Rising Academy Waterloo has been named a Top 3 finalist for the World’s Best School Prizes 2024. The five World’s Best School Prizes, founded by T4 Education in collaboration with Accenture, American Express and the Lemann Foundation, are the world’s most prestigious education prizes and this year’s winners will share a $50,000 prize fund.

Today has that “first day of school” feeling. Excited, a little bit nervous, a combination of the familiar and the unknown. Wondering what the year ahead will hold, but ready to learn and confident that with a wide network of support, it just might be one of our best years yet.

A personal message from our founders.

Rising Academy Waterloo in Sierra Leone has today been shortlisted for the World’s Best School Prizes. Organised by T4 Education, the World’s Best School Prizes are the world’s most prestigious education awards, which recognise and celebrate the pivotal role schools play in our world.

Last week represented a landmark moment for Liberian education. New Minister, Hon. Dr Jarso Maley Jallah, has committed direct financial support for the Liberian Education Advancement Program (“LEAP” formerly “PSL”) in her 2024 Education Budget. This budget has now officially been signed into law by our President, His Excellency Joseph Boakai, Sr.

Building on the successes we saw in 2023,  new midline results from the evaluation of our large-scale “FasterMath” program in our Freetown City Council (FCC) partnership showed big impacts on teachers’ knowledge and improvements in student learning.

New early stage research by researchers from the University of Oxford and J-PAL have shown very promising early results for our virtual math tutor Rori.

When 17 year old Tyrone Marghuy attended his Junior High School Graduation Ceremony in March 2021, he and his family had little idea that within just a few short weeks, he would become one of the most recognised young men in Ghana.

I’m ending 2023 thinking a lot about the work of improving schools: what makes it so hard but ultimately so fulfilling.

Continuing the success of last year, our private schools in Sierra Leone have delivered outstanding results in the National Primary School Examinations (“NPSE”), which take place at the end of Grade 6. Rising finished #1 out of 600 schools in the rural Western Area region.

We are thrilled to share that we’ve been selected as a participant of the the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI), which has a mission to revolutionise math education globally.

“If we want the AI revolution to be an inclusive one, we need to design solutions that meet the diverse needs of the world’s young people.”

In January 2023, Dalberg, in partnership with the Hempel Foundation, launched their ground-breaking Elimu-Soko Partnership in Rwanda.

This is the story of how, on the 3rd April 2023, I came back to Greenville, the capital of Sinoe County in south-eastern Liberia. But to tell you the story of how I came back, first I need to tell you the story of how I left.

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Rising’s Program Associate in Liberia, Morrison T. Morris, has been awarded a highly-prestigious placement on this year’s Mandela Washington Fellowship Program; selected from a pool of more than 45,000 applicants across the African continent.

BBC radio show Digital Planet reports about how our AI-powered chatbot tutor called Rori, available through Whatsapp, is helping children across West Africa, bypass expensive tuition fees.

Rising Academies is delighted to announce the close of a $4.25m Series A investment led by Klett Kita & Schule, part of one of Europe’s largest education companies, the Klett Group. Joining the round are UBS Optimus Foundation, King Philanthropies Inc, Dovetail Impact Foundation and Solon Capital Holdings, all of whom are strengthening multi-year relationships with Rising through their participation in the Series A founding round.

Sierra Leone's National Primary School Examination (NPSE) results published last week saw Rising students register some of the strongest results in the country.

“When I do my work, when I look at what EdTech can accomplish, I think equality is the most important aspect to bringing people out of intergenerational poverty, to helping people access the opportunities they deserve.”

As a wise man once said, 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.' With 2021 drawing to a close, here are some highlights from a topsy-turvy but transformational year.