YOUTH IMPACT
Established 2009
BACKGROUND
Youth Impact is a grassroots, youth-led, evidence-based movement based in Botswana. The organisation works on two pillars, sexual health and education. It does so by identifying, adapting to and scaling up health and education programmes by young people for young people.
Youth Impact, in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic Education and the University of Botswana, conducted a needs assessment study of 2,500 Standard 5 students in two regions across 47 schools, which they adapted from the PAL Network’s ASER and Uwezo. The study found that the percentage of students who could not do any basic operations dropped from 25% to 4%, and those who reached “TaRL numeracy” ( those who can add, subtract, multiply and divide) increased from 7% to 53%.
THE NEED
In partnership with the Ministry of Basic Education and the Government of Botswana, Youth Impact plans to scale up TaRL in stages to reach all primary schools in Botswana by 2025. Youth Impact has also partnered with The Brookings Institution to be a Real-Time Scaling Lab as part of the Millions Learning project.
THE RESULTS
Our results speak for themselves: in a recent round of implementation, 80% of students progressed at least one operation level. The percentage of students who could not do any basic operations dropped from 25% to 4% and those who reached “TaRL numeracy” — can add, subtract, multiply, and divide– increased from 7% to 53%.
NEXT STEPS IN BOTSWANA AND BEYOND
Youth Impact has also partnered with J-PAL and Pratham to build an Innovation Hub in Botswana for Teaching at the Right Level. As Teaching at the Right Level gains traction and is scaled across Africa, Youth Impact will co-host trainings in Botswana, share lessons learned, and test new innovations to maximize cost-effective impact at scale. Youth Impact has also partnered with The Brookings Institution to be a Real-Time Scaling Lab as part of the Millions Learning project.