Challenge Accepted: Six Key Takeaways from the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge Year 3 Results

SLEIC set out to improve learning in some of Sierra Leone's most challenged primary schools. Three years later, the independent evaluation shows a programme that not only delivered solid gains but did so under difficult conditions. And in ways that offer lasting value for the education system.

Three years after Sierra Leone launched one of Africa's most ambitious outcomes-based education programmes, the final results offer a clear, evidence-driven picture of what improved, what proved difficult, and what requires collective attention going forward.

The Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) - a $18m programme funded by the government and international partners - was designed to test whether paying providers for measurable improvements in learning could lead to better numeracy and literacy outcomes in the schools they supported. The findings are nuanced, but significant. The lesson: keep iterating, keep scaling, and keep learning.

The Year 3 evaluation offers six clear messages that cut through the complexity.

First, SLEIC delivered learning gains that outperform roughly 70% of comparable programmes globally, with particularly strong progress in maths.

Second, these gains happened while national learning levels were falling -- meaning SLEIC - supported schools improved in a context of system-wide decline.

Third, the programme reshaped how organisations work, with partners becoming more analytical, adaptive, and outcomes-driven.

Fourth, teaching practice strengthened especially through structured pedagogy and frequent coaching that teachers say changed their day-to-day work.

Fifth, the data highlights what still needs deeper investigation -- from the factors behind the broader decline in foundational skills to the drivers of more effective instruction in classrooms. We are already digging deeper, with further insights to be shared in the coming months.

And finally, SLEIC shows that outcomes-based financing can work at national scale, even in a low-income, fragile setting, shifting financial risk away from government and funders and driving greater accountability across the system.

SLEIC does not definitely prove that outcomes-based financing is a better way to fund education. It does, however, demonstrate that measurable gains can be achieved in challenging conditions; that risk can be shared more equitably and that data-driven, adaptive support improves what happens in classrooms.

Improving a school system in a complex context takes time. Teacher deployment, government programmes, national literacy issues - these shaped the results as much as any intervention. We need more patience, more continuity, and better alignment with national policy cycles.

The programme leaves Sierra Leone, with stronger evidence, clearer lessons, and a better understanding of what is takes to help children learn. It also leaves important work unfinished - work that government and partners are now better equipped to take on together.

Download the full report:

ChallengeAccepted.pdf

Download PDF • 1.62MB