Reuben Mwangi, Group Managing Director, Bridge International Academies Foundation /HANDOUTAcross sub-Saharan Africa, getting children into school has been one of the great successes of the past two decades.
Getting them to learn once they are there is the harder test. The World Bank estimated in 2022 that 89 per cent of children in Sub-Saharan Africa were facing learning poverty, and could not read and understand a simple text by age 10.
That is not a story about weak children or low ambition. It is the gap between going to school and learning in school. What closes that gap is a teacher who is well trained, equipped with strong tools and supported week after week.
Every other investment in education depends on that relationship. This World Teachers' Day, on October 5, we want to say it plainly: a great teacher can turn these losses around.
A great teacher is a role model who offers guidance and direction and gives children the power of education. They give a child purpose, prepare them to be good citizens and spark the drive to succeed.
When a teacher refuses to give up on a struggling reader, a future changes. At Bridge International Academies Foundation, a non-profit organisation delivering quality education in underserved communities across Kenya, we see this everyday.
Pupils with well trained and supported teachers learn more. That is why we invest in teachers capacity development throughout their careers.
To date, over 19,410 teachers and school leaders have been capacity built through our programmes.
Our training is built to feel like the classroom itself. It focuses on four everyday skills: delivering lessons from the teacher guide, checking that every child is learning, giving feedback that speeds up progress, and motivating pupils to work hard and behave well.
Teachers practice with the same model they will use in class with their pupils. Trainers first show each skill, then guide each teacher through it, then watch each teacher try it and give feedback on the spot.
There is little lecturing and a great deal of practice, and coaching continues once teachers are back in their classrooms.
The same approach shapes what pupils experience. Lessons are carefully sequenced, and children get time to think before they respond to questions. Teachers circulate the classroom, so no child goes unsupported, use cold calling so all learners stays ready, and praise good effort out loud so others follow.
None of it is complicated. What makes it powerful is repetition: practised in training, observed in class and coached until it becomes instinct. Technology supports all of this, but it never replaces the teacher.
Every teacher has a digital handheld teacher tablet with lesson guides aligned to the Kenyan Competency Based Education (CBE), and dashboards flag learners who are falling behind so help arrives early. Its core purpose is to give teachers more time, information and support to make good decisions in the classroom.
An independent study led by Nobel laureate Professor Michael Kremer found that children in our Kenyan schools gained 53 per cent more learning across their pre-primary and primary years.
After two years, primary pupils had learned an extra year compared with peers in other schools, and in pre-primary the gain was nearly an extra year and a half.
Bridge has also reported that its pupils outperformed peers in national examinations over the years.
In 2025, 88.64 per cent of our primary learners, roughly nine in 10, met or exceeded expectations for their level exams, with girls and boys alike achieving strong results. What does this mean beyond our schools?
For education leaders in Kenya and across the region, the central question is not simply how much we invest, but how effectively that investment reaches the 1 classroom.
Sustained coaching, practical professional development and timely feedback can help teachers turn training into better classroom practice. Classroom data should help teachers understand where pupils need support, rather than become another mechanism for policing performance.
Technology should give teachers better tools and information to make decisions in the classroom, while keeping the teacher at the centre of learning. And every education reform should ultimately be judged by what children are able to learn. This takes a shared commitment.
Governments can build strong systems for teacher preparation, development and support. Schools and education organisations must give teachers the time, tools and coaching to improve their practice.
Parents, communities and employers can help strengthen the status of teaching as a profession. When we invest in teachers in this way, we invest in the quality of learning itself. Enrolment opened the door. Teachers are how children walk through it and learn.
This World Teachers' Day, recognising teachers should mean more than thanking them. It should mean giving them the training, tools, feedback and professional support they need to help every child learn and dream big for their future.
Reuben Mwangi is Group Managing Director, Bridge International Academies Foundation.
