Turning Evidence into Impact: Lessons from ADEA Triennale and Funda Uphumelele Launch

Over the past three weeks, I had the privilege of attending two landmark education events: the Association for Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Triennale in Accra, Ghana, and the launch of South Africa’s first nationally representative early grade reading study, Funda Uphumelele (“Learn and Succeed”) in Pretoria.

Both gatherings convened key education stakeholders around a shared goal, strengthening decision-making through evidence, particularly within foundational learning. A common theme emerged: Africa is not short of data, but data alone is not enough. The challenge lies in translating evidence into informed action at every level, policy, classroom, and community.

Context

The ADEA Triennale was held in Accra, Ghana, from October 29 to 31, under the theme “Strengthening the resilience of Africa’s educational systems: advancing towards ending learning poverty by 2035 with a well-educated and skilled workforce for the continent and beyond”.

The Triennale addressed a wide range of priorities, from financing education and improving foundational learning to transforming secondary and higher education, strengthening school leadership, and ensuring every child is in school and learning. The event brought together government officials, multilateral organization representatives, researchers, funders, and practitioners to reflect on shared challenges and co-create solutions for transforming education systems across Africa. I contributed as a rapporteur, capturing key insights and emerging themes from discussions on foundational learning.

Just over a week later, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in South Africa launched findings from the Funda Uphumelele National Survey (FUNS) on November 11 in Pretoria. This first-of-its-kind nationally, provincially and language representative early grade reading study fills a critical evidence gap, bridging the space between Thrive by Five, which assesses school readiness before Grade 1, and Systemic Evaluations or PIRLS at Grade 4, which measure reading comprehension.

The launch explored the predictors of written comprehension, the creation, opportunities and pitfalls of benchmarks, and the broader implications of the findings for teaching and learning. The discussions underscored the milestone this survey represents, not only for South Africa but also as a model for other countries on the continent seeking to generate robust, actionable evidence on foundational learning. I attended as a participant, with a keen interest on how these insights could inform work across the continent and my own practice.

Key Takeaways

Insights from the ADEA Triennale

As the focus of my work is foundational learning, several lessons stood out.

There was strong continental buy-in on the importance of understanding and improving foundational learning. Zambia’s parliament, for instance, has initiated Africa’s first parliamentary inquiry into foundational learning, a clear signal that political attention is turning toward the earliest years of schooling.

Speakers repeatedly emphasized that children must first learn in languages they understand. Foundational learning begins with comprehension, and many reaffirmed that instruction and assessment in the mother tongue during early grades are critical before transitioning to a second language such as English or French. Ghana, the host country, showcased its renewed commitment to implementing mother-tongue instruction in the foundational years.

Another key takeaway was the need for quality, timely, and usable data. Assessments should not stop at identifying gaps but must translate into actionable insights for policymakers, teachers, and communities. Making data accessible to those at the classroom level was viewed as essential to closing the loop between research and practice.

Finally, the discussions underscored the importance of school readiness. Too many learners fail to reach the end of primary school, and this begins with weak foundations. As I like to put it, the end of primary is the fruit; the early years are the roots. Ensuring that learners start school ready and develop early literacy and numeracy skills increases the likelihood of retention and long-term achievement.

“Learning does not limit itself to the school, but extends even to the community. We need to include them so they can understand what contribution they can make.” 
– Awa Ka - Director of Programmes, Associates in Research and Development (ARED), Senegal

Insights from the FUNS Launch

The FUNS launch provided granular insights into what drives early reading and comprehension. Findings showed that written comprehension can be predicted by teachable skills such as letter-sound recognition, vocabulary, and oral reading fluency.

The event also emphasized the importance of language structure when setting benchmarks. English benchmarks from predominantly English-speaking contexts cannot simply be applied to multilingual environments. The relationship between fluency and comprehension was another focal point: while comprehension rises with fluency, the gains eventually plateau, suggesting a natural point for setting meaningful benchmarks which can differ by language.

Another presentation highlighted that benchmarks simplify complex realities and must be used with care. Learning trajectories differ across languages and contexts, influenced by factors such as home literacy environments and student motivation.

South Africa’s experience demonstrated what is possible when national capacity is built and used. With over 120 large-scale assessments conducted since 1994, the country’s challenge has not been data generation but data use. The FUNS study provides an opportunity for a shift toward the formative use of summative assessment, using results to inform pedagogy and policy. Importantly, the survey was government-led, nationally representative, and covered all official languages with locally developed benchmarks, offering a model for sustainable, context-driven approaches for the rest of the continent.

The survey results also revealed key patterns:

• A learner's home language is a resource for learning additional languages.
• Children in better-resourced schools perform better than those in no-fee schools.
• Girls outperform boys across all grades, with Grade 3 girls roughly a year of learning ahead in reading proficiency.

“We focus on what happens at the end of the road but it is what happens earlier in the journey that determines how far a child will go.”
–  Siviwe Gwarube, Minister of Basic Education, South Africa

Both events offered complementary lessons on how Africa can move from measurement to meaningful improvement in foundational learning.

From Measurement to Action: Shared Lessons Across the Two Events

Across both the ADEA Triennale and the FUNS launch, a clear thread emerged: the era of simply collecting education data must give way to one of purposeful use. Countries are demonstrating growing capacity to design, conduct, and report assessments, but the next frontier lies in ensuring that these insights lead to policy shifts, classroom practices, and community engagement that improve learning outcomes.

Both gatherings highlighted the maturity of Africa’s education evidence ecosystem. Governments, researchers, and practitioners are no longer debating whether to measure foundational learning, they are now focused on how to use measurement to transform it. The conversations reflected a shared recognition that sustainable improvement depends on:

• Local leadership and ownership of assessments, as shown by South Africa’s self-led FUNS and Zambia’s parliamentary inquiry.
• Context-sensitive approaches, particularly in language of instruction and benchmarking, ensuring that interventions reflect linguistic and cultural realities.
• Feedback loops that connect research to practice, allowing data to inform not only national planning but also what happens daily in classrooms.

Together, these insights point to a continental shift from data generation to evidence utilization. The momentum now lies in embedding this culture of evidence use within education systems, so that every assessment, from national surveys to classroom tools, becomes a lever for equitable and lasting improvement in learning.

Looking Ahead

The growing commitment by stakeholders to prioritize foundational learning, and the resources now being directed toward ending learning poverty, is both encouraging and necessary. What stood out most to me was the shared understanding that success will require all stakeholders not only walking the road but moving in the same direction.

Sustained progress will depend on our ability to make evidence actionable at every level, from policymakers designing reforms to teachers shaping daily classroom practice. As we continue to invest in data and research, we must ensure that evidence serves as a tool for improvement, not just measurement.

In the words of Dr Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, founder of Human Capital Africa:

“In God I trust, but everyone else must come with data.”