The Challenge
Uganda’s Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy, which was introduced in 1997, provided an unprecedented opportunity for millions of children from poor and rural families to obtain an education.
As a result of the policy, the country’s education system ballooned. In 1996 there were just over 3 million pupils in Uganda’s primary schools. Within 3 years, the number of pupils more than doubled to 6.2 million.
The rapid growth in enrollment was impressive but also placed an enormous burden on education officials to manage the ever-expanding system, resulting in a decoupling of the UPE policy and the actual practices of actors within the education system.
Elevate’s solutions lie in helping bridge the divide between what is supposed to happen and what is happening – i.e. the divide between well-intentioned policies and practices of actors across the education system.
Our Approach
Since launching our Village TEACH program in 2016, our team has actively worked to build strong and collaborative relationships with actors at every level of Uganda’s education administration.
These relationships allow our team a unique opportunity to learn from government officials at the national, district, and local levels about the challenges they face in their work every day and work with them to co-design and test solutions that will meet their needs in the long-term.

Partnership Updates

Farewell to our Spring 2021 Intern
For the past month, our U.S. team has been very grateful to have additional…

International Women's Day 2021
Happy International Women’s Day from the Elevate team! As we actively prepare to roll…

Village TEACH Wins Innovation Prize
Elevate is honored to win the Results Innovation Lab’s COVID-19 Innovation Prize for Uganda…

Responding to COVID-19: The Village TEACH Program
In August, the Elevate team worked community members at 7 partner schools in Mukono…

Our Team's First Reactions to Elevate's COVID-19 Survey of Head Teachers
In May, the Elevate team conducted a phone-based survey with 88 primary school…

Parental and Community Engagement
A few months ago, our colleagues at Twaweza invited Elevate to participate on a…