Funda Wande is a not-for-profit organization that aims to equip teachers to teach reading-for-meaning and calculating-with-confidence in Grades R-3 in South Africa. We do this by hiring the best people we can find and work as a team to create high-quality materials, experiment with different teacher training approaches, and independently evaluate everything we do. Our materials and training are created in the languages that children speak and understand and are freely-available for anyone to download and use. Our programs and materials are all evidence-based, independently-evaluated, policy-aligned and cost-effective.

Every year the South African government spends 99 times more money on education than all local and international philanthropies combined. That’s why we believe that the best use of private money is influencing how public money is spent. We believe this to be one of the most effective ways to create impact at scale. We are currently operative in three provinces with different intervention models. We have a coaching intervention in the Eastern Cape, a Teacher Assistant intervention in Limpopo, and a Subject Advisor intervention in the Western Cape. Each model tests different implementation and scalability theories. All interventions receive LTSM and teacher training on top of their individual inputs. Both the Eastern Cape and Limpopo models have proven to be effective in shifting outcomes at the learner level and the Western Cape model has so far been a fruitful partnership with provincial rollout of the program agreed upon beginning 2023. We will continue to iterate around what works and to advocate for public rollout of evidence-backed programs.