The Geneva Global education team has helped bring impactful innovation from the classroom to the system level. We do this using a holistic approach, because improving access and quality in formal education requires concerted effort on all fronts. Among the diverse aspects we cover are teacher training, gender equality and inclusion, pedagogy, parental and community engagement, system planning, workforce development, and curriculum. These come together in our renowned Speed School program but extend far beyond this, as well. Continue reading to learn more about the many ways that Geneva Global can help you make a lasting and meaningful impact in education.
Geneva Global is most widely recognized in education for our Speed School program, a model that originated with Stromme Foundation and for which we received funding from Legatum Fund and, then, Luminos Fund in Ethiopia for many years. Speed School delivers to out-of-school children aged 9 to 14 a condensed Grades 1 to 3 curriculum in just ten months, readying students to excel in conventional classrooms the next year. The model focuses instructors and students on core learning competencies along with fundamental personal skills that will serve them in their future lives and livelihoods. The model uses a rich combination of activity-based instructional methods while embedding lessons deeply in the local context to achieve richly stimulating, joyous, relevant, and effective learning. The Speed School model is fully adaptable to different contexts and geographies, for different age groups, to cover different grade levels, and to ready youth to transition directly into life and livelihood. Speed School also proved immensely valuable as education systems returned children to the classroom following their extended COVID-19 school closures.
Geneva Global works from the classroom to the ministry to cultivate simultaneously children’s cognitive, practical, and personal development; in other words, the head, the hand, and the heart. This engages us sometimes in helping a ministry revise its curriculum and even trim it to give more opportunity for teachers to bring their own creativity and initiative to the classroom. At other times, we help teachers use the official curriculum flexibly to achieve the same end. Our consistent aim is to help teachers and whole systems achieve the greatest learning by: (i) making learning relevant; (ii) ensuring time for truly useful learning assessment, and (iii) helping teachers weave critical personal competencies—e.g., collaboration, communication, and creativity—into all lessons. In this way, we promote truly holistic learning that will serve students in their future schooling, lives and livelihoods.
Geneva Global rejects the expectation that all teachers should deliver the exact same lessons the exact same way to yield the exact same learning. Rather, we improve teaching and learning by fostering teachers’ creativity and initiative. We start with classic workshop training, where teachers learn pedagogic concepts but mostly practice and discuss the concepts to create a foundation for using and improving their employment of the concepts in their classrooms. Following workshops, supervisors visit teachers in their classrooms to help consolidate their understanding and use of the concepts and techniques they have learned. Rather than focusing on the isolated ‘snapshot’ of instruction observed during the visit, the supervisor engages the teacher in dialogue about her/his recent experience and issues, exploring together steps to improve. These steps include reflective practice, which happens in an education community of practice (ECoP) in every school to engage teachers, alone and together, in creating, experimenting, analyzing, and revising tactics to improve their practice and students’ learning continuously.
Equity and inclusion are constant cross-cutting goals of Geneva Global’s work in education, and more broadly. This starts with gender but incorporates also other groups that suffer from endemic marginalization. These include children from extremely poor families, pastoralist and other remote communities, internally displaced populations (IDP), and children with disabilities. Our approach is multi-pronged, recognizing that the causes of exclusion are multi-dimensional. In the classroom and school-wide, we engage teachers to design and deliver lessons, manage behavior, and conduct other activities to elevate the learning, belonging, and dignity of every student. We engage parents, families, and communities in school, at home, and community-wide to enroll and support the school success of every child. Viewing the intersection of school and home, we motivate teachers and parents by ensuring learning of high quality and relevance. All should understand that every child can learn well and that this learning will help them and their families have better lives; every parent’s dream.
