Education for Economic Resilience: What It Takes to Build Lasting Education Systems in Africa with Dr Samuel Kembou

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa Podcast. I oversee education investments globally, but specifically as well focusing on Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. And all of that is focused on systems transformation, foundational learning and cross-sector collaboration. If we want Africa being the continental future, the smartest investment that we can make right now is into foundational learning. Embedding learning means that governments are not just responding to today's problems,

[00:00:28] but they're also building the capacity to solve tomorrow's challenges. If I had one word for an African government, I would say, don't just spend more, spend smart and advertise education. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential. You're listening to the Unlocking Africa Podcast with your host, Terser Adamu.

[00:00:55] Welcome to the Unlocking Africa Podcast, where we find inspirational people who are doing inspirational things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today, we have Dr Samuel Kembou, who is Global Co-Lead for Learning and Evidence at the Jacobs Foundation, a Swiss-based philanthropy dedicated to advancing children's learning and development around the world. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast, Dr Samuel. How are you?

[00:01:26] Thank you. Thank you, sir. I would say in Ghana. Ah, fantastic. Fantastic. Brilliant, brilliant. It's great to have you on the podcast and thank you for making the time to join us today. As always, I like to get straight into the conversation and I was hoping you can give us a brief introduction into who Dr Kembou is. Of course. Yeah. So I'm Samuel Kembou.

[00:01:52] I'm an economist by training and currently serve as the global lead for the Jacobs Foundation, as you said, for evidence and learning. I oversee education investments globally, but specifically as well focusing on Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. And all of that is focused on systems transformation, foundational learning and cross sector collaboration.

[00:02:15] If I have to describe my work, I would say it's about connecting the dots between research, policy and practice in a way to help create education systems that are evidence informed and then built to serve every child. That's what drives me and keeps me awake at night. Okay. We don't want to keep you awake too much today.

[00:02:37] You gave us a great overview of your professional journey, but I was wondering within all of that, what specifically inspired your personal journey into educational policy, specifically within the African continent? Interesting question. I often actually say that my journey into education began as a data enthusiast who wanted to make a difference.

[00:03:03] And it started there, but then I stayed because I saw the transformative power of learning. I started my career in economics and impact evaluation, working on poverty reduction and labor issues. But over time, I realized that education, you know, isn't just one sector among many. It's actually the engine that powers opportunity across generations.

[00:03:28] So what drew me in and actually keeps me here is a chance to have re-imagine education systems in Africa. Not, you know, in a way that is goodwill promoting it, but really having rigorous evidence, strategic investment partnerships that will shift the whole system.

[00:03:48] And I'm particularly passionate, you know, about ensuring being an African myself, that African solutions are shaped by African voices that are rooted in local realities, guided by data and not on the assumptions about our continent. So that's a little bit about my inspiration. You've detailed what drew you in and has led you to the work that you're doing now at the Jacobs Foundation. So I was hoping you could tell us a bit more about the Jacobs Foundation in terms of its mission focus area.

[00:04:18] Of course. Yeah, sure. The foundation is actually a Switzerland based philanthropy, as you said in the beginning, committed to advancing child and youth development with a strong focus on education and learning ecosystems. And over the past 35 years, the foundation has really supported cutting edge research, scaling innovative interventions in different countries.

[00:04:42] I'm sure we're going to talk about that building partnerships to make education systems, you know, more resilient, more inclusive in some contexts, but overall more effective globally. And I would say the organization is not the pure ground making that you can think about when you have maybe a charity or foundation or fund in mind. I think we are mostly defining ourselves as strategic partners.

[00:05:07] We would convene, we would co-fund, we would co-design solutions with government, with research institutions, with private actors and so on. And overall, we are really committed to using evidence, I would say as a compass, you know, not just to access what works, but really to inform how systems evolve. So it's a very, you know, passionate organization. And I've been very privileged to be working there for a couple of years now.

[00:05:32] And I guess part of your work is seeing or using education as a catalyst for development. So this might sound like an obvious question, but from your perspective, why should African governments and development partners prioritize investments in education right now? Well, interesting, especially in the context where we see cuts in education funding. Well, you know, education is a great multiplier.

