The Problem: Widespread Learning Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Learning poverty refers to a severe global crisis resulting in children unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this challenge affects a staggering 90% of children, encompassing both the 20% who are completely out of school and the 70% who attend school regularly but fail to acquire foundational skills. In Uganda, approximately 82% of late primary-age children are not proficient in reading.
Contributing factors include overly ambitious school curricula that do not match students’ actual learning capacities, alongside primary teachers who face isolation, limited specialized training, and a lack of structured instructional support.
The failure to establish these foundational core competencies early creates severe long-term consequences; children who fall behind are much more likely to repeat grades, drop out entirely, remain trapped in poverty, and face restricted life opportunities. This educational crisis disproportionately impacts children from rural, low-income, and marginalized backgrounds, entrenching a systemic failure where education systems deliver formal schooling but not actual learning.
The Solution: Community-based, Level-appropriate Learning
Building Tomorrow combats this crisis through its signature Roots to Rise (R2R) literacy and numeracy program. Grounded in the evidence-based Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) pedagogy, R2R discards rigid age- and grade-based tracking to tailor instruction directly to a child’s actual learning level.
The organization operates under an intentional model of community-based learning, partnering strategically with local and central governments to scale its intervention. By deploying university-graduate Fellows to recruit and upskill local volunteers, Building Tomorrow establishes a sustainable and locally contextualized model that guarantees measurable learning gains while transitioning long-term execution directly into national education systems for sustainability.
Building Tomorrow tackles the issue at its roots by focusing on the following key activities:
- Implementing level-appropriate remedial curricula to systematically improve foundational math and reading competencies.
- Mobilizing university-graduate Fellows to act as proximate leaders who build local community capacity and serve as operational links with district authorities.
- Enlisting and training local Community Education Volunteers (CEVs) to facilitate direct, trusted, and localized instruction.
- Training and upskilling teachers on Building Tomorrow’s evidence-based pedagogies, offering continued mentoring support to improve teacher practice.
- Running flexible in-school sessions and community-based learning camps that protect educational continuity against system shocks, teacher strikes, or political shifts.
- Embedding robust child safeguarding and inclusive education practices across all local operations to protect children and preserve beneficiary dignity.
How Building Tomorrow works
- Fellows Deployment and Systems Bridging: Building Tomorrow recruits and deploys university-graduate Fellows into underserved rural areas. These Fellows act as operational catalysts who organize local Community Education Teams, coordinate field volunteers, and report granular, real-time data back to district officials to amplify local educational challenges and opportunities.
- Recruitment and Local Vetting of Volunteers: Fellows collaborate closely with village leadership, such as Local Council chairpersons, to identify, vet, and approve resident Community Education Volunteers (CEVs). Because CEVs are trusted, permanent members of the communities where they operate, they provide an invaluable layer of safety, comfort, and accountability for local families.
- Roots to Rise (R2R) Instruction: The core intervention groups children into smaller, collaborative cohorts based entirely on their assessed learning levels. Facilitators use highly interactive, child-friendly, and learner-centered methods to focus intensely on building foundational micro-competencies in reading and math.
- School and Community Camp Classrooms: Instruction is delivered both within regular primary schools by trained teachers and through community-based camps by trained CEVs. These community camps serve as an adaptive and highly resilient alternative to formal schooling, shielding children from learning loss during institutional disruptions. All camp and household activities are conducted with the formal, active consent of parents or caretakers.
- Formative Baseline & Endline Evaluation: Before instructional delivery begins, a pre-test formative assessment is administered to map each student’s starting learning level. At the close of the learning cycle, a post-test evaluation measures individual advancement and verifies how many students have successfully attained the Minimum Proficiency Level (MPL)—meaning they no longer require remediation and are equipped to thrive at their class level.
- Government Integration for Systemic Scale: Viewing the state as the ultimate vehicle for scale, Building Tomorrow collaborates with institutions like Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports to integrate R2R nationwide. They second experienced Fellows alumni directly into district offices as Education Systems Strengthening Coordinators (ESSCs) to build administrative capacity.
