Louise Gittens
Louise Gittens is a Founding Director of Universal Learning Solutions, an organisation dedicated to improving early grade literacy across the Global South. Louise has worked extensively with governments across Africa to successfully implement Jolly Phonics as a national strategy for improving literacy, supporting education ministries to embed synthetic phonics across all government primary schools.
Her work has involved coordinating complex, large-scale education reform initiatives—including training for teachers and government officials, developing and distributing instructional materials, implementing robust monitoring and evaluation systems, and building sustainable local expertise through trainer development and capacity building.
A qualified teacher with a PhD in a rights-based approach to improving early grade literacy in Nigeria, Louise combines academic insight with practical experience. She has presented at leading international education forums including UKFIET, CIES, and the World Literacy Summit, and has co-authored numerous publications on key issues such as synthetic phonics in developing contexts, the transfer of literacy skills from second to first language, and the effects of overlapping teacher training programmes (published under her maiden name, Louise Gittins).
At this conference, Louise will speak on achieving sustained systemic change through Jolly Phonics, drawing on over a decade of experience transforming literacy outcomes at scale.