[00:05:58] Investing in education strengthens health systems, economic growth, gender equality, you know, democratic governance and so on. Educated people are the ones that you and I would want to be working and dealing with. And in Africa, we are unfortunately facing a generational challenge. And I was looking at the audience for your podcast to ensure that some of my talking points are also, you know, specifically talking to them.

[00:06:24] We have a fast growing youth population with too many children in our continent that are either, you know, out of school or being at school, but learning, which is very, very concerning.

[00:06:36] And if we want Africa being the continent of the future, the smartest investment that we can make right now is really, really into foundational learning, which is basically ensuring that every child can read, can write and can think critically from an early age. So I would say African government should not be only thinking about spending more, which is a little bit the movement that we see across the board, but spending smarter, basically spending on what works.

[00:07:06] And that's basically what the Yakov Foundation is also about, right? Putting data, evidence, collaboration at the center. And this is where it becomes really powerful. So if I had one word for an African government, I would say, don't just spend more, spend smart and prioritize education. Yeah. Don't spend more, spend smart. And one of the things that you advocate is evidence-based learning or evidence-based education. Can you tell us a bit more in terms of what that actually means in reality?

[00:07:36] Absolutely. So what we mean by evidence-based education is naturally you could imagine that it means having more data and having more reports or having more documents available. But actually it's only about using the right evidence at the right time to make right decisions or better decisions. So in practice, it means, you know, investing in approaches that are proven to work.

[00:08:04] And we know them in the education sector. Some of them are, you know, differentiated instruction, early grade reading support, and so on and so forth. And importantly, scaling them with fidelity. And the scaling is an important element of this because that's where you reach the masses and that's where you drive the change at a different level. I think what we also mean by evidence-based is an aspect that doesn't often come across.

[00:08:29] But it's also being able to listen to communities, to teachers, dual stakeholders being oftentimes the sources of real world insight. Policymakers, by the way, politicians and others. And making sure that, you know, when you think about policies, when you think about education practice, what a teacher does in the classroom every day, all of that is shaped by rigorous research and also elevating the lived experience of others.

[00:08:54] And studying that in a very disciplined way to see what are the elements that can be implemented at scale. So evidence-based, I would say, you know, going back to my point, right evidence at the right time to make good decisions. So going on from this, how can we ensure research and data are actually informing at the classroom level and also policy decisions? Well, that's a million dollar question, isn't it? Very much.

[00:09:24] Yeah. Well, I would say I've been in the sector for a couple of years. And one of the mistakes I've seen is that people are not designing for use from the start, right? So you would often see interventions being floating into context, almost like flying interventions from one context to the other.

[00:09:43] I would say in one of the ways in which you could do that and one of the ways in which we've seen it happening is through what I would call maybe, you know, translators and systems that are built to learn. And I want to give an example here, taking from our work in Ghana, where we have set up, for instance, Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab. Are we in the process of setting it up? It's a kind of a national education evidence lab.

[00:10:10] If you think about the lab, it's basically a place where you study a lot of things before you put them out into the public domain, right? So in the case of Ghana, this is a place where we can have researchers working closely with government stakeholders to study at a smaller scale. What are the prospective policies that we want to try? What are the changes that we want to implement at the school level? And understanding that within that small context before it possibly even goes to scale.

[00:10:39] So I think it's really in this case to ensure that data is really informing a classroom level and policy decision. I think there's an element of moving from, you know, research almost as a report to research as a dialogue, right? And this is where these mechanisms come into play. Making sure that learning is not, you know, sitting on shelves and no one is ever looking at it.

[00:11:04] This is the mindset shift that we are in and that we need to, you know, improve and continue to do in order to have research shaping really classroom and policy decisions. In my opinion, I don't know what you think, but that's the way I think about it. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:11:21] I guess from the work you've done so far and what you've seen so far, why is it important to embed learning and evidence into the structure or the DNA of national education systems? Well, good question. I think education systems that are able to learn are the ones that are able to improve, right? Yeah. If you learn about your behavior, then you can just improve from it.

