As we commemorate the 2025 International Day of Education, Artificial Intelligence (AI) leads global headlines, social media chatter, boardroom discussions, and policy debates. This year’s theme, “AI and Education: Preserving Human Agency in a World of Automation,” reflects this focus. Artificial Intelligence promises to reshape every aspect of our lives, including the global labor markets. While this technological revolution promises increased productivity and innovation, it raises eyebrows about job displacement and the future of human work. Amidst these changes, one truth remains constant: the foundation for developing the most automation-resistant skills is built through strong foundational learning in the early years of life: basic literacy, numeracy, and transferable skills, such as socio-emotional skills, cognitive reasoning, analytical thinking, and more.

The recently released World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report paints a clear picture: as automation accelerates, unique human capabilities—analytical thinking, creative problem-solving, resilience and flexibility, and leadership—become increasingly valuable. These skills are the backbone of human agency in an increasingly automated world. As Africa continues to drive global workforce growth in the coming years, there is an urgent need to match this demand with quality supply. This process begins at the foundational level.

These higher-order cognitive and socio-emotional skills are not inherently innate; the evidence indicates that they are cultivated through early and consistent exposure to quality foundational learning. A Stanford University study observed that just after one year of early math lessons—similar to lessons delivered under Zambiaʼs Catch Up program—children’s brains showed significant changes in regions responsible for working memory and numerical processing. This neuroplasticity in early childhood forms the basis for more complex problem-solving and analytical thinking later in life. Moreover, structured investment in socio-emotional learning skills through SEL programs has been found to improve not only academic performance but also deepen long-term resilience and a host of other pro-social behaviours.

It is clear that the AI revolution strengthens the argument for investing in foundational education. Human agency in the age of AI is not fostered through coding bootcamps; it is primarily developed in pre-primary and primary school classrooms. This is where children first learn to decode text, understand numbers, and think critically. When a child learns to read with comprehension, they are not just acquiring a skill—they are building the cognitive foundation necessary to question, analyze, and influence the world around them. Similarly, when they master basic mathematics, they are establishing the mental frameworks required to understand and control technological tools—including AI—rather than merely being controlled by them.

The stakes could not be higher for Africa. With the continent poised to make the largest contribution to the global labor market due to its young and growing population (sub-Saharan Africa is expected to account for over 70% of the growth in the worldʼs working-age population by 2050), ensuring strong foundational skills becomes an economic necessity. We have observed leadership across the continent, with countries such as Rwanda and Mauritius publishing comprehensive national AI strategies and Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa showing an ever-increasing number of AI innovations with strong applications in the education sector. The African Union’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy also envisions us as leaders in technological innovation. But of course, leadership itself requires human agency: the ability to understand, question, and direct technological change rather than merely adapt to it. Understanding and mitigating AI risks, tackling the digital divide, leading the design, training, and operation of ethical AI systems which are African-centred—all ambitions laid out within our continental strategy for AI—require the highest levels of human agency, which is predicated on structured investments in foundational learning.

Consider this stark reality: In an age where AI can generate text, create images, and solve complex problems, what happens to those—9 in 10 African children—who cannot read, write, or perform basic calculations by age 10? They become dependent on AI systems that they cannot critically evaluate or meaningfully engage with. This is not just a digital divide; it’s an agency divide that threatens to reinforce neo-colonial patterns of technological dependence.

The path forward is clear. African leaders must prioritize education at large—particularly foundational learning—as the bedrock of technological agency. By focusing on foundational learning, we are not choosing between basic and advanced skills; rather, we are building the essential base upon which all future learning, including in emerging technologies, can be constructed. The evidence is clear: interventions such as Teaching-at-the-Right Level (TaRL) and structured pedagogy programs can boost learning outcomes in early grades, deliver cost-savings, and in turn build uniquely human skills—such as analytical thinking, creative problem-solving, resilience and flexibility, and leadership—which will hold value in future labor markets and laying the cognitive foundation for technological empowerment.

While foundational learning is crucial, a holistic approach to education in the AI era will require broader interventions. By combining these interventions with a strong focus on foundational learning, African education systems can nurture students prepared to participate meaningfully in future labor markets and foster skills for Africaʼs technological leadership.

I join the Foundational Learning Hub and partners to call upon African governments, donors, the private sector, and the broader education community to leverage the advancements in AI and edtech and apply them to strengthen our educational systems further. To ensure the best results:

1. Edtech innovations must be carefully developed and implemented with instructional rigor, evidence, equity, privacy, and safeguarding at their core.
2. EdTech solutions that are developed must improve on the quality of teaching and be integrated into existing government-led, foundational learning programs to ensure they can equitably impact and improve learning outcomes at scale.
3. African governments must prioritise the implementation of cost-efficient and proven pedagogical approaches like Structured Pedagogy and TARL; and provide an enabling environment for innovation and technology to support delivering them at scale.
4. African governments must recognise connectivity, cost, and infrastructure constraints in Africa and work towards developing digital public infrastructure and products that can be scaled within that context.
5. African governments must integrate digital literacy to curricula, and donors must ensure it is represented in programme design. Teachers must be empowered to teach with AI, as well as teach about AI, driving utility and ensuring that the broader application of AI to development priorities can be accelerated.
6. Donors and funders must enhance their focus and funding on foundational learning skills in Africa, increasing support for contextually relevant technology innovation that can be delivered at scale and have an impact on learning. While also investing in further developing the evidence base to inform AI product development.

As AI systems become more powerful, the question of human agency becomes more urgent. Will our children be able to understand, question, and direct these systems, or will they be directed by them? Again, the answer depends on what happens today in our primary school classrooms.