Geneva Global works with schools, local leaders and institutions, and others to equip and motivate parents and the broader community to foster the school success of children in many ways. These include actions at school, at home, and in the community that engage parents and guardians financially, materially, with labor. We even sometimes enlist them to contribute in the classroom. They provide and create low-cost and no-cost learning materials, intervene to bring students with many absences back to class, and serve as teacher aids. Most exciting, they support teachers with lessons, helping to link them directly to the local context. Lastly, Geneva Global works with schools, parents, and local development actors to improve the many external conditions that affect children’s school participation and success, such as health and nutrition, security, discrimination, and economic welfare.
More on Community Engagement in Education
Geneva Global summons our vast experience implementing education programs to help clients achieve the most from their philanthropy. For those starting their giving journey in education, we help make the many choices to align with their philanthropic priorities.
In which education domain do they want to work? Where in the world? For which population? Is the desire to fund existing programming, or is the hope to invest in a bespoke program? Does the client want to go beyond funding to visit the program or even contribute technically?
If already giving, Geneva Global can evaluate activities and impacts, guiding improvements, and supporting efforts to diversify and/or scale operations while promoting government adoption and sustainability. Lastly, we implement programs on behalf of clients, providing technical leadership, granting to local implementing actors, coordinating with government and other interventions, and even attracting new funders. Our aim is for clients to achieve the greatest impacts and pride from their philanthropy.
Geneva Global supports federal, regional, and local jurisdictions to undertake bottom-up reforms. We avoid homogeneous solutions to guide all schools and teachers towards uniform quality and equity, helping systems instead to introduce policies, plans, and practices that help each school and class succeed in their unique circumstances. These circumstances derive from each teacher and collection of students, the school and community, and the broader environment, usually changing often over time. The approach places teachers on roads, not rails, giving them both the opportunity and the obligation to deliver the official program and use the many methods and assets the system provides in ways that are bespoke to their distinct classroom context. Subscribing to the view that the system works for teachers, not the opposite, Geneva Global accompanies education leaders at all levels in identifying and taking decisions and actions to help all teachers succeed.
Working across these many education domains, Geneva Global has accumulated rich experience and expertise in several other areas of education as well. These include:
– Play-based teaching and learning in pre-school, primary, and secondary education
– Youth development and workforce training
– Entrepreneurial education, life skills, and 21st Century skills
– Learning assessment
– Science education
– Information and communications technology for education (ICT4Ed)
– Adult literacy and education
– Education for Sustainable Development
– Education monitoring, evaluation, and research
– Education program scaling and sustainability
– Education planning and systems reform
– Learning in post and transitional conflict settings
– Education for Sustainable Development
– And more …
Our Areas of Expertise
Geneva Global is most widely recognized in education for our Speed School program, a model that originated with Stromme Foundation and for which we received funding from Legatum Fund and, then, Luminos Fund in Ethiopia for many years. Speed School delivers to out-of-school children aged 9 to 14 a condensed Grades 1 to 3 curriculum in just ten months, readying students to excel in conventional classrooms the next year. The model focuses instructors and students on core learning competencies along with fundamental personal skills that will serve them in their future lives and livelihoods. The model uses a rich combination of activity-based instructional methods while embedding lessons deeply in the local context to achieve richly stimulating, joyous, relevant, and effective learning. The Speed School model is fully adaptable to different contexts and geographies, for different age groups, to cover different grade levels, and to ready youth to transition directly into life and livelihood. Speed School also proved immensely valuable as education systems returned children to the classroom following their extended COVID-19 school closures.
Geneva Global works from the classroom to the ministry to cultivate simultaneously children’s cognitive, practical, and personal development; in other words, the head, the hand, and the heart. This engages us sometimes in helping a ministry revise its curriculum and even trim it to give more opportunity for teachers to bring their own creativity and initiative to the classroom. At other times, we help teachers use the official curriculum flexibly to achieve the same end. Our consistent aim is to help teachers and whole systems achieve the greatest learning by: (i) making learning relevant; (ii) ensuring time for truly useful learning assessment, and (iii) helping teachers weave critical personal competencies—e.g., collaboration, communication, and creativity—into all lessons. In this way, we promote truly holistic learning that will serve students in their future schooling, lives and livelihoods.