[00:11:46] So embedding learning means that governments, you know, are not just responding to today's problems, basically, but they're also building the capacity to solve tomorrow's challenges, right? And by doing that, you're almost creating the resilience, you know, resilience not to shocks like COVID, but to shifting needs over time. Because in our continent in particular, needs will be changing, needs will be evolving, needs will be growing, and we have to be aware of that.

[00:12:14] And it's therefore important that as you are doing that, as a policymaker, you're also able to build trust with your constituencies and strengthening almost a social contract. So I'm just throwing some ideas to see what's interesting. Yes. But I feel that's quite important in our context, especially in Africa these days, yeah.

[00:12:36] You mentioned something quite important in terms of this educational approach can help build the capacity to deal with tomorrow's problems. So what role can evidence-based education play in building long-term economic growth specifically? Yeah. I would just give the example of foundational learning. You remember I told you about foundational learning being kind of focusing on basic skills, such as knowing to read, to learn, to write, and to have strong social emotional skills.

[00:13:07] What you can make us a very realistic assumption is that countries that invest in foundational learning would see their long-term gains just by the virtue of doing that. That reap long-term benefit in terms of, you know, I don't know, higher productivity, a better labor market, higher innovation in their context, and so on and so forth. Maybe also improving societal issues around inequalities and so on and so forth.

[00:13:32] So there's research showing, for instance, that each additional year of quality education, and quality is the keyword here, is able to raise lifetime earnings by a factor of like 10%, which is massive. But it only works if really education is meaningful. And that's where evidence will then come into play.

[00:13:53] We need to know what works, and we scale it with fidelity, with integrity, as we say in our domain. And if you do that, you are building the human capital that will fuel an inclusive growth for decades to come. And that's almost a path for Africa to follow.

[00:14:17] So countries with strong education systems, if I have to put it differently, are better positioned to adapt to crisis and to also lead global innovation in the long term. And we, once again, I said it, Africa will be home to the youngest population on Earth in the coming years to come. And we need to think as Africa is growing and developing, it will be really, really fundamental for learning to be of high standard

[00:14:45] for our younger brothers and sisters on the continent to prepare our world, basically, because this is a world problem for one of the biggest demographic shifts that we are going to witness in history. Thank you for sharing that. So if you look at some of the initiatives, you have the SCALE initiative as well, which is part of what you are working or delivering. Can you tell us a bit more about the SCALE initiative in terms of what are the goals for African education systems?

[00:15:14] Absolutely. Happy to. Thank you for having us to talk also about SCALE. So SCALE stands for Systems Change Architecture for Learning Excellence. And I would say it's exactly that, right? It's a bold architecture for rethinking a little bit how we do education reform. And it's a program that we are launching in Ghana in two weeks. And it brings together the government, philanthropy, the cocoa industry, the global partnership for education in a co-investment model.

[00:15:43] All of that to improve foundational learning for every child in Ghana are very simple. The goals are very simple, but ambitious. We want to support teachers in the country. We want to align policies with evidence and we want to strengthen local systems so that, you know, change is not only deep, which we will have, but that change is also sustainable and scalable.

[00:16:07] So we've designed this program to really demonstrate as a foundation what is possible when reforms are system-owned, if I may put it that way, when they are evidence-informed or evidence-based, and when they are financed by a collaborative. And I want to acknowledge all of the co-founder and co-investors into this. So the ambition is really to help transform how education is structured, how education is delivered in the country through national policy, teacher training and local innovation.

[00:16:37] So if you're in Ghana in two weeks, you will be welcome to join us at the Swiss Embassy, where we have the partnership signing event. Oh, brilliant. Oh, brilliant. So looking at this, how does scale help bridge the gap between innovation and sustainable systems? That's a very, very good question. And I'm impressed how you can go into the depth of some of these questions, given also the broad scope of your podcast. So quite impressive and congrats on that. Thank you.

[00:17:06] I think by ensuring that you're embedding proven innovations into systems within national structures, what is meant there? If you think about what I mentioned on differentiated instruction, for instance, that's a proven innovation. That's something that has been tested and piloted. When I say tested, you understand what it means, basically is backed by existing evidence. So that's one way where you kind of bridge that gap. But secondly, I think it's really, really important to build the structures.

