A UNESCO report has raised the alarm as Africa grapples with a crippling learning crisis, where shifting school leadership from administration to instruction is the new imperative.
The African classroom is facing a subtle emergency. While enrollment rates have climbed, a devastating deficit in basic skills threatens to derail the future of an entire generation. The stark reality, as outlined in a landmark UNESCO report, is that approximately 90% of children on the continent cannot read and understand a simple text or perform basic mathematics by age 10.
“We are confronting a major learning crisis,” stated Manos Antoninis, Director of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, at the ADEA Triennale on Education. “Only about 14% of children who reach the end of primary school in Africa achieve the minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics. Factor in that one in five do not even complete primary school, and that means just 11% of all children attain that basic level.”
These figures, drawn from nine data sources, paint a dire picture. Foundational learning, the essential bedrock of literacy, numeracy, and transferable skills, is missing for the vast majority. Without it, students are set on a path of academic struggle, limited economic opportunity, and intergenerational poverty.
The UNESCO Spotlight Report, Lead for Foundational Learning, produced with the African Union, identifies a critical bottleneck: school leadership. For too long, the role of the principal has been one of authority and administration, not instructional guidance.
“The main challenge Africa needs to face is shifting that mindset,” Antoninis explained. “It’s time for African countries to make that shift in approach and mentality. School leaders need to move from being administrators to being instructional leaders.”
This shift is paramount. The report argues that having the right textbooks and curricula is insufficient without school leaders who can coach teachers, analyze learning data, and foster an environment relentlessly focused on what happens in the classroom. The principal must become the chief learning officer.
SDG 4: A Promise Off Track
This crisis unfolds against the backdrop of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which aims to ensure inclusive, equitable quality education for all by 2030. Progress has been starkly insufficient.
The 2025 SDG 4 Scorecard for Africa reveals a staggering 118 million children and youth are out of school, with numbers surging in conflict zones like Sudan and Somalia. While the goal is to reduce this figure by 58 million by 2030, the concurrent learning crisis means that even those in school are often not acquiring essential skills.
“Global agendas are inspiring,” Antoninis noted, addressing the SDG 4 challenge. “But there’s also a tendency sometimes to be a little bit too ambitious and promise to deliver things that are impossible to achieve.”
The challenge now is systemic and twofold: how to scale proven, localized solutions and finance them sustainably across a continent. The report is a clarion call for governments to prioritize foundational learning as a non-negotiable investment.
What then?
Successful pilots exist, programs focusing on teacher coaching, structured pedagogy, and the effective use of learning materials. The task is to move these from isolated projects to national policy, empowering the redefined instructional leader to drive the change.
“When every child has the right book and teachers have the right guidance, the promise of foundational learning begins to take root,” the report concludes. For millions of African children, that promise remains unfulfilled. The continent’s educational journey is no longer just about getting children into classrooms; it is the urgent, monumental task of ensuring they learn once they are there. The mountain is steep, but the alternative, a generation unprepared for the future, is not an option.
