Blogs and Articles

What Kenya Can Learn from Sobral’s Education Transformation

In August 2025, a delegation of 43 education leaders from Kenya, South Africa, and India travelled to Sobral for a week of learning, exchange, and reflection. Representing 25 institutions, the participants engaged in school visits, discussions with current and former political leaders, engagements with the Department of Education, and structured coalition-building sessions. The purpose of the visit was not to copy Sobral’s model, but to understand the systems, leadership choices, and practices that made its transformation possible, and to reflect on what these lessons might mean for foundational literacy and numeracy in other contexts. Rather than accept this reality, local leaders made a deliberate and sustained commitment to foundational literacy. Over time, Sobral built a system anchored in clear learning goals, strong leadership, teacher support, accountability, and community engagement. By 2017, it ranked first in Brazil in both primary and secondary education. What makes Sobral remarkable is not only the scale of its improvement, but also the consistency and discipline behind it. Its story continues to attract global attention because it shows that significant education reform is possible when systems align around learning.