Geneva Global rejects the expectation that all teachers should deliver the exact same lessons the exact same way to yield the exact same learning. Rather, we improve teaching and learning by fostering teachers’ creativity and initiative. We start with classic workshop training, where teachers learn pedagogic concepts but mostly practice and discuss the concepts to create a foundation for using and improving their employment of the concepts in their classrooms. Following workshops, supervisors visit teachers in their classrooms to help consolidate their understanding and use of the concepts and techniques they have learned. Rather than focusing on the isolated ‘snapshot’ of instruction observed during the visit, the supervisor engages the teacher in dialogue about her/his recent experience and issues, exploring together steps to improve. These steps include reflective practice, which happens in an education community of practice (ECoP) in every school to engage teachers, alone and together, in creating, experimenting, analyzing, and revising tactics to improve their practice and students’ learning continuously.
Equity and inclusion are constant cross-cutting goals of Geneva Global’s work in education, and more broadly. This starts with gender but incorporates also other groups that suffer from endemic marginalization. These include children from extremely poor families, pastoralist and other remote communities, internally displaced populations (IDP), and children with disabilities. Our approach is multi-pronged, recognizing that the causes of exclusion are multi-dimensional. In the classroom and school-wide, we engage teachers to design and deliver lessons, manage behavior, and conduct other activities to elevate the learning, belonging, and dignity of every student. We engage parents, families, and communities in school, at home, and community-wide to enroll and support the school success of every child. Viewing the intersection of school and home, we motivate teachers and parents by ensuring learning of high quality and relevance. All should understand that every child can learn well and that this learning will help them and their families have better lives; every parent’s dream.
Geneva Global works with schools, local leaders and institutions, and others to equip and motivate parents and the broader community to foster the school success of children in many ways. These include actions at school, at home, and in the community that engage parents and guardians financially, materially, with labor. We even sometimes enlist them to contribute in the classroom. They provide and create low-cost and no-cost learning materials, intervene to bring students with many absences back to class, and serve as teacher aids. Most exciting, they support teachers with lessons, helping to link them directly to the local context. Lastly, Geneva Global works with schools, parents, and local development actors to improve the many external conditions that affect children’s school participation and success, such as health and nutrition, security, discrimination, and economic welfare.
More on Community Engagement in Education
Geneva Global summons our vast experience implementing education programs to help clients achieve the most from their philanthropy. For those starting their giving journey in education, we help make the many choices to align with their philanthropic priorities.
In which education domain do they want to work? Where in the world? For which population? Is the desire to fund existing programming, or is the hope to invest in a bespoke program? Does the client want to go beyond funding to visit the program or even contribute technically?
If already giving, Geneva Global can evaluate activities and impacts, guiding improvements, and supporting efforts to diversify and/or scale operations while promoting government adoption and sustainability. Lastly, we implement programs on behalf of clients, providing technical leadership, granting to local implementing actors, coordinating with government and other interventions, and even attracting new funders. Our aim is for clients to achieve the greatest impacts and pride from their philanthropy.
Geneva Global supports federal, regional, and local jurisdictions to undertake bottom-up reforms. We avoid homogeneous solutions to guide all schools and teachers towards uniform quality and equity, helping systems instead to introduce policies, plans, and practices that help each school and class succeed in their unique circumstances. These circumstances derive from each teacher and collection of students, the school and community, and the broader environment, usually changing often over time. The approach places teachers on roads, not rails, giving them both the opportunity and the obligation to deliver the official program and use the many methods and assets the system provides in ways that are bespoke to their distinct classroom context. Subscribing to the view that the system works for teachers, not the opposite, Geneva Global accompanies education leaders at all levels in identifying and taking decisions and actions to help all teachers succeed.
