Partner since:
Total grant support: US$78,920,486
Grant eligibility:
Partnership compact
Priority: Make foundational learning more accessible, equitable, and inclusive.
Coordinating agency: UNICEF
GPE Team lead: Ines Gabrielle Boumaiza
The Gambia has improved education access, equity and quality over the past several years, but the country is far from achieving its policy goal of 80% of children reaching minimum learning competencies.
While the Ministry of Education has improved enrollment at all levels of education, poor performance in literacy and numeracy shows that children are not thriving at school. Only 11% of children ages 7-14 demonstrate foundational reading skills and 9% for numeracy.
Failure to learn basic competencies has led to high rates of repetition and dropout: nearly 29% of Gambian children are out of school.
To unlock large-scale change, The Gambia is working with GPE and other partners to ensure accessible, equitable and inclusive foundational learning. The focus on basic literacy, numeracy and transferable skills, like independent learning and critical thinking capabilities, aims to equip students with the building blocks for a life of learning.
Expanding access to quality pre-primary education will better prepare children for foundational learning in primary education. And better teacher support through professional development, new teaching and learning materials, and assessment methods aligned with the foundational curriculum, will help ensure that all students in The Gambia achieve basic competencies by grade 4.
out-of-school rate for children of lower-secondary school age
of children start learning one year before entering primary school
of primary teachers have the minimum required qualifications
of government expenditure on education
(data as of May 21, 2025)
Type: System transformation and Multiplier
Years: 2024 - 2028
Allocation: US$10,860,000
Utilization: US$1,523,918
Grant agent: World Bank
Improve the foundational literacy and numeracy of students from early childhood development to grade 4 through the rollout of the new competency‐based curriculum and the application of structured pedagogy approaches.
Type: System capacity
Years: 2024 - 2028
Allocation: US$1,900,000
Utilization: US$383,522
Grant agent: World Bank
Support system‐level enhancements, technical assistance and capacity development to improve education.
As part of its investment in civil society advocacy and social accountability efforts, GPE’s Education Out Loud fund is supporting the Education For All Campaign Network (EFANet) for the 2024-2026 period. This builds on previous support from the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF).
