Foundational Reading, Learning Poverty, and Language of Instruction in Sub-Saharan Africa

• In Event: Learning Foundations, STEM and Ethics

Proposal

Target 4.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) states that by 2030 “all girls and boys [will] complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education”. Quality education implies that children will be able to read. However, a recent UNESCO report states that in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, 86% of children in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) suffered from learning poverty (LP) – the inability to read well. The results of Unicef’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) have also found that children 7-14 years of age in SSA had poor foundational reading skills.

According to the UNESCO definition, LP consists of two broad components: participation and learning. Participation is measured by the rate of out-of-school children of primary school age. Learning is defined as “the percentage of 10-year-old children who cannot read and understand a simple story”. Unicef’s measure, on the other hand, focuses on “foundational reading skills”, and combines both participation and learning in this single indicator.

In SSA, both of these components – participation and learning – show variation from country to country. In terms of participation, many children start school late and/or fail to advance year-by-year. Therefore, even in countries where most children are in school, many are behind the expected grade for their age. For example, a 10-year-old child should be in the 4th or 5th year of primary school. In Ghana, where almost all children (>97%) enter school, 41% of 10-year-olds are still in 1st through 3rd grade. In other countries many children never enroll in school. Chad, for example, suffers from deficits in both aspects of participation. Less than 60% of children start school and 71% of 10-year-olds who did start have not yet reached 4th grade.

For Ghana, UNESCO has said that the country is facing a learning crisis. And the 2017/18 MICS data suggest that only 21% of children 7-14 years of age have foundational reading skills. In Chad learning poverty is very high – 94%. The MICS data confirm this situation by estimating that fewer than 5% of Chadian children 7-14 years of age exhibit foundational reading skills.

In SSA, learning often depends on the language of instruction – which may be the language spoken in the home, or may be a language used by the former colonial regime. UNESCO has emphasized that use of the native language in all classes and in school materials is critical to improve learning outcomes. Yet many SSA countries teach mainly, or even exclusively, in a colonial language (English in Ghana; French in Chad). MICS assessments are often available only in the colonial language. However, in some countries there are assessments in both the colonial language and in common African languages spoken in the country.

In Chad, very few children (<4%) speak French at home and study in the same language. Most children speak an African language at home, but still study in French. Those who speak French at home are slightly (but significantly) more likely than those who speak an African language at home to fulfill Unicef’s three measures of foundational reading – read 90% or more of a story (27.2% vs 24.9%); correctly answer three literal questions (28.0% vs 25.1%) and two inferential questions (29.1% vs 25.1%). The effects in Ghana, where an even smaller percentage of children (<3%) speak at home the colonial language of instruction (English), the effects are larger. Almost 80% of children 7-14 years of age who speak English at home were able to read 90% of the English language story versus just 50% of those who speak an African language at home. The results are similar for correctly answering the three literal questions (80.1% vs 49.4%) and the two inferential questions (78.8% vs 52.3%).

In evaluating the success of SDG 4.1, the United Nations has chosen to focus not broadly on children 7-14 years of age, but specifically on reading ability in grades 2/3 and also at the end of primary school. And, as noted, learning poverty looks to assess reading ability of children 10 years old. The MICS data can be used to compute these more focused numbers.

This research will use the foundational learning module of Round 6 of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys to examine the locus of Learning Poverty of children in many, if not all, of the 16 SSA countries for which data are available. It will disaggregate Unicef’s foundational reading indicator to assess both participation and learning. We will measure participation by whether children enroll or are delayed. We will examine learning using measures that parallel those of Unicef, the United Nations, and UNESCO. We will also analyze the role that language of instruction plays in reading ability. We will begin with descriptive statistics and continue with multivariate analysis to control for such important factors as family wealth, urban/rural residence, parental educational status, child labor, and so on.

Authors

• Ray Langsten, Social Research Center / American Univ in Cairo

• Fatma Abdelkhalek, Assiut University