The Problem: Widespread Learning Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Learning poverty refers to a severe global crisis resulting in children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this challenge affects a staggering 90% of children, encompassing both the 20% who are completely out of school and the 70% who attend school regularly but fail to acquire foundational skills. In Uganda, approximately 82% of late primary-age children are not proficient in reading.
Contributing factors include overly ambitious school curricula that do not match students’ actual learning capacities, alongside primary teachers who face isolation, limited specialised training, and a lack of structured instructional support. The failure to establish these foundational core competencies early creates severe long-term consequences; children who fall behind are much more likely to repeat grades, drop out entirely, remain trapped in poverty, and face restricted life opportunities. This educational crisis disproportionately impacts children from rural, low-income, and marginalised backgrounds, entrenching a systemic failure where education systems deliver formal schooling but not actual learning.
The Solution: Government-Led, Level-Appropriate Learning
Youth Impact combats this learning crisis by implementing targeted instruction approaches, such as the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) pedagogy. Grounded in decades of robust global evidence, TaRL discards rigid age- and grade-based tracking to tailor instruction directly to a child’s actual learning level rather than their grade. The organisation operates under a dual structure that combines government-led scale with a focused direct delivery hub, partnering strategically with ministries of education to integrate the approach within public systems. By training government teachers and recruiting local youth, Youth Impact establishes a system-wide model that guarantees measurable learning gains while transitioning long-term execution directly into national education structures for sustainability.
Youth Impact tackles the issue at its roots by focusing on the following key activities:
- Implementing a structured TaRL curriculum and user-friendly teaching and learning materials to systematically improve foundational maths and reading competencies.
- Training and coaching government teachers to build capacity in assessing learners, grouping them by ability, and delivering engaging instruction.
- Securing a dedicated daily one-hour remediation slot within public school timetables allocated by the government.
- Embedding robust child safeguarding policies and accessible reporting mechanisms across all operations to protect children, promote student agency, and preserve beneficiary dignity.
How Youth Impact works
- Government-Led Scale and Innovation Hub: Youth Impact scales primarily with governments and through public education systems, signing multi-year MOUs and leveraging substantial in-kind government resources. Simultaneously, it maintains a small direct delivery site to spark adoption, support early implementation, and run rigorous, ongoing experimentation (such as rapid A/B tests) to drive continuous operational improvement and innovation.
- Teacher Training and Timetable Integration: At the school level, Youth Impact partners directly with ministries of education to embed TaRL into the regular school timetable via a dedicated daily one-hour remediation slot. Teachers and school staff receive comprehensive training and ongoing coaching to deliver the approach effectively.
- Student Assessment and Leveling: Before instructional delivery begins, teachers administer simple assessment tools for literacy and numeracy to map each child’s starting learning level. Rather than traditional grade lines, children are grouped into smaller cohorts based entirely on their assessed ability.
- Targeted and Engaging Instruction: Facilitators deliver fun, highly interactive, and learner-centred sessions. Using contextually adapted, right-level foundational teaching and learning materials, they focus intensely on building core micro-competencies in reading and mathematics.
- Formative Feedback with the Checkpoint Tool: Throughout and at the close of TaRL sessions, educators use the Checkpoint tool to gather quick, formative feedback on children’s mastery of session content. This real-time data allows teachers to plan, pace, and adjust targeted instruction dynamically to inform lesson delivery.
- Government Integration for Systemic Scale: Viewing the state as the ultimate vehicle for scale, Youth Impact supports government teams to assume full operational ownership of the intervention. Government teams chair regional TaRL committees, oversee data reporting systems, coordinate rollouts, and lead quality assurance, embedding the program fully within sustainable government structures.
