Learning to Navigate the World by Starting with Basic Numeracy

“How much milk did the cows produce yesterday?” I asked the milk man in my Tugen language.

“30 litres,” Juma answered.

“Wow, you are feeding them well.” I responded. “And today?”

“Today was 25 litres, better than yesterday,” he smiled, exposing his straight milky-white teeth.

In that fleeting moment, it dawned on me that Juma, who has worked for us for two years, struggled with the place value of numbers. Out of curiosity, I sent Juma to a nearby local market to mend my shoe. I gave him a one-hundred-shilling note. Upon returning, he reported that fixing the shoe had cost thirty shillings and remained with eighty shillings. Unfortunately, Juma is not an isolated case. He is one of the many millions of youths from all over the world who do not have basic numeracy.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), has estimated that 674 million children and adolescents globally are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Yet, mathematics permeates many aspects of our everyday lives. It affects how we learn in school and at home, how we communicate with others, how we work on a day-to-day basis and above all, how we navigate the world.

For Juma, and millions of other young people who lack basic mathematical skills, navigating day-to-day life and finding solutions to new problems they face will pose major challenges and limit their ability to reach their full potential. To ensure that Juma and his peers are well equipped to navigate the world, we must first start by eradicating innumeracy. We must make sure that every child and young person can proudly say “I can”, “I can do math.”

With just ten years remaining to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goal 4.1.1 (a) on education, we must guarantee this new decade by ensuring that every child, no matter where s/he lives, is able to do basic math. PAL Network has shown us the way – the large-scale assessment conducted in 13 countries across Africa, the Americas and Asia that birthed ICAN (International Common Assessment of Numeracy). ICAN is a simple to use and scalable tool that measures children’s foundational numeracy and is designed to align to SDG 4.1.1 (a), an indicator for which international assessments are not able to generate comparable data.

In July, PAL Network released the ICAN Report, and it could not be more timely. It is a known fact that the world is off-track to deliver on its education commitments by 2030. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics has warned that if we continue with business as usual, around 20 percent of youth and 30 percent of adults will still be unable to read in low-income countries by 2030. The ICAN Report is a proof of concept that we can use a common tool to assess children and young people like Juma across countries to understand their numeracy abilities and inform ourselves as to whether we are on track to realize the ambitious global education commitment to ensuring that all children learn the basics by 2030.

The PAL Network’s ICAN Report was released at a time when many school systems have been paralysed due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some countries have reopened schools, whilst others are still putting plans in place. To better understand learning losses, governments must prioritize learning assessments that include all children, regardless of their schooling status. As Dr Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation and founder of CLAs, rightly asserts, “it is essential that we meet the children where they are when they return to school to avoid learning losses and ensure children cover the basics.”

Imperative is to focus on building children’s foundational skills in literacy and numeracy. This is because without the basics, children and young people like Juma will not know which number between 25 and 30 is greater and will struggle to navigate the world and reach his full potential. I call upon everybody reading this blog to do something so that come 2030, Juma’s children will proudly say “I can do math.”
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