From pilots to system change: co-creating scalable foundational learning solutions with governments.

• In Event: Reimagining government, donor, researcher and practitioner partnerships for educational transformation at scale

Proposal

Across sub-Saharan Africa, millions of children attend school but fail to acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills, leaving them unprepared for further learning. Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), an evidence-based pedagogy first pioneered by Pratham in India, has emerged as a proven approach to address this crisis by assessing children, grouping them by learning level rather than grade, and delivering targeted instruction. Since 2019, TaRL Africa has partnered with Ministries of Education across 15+ countries to co-design and scale TaRL, reaching more than seven million children. This presentation will focus on how co-designing with governments has been central to adapting TaRL for diverse contexts and ensuring sustainability and scale.

We argue that sustainable education reform is not achieved through polished pilots or externally driven initiatives but through long-term partnerships that build government ownership. Drawing on deep implementation experience in Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria this presentation will share how co-design processes have shaped program models, enabled systemic integration, and fostered domestic demand for foundational learning reform. In Zambia, Catch Up, TaRL’s adaptation, has been embedded into national systems and now reaches over 60% of schools, with a clear trajectory toward full national scale and reduced NGO dependency. In Côte d’Ivoire, the Ministry selected TaRL as the national remediation strategy within a foundational learning policy after piloting and iterating the approach. In Nigeria, locally driven demand has led three states to fully finance TaRL implementation from domestic resources, signalling increasing system ownership.

These experiences have helped inform TaRL Africa’s approach as an implementing partner to SCALE. The presentation will highlight three principles that have emerged as critical to co-designing interventions for scale. First, driving and maintaining demand: authentic demand is built through a shared understanding of the problem, exposure to practical classroom solutions, and continual visibility of progress through simple, actionable data. Second, relinquishing credit and control: by positioning TaRL as a public good, TaRL Africa has enabled governments and partner organizations to adapt and innovate, fostering context-specific models rather than rigid replication. Third, keeping a long-term perspective: embedding TaRL within existing structures, supporting government officials to “learn by doing,” and ensuring affordable costs have proven essential to building resilient, scalable models.

The presentation will also highlight the importance of adaptive learning and course correction, in line with SCALE’s test-learn-adapt approach. Rigorous evaluations, combined with routine government-led assessment data, have informed iterative refinements to the model and surfaced key lessons.

This session will emphasize that co-designing for scale requires humility, patience, and systems thinking. Progress is non-linear, and setbacks, such as shifts in political leadership or donor priorities, are inevitable. Yet, when governments are in the driver’s seat, supported by technical expertise and flexible financing, interventions are more likely to be institutionalized and sustained over time.

This presentation will share lessons and frameworks from TaRL Africa’s journey to inform practitioners, policymakers, and researchers committed to scaling evidence-based solutions through genuine government partnership and co-design.

Authors

• Ashleigh Gillwald Morrell, TaRL Africa

• Hafsatu Hamza, TaRL Africa