Africa spends just $54 per pupil annually—compared to $8,500 in high-income countries. This gap leaves millions of children without basic learning materials, fueling a crisis known as learning poverty. Experts warn this could stall Africa’s development. In response, over 30 African nations have pledged to end learning poverty by 2035.
00:0013-year-old Haruna Zakaria, a student at Janjurekoko Zion Basic School in Ghana's northern region, struggles to read a simple sentence. He blames the lack of books and other learning resources.
00:19We have few reading books. They group us and everyone struggles to see the same page.
00:30Haruna's story reflects a wider crisis. Across Africa, millions of children face learning poverty, a situation that threatens the continent's future.
00:41At Haruna's school, teacher Hassan Hussain has only nine textbooks for 47 students, making his work extremely challenging.
00:49Some parents, they are not ready and willing to support the child. We find it very difficult as a teacher to teach such a child because you are not seeing any encouragement from home.
01:05According to the World Bank, 9 in 10 African children under age 10 cannot read and understand a simple sentence.
01:14Rural areas suffer most, with poor infrastructure and high teacher turnover.
01:19In October, education leaders met in Ghana for the ADEA conference, pledging to end learning poverty by 2035.
01:36People are more interested in building classroom blocks than they are interested in investing in teacher development.
01:45You know, both pre-service and in-service.
01:49And so the things we must get right is that all the school systems that are top performing school systems actually place the teaching profession at the top of the professional ladder in their countries.
02:03UNICEF specialist, Yael Hagan, urges countries to concentrate on basics.
02:10So a very straightforward solution. Try to focus your resource. When you have limited resource, try to focus it on foundation learning.
02:21For Haruna, who dreams of becoming a military officer, that support could mean everything.
02:27If you think that they will do the harm in it in your family.
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