Discrimination, poverty, child marriage – there are overwhelming challenges preventing children from attending school. High quality teaching and an engaging curriculum provide powerful reasons not just to enrol, but also to stay on and achieve a high standard primary education.

Getting children into school isn’t enough

In Nepal, despite achieving a reported enrolment rate of 97%, 51% of children in Grade 2 and 30% of children in Grade 3 can’t read a single word. This raises serious questions about the quality of teaching – this concern is particularly shared across the rural areas UWS operates in. The reality is, globally, there’s a shortage of trained teachers and this is felt hardest in more remote areas, where teacher recruitment, retention and training lack investment. For example, in Madagascar, only 15% of teachers are trained to government standards.

UWS not only strives to democratise access to schools, we also improve curriculums and train local teachers so they can deliver higher quality learning experiences.

Creating positive, child-centred learning experiences

If all children in low-income countries left school able to read, global poverty would fall by 12 %. A broad, diverse, and relevant curriculum delivered by trained, local teachers, ensures students are engaged in learning and inspired to reach their full potential. This is why teacher recruitment and training are so critical to our work. Over a 5-year period, our school development programme supports teachers to embed quality education practices into UWS schools.