Education in The Gambia

The Gambia has improved education access, equity and quality over the past several years, but the country is far from achieving its policy goal of 80% of children reaching minimum learning competencies.

While the Ministry of Education has improved enrollment at all levels of education, poor performance in literacy and numeracy shows that children are not thriving at school. Only 11% of children ages 7-14 demonstrate foundational reading skills and 9% for numeracy.

Failure to learn basic competencies has led to high rates of repetition and dropout: nearly 29% of Gambian children are out of school.

To unlock large-scale change, The Gambia is working with GPE and other partners to ensure accessible, equitable and inclusive foundational learning. The focus on basic literacy, numeracy and transferable skills, like independent learning and critical thinking capabilities, aims to equip students with the building blocks for a life of learning.

Expanding access to quality pre-primary education will better prepare children for foundational learning in primary education. And better teacher support through professional development, new teaching and learning materials, and assessment methods aligned with the foundational curriculum, will help ensure that all students in The Gambia achieve basic competencies by grade 4.

As part of its investment in civil society advocacy and social accountability efforts, GPE’s Education Out Loud fund is supporting the Education For All Campaign Network (EFANet) for the 2020-2023 period. This builds on previous support from the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF).

Learn more

• The Gambia is part of the KIX Africa 19 regional hub.
• KIX research projects:
• Using data for improving education equity and inclusion – MICS-EAGLE
• Data use innovations for education management information systems in The Gambia, Uganda, and Togo
• Observatory on COVID-19 Responses in Educational Systems in Africa
• Promoting positive early learning outcomes through strengthened capacity in learning through play - Evidence from Nigeria, the Gambia and Kenya