Innovators across Africa are being invited to help transform classrooms with fresh ideas and receive up to $150,000 in funding to pilot their solutions, thanks to a new call from Elimu-Soko, backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Elimu-Soko, a pan-African education innovation organisation working with governments to strengthen public education systems has opened a competitive grant programme aimed at supporting low-cost, scalable solutions that improve the way teachers teach foundational skills like literacy and numeracy in public schools.
The funding opportunity is part of the organisation’s Teaching Innovation Lab (TIL) initiative, a programme specifically designed to identify and test education technologies, training approaches, and classroom support models that have real potential to be adopted across entire school systems.
Eligible applicants, including startups, non-profits, social enterprises, and education innovators can propose projects to run in public school systems in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, and Mozambique. Grants of up to $150,000 will support pilot projects over a period of six to 12 months.
Selected pilots are expected to work directly with teachers on the ground. Each project must reach at least 200 teachers, although proposals that extend support to larger groups are encouraged so the effectiveness, cost, and sustainability of approaches can be meaningfully compared.
The programme is rooted in the idea that teacher quality remains the most critical school-based factor influencing students’ learning outcomes, especially in early foundational years. Research from similar contexts indicates that structured approaches, combining materials, lesson plans, and regular coaching can generate strong improvements in how teachers teach and how students learn.
As Elimu-Soko explains, “Most successful TPD programmes have been funded by external donors at costs that exceed what governments can sustain,” making long-term scaling difficult. The organisation’s goal is to pinpoint classroom innovations that deliver measurable improvements in teaching quality while fitting within the fiscal realities of public education budgets.
Many effective teacher professional development programmes historically have depended heavily on donor support and remain too expensive for ministries of education to maintain without ongoing external funding. This reality means that promising solutions often stall after initial pilots, and teachers continue to lack regular guidance, coaching, and the tools they need to improve learning outcomes for students.
To address this gap, the Teaching Innovation Lab explicitly seeks innovations that not only strengthen teacher and instructional support systems, but also can be integrated into existing government processes and sustained using public funds. Proposals must clearly outline the classroom problem they intend to solve, how the intervention will improve teaching or learning outcomes, detailed plans for implementation and measurement, and pathways for future uptake by government education systems.
According to Elimu-Soko, the central question at the heart of this funding call is whether education innovations can “deliver meaningful improvements in teaching quality at costs governments can realistically manage.”
The emphasis on alignment with government systems reflects Elimu-Soko’s broader mission: to bridge the gap between effective small-scale innovations and long-lasting, system-wide improvements in learning that countries can own and finance themselves.
Interested organisations have until January 30, 2026 to submit their initial expressions of interest. Shortlisted applicants will move on to a full proposal stage by late February, with final funding decisions expected in March 2026.
This funding call also contributes to economic growth by building human capital. Stronger foundational skills increase future workforce productivity, reduce unemployment, and attract investment in local economies. Scalable education innovations can enable governments to achieve better learning outcomes without excessive public spending, making education systems more efficient and economically sustainable.
