Executive Summary
From early in Geneva Global’s experience with Speed School in Ethiopia (since 2011) and Uganda (since 2016), teachers, school leaders, and local education officials and agents have routinely commented that former Speed School students tend to surpass both academically and socioemotionally their classmates who have only learned in conventional classes. Data gathered by Geneva Global’s teams yearly in the two countries as well as two independent longitudinal studies in Ethiopia and one in Uganda share evidence to show such reports to be true. Yet, it has never been completely clear why these students continue to excel year in and year out even as they progress far into their formal studies, until now.
In 2024, each country team joined with local education partners – civil society grantees in Ethiopia and district inspectors and teacher trainers in Uganda – to explore empirically why former Speed School students regularly outperform their classmates. What is it, we asked, that enables these students to achieve exceptional performance both academically and socioemotionally even after they have transitioned to the more difficult environment of conventional school classrooms, characterized by much larger class sizes, teacher-centered instruction, and scarce learning materials?
Key Findings:
- Former Speed School students outperform their peers. Former Speed School students made up a minority of the total student population (27% in Ethiopia, 15% in Uganda.) Despite this, they represented a majority the top 20 academic performers.
- The learning assets that former Speed School students bring with them into conventional classes contribute to stronger and more durable academic outcomes. Teachers rated students across 23 items grouped into 10 categories. Across all categories and items, former Speed School students were rated approximately one full point higher than their peers in both Ethiopia and Uganda.
- Anecdotal evidence suggests Speed School students positively influence peers and teachers, and the size of the Speed School effect may be even larger.
The Speed School model is not only valuable to expand school access. It also represents a means to attain greater quality teaching and learning across all of formal education. This is the path that Geneva Global is now pursuing deliberately with education leaders and other partners in both countries, focusing similarly beyond what teachers must know to imbue students with the learning strategies and behaviors for future success to equip and motivate them with how to do this.