Senegal's Bilingual Schools Report 30% Exam Gains as Africa Rethinks AI Language Data

From Pulaar Literacy Classes to Senegal's National Bilingual Reform

Mamadou Amadou Ly, executive director of the NGO ARED, has received the 2025 Yidan Prize, often described as the Nobel of education. The award recognises more than three decades of work on bilingual teaching in Senegal, but the recognition arrives at a moment when the country is moving the approach from pilot projects into mainstream schooling.

Ly traces his conviction to his youth in Podor, northern Senegal, where he taught his parents to read and write in Pulaar while training as a mechanical engineer. He later joined ARED, founded in 1990 by the American researcher Sonja Fagerberg-Diallo. The organisation began by translating and printing Pulaar texts before expanding into a full method of literacy, teacher training, research and publishing.

Since 2009, ARED has worked with Senegal's Ministry of National Education. The government has now recognised eight national languages, and Ly says a harmonised bilingual teaching model covers 13 of the country's 16 school academies. According to Ly, the model has produced a 30% improvement in end-of-year exam pass rates, with overall success reaching as high as 70%; in targeted support programmes, pupils improved letter recognition by 74% and word reading by 134%.

On the technology side, ARED is working with India's Pratham on AI-based assessment and with IDinsight on WhatsApp chatbots through which teachers can interact with pupils. Ly argues that African languages must be represented in AI models, describing linguistic data as a strategic asset rather than a barrier to modernisation.

Why National Languages Are Becoming a Strategic Asset in African AI

The Evidence Behind ARED's Teaching Method

The most striking claims are quantitative: +30% on end-of-year exams, pass rates up to 70%, and improvements of 74% in letter recognition and 134% in word reading in targeted programmes. Those figures come from Ly's account and have not been independently audited in the interview. If they hold up, they support his core argument that teaching children first in a language they speak can accelerate literacy and exam performance rather than delay it.

Senegal's National Rollout and the Donor Equation

ARED is not operating at the margins. Ly says the harmonised bilingual model now covers 13 of 16 national academies, leaving only three not yet fully integrated. The government sets curriculum content, while ARED handles publishing of reading books and teacher guides across all eight recognised languages. That scale has depended on external money from the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and USAID, whose activities Ly says were suspended in 2025. The suspension concentrates financial risk at a stage when the programme still needs teacher materials and training.

Linguistic Data as a Strategic Asset

Ly frames AI not as a threat but as a reason to accelerate local language work. He points out that most large models are trained on US or Chinese data, embedding cultural and linguistic biases. With Pratham and IDinsight, ARED is testing AI evaluation and WhatsApp-based teacher-student chatbots, and it is developing models aimed at allowing pupils to communicate across local languages. The underlying claim is that whoever builds usable data and tools for African languages will shape access, content and learning outcomes on the continent.

What the Dakar Conference Signals for the Region

The international conference held in Dakar from 29 June to 1 July 2026, following the Yidan award, was presented as a moment for West and Central African countries facing similar difficulties to share experience. Ly says Mauritania, Gambia and other neighbours are already studying bilingual education policies. That shifts the Senegal experiment from a national reform to a possible regional template, provided governments adapt the model rather than import standardised solutions.

Next Moves for Senegal, Donors and Regional Education Ministries

The interview identifies concrete pressure points for the institutions closest to Senegal's bilingual education rollout.

• Senegal's Ministry of National Education: concentrate the next phase on the three academies not yet fully covered; ARED says it can already produce reading books and teacher guides for all eight recognised national languages.
• Donors: the USAID suspension removes a known financing stream, making Gates Foundation and World Bank support more significant for ARED's publishing and teacher-training pipeline.
• Edtech partners Pratham and IDinsight: publish pilot results for the WhatsApp chatbot and AI assessment tools, and link them to the reported 74% letter-recognition and 134% word-reading gains before broader rollout.
• Mauritania, Gambia and regional ministries: use the 29 June–1 July 2026 Dakar conference as a baseline for adapting Senegal's harmonised bilingual model, rather than adopting an unlocalised import.