children with disabilities in India have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown, school closures and distance learning have imposed even greater barriers for children with disabilities. As approaches to virtual learning saw an increase, the education system failed again to recognize the highly excluded group of children with disabilities. While the Ministry of Human Resources Development introduce multiple digital learning platforms, no consideration was given to ensure their accessibility for children with disabilities. The pandemic is a blow to India’s already stuttering inclusive education system, reinforcing the caricatured model of inclusive education in the country as a sham.

The GEM Report calls for countries to widen their understanding of inclusive education, to include all learners no matter their background, identity, or ability, so as to move away from special education and segregation. A fragmented approach to inclusive education, where it sits somehow alongside a special education system, is unlikely to bring about any real inclusion. For inclusive education to be achieved in India, then, it is essential to see disability as another form of diversity and to extend quality education to everyone regardless of their background, identity, or ability.

The GEM Report recommendations ring very true for India. We need teachers who are prepared to teach all students with varied backgrounds and abilities, and that inclusive approaches are not treated as specialist subject areas but are rather a core element of teacher education. All children need to be enabled to learn from the same flexible, relevant and accessible curriculum that recognizes diversity and responds to different learners’ needs.

The challenges to inclusive education in India lie not with policy, but with implementation. They lie with systems that boast of inclusivity but are not only discriminatory in practice but lag the resources and the will to fully include children with disabilities and respond to their learning needs. It is time India put its progressive policy framework to real action and delivered on its promises of mainstream education by admitting and supporting children with disabilities through trained teachers, adequate resource allocation, and learner-centred learning approaches.

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The United States and Norway have prioritized aid to basic education

Of total aid to basic education, DAC member bilateral donors accounted for 57%, non-DAC bilateral donors (such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) for 11%, and multilateral donors for 32% in 2018. The United States, the World Bank, the United Kingdom and the European Union institutions together accounted for over 50% of total aid to basic education in 2016–2018.

The United States allocated US$1.3 billion to basic education in the period, more than twice as much as each of the other three donors, whose spending amounted to about $630 million on average. The bulk of the United States’ education aid (84%) is allocated to basic education, while the next three donors, as well as the two large non-DAC donors, allocated just half of their education aid to basic education; Germany and Japan allocate an even lower share.

Among the top 10 donors to basic education, only Norway has the same focus on basic education. These figures include, but do not distinguish, the amount of aid that bilateral donors channel through GPE. Analysis for this paper estimates that GPE may account for two-thirds of the growth in aid to basic education with unspecified recipients between the 2000s and 2010s, although this effect may have weakened in recent years.

A large share of the increase in aid to basic education in 2018 is explained by two countries, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which together gave US$627 million in 2018. This reflects their increased level of budget support to Yemen, of which 10% is assumed to be allocated to basic education according to the GEM Report methodology.

Overall, in 2018, funding from the United States and the World Bank, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, dominated aid flows to basic education in sub-Saharan Africa.

Flows from other bilateral donors were low, which may partly reflect relatively low spending by GPE in 2018. While the United States spreads aid to education relatively evenly across different countries, the World Bank and the United Kingdom have a clearer focus on countries with the largest populations. For instance, the largest single flow, worth US$143 million, was the World Bank’s support to basic education in Ethiopia.

Aid to secondary education, meanwhile, reached US$3 billion in 2018, again the largest amount ever recorded. Here, Germany is the largest donor: it allocated US$412 million on average in 2016–2018, slightly more than the World Bank, which disbursed US$405 million. Unlike in basic education, the Asian Development Bank, Japan and the Republic of Korea ranked within the 10 largest donors in this category, implying their aid priorities are placed on secondary education.

Aid to post-secondary education reached US$6.1 billion in 2018, also the largest sum on record. Germany and France are the largest donors at this level: they reported disbursements of US$1.5 billion and US$1 billion, respectively, on average per year between 2016 and 2018. Over 80% went to imputed student costs, however.  Germany spent 6% on scholarships and France spent 14%.

