Building a Pipeline for Foundational Learning Leadership

• In Event: The transition test: Designing sustainable programs that outlast political change

Proposal

Sustainable education reform at scale depends not only on technical solutions such as curriculum design, teacher training, and data systems—but on investing in people who can lead and sustain change. While significant investments in foundational learning often focus on in-service teacher training and instructional materials, they frequently overlook the critical need to build a sustainable workforce pipeline. Most funding supports short-term capacity, training current teachers and scaling programs without investing in the leadership and talent required to sustain these gains over time. Programs do not scale themselves—people do—and without a deliberate focus on cultivating a new generation of FLN leaders, including early-career professionals, the risk of retraction remains high.

Research consistently shows that sustainable systems change depends on investing in people. Pritchett (2015) argues that development is “a capability-expanding process,” and without human capability, reforms falter. Bold et al. (2019) highlights that even well-designed interventions fail in low-capacity systems. Moreover, successful reform movements from Pratham’s TaRL in India to Funda Wande in South Africa were driven by leaders deeply embedded in local contexts who combined technical knowledge with grassroots credibility.

The FLN ecosystem is a dynamic and interdependent network of actors working to ensure that all children acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills in the early grades. Systems change in FLN cannot be driven by isolated actors or singular interventions—it requires a cohesive workforce across multiple functions, each playing distinct yet connected roles in strengthening education systems. These roles are mutually reinforcing: teachers depend on strong training institutions and evidence-based materials, which in turn rely on curriculum support, district officials, researchers and instructional designers; policymakers require insights from implementers and data specialists; local organizations benefit from global partnerships while bringing contextual expertise to bear. The challenge—and opportunity—is to intentionally cultivate and connect talent across all these roles, ensuring that individuals entering the sector have the knowledge, networks, and work-readiness skills to contribute meaningfully, no matter where they are positioned.

The Teach For All network in Sub-Saharan Africa includes nine partner organizations, with seven prioritizing FLN as a core part of their programming. Collectively, these partners recruit ~1,000 fellows per year to teach in low-resource schools. While only five alumni currently work in FLN leadership roles, the initiative aims to grow this to at least 250 over five years. The potential is evidenced by results from across the network: globally, 70% of Teach For All alumni remain in education, and in India in particular, the Central Square Foundation employs up to 80% of Teach For India alumni. Beyond this, many alumni go on to work for ministries of education and finance, influencing policy and systemic reform from within government.
This integrated approach to workforce development equips early-career professionals not just to teach, but to lead, research, design, implement, and advocate—fueling the engine of FLN reform from the classroom to the ministry.

By intentionally building human capability at the “middle tier” and beyond, this approach strengthens both present delivery capacity and future system leadership—laying the groundwork for sustained FLN reform across the continent.

Authors

• Nangamso Mtsatse, Global Schools Forum

• Colin Crossley