There are 250 million children globally who are out-of-school, according to UNESCO.  Over 50% of refugee children are out of school, as reported by UNHCR.  Moving these children into formal education is a huge challenge, with barriers including language, need for remediation, lack of teachers, and lack of facilities.

Learning Upgrade has a new model to address this challenge working with local partner organizations.  Local organizations have direct relationships with out-of-school youth, enabling them to enroll children in creative ed tech solutions.  These are the key steps in the model:

1. Train local org staff on how to effectively use the Learning Upgrade program to move  out-of-school youth up to grade level in English and math.
2. Identify out-of-school youth in the community and enroll them into the program.  Make use of existing devices, connectivity, and locations including personal smartphones and computer labs.
3. Set goals, track progress and provide incentives so that each student has a path to success over a set of 3-month terms to complete an assigned set of courses.
4. When students have achieved grade level proficiency, celebrate their success including awarding of certificates in a graduation ceremony. 
5. Enroll students into local government schools with support from the organization including after school academic help and family engagement.

A key example of how this model works is Sheer Love Rwanda. This org works with out-of-school street youth, using their own computer lab and smartphones with the Learning Upgrade program to engage students in a curriculum of English, reading, and math.  These students prepare for enrollment into government schools and success in the English language national curriculum. The key goal is moving students to a high enough level so they can succeed in their new classes.The combination of strong mentorship with high time-on-task with the online Learning Upgrade lessons has led to successful transition of youth into government schools.

Another partner is Mango Tree in Kenya.  This organization provides schools for children in refugee settlements.  The Learning Upgrade curriculum is completed both in school computer labs and at home on smartphones, providing a hybrid approach to transition refugee students into a formal school setting.

Learning Upgrade is partnering with networks of small organizations including Refugee Led Organizations (RLOs) and grass-roots enterprises to deploy this model using EdTech in creative ways.  Each situation is unique and requires adjustments to the general model to be effective locally.  Our goal is to partner with a large number of organizations to scale up to reach millions of out-of-school youth.