The Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation has announced the launch of a multimillion-dollar initiative designed to strengthen education systems and improve learning outcomes in Ghana.
A total of $40 million has been raised for the System Change Architecture for Learning Excellence (SCALE) initiative—funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Fondation Botnar, UBS Optimus Foundation, and 10 leading cocoa and chocolate companies. In addition, the Global Partnership for Education’s Multiplier Fund matched the philanthropic contributions to double the scale of the public-private- partnership.
Combined with contributions from the Global Partnership for Education’s Systems Transformation Grant and the Early Learning Partnership Multi-Donor Trust Fund, SCALE has mobilized a total of $118.8 million in supplementary financing for Ghana’s national education strategy. The funding will also support expansion of the Communities of Excellence program and establish the Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab (GEEDLab).
The groups will partner with the Ghana’s ministry of education to train over 72,000 teachers and expand differentiated learning approaches to more than 15,000 schools. The SCALE initiative takes inspiration from the Child Learning and Education Facility (CLEF) in Côte d’Ivoire, which the World Bank has recognized as a model for collaborative education financing.
“Besides the financial commitment, the SCALE partnership offers the expertise of a broad range of organizations who have helped to transform the way in which evidence is applied to education,” said Jacobs Foundation co-CEO Simon Sommer. “In Ghana, we expect two million children to benefit from evidence-based learning that will extend across 100 cocoa districts.”
(Photo credit: Getty Images/demerzel21)