Pledges to the Global Partnership for Education

strengthening distance training, providing accommodation and incentives for teachers who deploy to
under-served areas, training teachers in early grade assessments and other skills, improving pre-service
and in-service teacher training and increasing teacher satisfaction.
Several countries also pledged to increase access to pre-primary education through the annexation of preprimary
classes in primary schools, increased community child care programmes, parental education and
the elimination of pre-primary fees. Afghanistan, Bhutan, Gambia, Guyana, Lao PDR, Lesotho,
Moldova, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Timor Leste, Togo, Yemen
and Zimbabwe all made early childhood development a central component in their education strategies
and pledges, including by making pre-primary education compulsory in some cases and lowering the age
of grade one intake to age 6 in cases of low pre-primary enrolment.
Critically, many countries pledged to improve the focus on early learning outcomes, utilizing a number of
strategies to increase student achievement in literacy, maths, science, technology and basic life skills.
Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Lesotho, Lao PDR,
Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan and Zimbabwe all pledged to strengthen early learning
diagnostic tools and assessments. Many countries will reform curricula and pedagogical materials,
improve textbook and school manual distribution and provide free teaching and learning materials to
schools. In addition, increasing mother tongue and national language instruction was explicitly referred to
by Ethiopia, Gambia, Mozambique, Mali, Niger and Senegal and many countries pledged to
provide remedial instruction and support for slow learners, reform curricula and textbooks and introduce
literacy and numeracy teaching methods. Finally a number of countries pledged to increase the number of
school days per year, the number of hours of instruction per day, the amount of contact between teachers
and pupils and the quality of teachers.
To improve education equity, many developing country partners pledged to increase the availability of
education, implement strategies to track and target out-of-school children and provide demand-side
incentives to overcome educational barriers faced by the most vulnerable children. Already, Benin,
Bhutan, Burundi, Cameroon, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mozambique, Timor Leste, Yemen,
Zambia and Zimbabwe expressed support in their pledges for the provision of fee-free schooling for all
children, through the abolition of school fees and the adoption of constitutional frameworks to ensure the
right to education. Further progress in reducing the financial barriers to education is part of the efforts
expressed by these countries, as well as by Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone and
Senegal which all committed to provide cash transfers, scholarships, block grants for schools, or other
demand-side incentives.
Afghanistan, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea Bissau,
Lao PDR, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Tajikistan and Yemen will all
implement policies specifically targeting girls, through strategies such as the recruitment of female
teachers, accelerated learning programmes for female teacher candidates, efforts to decrease violence
against women and girls and gender stereotypes in the classroom, scholarship programmes, child-friendly
school infrastructure, reducing the distance to schools, the introduction of girl-friendly teaching
methodologies, increasing the representation of women on school management committees, supporting
income-generating activities for women and other targeted strategies to help overcome gender inequality.
These efforts will also complement other generalised strategies to encourage out-of-school children to
attend school. Thousands of new classrooms will be built, rehabilitated and equipped and will include
separate latrines and water sources to reduce the distance to schools and improve school safety and
sanitation. Free transportation, free uniforms, construction of dormitories, school feeding programmes,
the distribution of dry rations, micronutrients and essential medicines will improve demand for schooling
and sensitisation campaigns to educate communities about the importance of education will be developed
and expanded in a number of countries. Developing country partners will also improve second-chance
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