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Science of Teaching provides data, evidence and innovation to improve foundational literacy and numeracy in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – RTI International, a nonprofit research institute and leading international development organization, has been awarded a new contract by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, representing a third phase of its Science of Teaching (SoT) work. Since its inception in 2020, SoT has synthesized the evidence of “what works” to improve foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) at scale and to provide technical assistance in supporting donors, ministries of education and partners in applying this evidence in their contexts.
“We are thrilled to continue this important work with the Gates Foundation,” said Wendi Ralaingita, SoT principal investigator. “We’re proud to have brought RTI’s expertise in research and putting knowledge into practice to bear into this partnership, to help address the global learning crisis. The demand for SoT research findings and resources, requests for technical assistance, along with testimonials and impact evidence from partners who’ve used SoT resources, have shown how vital this effort is. We look forward to expanding SoT’s impact even further in this next phase.”
The new $1.2 million contract provides funding through August 2025 and brings the total value of SoT—over five years—to $6.3 million. These additional funds will allow SoT to continue to produce research on evidence-based practices for effective teaching and learning at scale; generate public goods that aid the sector in applying research-based best practice in different contexts; support a global community of practice for numeracy; and provide demand-based technical assistance for ministries of education, donors and implementing partners.
Under the first and second phases of this work, SoT produced “How-To Guides” for FLN program design, structured pedagogy videos for policy makers, e-learning courses for teachers, checklists for implementation best practice, high-impact teaching strategy mini-guides for teacher mentors, materials guidance notes for mathematics instruction, and more.
To-date, SoT has engaged with more than 55 partners (organizations and individuals) to accomplish this work. Through these collaborations, the project has produced 32 resources for implementation and program design; conducted eight research studies; held more than 15 dissemination events reaching hundreds of attendees globally; and provided on-demand technical assistance to 20 donors, ministries of education and NGOs across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, equipping the international education sector to improve teaching and learning and benefit learners worldwide.
All resources are open access and publicly available on SoT’s virtual library of public goods, which serves as a “one-stop” shop for evidence-based, scalable best practice for foundational learning.
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