Our Strategy

90 percent of African children can’t read and recognise numbers by age 10. Without profound changes, half of the primary school population in Sub-Saharan Africa will reach adolescence without these basic skills – crippling Africa’s economic growth, democratic institutions, and health outcomes.

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), a simple, proven, and cost-effective – but powerful – pedagogical approach, transforms classes into places where children quickly acquire reading and maths skills.

TaRL Africa helps African governments and partners to design accelerated learning programmes, based on the evidence-based TaRL approach, which is feasible for them.

We have proven that:

2-3 times more children in middle to upper primary grades master reading and math after 100 days of using TaRL through government-led delivery at a large scale.
Peer organisations and educational leaders can be empowered to effectively use and grow the approach, building a movement for change.
Governments can own and carry forward the approach.

Our efforts have helped millions of children – once fallen behind — get back on track.

Now we must further scale TaRL so millions more children also catch up – while ensuring fewer fall behind in the first place. By 2030 we will scale up the TaRL approach in over 20 countries and accompany five Ministries of Education to focus on and improve the delivery of foundational skills through education systems so that children acquire critical reading and maths skills before they graduate from primary school.

We will continue to provide technical support to design and deliver TaRL programming. We will also deepen and expand our engagement in a focused portfolio of countries to institutionalise the TaRL approach and learn how TaRL principles of success can strengthen teaching practices across all primary grades, training and support, as well as assessment data and monitoring systems. We will do this as an organisation rooted in Africa.

Guided by our three-part theory of change, we will realize our strategy by working to:

Enable Education Systems