[00:17:35] You know, it's almost like building the foundations. You can come and solve an issue, which is what we've seen across the board in the international development sector. But we need to pass that a little bit and build the structures, build the systems. And in the scale one in particular, we are having the Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab as a system level intervention that will support the ministry.

[00:18:00] As I already described a little bit that part on the research, but there's also more on the capacity support. And all of that in a way that is almost modeling what it is to be an education driven organization. And we are also doing that lastly through deepening the work through communities. So we have what we call a communities of excellence program,

[00:18:25] which is basically also placing decision making on local learning needs. This is very, very important. And this is where decisions on learning needs are in the hands of, you know, district and local communities, which is very also very well adapted with the realities of our context. So I would say those are ways in which we kind of bridge that gap between innovation on the one side and sustainable system level reform on the other side.

[00:18:54] Brilliant. You touched on the work you're doing in Ghana. So what lessons have emerged on systems strengthening in countries like Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire? Yeah, of course. So the foundation also has operations and have been supporting activities in Cote d'Ivoire. As I was preparing for this, I think I put down three main lessons that really stand out. Number one, systems should be driven by the government. I think it's really, really, really important.

[00:19:22] You know, change happens, you know, when governments feel supported and they should be in the driver's seat. And I think this is really, really important. Oftentimes we see very, very impressive programs, but they have an issue of scalability or an issue of ownership because those are driven by other parties or stakeholders than the government. Number two, co-creation. Co-creation is everything.

[00:19:52] I have to say that our best results, our best outcomes and our best ideas come from, you know, sitting down with when I go to Ghana and sit with officials and, you know, communities and go to Cote d'Ivoire and do the same. And also co-founders in this case. I was just getting on a call with one of our co-founder, an industry co-founder, and all together to design together.

[00:20:17] And third, I think one of the lessons is also that we should have evidence traveling both ways. I think I've highlighted a little bit this idea of evidence traveling from research almost to the classroom to, you know, evidence labs and so on and so forth. But we've seen interesting work from organizations like UNICEF, for instance, which is quite insightful as well, where there's also an attempt to elevate evidence from almost grassroots to policy,

[00:20:47] which is another way of thinking about this. So I would say those three core elements, right? Systems should be driven by the government. Co-creation is key and three evidence is at the core and it has to travel both ways. Those would be the three lessons that I would say are emerging from what we are doing. You touched on the co-funding aspect.

[00:21:12] We understand there's a new $80 million co-funding initiative launching in Ghana this month. That's right. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yes, there's an $80 million co-funding initiative launching in Ghana this month. One core component of that program is called SCEL, Systems Change Architecture for Learning Excellence. And it's a core component of an additional financing package for the program in Ghana.

[00:21:39] It's actually a World Bank program that a lot of stakeholders in the sector would know called the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project. It's a program, World Bank Project, that has been initially funded by a loan and it exists in that form in different countries. So you have the child accountability for learning outcome project and so on. So in this case, it's a four-year initiative by the Ghanaian Ministry of Education.

[00:22:04] They are leading that program to improve the quality of education across the country. So this Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project, or GALOP, in the first phase, because it was initially funded by the World Bank, has shown early signs of success with more than, I think, 70,000 teachers benefiting from training and training provision so far. So with this funding and what we are launching is expanding the coverage of that.

[00:22:34] And I'm just going to give you some examples. So the coverage will expand from 10,000 to more than 15,000 schools. So basically, Tessa, in terms of if you have to capture into your own head, this is reaching all the schools, public schools of Ghana, providing training to 64,000 teachers, improving the learning, you know, potentially, potentially because all of this is a prospective of 2 million children

[00:23:01] improving their learning with the aim that 60% of primary two learners would be achieving basic literacy proficiency. So in our terms in the sector, this is, you know, this is a game-changing intervention and we are all hands on deck and excited about launching it and working towards that for the Ghanaian children and also for our African continent.

