Projects

Educate!

In September 2016, Educate! signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Kenyan government to support its education reform.

Open Tabs

Kenya Expansion Background and Strategy

In September 2016, Educate! signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Kenyan government to support its education reform. The MOU is a 5-year partnership agreement that allows us to work hand in hand with the Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development on teacher training frameworks and pedagogy across all subjects. Educate! will be involved in the entire life cycle of the reform from design through implementation, and components of our model will be embedded throughout the teacher ecosystem including teacher training, certification, and pedagogy. The partnership also includes integrating our Skills Lab and Student Business Clubs into the national system. Through this agreement we can bring our programs to Kenya at scale, reaching 14,000 youth there directly through our model by 2020 and 1.5 million more through changes to the national curriculum.

The agreement is a huge validation of our expansion strategy and of government demand for our expertise as we continue to expand. Since we are entering at the beginning of Kenya’s reform, we have the unique opportunity to advise every reform stage and create deeper impact than ever before. There’s a lot of work to do and we are in need of support to move quickly and seize this rare opportunity according to the strategy below.

Phase 1: Start-up

  • Signed Memorandum of Understanding with Kenyan government.
  • Hired National Team: Program Director and Technical Education Expert.

Phase 2: Targeted Research, Pilot Design, and Education System Support (2017)

  • Work in partnership with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) on the design and implementation of the national curriculum reform, including teacher training, pedagogy, and integration of Skills Labs and Student Business Clubs into the national system.
  • Conduct rigorous research and gather stakeholder feedback to adapt our program to Kenya’s context, ensuring that it is directly relevant to the challenges and opportunities faced by Kenyan youth.
  • Hire operations team including key Human Resources, Training, and Administrative staff. Hire and induct field team.
  • Recruit and train 7 youth Mentors to deliver our curriculum in the pilot schools and to receive advanced business training through our Youth Business Experience program.

Phase 3: Educate! Experience Pilot (2018)

  • Launch Educate! Experience pilot in 30 schools, intensively impacting 1,200 students, as research and development for adapting our curriculum to the Kenyan context for direct implementation and national reform.
  • Integrate lessons we learn from the pilot into the design of the full Kenya Educate! Experience program.
  • Recruit 150 schools for 2019 launch.
  • Hire Country Director, additional Program Officers and Mentors, and other key staff.

Phase 4: Full Program Launch (2019)

  • Launch the Educate! Experience in 150 schools across Kenya, impacting 6,000 youth intensively and over 52,000 more broadly.

Partnership Opportunity

Educate! is urgently seeking funders to underwrite Phase 3 of our Kenya launch plan, the Educate! Experience pilot, which will run in 30 schools and intensively impact 1,200 youth. The pilot will also serve as a critical research and development tool to test our model in the Kenyan context and understand its impact. We will use what we learn to iterate and improve, incorporating lessons into our model for our full program launch in Kenya, with the goal of designing a program that has the maximum impact on students’ lives. Learnings will also be used to inform our technical advice to government on curriculum reform in Kenya, laying the foundation to remake the labor marketplace for a generation of Kenyan youth.

At this point we need $300,000 to fund our 30-school pilot in Kenya in 2018, at a cost of $10,000 per school. A $30,000 investment from Help for Hope would fully fund three pilot schools in 2018 and would allow us to reach a critical point in our fundraising, where we are confident that we can close the remaining gap through a combination of existing funders and outstanding asks to new partners.

Help for Hope’s partnership in our Kenya launch has the potential to define our impact in Kenya and strategy in future expansion countries as well as open the door to impacting a total of 14,000 youth intensively and 1.5 million youth through education reform in Kenya by 2020. We have the proven model, the team of ambitious social entrepreneurs, the government partnerships, and the years of experience to seize an incredible opportunity for impact in Kenya and across the African continent. As a key learning and innovation partner, your investment would unlock that potential, enabling us to ultimately reach millions of youth across Africa.

  • December 2017
  • January 2018

Info

09.12.17x

Exciting Journey

Help For Hope started an exciting journey with Educate! in Kenya, participating in the 30 school pilot project that will unlock great potential in youth through education reform by 2020.

Info

31.01.18x

The future of Educate!

Meeting with Boris Bulavey, Co-founder and Executive Director, in Geneva to talk about the future of Educate!

"

You cannot have high expectations for others if you don’t have high expectations for yourself."

Beatrice
Student