International Common Assessment of Numeracy and COVID-19 Crisis

The International Common Assessment of Numeracy (ICAN) is a citizen-led assessment that measures children’s basic mathematics skills in countries across the Global South. The PAL Network developed it with support from partners such as Pratham, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Implemented in 13 countries, ICAN assessed over 20,000 children from about 15,000 households in rural communities. Using simple tools and standardized methods, the program enables reliable comparisons of children’s foundational numeracy skills across different countries.

ICAN addresses the global problem that many children attend school but still lack basic math and reading abilities. According to UNESCO, millions of learners had not achieved minimum proficiency even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which worsened learning loss. Because ICAN assessments are conducted in households and communities, they include children who are out of school or frequently absent. The results help governments and educators identify learning gaps and develop strategies to improve foundational skills and support progress toward global education goals set by the United Nations.