[00:23:27] So what would you say specifically about this funding or this initiative is different from previous donor-funded programs in the region? So first of all, maybe I can just quickly highlight our co-founders and the role that each of them is playing because this is pretty unique. So this is a multi-actor effort with the government that leads strategy, you know, and really the delivery through the Ministry of Education and specifically the Ghana Education Service.

[00:23:56] We have the World Bank involved as our grant agent, ensuring really fiduciary and technical oversight. We have philanthropic partners and have to acknowledge co-investors at Jacobs is Leading plus UBS Foundation and Botner Foundation as well. Those three are Swiss organizations. And we have co-investors from the industry and all of them have committed 40 million and it had actually unlocked another 40 million from the DPA,

[00:24:23] which is why you actually had that question on the 18 million. I would say what makes this different is an interesting question, isn't it? There would be three elements that I've taken down for me to prep this. So number one is co-ownership. This is not a donor program. I think it's important, right? This is, I don't know to what extent you're familiar with international development, but this is a government-led program.

[00:24:51] It's important to really put a pin on that. It has been aligned with support from multiple actors, but this is not a donor program. And I want to really, really put a pin on that. Number two, I think what is important is the long-term vision. So the coalition is built around a multi-year commitment. And again, not just project cycles. If you could imagine the way in which most of us make decisions in our funding committees is mostly this project and then it's over.

[00:25:21] So this is multi-year commitment that we've secured. And third, evidence is at the center of what we are doing here. So evidence is embedded into, you know, how we would be making decisions, how we're measuring success and so on and so forth. That means we can be adaptive, we can be, you know, more sustainable and also more accountable to all of our contingencies. So co-ownership, long-term vision and evidence, I would say are the three things that will make this initiative quite different

[00:25:49] from previous donor funded in the region. You've highlighted what makes it different, but I was wondering how will impact and success be measured over the next few years for this initiative? Yeah, that's a good question. Before you actually get to this stage, you have to make that clear. So it's taken us, you know, more than a year to get to this phase of the work. We'll be celebrating the partnership next week.

[00:26:16] But behind the scenes, it's almost, you know, hundreds and countless numbers of hours of work by partners in different organizations. I'm saying that because before getting to that stage, you need to have an alignment on how you are going to measure impact. And basically what we've decided together is that we are going to be sensitive to improvement in foundational learning indicators, especially literacy, numeracy, social emotional learning. We are also going to look at dropouts.

[00:26:46] Are they reducing? And are we also increasing equity? Those would be some of the element. We'll be looking at evidence use or data used by districts, policy reform, sustainability beyond the funding cycle. I mentioned the Ghana Education Lab, for instance, as an example. And lastly, if you think about the really meta level at the policy level,

[00:27:13] we also want to be accountable to our constituencies to the extent to which evidence is now being used to guide decisions at the national level, at the Ministry of Education in Ghana. So this is an important element of this work. So those three core areas would be how we would be measuring at the school level, at the community level, but also at the policy level. We'll be measuring the impact very, very clearly.

[00:27:41] You touched on the collaboration of funding partners, but how important is collaboration between, say, government, civil society, multilateral organizations in this type of educational reform? Oh, my goodness. Well, could you imagine any single actor driving this transformation along? No. No, I think collaboration is really, really vital. And it's a good question that you have there,

[00:28:09] because this is a case where we are bringing together the government, the philanthropy, the civil society, the business sector together. And it's interesting, isn't it? Right? Each of them is bringing something essential to this. You know, legitimacy, you can tap that to the government, a little bit of capital, the philanthropy, you know, insights from the civil society scale and so on from the business.

[00:28:35] And so I think the real magic is happening in this case when we are working in alignment, not in parallel. It's happening when we stop asking ourselves, you know, who is in charge? But asking how do we move together? And this is exactly the way in which this has been driven. I just mentioned to you that I came out of a call with one of our co-founders, and it was a tough call. And then we had to end the conversation. How do we take it from there?