The new paper by the GEM Report shows that COVID-19 is likely to have a severe impact on many of these aid flows. The United Kingdom’s GDP is expected to fall by 10.2% in 2020, for instance, which could lead to a drop of US$100 million in its total aid to education. As donor countries reallocate funds to deal with increased unemployment and enterprise bankruptcies, aid volumes will inevitably be reduced – not least because some of the donors will suffer the consequences of reduced revenues from taxes or natural resources. Moreover, travel restrictions and continuing uncertainty will hamper the implementation of technical assistance programmes, despite increased needs to support the response to the pandemic, through distance learning mechanisms or the implementation of school reopening protocols. Donor priorities may shift to health or other emergency priorities. International student mobility, which accounts for US$3.1 billion of total aid to education, will be curtailed. Even without these final two effects, aid to education levels may not return to 2018 levels for another six years.

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While the main message of our new policy paper on the latest figures of levels of aid to education is that COVID-19 is a serious threat to aid recovery, it would be a shame not to give greater attention to the positive story that we uncovered before the pandemic arrived. In 2018, total aid to education reached the highest amount ever recorded, US$15.6 billion. This is an increase of 9%, or US$1.25 billion, relative to the year before.  Broken down by education levels, between 2017 and 2018, total aid increased by 6% in basic education, by 7% in secondary education and by 12% in post-secondary education.

Compared to 2010, when aid to education hit its previous high point shortly before the great financial crisis’s impact on ODA started to be felt, aid to education has grown by 16%, while aid to basic education has grown more slowly at 10%.

Even without a pandemic to contend with, however, there is still much room for improvement.

Education has long been losing ground as a donor priority. The share of education in aid that is clearly allocated to sectors (‘allocable aid’) fell from 14.8% in 2003 to 11.7% in 2010 and by another two percentage points to 9.7% by 2013. It has since recovered a little to 10.8%, but it is still below 2010 levels. The share of basic and secondary education in allocable aid is 6.3% (Figure 3a). If this share were 10% and all DAC plus selected non-DAC donor countries (Brazil, China, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates) dedicated 0.7% of their GNI to ODA, then the education financing gap would be filled.

The decline of education is particularly notable since other sectors have generally maintained their share of direct aid over time. Only a few sectors have gained ground, such as energy and the health, population and reproductive health sector (whose share increased from 15% in 2004 to 19.6% in 2013).

Donors prioritize different education levels

Aid to basic education reached US$6.5 billion in 2018, the largest amount ever recorded. Primary education accounts for about 90% of that sum; the rest consisted of small shares to early childhood education, life skills and school feeding programmes. Of that amount, low-income countries received 31%, or US$2 billion, a sharp increase from 2015, when they received 23% of the total, or US$1.3 billion. Lower-middle-income countries have seen their share decrease from 46% to 33% during this period, equivalent to a decline of US$0.3 billion.

A growing share of aid to basic education – 19%, or US$1.1 billion, in 2018 – is not tied to specific countries. The share of aid to secondary education that had unspecified recipients was only half the size of that of primary education. Even if it is assumed that all unspecified recipients of aid to basic and secondary education are low- and lower-middle-income countries, the total amount of aid to basic and secondary education was US$7.4 billion in 2018. The rest went to upper-middle- or even high-income countries and to post-secondary education. In other words, only 47% of aid to education goes to the two sub-sectors and the two groups of countries most in need.

Aid to secondary education, meanwhile, reached US$3 billion in 2018, again the largest amount ever recorded. Vocational training accounted for 56% of the total volume. Low-income countries received 30%, or US$0.89 billion, a marked increase from 2015, when they received 24%, or US$0.56 billion of the total. Lower-middle-income countries have seen their share decrease from 51% to 39% during this period, which means that aid has stagnated at US$1.2 billion.

In terms of regional allocations, the main development since 2010 has been the increasing share of Northern Africa and Western Asia as a result of the crises in the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen. Between 2010 and 2018, the share of the region increased from 14% to 27% in aid to basic education and from 10% to 23% in aid to secondary education. The rise in 2018 reflects a significant increase of US$3.2 billion in budget support to Yemen, 20% of which is allocated to education, according to the GEM Report’s established methodology.

