For decades, the global education community has described sub-Saharan Africa’s education landscape as being in crisis. The term “learning crisis” dominates international policy discourse, focusing on measurable deficits in foundational literacy and numeracy. Yet, this framing – while seemingly evidence-based – fails to recognize that the true crisis is not in the abilities of African children or teachers, but in how their knowledge, languages, and lived experiences are undervalued and erased by technocratic, externally imposed education agendas.

A growing body of African scholarship challenges this deficit-driven narrative. Evidence from Accelerated Learning Programs (ALPs) in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Liberia also reveal a different story - one of resilience, innovation, and human dignity. These ALPs restore agency to children and teachers by centering African pedagogical values, local languages, and cultural identities. They provide compelling proof that transformative learning can emerge when African learners are treated not as passive recipients of global solutions but as active participants and knowledge creators within their own communities.

Moving beyond the ‘learning crisis’ narrative

The so-called “learning crisis” masks deeper structural and epistemic injustices. International policy prescriptions often rely on “one-size-fits-all” frameworks, privileging Western pedagogies and accountability models that disregard African contexts. As Tabulawa (1997) observed in Botswana, such interventions are often rejected at the local level because they fail to resonate with the values and social realities of African classrooms.

In contrast, the ALPs studied in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Liberia achieved meaningful learning gains not through imported models, but by dismantling barriers created by early schooling. They did so by drawing from the “funds of knowledge” that children, teachers, and communities already possessed – local histories, oral traditions, storytelling, and mother tongue instructions. In these environments, learning was not a foreign imposition but a process rooted in familiar cultural and linguistic soil.

Language as a gateway to learning and dignity

One of the most profound insights emerging from these case studies is the centrality of language in restoring learning dignity. For too long, African children have been expected to learn in languages they neither speak nor understand. This linguistic alienation disconnects them from their lived realities and erodes confidence. ALPs, however, prioritize mother-tongue instruction, enabling children to express knowledge in ways that are meaningful to them.

Language of instruction is not a peripheral policy issue – it is foundational. It determines whether education affirms or negates identity. When children learn in familiar languages, they engage more deeply, relate learning to their world, and see themselves reflected in the process. This is especially critical in the early years of education, when foundational skills in literacy, numeracy, and reasoning are being developed. Children should be taught in a language they can understand not merely for the first few years, but for a sustained period long enough to ensure real comprehension and confidence. The argument is not that all education in Africa at every level should adopt local languages, but rather that early education must be grounded in the child’s mother tongue to build strong cognitive and linguistic foundations for future learning.

Governments should therefore review and strengthen their language of instruction policies to reflect this understanding. While there are undeniable practical challenges – such as the diversity of languages within our contexts – these complexities must not justify policies or practices that continue to alienate the African child from the learning process. Instead, they should inspire creative, context-specific solutions that ensure every child begins their education in a language they understand. A renewed postcolonial EFA agenda must, therefore, view linguistic inclusion not as a concession but as a core principle of educational justice.

Reclaiming pedagogy and teacher agency

Another critical dimension of this renewed agenda is teacher agency. The global “learning crisis” discourse tends to reduce African teachers to passive implementers of scripted lessons and external standards. This erodes their professional confidence and stifles creativity. Yet, ALP teachers demonstrated the opposite: they acted as imaginative, responsive educators, drawing from local wisdom and community engagement to adapt learning to context.

Effective pedagogy in Africa must be social, situated, and ethical – anchored in Ubuntu, the collective philosophy that values relationality, compassion, and communal responsibility. Re-professionalizing African teachers thus means repositioning them as co-creators of knowledge, not consumers of imported pedagogy. Teacher education must be redesigned to affirm the epistemic value of local experience and to cultivate critical, context-sensitive practitioners.

Community and culture as catalysts of transformation

Learning in African contexts has always been communal. Traditional education systems value storytelling, music, play, and moral reflection as pathways to knowledge. These are not quaint cultural relics – they are pedagogical assets. When communities contribute their stories, traditions, and histories to the curriculum, children see their worlds mirrored in education. They begin to understand that their cultural heritage is not opposed to modern learning but integral to it.

The ALP experiences show that when communities are partners, not mere beneficiaries, education becomes a living, local project. It generates pride, hope, and a renewed sense of purpose. In Liberia and Ghana, for instance, communities’ involvement in curriculum design grounded learning in children’s social realities, transforming schooling from an alien structure into a communal journey of discovery.

Towards a renewed postcolonial EFA agenda

A renewed postcolonial agenda for Education For All (EFA) must reimagine education as a process of reconnection rather than remediation. It should dismantle the colonial legacies that define African children by what they supposedly lack, and instead affirm what they already know and can become. Drawing from the book’s twelve key principles, this agenda calls for:

• Recognizing African children’s agency and knowledge systems as the foundation of curriculum design.
• Integrating local languages and cultural practices as legitimate mediums of teaching and learning.
• Rejecting deficit models that pathologize African learners and teachers.
• Repositioning teachers as professional agents capable of innovation within their contexts.
• Embedding Ubuntu as a guiding philosophy for social and ethical learning.
• Engaging communities as co-authors of educational transformation.

Such a paradigm shift challenges the narrow economistic focus of global education policy. It opens a path toward a dignified, human-centered, Afrocentric education – one that views African languages, cultures, and agency not as barriers to progress, but as the very conditions for educational renewal.

A message of hope

Africa’s children deserve more than reform – they deserve recognition. Accelerated Learning Programs are not mere interventions; they are signs of a deeper possibility: that African-led, culturally grounded education can flourish when given the space and respect to do so.

If embraced, this renewed postcolonial EFA agenda could transform not only classrooms but futures – restoring dignity to learning, agency to teachers, and hope to communities. It is a call to move beyond crisis narratives and towards a vision of education where Africa teaches the world, not the other way around.