[00:29:05] Because we have to move forward together. So it's almost a coalition of the willing, where you're built on trust, on evidence, and you have shared accountability. So collaboration is vital, I would say. There's just one word. It's the vitality of the collaboration in today's. I think you touched on this earlier, you know, in terms of the stakeholders, the importance of collaboration, but also how do you ensure, with all those different actors being involved,

[00:29:32] that there is a strong element of local ownership? I don't think I would say anything different, to be honest, to what I've heard a lot of experts and other stakeholders say. I think you have to work with ministries, with local stakeholders from the start, ensuring that you align with national strategies, national priorities, and it's important. So if you think about the way in which it has happened in Ghana,

[00:30:00] there was a lot of consultations with all the German partners, all the agencies of the government. All of them had to be part of this process, which is why I actually talked about co-ownership, co-creation. And secondly, you know, you ensure co-ownership by embedding interventions in the public systems. And this is key because government in our context are the ways in which society is organized.

[00:30:26] And that's the way in which you can just ensure that you are, to some extent, reaching scale and reaching the most vulnerable population. And lastly, I think you ensure ownership by listening. You have to listen to children, you have to listen to communities, you have to listen to local researchers. And it's difficult, you know, because that means it takes more time. But those are the only ways in which you can really make sure

[00:30:55] that local ownership is there, I would say. I don't know if that answers your question. Yes, it definitely does. So I guess, looking forward, we've seen global aid budgets under pressure. That's right. You've managed to still launch this initiative with $80 million funding. Yeah. How can we protect and prioritize education financing on the continent in the future? That's one of the most important questions.

[00:31:24] I mean, I want to be a little bit provocative, if you allow me. Of course. First, I think we need to make the case for education, you know, as an economic infrastructure, I would say. You know, not as a soft sector. When education ministers, just put it bluntly, are not the most powerful ministers in our continent. And that needs to change, you know. And that means if they are powerful, that would imply also that they are able to drive more resources, more government budget,

[00:31:54] more taxpayer money into the education sector. So I think that's the first thing. We need to make the case for education as almost as an economic infrastructure, in the pure sense. And we tend, because outcomes are not tangible, you cannot tush learning outcomes. So if a child is improving in learning, you cannot tush it. Therefore, people don't realize when you compare to roads. And it's also not politically attractive. It's not politically sexy, if you allow me. I think secondly,

[00:32:20] we also need to make smarter financing models. This is one of the ways in which we can really close that funding gap. What we have through these kind of co-funding mechanisms, impact bonds, domestic resource mobilization is key. I think that's an untapped area, in my opinion. So I would say that's kind of a second bucket in which I would place how we close the gap. And the last one is probably investing in what works,

[00:32:49] because we tend to think that it's a matter of pouring more resources into the system. But Tess, I want to challenge you in saying that we have to think differently in imagining that, you know, every dollar, every Ghanaian CD or, you know, FCFA, for our friends on the Francophone Africa, is linked to really learning outcomes, you know, not just inputs. And that's really important, because if we do that,

[00:33:18] that means we are also very, we are also efficient in the way in which we are using existing resources. And that can just liberate even more resources towards other streams of work. So, you know, those are what comes to mind when you think about how we can protect and prioritize education financing on the continent. You mentioned something key there in terms of we have to make the case of education as an economic infrastructure.

[00:33:47] We have significant events coming up like the G20. So I was wondering what do you think Africa's role should be in providing insights into global education solutions, especially in forums such as the G20 Summit? Well, I mean, I have to be very straightforward and honest with you. I think Africa should be at the center. We tend to sit a little bit at the back, take the back seat almost. But that's the mistake, because many innovations,

[00:34:17] if you think about play-based learning, even this co-funding, they are all emerging from the continent. I like to remind people that what we call mobile payments started in a country called Kenya through M-Pesa. I think a lot of innovations are happening on the continent that, you know, some stakeholders have to be proud of and therefore sit at the center and talk about those. So in global forums like the G20,

[00:34:45] I feel we also need to move a little bit from that narrative of global solutions for Africa, you know. It's something that has, you know, shown its limitation. I think we probably have to move to African solutions for the world. There's something like that. There's a shift that we need to also have from, yeah. One example of that basically is shifting from pilot projects, which we have seen in the sector for a long time, to system leadership.

