Literacy and Numeracy for Over 1 Million Learners
Summary
In 2024, Building Tomorrow committed to reach 1 million underserved learners in Uganda over three years, offering these primary school-aged learners life-changing literacy and numeracy skills. This commitment will scale Building Tomorrow’s signature Roots to Rise literacy and numeracy program, which has already impacted 500,000 African youth since 2018 through interactive learning camps. To facilitate this growth, Building Tomorrow will expand its proximate implementer corps by deploying 550 university graduate fellows to serve 2,200 rural schools, upskilling 3,600 teachers and 7,200 community education volunteers to lead Roots to Rise instruction. This commitment will mark a significant moment of growth in terms of Roots to Rise’s expansion and broader education collaboration across Uganda.
Approach
Building Tomorrow commits to reach over one million underserved learners in Uganda by 2028, offering these primary school-aged learners life-changing literacy and numeracy skills. This commitment will be achieved through the scaling of Building Tomorrow’s signature Roots to Rise literacy and numeracy program, and marks a significant moment of growth in terms of both geographic expansion and education collaboration across East Africa.
Building Tomorrow is currently the largest implementer of targeted instruction in Uganda vis-a-vis the Roots to Rise program, which is adapted and contextualized from the rigorously tested Teaching at the Right Level methodology. Roots to Rise draws on proximate leaders, starting with a network of dynamic Ugandan university graduates trained as Fellows–Building Tomorrow’s core field staff. Fellows serve four rural schools and their surrounding communities over a two-year term, forming Community Education Teams of teachers, school leadership, local officials, and passionate local residents recruited as Community Education Volunteers (CEVs) . Fellows then help train two teachers and four CEVs per school, enabling Roots to Rise’s interactive learning camps to be conducted in primary schools by Building Tomorrow-trained teachers and innovatively in community spaces outside of school hours by Building Tomorrow-trained Community Education Volunteers (CEVs) .
Roots to Rise was pioneered by Building Tomorrow in 2018, and has since grown to reach nearly 180,000 learners in 2023, with over 90% of learners advancing at least one learning level upon completion. Building Tomorrow will expand its reach in Uganda, where the Ministry of Education and Sports has agreed to work with Building Tomorrow to develop a roadmap for how community-powered learning can be scaled nationally. Over the period of the commitment, 550 Fellows will be active in Uganda, reaching approximately 2,200 underserved schools.
Action Plan
Building Tomorrow’s model to expand direct implementation of Roots to Rise is to deploy annual cohorts of Fellows to serve four rural schools over two-year terms. Fellows then train teachers and CEVs and support them in facilitating Roots to Rise literacy and numeracy camps throughout the year. As part of this commitment, Building Tomorrow will expand annual deployments of new Fellows from 125 to 175 in Uganda.
Q1 2025: 125 new Cohort 10 Fellows will be deployed in Uganda, creating an active corps of 225 Fellows, serving a combined 900 schools.
Q4 2025: 100 Cohort 9 Fellows in Uganda will conclude their service, having been deployed since Q1 2024.
Q1 2026: 150 new Cohort 11 Fellows will be deployed in Uganda, creating an active corps of 275 Fellows, serving a combined 1,100 schools.
Q1 2027: 175 new Cohort 12 Fellows will be deployed in Uganda, creating an active corps of 325 Fellows, serving a combined 1,300 schools.
Q4 2027: 150 Cohort 11 Fellows in Uganda will conclude their service, having been deployed since Q1 2026
Background
Approximately 202 million of sub-Saharan Africa’s primary and lower secondary school-aged children cannot read, write, or perform basic math (UNESCO, 2023) . For Uganda the issue is particularly acute. In Uganda, more than 83% of learners in third grade lack foundational learning skills (World Bank, 2019) . In Building Tomorrow’s own data from Uganda, the organization finds less than 11% of learners can read and understand a paragraph at baseline, and less than one percent can perform all four basic math functions.
Without the ability to read, write, and do basic math, these learners are less likely to advance to the next grade level and more likely to drop out of school, impeding academic success and limiting prospects for future employment. To add to this learning crisis, sub-Saharan Africa faces an estimated shortage of 15 million teachers—a deficit growing in scope as more and more youth reach school-going age each year (UN, 2024) . In the face of these challenges, innovative models are urgently needed to complement the work of teachers and expand remedial offerings
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
Building Tomorrow seeks additional funding partners to help realize this commitment, as well as media support to increase visibility. This relates to Roots to Rise as well as community-powered approaches to education more generally, as Building Tomorrow aspires to boost advocacy around volunteerism in education and one day see Community Education Volunteers recognized on par with Community Health Workers., Building Tomorrow is a trusted local partner bringing eighteen years of experience providing best-in-class education programming in Uganda. The organization is recognized as the largest direct implementer of targeted instruction in Uganda, and Building Tomorrow’s community approach to foundational learning has been validated by two separate external evaluations. Building Tomorrow is hailed by the Ministry of Education and Sports in Uganda as “one of [their] most trusted partners,” and looks forward to working with other mission-aligned partners in pursuit of literacy and numeracy for all children.