Celebrating four decades of improving children’s education around the world

Mott MacDonald’s specialist education consultancy, Cambridge Education, marked its 40th anniversary with an event celebrating its achievements over the last four decades.

Cambridge Education works with government ministries, major donors, and non-governmental organisations around the world to help design and deliver programmes that improve access to, and the quality of, education for children and young people.

Over the last 40 years, the consultancy has worked with hundreds of thousands of schools and improved the education of over 50 million children.

Most recently, in Uganda, the consultancy has been responding to the impact of COVID-19 on schools by piloting community-led learning, a volunteer-led programme which has already benefited 260,000 children. The project adopts new methods of attracting students back to school by mixing play with structured approaches in literacy and numeracy. The programme has so far led to 40% of targeted children improving their literacy levels and 70% their numeracy levels.

“Low-cost, scalable solutions like community-led learning are needed to respond to the learning crisis of low literacy and numeracy levels in low-income regions,” said Andy Brock, managing director, Cambridge Education.

One of the largest programmes Cambridge Education has worked on is the English in Action programme in Bangladesh. The project worked with government at all levels to improve the skills of teachers of English in the classroom. Through an innovative use of mobile phones, the programme reached over 25m new learners, including adults.

“Delivering real, sustainable change requires working in partnership,” said Andy.

He continued: “The vast majority of the staff we employ on projects are nationals of the countries in which we work. We work closely with regional and national education authorities to understand the most urgent requirements, whether that be curriculum reform or violence against children, and to design programmes that work within and strengthen the existing capacity.”

“We are proud of our achievements and the work we have done over the past 40 years, not only as a British success story but in improving opportunities for young people, helping to provide them with the best possible start to their lives. However, there is much vital work still to be done. Education systems across the world face huge challenges: from covid recovery to the quality of teaching; from the digital divide to the impact of climate change on education. As we celebrate four decades of Cambridge Education, we look forward to the next 40 years and continuing to play our part in improving education worldwide.”