Gambiaj.com – (Banjul, the Gambia)- The Yidan Prize Foundation has named Mamadou Amadou Ly, Executive Director of Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED), as the winner of the 2025 Yidan Prize for Education Development.

Ly was recognized for his pioneering work in bilingual and inclusive education that is improving foundational learning across West and Central Africa. Through ARED, he has developed teaching models that use national languages alongside official languages, helping children build strong literacy and numeracy skills both in and out of school.

His approach has already influenced education policies in Senegal, Mauritania, The Gambia and beyond. ARED’s free and open teaching resources are available to the public, making them accessible to teachers and learners across the region.

“The Yidan Prize for Education Development will allow ARED to speed up its work, showing that bilingual, community-driven education can close learning gaps and inspire policy change,” Ly said.

The head of the Yidan Prize judging panel, Dorothy Gordon, praised Ly’s work as “a path to inclusive and equitable learning environments that inspire education reform in Africa and beyond.”

Founded in Dakar in 1990, ARED is a non-profit organization that develops bilingual programs, trains teachers, and publishes materials in national languages. Its vision is to give every learner access to quality education in their own language while preserving cultural identity.

Alongside Ly, the 2025 Yidan Prize for Education Research went to Professor Uri Wilensky of Northwestern University in the United States, honored for his groundbreaking work in agent-based modeling to help people understand complex systems.

Both laureates will each receive HK$30 million (about US$3.8 million) in project funds and prize money to support and scale their initiatives. The official awards ceremony will be held on December 6 in Hong Kong.