Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Programmes

delivered

ACROSS

countries

Since

2019

In many African education systems, English functions as a key language of instruction and national communication within highly multilingual contexts. Ministries of education face the challenge of balancing the role of English with local and regional languages, while expanding access to quality education. ELT policy is often closely linked to broader goals around literacy, equity, and teacher capacity, particularly in under-resourced or rapidly growing school systems.

Institutional priorities across the region include strengthening pre- and in-service teacher education, developing contextually appropriate curricula, and improving learning outcomes through scalable and cost-effective approaches. Mobile and low-bandwidth technologies are increasingly used to support teachers and learners, but successful adoption depends on sustained training and local ownership. Long-term improvement in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on initiatives embedded within national strategies and designed to build system capacity from within.

Our Region

Working at the Intersection of Language and Literacy Across Africa

TELT has been working in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2019, across a range of engagements spanning East, West, and North-East Africa. Our earliest programme in the region — Building a Culture of Coaching in Ethiopian Primary Schools, delivered with the British Council and the Federal Ministry of Education — focused on strengthening school-level teaching practice through structured coaching models.

Our work across the region focuses on building the tools and structures that education systems need to support their own teachers — coaching frameworks, training materials, classroom resources, and course content designed for contexts where teacher supply, language proficiency, and institutional capacity are the binding constraints. In Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda, and across West Africa, that has meant creating resources and approaches that function within the realities of under-resourced systems, not despite them.