The share of sub-Saharan Africa in aid to basic education appears to have fallen by 10 percentage points in the last 10 years but this is probably accounted for by the commensurate increase in the share of aid to unspecified regions during this period. The analysis does not include humanitarian aid, which has continued to increase.

Aid to post-secondary education reached US$6.1 billion in 2018, also the largest sum on record. Excluding budget support allocated to post-secondary education, it consists of direct aid to post-secondary education (31%), scholarships for students in recipient countries to study abroad (21%), about one-third of which is not allocated to specific countries, and imputed costs for students studying in institutions of donor countries (48%). Upper-middle-income countries receive around 29%, or US$1.8 billion, a larger share than in basic or secondary education.

Across all levels, therefore, significant positive conclusions can be drawn about the general trend lines of aid to education from 2017 to 2018, even if improvements in the targeting of that aid are still urgently needed. It is a shame, therefore, to find in our analysis the extent to which COVID-19 is to rock the boat, with an expected 12% drop in international support for education from 2018 to 2022. Those advocating on this issue should take note of the policy recommendations in our recent aid paper, but should also remind donors of the positive advances recently made – a place which we can get back to with the right prioritisation and encouragement.

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In 2008, Johannesburg experienced a heavy wave of discrimination and xenophobic attacks against the immigrant community. At that time, Colin Northmore, the then principal of Sacred Heart College, a school known to many for its fight against apartheid, was approached by the Marist Brothers and a Methodist bishop asking him to do something to alleviate the plight of immigrant children unable to access schooling. Sacred Heart College agreed to assist and the Sacred Heart College Board of Governors made a decision to extend its educational expertise to its neighbouring immigrant communities in the form of an afternoon bridging programme. This is when the Three2Six project was established. Despite being a constitutional right, the right to education in South Africa is not realized for many due to various barriers such as documentation. In addition, English is a pre-requisite for children to be able to enrol in school. Immigrant students often come from Francophone and Lusophone countries.

Three2Six offers 3 hours of daily education– from 3pm to 6pm – to immigrant children of primary-school age who cannot access state schooling helping them to get up to speed in curriculum content by teaching them English, Mathematics and Life Skills to join the public education system, and building up their resilience to prepare them for this transition. Students also receive meals, uniforms, textbooks, stationery and transportation services when needed. The integration process takes 18 months on average. Although it began at the Sacred Heart school, Three2Six has now expanded to two other campuses in Johannesburg, Observatory Girls’ Primary School and Holy Family College, and serves 225 students compared to 62 in 2008. Since its inception, over 600 children have been able to register at state schools with support from the project.

The Three2Six project also provides employment for teachers within immigrant communities who are not able to find work in the South African system. Teachers receive training alongside their peers from the host schools and receive support to validate their teaching credentials from their countries of origin and acquire South African teaching qualifications, with many of them managing to complete master’s degrees and other specializations. The project also serves an advocacy function. In collaboration with NGOs and human rights groups, the management team of the project advocates with the government to include immigrant children into the national education system.

“It is only when a country can assure the rights of the furthest marginalized, that we can say that all of our rights are accomplished”.

It is not a surprise to hear that the immigrant community like the programme: the waiting list for the schools is three times the capacity of the program. Mark Potterton, the current director of the project, considers its success comes from its main value: reciprocity. Not only do teachers from the host schools and the program interact during teacher training sessions, but students also interact with each other, with South African students often volunteering as reading partners, leading physical education classes for their afternoon schoolmates and joining the yearly December holiday programme.

“Teaching educators and pupils about the rights of refugees and other marginalised groups and their experiences is critical to fighting discrimination and xenophobia at a large scale. Teaching tolerance, empathy and the importance of inclusion at a young age will have a lasting impact on a society as a whole.”

Join our first ever virtual global launch on 23 June to hear from inclusion champions, ministers, teachers and celebrities from different corners of the world.

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