The Luminos Fund’s catch-up education program for out-of-school children, Second Chance (also known as Speed School in Ethiopia), is one of the world’s leading K-12 education innovations according to global education nonprofit, HundrED. During this week’s HundrED Innovation Summit, Luminos was selected as a member of the HundrED 2022 Global Collection. This marks the fifth consecutive year that the Luminos Fund has been honored by HundrED, starting in 2017.
The annual Global Collection highlights 100 of the most impactful and scalable innovations tackling the biggest challenges in education. HundrED’s goal is to inspire a grassroots movement by helping pedagogically sound, ambitious innovations spread and adapt to multiple contexts across the world.
“We have seen first-hand how education innovators over the last two years have not been overwhelmed, but have risen to the occasion and put students and their education first,” says HundrED’s Head of Research, Crystal Green. “Our hope is that we might collectively imagine a better future and begin thinking about what it will take to get there.” HundrED has made it their mission to seek out and share the most inspiring innovations in K-12 education.
In another year challenged by the global COVID-19 pandemic, HundrED sought innovations with a proven impact as schools, teachers, and students have adapted around school closures, shortened academic years, and more. We at Luminos are inspired by our fellow education nonprofits across the globe as they have continued to adapt and refine new ways of teaching and learning. This year’s HundrED Global Collection includes innovations implemented across 43 countries. The final 100 innovations were narrowed down from an original list of over 2,700 innovations from around the world.
In the words of Luminos CEO, Caitlin Baron, “We are honored to be a part of the HundrED Global Collection for the fifth year running. The dedication and hard work of our staff to ensure the most vulnerable children get a second chance to learn never ceases to amaze and inspire me.”
This year, HundrED saw innovations underling the importance of social-emotional learning, supporting teacher professional development, engaging parents in education, and teaching 21st century skills to students. Luminos’ program centers on this holistic approach and was chosen due to its pioneering status and ability to create a scalable impact.
Since 2011, Luminos’ program has worked in partnership with Ethiopian NGOs to enable more than 137,827 children in Ethiopia to get a second chance at education. Over 90% of the children who start the Luminos program transition successfully to their local village school. External evaluations show that graduates of our program complete primary school at twice the rate of their peers. In 2016, the program expanded to Liberia where it reaches thousands more children every year. During COVID-19, Luminos pivoted our programs quickly to support our students’ learning with remote learning resources, “micro-classes” (small, distanced groups of students), and eventually reopened classrooms following government health and safety guidance.
To learn more, view the Luminos Fund 2022 Innovation page on Hundred.org and explore the profiles of our fellow innovators!
Related Links
The Luminos Fund 2022 Innovation Page on HundrED.org, 2021
HundrED honors Luminos as a Global Education Innovator for the Fourth Time, The Luminos Fund, 2020
Video: The Luminos Fund Innovation, 2020 Summit
This short video was created for HundrED’s 2020 Summit last year and gives an overview of our innovative program: