an
operating system
For African education reform.
Education reform in Africa has an infrastructure problem.
Strong pilots end without adoption decisions.
Evidence accumulates without action.
Funding cycles close without a path to scale.
Governments need the processes, cost evidence and financing pathways to decide what to adopt and take it to scale.
The problem isn’t a shortage of innovation or evidence.
It’s that no one is accountable for the journey from evidence to adoption to sustained public financing.
Elimu-Soko exists to hold that journey together.
The problem we're solving
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, three actors are essential to education reform and none of them are aligned.
The space between them is where adoption decisions, transition financing and the path to government delivery fall through.
Innovators generate proof that solutions work, but pilots are not always designed around government priorities, delivery structures and fiscal constraints.
Funders finance the evidence-building phase; but the timelines, cost structures and financing required for government adoption are often different.
Governments carry the mandate to deliver education at scale, but most ministries lack the internal know-how to continuously assess innovations, make informed adoption decisions, and integrate proven solutions within their fiscal constraints.
How we work
From government priority to government scale
Define the priority
The government identifies the problem to solve and the constraints that matter.
Design for adoption
Elimu-Soko brings together the right innovators and funders and structures pilots around government priorities, delivery realities and cost thresholds.
Build decision-ready evidence
We assess whether the solution works, whether the government can deliver it at scale, and what it will cost.
Support the adoption decision
The government decides whether to adopt, adapt or stop.
Move from adoption to scale
We stay through the transition to financing, institutional integration and government-led delivery.
What makes our operating system different
Government priorities first
Elimu-Soko supports governments to translate their priorities into decision-ready pilots that are designed for fiscal fit and institutionalisation from the start. We seek funders and innovators willing to work within that frame, not around it.
Design for affordability
A pilot that works but can’t survive a government budget line hasn’t succeeded. We separate pilot costs from transition costs from delivery at national scale, and work with innovators to restructure their models accordingly. Solutions that cannot reach government price points are identified early, before resources and expectations are committed.
Evidence for decisions
Every pilot we support answers one question: should government adopt, adapt, or stop? Evidence that demonstrates impact without addressing scalability, cost, and institutional fit is incomplete. When the evidence says stop, we say so.
Build government capability
Over time, the tools and processes Elimu-Soko develops should sit within the ecosystem itself, which is used, adapted, and sustained by governments and regional institutions as part of how education reform gets done across the continent.
Stay through the journey
Most organisations work within a single funding cycle and exit when their phase ends. We bridge the transitions between pilot, adoption, and public financing – brokering relationships, building capacity, and calibrating our involvement as governments move toward ownership.
The Teaching Innovation Lab
In 2025, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, we launched the Teaching Innovation Lab, a pan-African facility that tests scalable, affordable approaches to improving foundational literacy and numeracy instruction in public education.
The Lab funds proven innovators whose solutions meet government priorities and government cost thresholds. It is the model in action: government-led, fiscally realistic, designed for adoption from day one.
Africa Foundational Learning Assessment Initiative Partnership
Strengthening the assessment systems Africa needs to know if children are learning
Elimu-Soko partners with the Africa Foundational Learning Assessment Initiative, an Africa-led initiative that helps governments strengthen the assessment systems they need to understand whether children are learning foundational literacy and numeracy. Rather than running assessments for governments, AFLAI builds the internal capacity for ministries to run better assessments themselves, offering technical assistance, curated resources and expert guidance across the full assessment journey, from early policy conversations through to data use and global reporting.
Early Numeracy Innovation Window
Building the next generation of innovations for teaching early numeracy
Teacher Support Learning Window
Answering the questions that individual innovations cannot
The same questions about teacher support keep surfacing across individual programmes in the Teaching Innovation Lab: how professional development can be better targeted to what teachers actually need, what prevents teachers from responding to learners at different levels, and which elements of coaching and diagnostics genuinely change classroom practice. The Learning Window commissions targeted research to answer these questions, turning findings into practical insights for governments and into the next generation of innovations tested through TIL.
Our theory of change
When governments define priorities within real fiscal constraints, test solutions designed for their systems, and see credible evidence on learning outcomes, cost, and feasibility, they adopt proven solutions, allocate public resources for scale, and embed innovations into the institutions that deliver education.
We work toward a long-term outcome: governments across Africa with the internal knowhow, decision processes, and financing pathways to routinely assess, adopt, and scale proven education solutions without external facilitation.
When we engage and when we don’t
Elimu-Soko engages when three conditions are present: a government that wants to adopt what works, not just test it; a funder willing to invest in service of government priorities; and an innovator ready to adapt for government ownership and government cost thresholds.
When those conditions are absent, we choose not to engage. We manage a deliberately smaller pipeline. We work where change is possible, not where funding is available.