The consortium, which includes global companies and philanthropic organisations, sees collaborative efforts as a way to close the financing gap for education globally.
A group of international private sector and philanthropic partners are investing $80m (€70m) in Ghana’s education system to improve access to foundational learning, such as numeracy and literacy, in the least well-resourced parts of the country, as well as providing support for the emotional and social wellbeing among children.
The investment comprises $40m raised by the SCALE consortium, which has been matched by a further $40m from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), a Washington-based non-profit. The partners held an official signing ceremony at the Swiss embassy in Accra last week.
SCALE – System Change Architecture for Learning Excellence – is a multi-stakeholder initiative developed in partnership with Ghana’s education ministry to support long-term, system-level improvements in Ghana’s education system.
The consortium includes philanthropic and private partners, including the Jacobs Foundation, Fondation Botnar, UBS Optimus Foundation and GPE, as well as 10 cocoa and chocolate companies, including divisions of Hershey, Lindt & Sprüngli, Ferrero, Mars and Nestlé. Their presence reflects Ghana’s position as the world’s second largest cocoa producer, behind neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, and the need to improve educational services in rural cocoa-growing areas.
The initiative was led by the Ghanaian education ministry and the Swiss-based Jacobs Foundation. Simon Sommer, Co-CEO of the Jacobs Foundation, said that he expected 2 million children to benefit from evidence-based learning that will extend across 100 cocoa-producing districts.
“Besides the financial commitment, the SCALE partnership offers the expertise of a broad range of organizations who have helped to transform the way in which evidence is applied to education. SCALE will build on the successes of other international models, including the Jacobs Foundation-led Child Learning and Education Facility in Côte d’Ivoire, which has been recognized by the World Bank,” he said.
The investment is being channelled into the government’s Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), which is also benefitting from additional grants worth $38.8m from GPE and the Early Learning Partnership Multi-Donor Trust Fund (ELP MDTF). These grants, to be administered by the World Bank, bring total new investment and grants in GALOP to $118.8m.
GALOP was established in 2020, as a five-year project, since extended, aiming to improve the quality of education in low-performing basic education schools and to strengthen education sector equity and accountability. Since then, GALOP has invested $218.7m in targeted districts of the country. The Ghana Education Outcomes Project, whose funders included some of the SCALE investors, was one of the earlier contributions to the overall educational project.
Over the next four years, it is hoped the funding will increase the total number of schools that benefit from GALOP initiatives to 16,000 from 10,000 and add a further 14,700 kindergartens. Funds will support targeted, evidence-based interventions that will improve learning resources, teaching quality, and strengthen governance structures, the partners said.
The funding will also help set up structures intended to reinforce lasting, system-wide change in the education sector, including a new Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab (GEEDLab) and the government’s Communities of Excellence programme to improve educational resources and teaching.
Wellbeing support
Another focus to the approach, beyond providing essential numeracy and literacy skills, is to improve the emotional and social wellbeing of children.
Andrea Studer, CEO of the Swiss-based Fondation Botnar, said education systems must help young people thrive together in a changing world.
“This means going beyond academics to support their holistic development, including wellbeing and essential life skills like empathy, resilience, and critical thinking. SCALE reflects this ambition by prioritising social and emotional learning, strengthening local systems, and grounding action in evidence,” she said.
Expanding the availability of local schooling also helps improve child welfare in districts where children are put to work rather than attending school. SCALE said child labour rates were 8% lower in communities that had a primary school.
Tom Hall, CEO of the UBS Optimus Foundation, said collaboration was key to the success of initiatives such as SCALE, helping to breakdown the limitations of working in silos and support a programme that addresses multiple root causes at once.
“We firmly believe that one of the most effective ways to give with maximum impact is collectively. Greater coordination boosts efficiency – by avoiding duplication, streamlining processes, and leveraging each partner’s unique strengths and flexibility,” he said. In 2024, Hall spoke to Impact Investor further about the benefits of a more holistic approach to philanthropic investment.
The SCALE partners said pooling resources across philanthropy, business, and development partners was vital to improving educational outcomes at a time when globally education systems faced an annual financing gap estimated at nearly $100bn with the world likely to fail to reach UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education for all by 2030.
“To meet the scale of today’s education challenges, bringing together governments, the private sector, and philanthropy is essential. What we’re seeing in Ghana is a glimpse of what’s possible when we align financing with purpose,” Laura Frigenti, CEO of GPE said.