[00:35:14] I think it's really key. And that shift is difficult. It takes time. And that's, in my opinion, some of the voices that Africans need to bring to those summits and stand for them, I would say. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you have any insights, but that's the way I see it. No, no, I agree. You're the expert. I guess if we continue to look ahead, what does success look like for you in the next five, 10 years when it comes to education on the continent?

[00:35:45] That's a good question. I will just tie it to some of the challenges that have been, you know, elevated by global stakeholders, such as the World Bank, UNICEF and others. I think the first one that we can call success on our continent is really important that, you know, every child and maybe flagging that regardless of their background, and we have a lot of kids also into, you know, vulnerable situations, kids in conflicts, and so on in some places on the continent.

[00:36:14] Ensuring that every child on our continent has access to quality foundational learning, you know, by age 10. This is really a problem. I don't know how to frame it in a way that people kind of get it. It's a real problem. So that if we get there collectively as a society, that would be fantastic. I think another one is also ensuring that national systems,

[00:36:40] you know, are resourced, you know, they are trusted, they are able to, you know, function to, you know, an acceptable level. And lastly, I think success when I look ahead is also when we have ministries, communities, funders and so on speaking the same language. What I mean there is, you know, if we can have this conversation in 2035,

[00:37:09] you know, 10 years from now, and I think it's possible. I want to see, you know, African governments and African leaders leading global education debates because that's where the problems are. We are facing most of the problems and not just participating in them. It's a challenge that I'm, you know, putting out there for us, for all of us, all of the stakeholders in this industry. I feel it's a good challenge to pick for all of us. Thank you for sharing that. If we look closer to home,

[00:37:38] what work will you be doing or the Jacobs Foundation to ensure education in Africa is moving in the right direction? I think the good thing about Jacobs, to be honest, is that we are very clear, at least at this stage, in terms of what we want to do. So we want to double down on three things. Number one, we want to double down on partnerships that last. And these are partnerships across public, private and philanthropic sectors.

[00:38:06] Jacobs has been at the forefront of some of them on the continent, and we want to continue building on those. Number two, we want to double down on evidence that matters. And evidence labs are just examples of evidence use interventions that we are supporting across the board. Research coalitions, learning systems. We actually didn't mention it, but here actually a science funder from Legacy. So evidence is really at the core of what we do

[00:38:35] and what we've been doing, whether it's evidence generation or building evidence ecosystems. And lastly, I think we want to also double down on programs that scale. And in this case, what I mean is true programs that we have in Ghana, in Cote d'Ivoire. We want to reach more and more. I would say, I see myself and see ourselves almost as I said in the beginning, as a connector, you know, between ideas, institutions, people,

[00:39:04] so that if you can pick out some words from what I'm saying, so that we can kind of move from pilot to policy and from policy to impact. So doubling down on partnership, doubling down on evidence and doubling down on scale, I think those are, you know, what I think Jacobs could continue to be doing to ensure that Africa moves forward and moves in the right direction, especially on education. Quote of the week. As people, we often have quotes, mantras, African proverbs

[00:39:34] or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good. Do you have one that you can share with us today? Um, yes, I have one and you probably guess my quote, would you? Hmm. Go ahead. Okay. It's a very well-known African quote and related to what I shared about partnership. If you want to go fast, go along and if you want to go far, go together. Brilliant. Um, I think this really sums up

[00:40:03] that African philosophy and African wisdom on what we are trying to do. Um, you know, true systems change takes partnership. It takes humility. It takes persistence. And I've been really, really inspired by these in tough moments working towards negotiating some of these partnerships. I think by going through those difficult moments, I just imagine that it's a way of going far and not simply going fast, which would not help us.

[00:40:33] Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Kembrou for such an educational conversation. Thank you so much. As we've heard today, investing in education is one of the most powerful levers for long-term development on the continent. And I hope today's discussion encourages listeners from policymakers to private sector leaders to place education at the center of the continent's future. So thank you for joining us today on the podcast

[00:41:02] to have this conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for listening. Speak soon. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has listened and stayed tuned to the podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, or tell a friend about it. You can also rate, review us in Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcast. Thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast. Unlocking Africa podcast.