The Africa Fellows in Education Program 2025/2026 Call for Applications

Background

A skilled population is an indispensable element of successful long-term economic development. However, the major problem in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, is the low quality of education. For example, most children in these countries complete primary school without acquiring functional literacy and numeracy skills, reflecting educational systems that struggle to prepare large numbers of students.

Numerous factors contribute to this challenge, and a wide array of potential solutions have been proposed to tackle it. Perhaps the most critical initial step toward improving school performance is obtaining transparent and analytically useful data from student assessments. When properly constructed, this data identifies possible performance levels and encourages analyses that can improve low-performing school systems.

However, there is a lack of national testing and participation in regional or international assessments due to several factors, including costs, lack of capacity to conduct assessments, and aversion to possible embarrassment from the results. Notably, some of these issues are being addressed by broad-based efforts of regional and international organizations to support the expansion of comparable student assessments. 

Still, a closely related issue still needs to be addressed: the lack of local capacity to effectively use student outcome data to improve policy and schools. While it might initially be possible to swap external people for trained local researchers, this is neither sustainable nor conducive to developing sound and well-informed decision-making in schools.1

The Africa Fellows in Education Program (AFEP) aims to address this local capacity gap and improve education decision-making across Sub-Saharan Africa. AFEP will support a network of local policy fellows with enhanced skills in evaluating existing educational research, developing and using performance data to make better decisions, and introducing rigorous evidence into the decision-making process. 

Having a network of highly competent researchers across the region reinforces the value of using systematic evidence in decision-making and supports broad policy improvement. Local expert researchers will also form a constituency for expanding and improving the assessment structures in each country. The Fellows will be able to identify and produce high-quality research utilized in educational decision-making. They will also become active in outreach to policymakers and civil society actors and advocate for sound, analytically based local policies. 

In sum, the objective of the AFEP is to build a group of Africa-based leaders capable of developing evidence and shaping educational policies relevant to their countries.  These leaders would be part of a global network of such people and could help build local networks of strong advocates for improving schools.

The Structure of the AFEP

The proposed program is organized around a combination of in-country activities and network/training opportunities regionally and abroad. Under the two out-of-country segments, it is expected that the successful fellows will have the opportunity to attend two of the most prominent international conferences on the economics of education – the CESifo Economics of Education conference and the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) conference. (The exact conference and travel schedule is subject to change based on the prevailing circumstances.) In addition to these conferences, the fellows will participate in a series of short courses designed to be most suitable to their needs, covering topics such as evaluation methods, communications, incentive structures, and other related areas while also allowing fellows to foster international connections. Further, they will have a series of lectures on testing and performance measurement. 

This introduction will enable fellows to understand the use of large-scale testing data from various international and regional assessments. It will also sensitize them to general issues around the use of standardized testing. The first two weeks of training will be between September and November 2025, and the other two will be held in March 2026. 

While in their home countries, the fellows will develop a research/evaluation project to be carried out (mainly) in the second year under program supervision and with local scientific mentors. The initiative will engage a part-time local mentor to monitor each fellow's progress and reinforce new skills. This approach will lead fellows to explore the existing state of local assessments and evaluation of educational issues. Both during the fellowship period and afterwards, a team of advisors from Stanford University and other organizations in Africa and internationally will provide direct support and supervision. Fellows are expected to complete the project in two years, organize in-country policy outreach workshops to disseminate the research findings, and present the final report at the GEAI-PEP-organized conference in June 2026. 

The Fellow’s Key responsibilities 

During the two years of the program, each fellow will be expected to achieve the following milestones:   

1. By the end of the first year, having consulted with relevant policymakers and stakeholders, prepare a concept research proposal focusing on a specific education problem in their home country or any other Sub-Saharan African country. Motivate the selected (educational) research issues and objectives, outline the data sources and proposed methodology, and present a clear plan for completing the project by June 2027.   
2. Attend all short-term training courses arranged by GEAI in collaboration with PEP.   
3. Over the two years, work closely with local and international scientific mentors to develop and complete the research project. 
4. Present the project’s work-in-progress and final reports at local and international conferences organized by GEAI and its partners.  
5. Complete the project within two years and present the final report at the conference organised by GEAI-PEP in June 2027. The final report must be sufficiently rigorous to meet current research and evaluation standards. 
6. Write a policy brief based on the final technical research report.  
7. Write a policy blog. 
8. Organize in-country policy outreach workshops to disseminate the research findings.