Working across these many education domains, Geneva Global has accumulated rich experience and expertise in several other areas of education as well. These include:
– Play-based teaching and learning in pre-school, primary, and secondary education
– Youth development and workforce training
– Entrepreneurial education, life skills, and 21st Century skills
– Learning assessment
– Science education
– Information and communications technology for education (ICT4Ed)
– Adult literacy and education
– Education for Sustainable Development
– Education monitoring, evaluation, and research
– Education program scaling and sustainability
– Education planning and systems reform
– Learning in post and transitional conflict settings
– Education for Sustainable Development
– And more …
The Speed School Model in Brief
Speed School is an accelerated education program that gives out-of-school children aged 8 to 14 from very poor communities a ‘second chance’ at schooling.
Serving children who either dropped out of primary school before learning to read or calculate or who have never attended school, Speed School provides them the first three years of primary schooling in just ten months.
In Speed School classes, these children acquire the core academic aptitudes, motivation, and confidence to join their age peers in the government school, where many excel. At the same time, the Speed School model strengthens the capacity, confidence, and commitment of the pupils’ mothers to support their children’s onward schooling financially, practically, and morally.
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The background and scope
Geneva Global (then, the Legatum Fund) first supported the Speed School model as a philanthropic investment in the Stromme Foundation, which originated the model in the West African nations of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Seizing an opportunity in Ethiopia, Geneva Global (with the ‘blessing’ of Stromme Foundation and funding from Legatum), launched its own Speed School initiative in 2011. Beginning in the country’s Southern Nations’, Nationalities’, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), the program has since grown to cover Ethiopia’s four largest regions, adding Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray. As of the 2019/20 school year, Speed School in Ethiopia has brought over 200,000 out-of-school girls and boys back to formal education, of whom over 90% proceed the following year to government school classrooms. The program’s many outcomes are achieved because of the generosity of a few key philanthropic partners. (Learn more about Speed School in Ethiopia here.)
In 2016, one of Speed School’s anonymous funders doubled its investment in the program to permit Geneva Global to expand the program to Uganda’s northern Acholi Region, the area most affected by the country’s civil war. With the 2017/18 school year, Geneva Global introduced the model to Liberia with funding provided by Luminos Fund, which took over the program fully there the following year.
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The core model
The Speed School model comprises four key components which work together to get out-of-school children into the conventional school system and to keep them there with success:
Speed School classes – In year-long Speed School classes, 30 pupils acquire the core learning competencies and knowledge from the official curriculum for the first three primary grades from (often) a paraprofessional teacher—called a “facilitator”—who uses activity-based, learner-centered instructional methods with continuous formative assessment to prepare learners for future success in learning, life, and livelihood.
Self-Help Groups – Self-Help Groups bring together learners’ mothers (or other guardians) from each Speed School class to provide functional literacy, social mobilization training, and access to greater economic activity to raise the capacity and commitment to take group and individual actions that support their children’s future formal education.
Primary School Capacity-Strengthening – The Speed School program works with local education authorities and agents to help teachers and headteachers at government schools that host Speed School classes to improve their practice by introducing the model’s core pedagogic methods, aiming both to ease the transition of former Speed School pupils into government classes and to reduce the number of future out-of-school children.
Early Childhood Education – In both Ethiopia and Uganda, the Speed School program includes the operation of pre-school classes, also aiming to prevent future out-of-school children. In Uganda, the program previously supported the operation of five community schools as well. With both components, the core approach replicates what the government or other partners are already doing or have done.
Implementation of the Speed School program has been the responsibility of civil society organizations (mostly local) operating across different regions and districts. Geneva Global provides the organizations with grants to apply the full model for each component and continuous oversight and technical guidance to ensure successful performance. The grantee organizations, or ‘collaborating partners,’ hire the Speed School facilitators and Self-Help Group assistants along with the agents who are responsible to supervise, train, and monitor these front-line staff. They serve as the principle interlocutors and advisors to government, securing their authorization and cooperation and mobilizing their active involvement. Lastly, the collaborating partners play key roles in informing the quality control and continued improvement of the core Speed School model and the modalities used to introduce and support the associate methods in practice.
