January 25, 2022
All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) released our Annual Report 2021–this year’s report marking 10 years of advancing EdTech innovation and research to improve reading outcomes for marginalized children in low-resource contexts.
Last year was a challenging year for many, but especially for children. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 387 children of primary school age were estimated to lack basic reading skills. Due to the impact of the pandemic and forced migration, that number has increased to 584 million.
For 10 years, we have catalyzed innovation and implemented and scaled game-changing education technology solutions and tools to increase literacy for marginalized children in low-resource contexts—and this year our work was more important than ever. Our innovators stepped up and continued to prove that EdTech innovation and approaches can address gaps and barriers to child literacy both in and outside of school and in crisis and emergency situations.
Highlights of this year’s report include:
- Our recognition as a successful Grand Challenge in the USAID Grand Challenges for Development Meta Evaluation Report, which noted our strides in the area of inclusive education for children with disabilities and our success in scaling effective EdTech solutions
- How our innovators not only continued their work but also expanded it during the pandemic
- Updates from our current challenges–Begin With Books, Ready2Read and UnrestrICTed
- How the Collaborating, Learning and Adopting (CLA) approach is enabling our innovators to have regular opportunities to share knowledge and experiences and adapt designs and technical assistance based on ongoing learning or changing circumstances
- How our commitment to open source technology is supports the scaling of solutions
- And much more!
We invite you to read about the past year–but also to look ahead to 2022 and be part of the solution for the more than 584 million children globally who are waiting for the opportunity to learn to read. We encourage you to explore our solutions and tools to help you increase literacy opportunities for marginalized children in your work and programming. We hope you will also join us in advocating for meaningful investments in and use of innovations that increase access to local spoken and signed languages.
We are excited about our mission in 2022. We invite you to partner with us to pilot or scale a solution or innovation in your community or region. Together, we can advance EdTech solutions to improve reading outcomes for marginalized children in poor regions and developing countries around the world.
The ACR GCD Annual Report 2021 is available to read, print or download as a PDF and in an accessible online format.
ACR GCD is a partnership between USAID, World Vision and the Australian Government
