There is a teacher in a Ugandan classroom running an ordinary lesson, and inside that lesson is a strategy she did not have last term. 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬.🪜 Who trained her? Her head teacher, in a meeting held at her own school. Who trained the head teacher? A centre-coordinating tutor, at a district institute. Who trained the tutor? A deputy principal, at a regional institute inside a Core Primary Teachers' College. Who trained the deputy principal? STIR Education. Once. Four rungs between STiR and that classroom, and STiR stands on only one of them. Every other trainer on that ladder is a government employee already holding the mandate to do exactly what they are doing. Modern Karema Musiimenta @LogisticsMenta, Country Director of @STIReducation Uganda, walked the room in Addis Ababa through all of it. In 2017, after three years of delivering directly in 32 districts, the Ministry of Education asked STiR to take the programme to the entire country. His first thought was not triumph. 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒚? Because direct implementation meant STiR did all of it. The training, the monitoring, the per diems, the sitting allowances, etc. You call people to be trained, and then you pay them for having come. So before redesigning anything, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒎𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒎𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔. First, 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆. Not who is willing, and not who is friendly to the programme, but whose job description already carries training, capacity development, support provision and education at district level. Second, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒕. Not which donor might fund the scale-up. Which budget line, and which officer controls it. Third, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕. STiR did not construct a calendar of new meetings across a country. It found the meetings already happening and inserted the content into them. Out of that mapping came the model, and the part that should stop a philanthropy audience is what happens at the top of it. Each term, a needs assessment. Then a co-design team, drawn from every department and agency of the Ministry of Education, sits together to build strategies that address what teachers, head teachers, and teacher trainers said they were missing. "𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝒖𝒔." An organization headquartered in the United Kingdom, standing in Addis Ababa, saying that it no longer decides what the problem is. This sector has argued about localization for a decade in the vocabulary of values. He settled his portion of it with a mechanism and a budget line. ✨ 𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝑻𝒖𝒃𝒆: youtube.com/watch?v=skTYqAog…