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Evidence of success
Education and other government leaders at both the central and local levels, external partners, and beneficiaries all agree that Speed School has been a large success. This is evident in a variety of ways, ranging from the performance of individual children to system-level impacts:
- Over 350,000 out-of-school children who have acquired core literacy and mathematic skills
- Around 95% of Speed School completers transition annually to government primary classrooms
- On average, 75% of Speed School completers enter Grade 4 each year and another 15% enter Grade 3
- Former Speed School pupils typically occupy the top ranks of their classes in academic performance, attendance, and progression to higher grades
- Former Speed School pupils are recognized as school leaders and model members of their communities
- Former Speed School pupils receive greater support from their families and articulate clearer ambitions and strategies for their future education or training, lives, and livelihoods
- Many government schoolteachers are independently using Speed School methods in their own instruction
- Mothers of former Speed School pupils are generating additional revenue, saving, and taking other actions to support their children’s continued schooling
- The program is operating with close consultation, coordination, and collaboration with the key local education structures
- The process of government adoption for sustainability and scale has begun (in Ethiopia, government is funding and operating nearly 40 percent of all Speed School classes in 2019/20)
An external six-year longitudinal study by University of Sussex and Hawassa University completed in 2017 provides an independent empirical validation of these impacts.
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What the future holds
What began as an ambitious effort to bring tens of thousands of out-of-school children back into formal primary education (or into school for the first time) has now become a promising effort to attain the Holy Grail of development: government adoption with sustainability and scale. In both Ethiopia and Uganda, Geneva Global is working with the Ministry of Education and its leaders in the regions where Speed School operates to hand over full operational and financial responsibility for the Speed School program. The transition has already begun in Ethiopia, where regional education bureaus now fund and implement nearly 40% of all Speed School classes. As Geneva Global slowly lessens its grant-making to operate Speed School classes, we will focus on creating support materials and strengthening the two governments’ capacity to manage the overall model, to train new teachers to deliver lessons using the Speed School methods, and to train government inspectors to maintain the model’s high quality by applying the holistic training approach.
At the same time, Geneva Global aspires to support its current and new philanthropic and other development clients to introduce the Speed School model into new countries. The phenomenon of out-of-school children is one that many education systems confront. Now operating successfully in around a half dozen countries, the prospect for achieving similar outcomes in new countries seem solid. Geneva Global is ready to engage with potential clients and the education leadership of countries to start exploring the relevance of Speed School for your needs and context.
The Speed School facilitators use activity-based, learner-centered instructional methods and perform continuous formative assessment in virtually every lesson.
More on Speed School’s Instructional Methods
Self-help groups mobilize and motivate the mothers of Speed School pupils to grow and save their limited resources and take other actions to support their children’s formal education.
More on the Technical Aspects of Self Help Groups
The condensed curriculum strips the official curriculum for the first three primary grades to the core learning outcomes and thematic content, leaving the facilitator to complete lessons with information, illustrations, and applications from the local context.
More on Condensed Curriculum
The Holistic Training Approach combines (i) highly practical workshop training with (ii) a dialogic approach to teacher supervision and (iii) individual and collective reflective practice by teachers for continuous professional development and improvement.
More on the Holistic Training Approach
The Secret Sauce of Speed School
The Speed School facilitators use activity-based, learner-centered instructional methods and perform continuous formative assessment in virtually every lesson.
More on Speed School’s Instructional Methods
Self-help groups mobilize and motivate the mothers of Speed School pupils to grow and save their limited resources and take other actions to support their children’s formal education.
More on the Technical Aspects of Self Help Groups
The condensed curriculum strips the official curriculum for the first three primary grades to the core learning outcomes and thematic content, leaving the facilitator to complete lessons with information, illustrations, and applications from the local context.
More on Condensed Curriculum
The Holistic Training Approach combines (i) highly practical workshop training with (ii) a dialogic approach to teacher supervision and (iii) individual and collective reflective practice by teachers for continuous professional development and improvement.
More on the Holistic Training Approach
Technical Documents
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