I remember clearly the magical moment when it all clicked into place and my son started to read - the words in his favorite books, the materials around our home and the signs in public spaces. His world was transformed. ‘There are words everywhere’, he said ‘I just can’t stop reading!’

Millions of children still don’t learn to read

Despite significant progress in recent years, over half of the world’s children (387 million) are not on track to read by the end of primary school – they will not experience that ‘magical’ moment. And if you are a poor, rural girl; a child living with a disability or from a marginalized ethnic group, your chances of mastering basic literacy are even slimmer.

Often there is little support available for those left behind to catch up; the damage could be irreparable.  Even children in school are not learning the basics.

Yet we know that basic literacy (and numeracy) is critical. It provides a strong foundation from which to build a range of transferable skills such as critical thinking and analysis.

Tackling the global learning crisis

Recent results from the DFID-supported Young Lives longitudinal study of 12,000 children in countries as diverse as India, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Peru confirms this. It showed that literacy and other basic skills are not only the basis for higher level 21^st century skills, but also for productive livelihoods and social lives.  

Shifting the dial on literacy will require bold and concerted action. Business as usual will not achieve the transformative change that is needed. Here at DFID we would like to see a strong and united push by global and national leaders to drive up education quality and learning. And we believe that investing in quality teaching should be at the heart of the efforts to tackle the global learning crisis.    

Literacy improvements in Kenya

For example, we now know that, compared to other interventions, teaching at the right level (TaRL) has proven consistently to be among the most effective in raising standards of literacy. (Banerjee et al, 2016).

In Kenya, as in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, huge improvements in access to education have not been matched by improvements to learning outcomes, including literacy.

One reason for this has been increasing class sizes: supply of teachers has not kept up with increasing demand. Further, incentives for civil service teachers are focused on students’ scores on exit exams so may ignore students who they believe are too far behind to catch up, and focus on helping stronger students cover the whole curriculum.

J-PAL carried out research into three interventions aiming to address high pupil-teacher ratios:

1. Addition of locally hired contract teachers
2. Empowerment of parents within parent-teacher associations through school-based management training
3. Sorting of students by initial level of preparedness to reduce heterogeneity within the classroom.

The biggest and most persistent changes were seen when classes are structured to target instruction to students’ initial achievement level. Benefits of being taught in homogeneous groups was felt by all students, whether they started at the top, middle or bottom of the distribution.

The benefits of teaching at the right level

TaRL involves focusing support on children at most risk of not learning, who are most likely to be disadvantaged due to factors such as poverty, gender or disability. It can involve teachers using an interactive approach, regular assessment and practical teaching in small groups, rather than focusing on the best performers or sticking rigidly to curricula that are too advanced for many students.

This approach is also cost-effective and, while adaptations are likely to be needed, works in a wide range of contexts. DFID education programs in Malawi and Nigeria, for example, include TaRL.  We know, too, that local language support can lead to large learning gains, as seen through the Literacy Laboratory Project in Uganda.

DFID recently published its education policy, Get Children Learning, which sets out how we will tackle the learning crisis at its root by supporting children to learn the basics of literacy and numeracy.

This year for International Literacy Day, the UK reaffirms its commitment to work closely with our partners, including the Global Partnership for Education, to help create those ‘magical’ moments for millions of children around the world.