Deepening Government Partnerships and Responding to Demand in Ghana
Since 2023, Rising Academies has been working in Northern Ghana as part of the Ghana Education Outcomes Project (GEOP), partnering closely with government and local organisations to strengthen foundational learning and expand access for the most marginalised learners. As GEOP reaches its final year in 2026, our work in Ghana is not winding down. Instead, it is entering a new phase shaped by growing government demand, expanded partnerships, evidence based approaches, and secured multi-year funding.
Through GEOP, Rising has partnered with School for Life (SfL), a Ghanaian NGO with more than 30 years of experience reintegrating out-of-school children (OOSC) into formal education. Together, we have demonstrated the value of a sequenced, evidence-based approach: supporting thousands of children to transition successfully into government schools and start their foundational literacy and numeracy journey. Building on this track record, Rising and SfL have secured three years of funding from Echidna Giving, to deliver and scale this model across Northern Ghana. This program extends beyond the end of GEOP in July 2026 and enables continuity for learners, schools, and government partners.
Alongside this systems-focused work, Rising’s expertise in foundational numeracy has attracted growing regional and continental interest. Rising was selected as one of eight partners across Africa for the Gates-funded Numeracy Research and Development (NRD) program, which focuses on improving early numeracy outcomes at scale. Following our engagement, Rising has been approached by NRD to explore sharing our mathematics content with other partners interested in adapting it for their own contexts, signalling demand for our FasterMath program beyond Ghana.
We are also responding to direct government interest in education technology. With World Bank support, Rising is piloting Rori, our AI-enabled virtual maths tutor, in government schools in Ghana’s Eastern Region. Due to strong engagement from schools and stakeholders, the pilot has been extended by six months through the end of the current academic year and will include an evaluation to inform future scale-up. In a small scale mini RCT, Rori showed very promising results. The evaluation, conducted over 8 months, included 1,000 students in grades 3-9 across 11 schools in Ghana. The study found that students who received two 30-minute sessions with Rori, on top of their normal math lessons, had “markedly higher scores” in maths, with an effect size of 0.36 SD. Research on Rori is continuing and preparations are being made for a larger RCT study starting in September 2026 in Ghana, which includes more than 100 public schools. (The full research paper of the mini RCT can be found here.)
Across all these initiatives, our goal remains consistent: to work alongside government and trusted local partners to ensure Ghanaian learners acquire the foundational skills they need to succeed in school and beyond. As our partnerships deepen in Ghana, Rising is committed to supporting nationally aligned, evidence-driven solutions that respond to real system demand.
