Innovation profile: War Child Holland — Can’t Wait To Learn (CWTL)
Learn more about the grantees from our first HEA cohort and some of their learnings along the journey to scale.
What is the innovation?:
Can’t Wait to Learn uses innovative, cost-effective and locally adapted digital game-based learning technology solutions to increase the number of conflict affected children with access to quality education in maths and literacy.
What is the education focus?:
Out of School Children, as well as Lower Primary students in formal and accelerated education programmes.
Scale:
Programme adaptations to support scaling:
Can’t Wait to Learn responds to contextual requirements, including target group needs, Ministry of Education policy and requirements and physical environment. There are, however, a number of adaptations which Can’t Wait to Learn continues to make which are specifically targeted to facilitate the scaling process.
These include:
- Streamlining game design and building processes to reduce lead time to children playing the game;
- Developing comprehensive implementation partner introduction processes;
- Developing effective data collection, analysis and dissemination processes to allow faster support in location, improve quality assurance and enhance teacher and facilitator training approaches.
HEA Evaluation:
A quantitative quasi-experimental difference-in differences study for in-school children in Jordan and out-of-school children in Sudan was carried out, in addition to proof-of-concept studies in Lebanon and Jordan. An in-depth case study was undertaken in Uganda, and a study of how lessons learned from Jordan, Lebanon, and Sudan helped in scale-out to Uganda were also produced. These evaluations sit in the wider context of research undertaken by War Child Holland and its partners on the Can’t Wait to Learn programme, funded by USAID, the Dutch National Postcode Lottery, IKEA Foundation and the Humanitarian Education Accelerator.
Key learnings:
In addition to structuring a research agenda to feed into scaling up process and programme adaptations, the following components have also been highlighted as key parts of the Can’t Wait to Learn scaling journey:
- Partnership development across sectors and geographies: Effectively combining skills across sectors is fundamental to sustainable innovation processes. Can’t Wait to Learn has taken this approach since its inception, partnering with Ministries of Education, UN agencies, local and international NGOs, research institutes, technology companies, teacher and children to design and implement the programme.
- Financial resource forecasting and generation: As Can’t Wait to Learn scales, we recognise that diversifying financing streams will support long-term sustainability.
- Development of robust implementation processes: Can’t Wait to Learn is an education in emergencies programme. Being able to respond quickly and efficiently to target group and education sector needs is paramount. Can’t Wait to Learn partners are streamlining country introduction, teacher and staff competency development trajectories and support services. The aim being to reduce operational complexity over the medium term to support ever growing reach.
- Strong investment in team and partner competency development: The humanitarian education sector, like all private and public sectors, is dependent on skilled and competent staff and competent organisations to support scale. Can’t Wait to Learn recognises the need to continuously support competency development processes, particularly in challenging or fragile contexts affected by conflict.
- Combining the strengths of this wide partnership base provides Can’t Wait to Learn with the support to: a) Effectively tailor its programme for each context; b) Compare data on learning outcomes across countries and feed into wider sector learning; c) Generate cost-effective approaches in each country; and d) Better understand the quality drivers needed to support learning and teaching.
