Education is critical to individual development, improved health, economies, human rights, and gender equity. Millions of people, however, lack basic literacy, numeracy, and life skills.
We understand the importance of developing skills at an early age, and many of our programs focus on early childhood education and early-grade learning (reading and math). We also work to improve upper primary- and secondary-level learning outcomes, and to ensure basic skills among adults and out-of-school youth.
Our basic education programming includes initiatives to strengthen national education policies and systems; build teacher capacity; improve school management; encourage caregivers and communities to support student learning; develop and distribute high-quality teaching and learning materials; and assess student learning, teacher behavior change, and intervention impact.
We help governments and partners incorporate evidence-based approaches into teacher training practices; design school-based teacher coaching and support systems; and develop accessible instructional materials such as decodable and leveled readers and teacher guides. We also train stakeholders to use self-made, low-cost teaching and learning materials to ensure sustainability. Where possible, we invest in the adaptation or development of context-appropriate educational technology.
Our work in primary education reflects research on effective teaching and learning and a profound understanding of local context and needs. It is through our longstanding presence and contacts in countries where we work that we are able to engage with and learn from crucial international and local stakeholders. We initiated ground-breaking work to improve the quality of education through training, materials development, and coaching, and the availability of education by building simple and effective school governance routines.
We have developed national language and multilingual literacy and numeracy programs across the globe. We develop contextualized materials and promote ambitious and realistic teaching and learning strategies. In partnership with local and national educators, we define the grade-level benchmarks, and themes, scope, and sequence of teaching and learning material to enable children to read, write, and become numerate.
We work with ministries of education to develop early warning systems to keep children in school. Our model identifies students at risk of dropping out and provides robust response protocols at student, school, caregiver, and community levels to retain children in school.
We also support secondary students by strengthening workforce skills, English language learning, and digital resilience, creating opportunities to build 21st-century competencies to achieve personal, academic, career, and civic potential.
Improving the skills of teachers is a critical component of strengthening school systems and ensuring children learn—and remain—in school. We provide teachers with special training in classroom management with an emphasis on active learning, thematic instruction, and strategies for independent and group work.
We develop and conduct teacher training in a variety of content areas, including literacy, early childhood development, and numeracy. We also focus on life skills—including reproductive health, nutrition, HIV prevention, and protection from trafficking—so that teachers can nurture and give students skills that will help them throughout their lives.
We work with national governments, universities, and local experts to develop curricula that respond to local needs. In collaborative groups, we develop high-quality teaching and assessment materials in both national language and mother tongue for early childhood programs, public schools, higher education, and non-formal systems.
We start by engaging all stakeholders in a review of existing materials and resources to identify learning benchmarks. Our materials complement a robust integrated piloting and monitoring system that allows curricula to be easily adapted according to feedback and situational or policy changes.
To ensure that all children have access to learning, we prioritize education for vulnerable children, including those with disabilities, who are as fundamentally competent as students without disabilities.
By differentiating materials, curriculum, instruction, and assessments, and adopting Universal Design for Learning principles, we create an environment that is inclusive and engaging for all learners. We believe that the environment must change to respond to the needs of the learners, not the other way around. We support students within and outside the classroom, and collaborate with various partners to ensure the growth of every student.
Ensuring children and adults can learn in the language most familiar to them—especially in the early grades—is critical to ensuring equitable learning opportunities. Our programs help bridge the gap between teacher instruction and national literacy programs by developing materials such as revised curricula, and supplementary teaching and learning materials, and providing teacher training and coaching to improve student literacy outcomes in the early grades. A firm foundation of literacy in a mother tongue prepares students and teachers to transition to national and even third languages, per country educational policies.
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World Education strives to build lasting relationships with partners across diverse geographic regions and technical sectors to produce better education outcomes for all.
