In just three years, from 2018 to 2021, Sierra Leone increased student enrollment from under 2 million to over 3 million – a remarkable leap driven by bold education reforms.

Enrollment has increased across pre-primary to secondary school, and as many girls as boys are enrolled at all levels of education.

Building on this progress, Sierra Leone is now focused on improving education quality.

Early grade reading and math assessments in 2014 and 2021 show that most students are not acquiring basic skills in reading or math.

To address this, the government is prioritizing foundational learning – ensuring students can read fluently with comprehension, master essential math skills, and develop strong socio-emotional competencies.

The focus on foundational learning is at the core of Sierra Leone’s 2022–26 Education Sector Plan, and the country’s 2022–26 Partnership Compact aligns partners and resources with the national priority.

A US$42.3 million GPE grant, managed by UNICEF, is supporting reform interventions.

Unlocking system-wide change

Sierra Leone is committed to ensuring all students from pre-primary to grade 4 achieve foundational learning outcomes.

With support from GPE and partners, the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education aims to:

• Raise children’s readiness to learn through targeted 1-year pre-primary education
• Strengthen teachers' capacity to deliver foundational learning
• Increase the use of data and technology to support foundational learning and education service delivery
• Strengthen governance, management and accountability for performance on foundational learning.

Achieving these goals requires adequate financial support, but with debt payments taking up 25% of the national budget, resources are limited.

The commitment to education is evident, as it has consistently received over 20% of the available budget since 2021.

However, budget execution was a major challenge. Actual spending has been much lower and has fluctuated over the last decade.

In 2018, education spending peaked at 18.6%, but in 2023, it dropped to just 13%.

Improving budget execution is crucial to support the education sector, as highlighted by the World Bank Public Expenditure Review: ensuring that allocated resources are efficiently spent and reach children is key.

Part of GPE’s financial support – $4.5 million – was contingent on Sierra Leone meeting two targets by 2024, which are key to driving transformative change in the education system.

1. Improve education budget execution (the spending process), making education spending more predictable and regular, allowing for effective planning and removing delays in service delivery throughout the year.

To meet this target, the education ministry needed to increase the percentage of budget spent from 78% in 2019 to 85% in 2024. The ministry exceeded this target, achieving a 92% budget execution rate in 2023/24.

2. Allocate more qualified teachers to disadvantaged districts with below-average learning outcomes or serving high numbers of students from groups historically excluded from education, e.g. children with disabilities, children from rural and underserved areas and children from low-income families.

To achieve this target, Sierra Leone’s Teacher Services Commission developed and implemented a new teacher deployment protocol to prioritize the allocation of newly qualified teachers to disadvantaged districts.

The protocol uses an open-source, flexible algorithm that matches teachers with their preferred location – streamlining and expediting the teacher deployment process.

The education ministry identified the disadvantaged districts based on results from national examinations and large-scale external assessments covering literacy and numeracy. Ten out of 16 districts are considered disadvantaged.

Transforming the education system

By attaining these two targets, Sierra Leone shows progress in improving the efficiency and equity of its education investments – a crucial step to support system transformation.

This major accomplishment, achieved during the first year of program implementation, ensures that Sierra Leone accesses the full amount of GPE funding in support of their reform to deliver the foundations of learning for all.

Most importantly, it shows that change is possible when broken down into sequenced, achievable steps and when all actors align behind the shared plan. GPE’s approach makes reform possible by creating incentives to follow through and translate goals into action.

Other significant milestones reached since 2023 include the development and validation of a grade 1 numeracy instructional package, including children’s workbooks and teacher guides with lesson plans. And over 12,000 in-service teachers have been trained in using these newly developed materials.

With these improvements, Sierra is not only enhancing access but also moving closer to ensuring that all students receive a quality education. With continued support from GPE and partners, Sierra Leone is well on its way to delivering the foundational learning that every child deserves.

Learn more about Sierra Leone’s system transformation journey.