PAL Network’s new common assessment for SDG 4.1.1a

How is it administered?

Assessments are administered individually using paper-based instruments by trained citizen volunteers following standardised administration protocols. In addition to learning outcomes, the survey collects extensive information on children's educational participation, household assets, parental education and functional difficulties using the Washington Group Child Functioning Module. The assessment targets children between 5 and 16 years old.

SDG 4.1.1a and minimum proficiency

he assessment was designed from the outset to support internationally comparable measurement of foundational learning and has been independently reviewed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) as meeting the technical requirements for reporting Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 4.1.1(a).

The International Common Assessment of Numeracy (ICAN) and International Common Assessment of Reading (ICAR) were developed by the PAL Network to provide internationally comparable measures of foundational learning suitable for use in citizen-led and household-based assessments. Building on the PAL Network's long experience with Citizen-Led Assessments (CLAs), ICAN-ICAR was designed to generate robust, comparable and inclusive evidence on what children know and can do, regardless of whether they are enrolled in school. In doing so, it addresses an important gap in global education data by measuring foundational learning among all children rather than only those attending school.

Use the map to explore the languages of assessment and see participating African countries. 

Get the data

The ICAN–ICAR 2025 microdata are publicly available through the DataFirst data site.
Access the Dataset

AFLEARN resources

An introductory course using ICAN–ICAR data

What is assessed?

Both ICAN and ICAR are designed to assess the progressive acquisition of foundational competencies expected during the early years of primary school.

ICAR assesses reading through three interrelated skills:

  • Oral language comprehension (4 items)
  • Decoding (10 items)
  • Reading comprehension (16 items)

Together these components capture the progression from oral language and decoding to fluent reading and comprehension.

ICAN assesses foundational numeracy across the core domains of early mathematics:

  • Number & Operations (23 items)
  • Data display (2 items)
  • Shape (3 items)
  • Measurement (6 items)
  • Patterns (2 items)

The assessment emphasises the foundational concepts that underpin later mathematical learning, while covering a broad range of early primary mathematics competencies.