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Quality Basic Education
Getting children into school is only the first step. The greater challenge is ensuring they learn, stay in school, and thrive.
EOF works with governments and partners to strengthen quality basic education through outcomes-based approaches that focus on learning, retention, and equity.
Our programmes support stronger systems by linking funding to measurable results and creating shared accountability for learning outcomes.
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From access to learning
Over the past two decades, access to education has expanded significantly around the world. More children are enrolling in school than ever before.
Yet access alone has not guaranteed learning.
Millions of children remain unable to read with understanding or demonstrate foundational numeracy skills, while learning poverty remains persistently high. At the same time, exclusion continues to affect many children – particularly those facing poverty, migration, displacement, conflict, or interrupted learning pathways.
The challenge is no longer only about getting children into classrooms. It is about ensuring they learn, remain in school, and progress successfully.
EOF’s quality basic education portfolio focuses on improving learning outcomes while strengthening the systems that support them.
Through outcomes-based partnerships, funding is linked to measurable improvements such as enrolment, retention, literacy, numeracy, and learning gains. This creates shared accountability across governments, funders, and implementing partners while enabling flexibility in delivery and adaptation based on evidence.
Our programmes
Our portfolio currently includes two programmes:
Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC)
EOF’s first outcomes fund and the world’s largest education outcomes partnership at launch. Completed in 2025, SLEIC reached more than 100,000 learners and demonstrated that outcomes-based financing can improve learning at national scale. Independent evaluation showed learning gains exceeding most comparable global programmes while strengthening accountability and adaptive delivery across the education system.
Nigeria: Lagos Education Access Fund (LEAF)
LEAF responds to one of Nigeria’s most pressing education challenges: bringing out-of-school children back into learning while helping them remain there. The programme combines reintegration with improvements in public school quality, linking payments to enrolment, retention, and learning outcomes.
Together, these programmes reflect EOF’s broader ambition: moving education systems from measuring inputs towards measuring learning. Education systems should not only count children in school. They should help children succeed once they arrive.
