Breaking the Cycle of Learning Poverty and Conflict: Unlocking Data for Foundational Learning in Cameroon

• In Event: Unlocking Foundational Learning Data in Africa: Bridging Data Silos for Equity and Peace

Proposal

Cameroon faces a deepening learning crisis with profound implications for peace, equity, and national development. International assessments like PASEC consistently underscore the severity of the Foundational Learning deficit, with seven out of ten pupils unable to read with fluency by age ten. These poor outcomes are compounded by epidemics, poverty, weak systems, and recurrent conflict. In a country with one of the youngest populations in Africa, this situation fuels a vicious cycle: low educational attainment sustains economic stagnation, entrenched poverty, and social unrest, further undermining stability. Yet education remains the most powerful leveller, offering pathways to social justice, cohesion, and sustainable economic growth. Recognising this, the Government of Cameroon has identified education as a pillar of national transformation within strategic frameworks such as the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP) and the National Development Strategy 2030 (SND30). However, fulfilling this vision requires not only well-conceived policies but also reliable, timely data to inform decisions and monitor progress.

The Unlocking Data Initiative addresses this challenge by strengthening both the uses and the users of education data through a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach. Our first step was a situational analysis mapping the data landscape, systems such as SIGE, PASEC, and MICS; the policies and regulations governing them; and the stakeholders who produce and use data. This analysis revealed fragmentation, limited analytical capacity, and deep mistrust between actors, particularly between government, researchers and civil society. We then developed an Evidence Gap Map of 55 studies spanning four decades. While evidence clustered around policy reforms and early childhood interventions, significant blind spots emerged in numeracy, teacher professional development, social and emotional learning, technology-enabled instruction, and school feeding. Gender and language inequities were also evident, with male authors far outnumbering female peers and English-language outputs dominating in a predominantly Francophone system.
Early DBIR cycles are showing promising behavioural shifts. Ministry officials are demonstrating greater openness to engaging with non-traditional and civil-society data, while researchers are beginning to align their work with ministerial priorities. Regional clusters and communities of practice are creating new spaces for collaboration and evidence uptake.
We recommend three priorities for sustaining progress: (1) targeted investment to fill intervention gaps, especially in numeracy and teacher training; (2) building an inclusive, bilingual, and gender-balanced research ecosystem; and (3) institutionalising communities of practice within government structures. Cameroon’s experience shows how strengthening data ecosystems in fragile and divided settings can contribute not only to improved learning but also to peace and social cohesion.

Authors

• Rigobert Hanny Pambe Miong, eBASE Africa

• Patrick Okwen, Effective Basic Services (eBASE) Africa