Request for Proposal from Local and International Consultants: Acceleration Support for the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship in Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND

Reach for Change is a global non profit organisation working to unleash the power of social entrepreneurs and create a better world for children and youth. To achieve this, we provide tailored capacity development opportunities for local social entrepreneurs and support the advancement of proven solutions within three thematic areas (poverty, inequality, climate change). Since our establishment in 2010, we have supported more than 1,200 social entrepreneurs across 18 countries. Their solutions in turn have supported more than 4.3 million children and youth across Africa, Central Asia and Europe.

We also strive to improve local ecosystems for entrepreneurship and build strong pipelines of social innovation across our markets. We have over the years engaged in thought leadership, cross-sectoral collaborations and evidence generation, as well as supporting the co-founding of national umbrella associations (e.g. Social Enterprise Ghana).

The Partner

About the Mastercard Foundation

The Mastercard Foundation is a registered Canadian charity and one of the largest foundations in the world. It works with visionary organisations to advance education and financial inclusion to enable young people in Africa and Indigenous youth in Canada to access dignified and fulfilling work. Established in 2006 through the generosity of Mastercard when it became a public company, the Foundation is an independent organisation separate from the company, with offices in Toronto, Kigali, Accra, Nairobi, Kampala, Lagos, Dakar, and Addis Ababa. Its policies, operations, and program decisions are determined by the Foundation’s Board of Directors and leadership.

For more information on the Foundation, please visit www.mastercardfdn.org

The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship

The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship is an entrepreneurship acceleration program designed to support promising African EdTech companies. Implemented in partnership with innovation hubs and EdTech accelerators across Africa, the Fellowship provides select EdTech companies with critical business and financial support, as well as insight into the science of learning, preparing them for scale, sustainability, and impact. The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship was launched in 2019 by the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning and supported 12 African EdTech companies from seven countries in its first year, reaching over 800,000 learners. The goal of the Centre is to partner with 12 Tech Hubs to support over 250 EdTech companies and reach at least 1.8 million young people by 2025.

The Program

Context

Despite noteworthy progress in recent decades, the Ethiopian educational system continues to face several challenges. Children and youth in Ethiopia are not getting quality education. The education system is characterised by limited access, poor infrastructure, shortage of education materials, shortage of qualified educators, outdated curriculum, limited capacity of education providers. This has led to:

• Low enrollment rate at all levels of education
• High dropout rate
• Low passing rate
• Unqualified workforce
• High unemployment rate

While many current social entrepreneurs in Ethiopia strive to innovate and create effective education solutions, most do not impact children’s educational outcomes at the scale or depth they desire. Common challenges include limited access to funding, political barriers within the education sector, difficulties in measuring and proving their impact, and a need for stronger strategic leadership within their organisations.

Reach for Change is collaborating with TheMastercard Foundation to runa three-year Ed-Tech Fellowship program which will strengthen the evidence-based nature of proven education solutions in Ethiopia and lay the groundwork for their future scaling. The support provided to a cohort of 12 established Ed-Techs will intentionally create synergies with and integrate a range of Mastercard Foundation networks, partnerships and resources, both in Ethiopia and further afield. The cohort will also receive a grant in order to support their organisational development and readiness to scale.

 

Expected Short Term Outcomes of the program include:

The EdTech companies have improved capacity:

• To deliver theri impactful solutions at significant scale
• To generate evidence on the impact of their solutions on access to inclusive education and learning outcomes
• In marketing and creating marketing linkage
• To collaborate within the education sector and across sectors

PROPOSAL GUIDELINES – Please include the following in your proposal:

1. Update the high-level strategy/plan for how you would approach this project and accomplish the goals listed in the project summary and scope.
2. All necessary supporting documents and previous experiences
3. Your technical proposal should not exceed 4 pages.