African education leaders have united to eliminate learning poverty in Africa by 2035. At the end of the 2024 Africa Foundational Learning Exchange (FLEX 2024), held in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2024, 22 Ministers of Education, and 12 Heads of Ministerial Delegations from 34 countries in Africa endorsed the African Union’s call to declare a ‘Decade of Education’. This aims to tackle the continent’s learning crisis. In her speech, First Lady of Rwanda, Mrs J. Kagame, asked:
“Should we fail to strengthen Foundational Learning and critical thinking, increase primary education completion rates, and allocate more resources to education, specifically to the more vulnerable learners, what is to be the long-term cost to the youth of this continent, their skills development, employability, and social welfare?”