The People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network

The People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network is a south-south partnership of 17 member organisations working to promote children’s foundational learning across Africa, Asia, and America. The International Common Assessment of Numeracy (ICAN) and Reading (ICAR) initiative is the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network’s global effort to generate robust, comparable, and inclusive data on children’s foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). Built on the foundation of Citizen-Led Assessments (CLAs), this project addresses the "learning data gap" in the Global South by measuring what children truly know and can do, regardless of their schooling status.The overarching goal of ICAN-ICAR is to provide globally comparable, low-cost, and scalable tools to measure the basic reading and math skills of children aged 5 to 16 years. The project aims to:

• Scale the common assessment model that produces reliable data across diverse geographies.
• Equip low- and middle-income countries to report against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 4.1.1(a), which tracks foundational learning proficiency.
• Inform policy and track progress toward 2030 educational commitments through nationally representative snapshots of learning.