A Second Chance: How buildOn's Enroll Program Helps Kids Return to School

According to UNESCO, more than 79 million primary school-age children are out of school worldwide.

That’s nearly 80 million kids not learning how to read. How to do arithmetic. How to build a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.

buildOn’s Enroll Program was created to bring children like them back to the classroom. We partner with local community leaders to identify out-of-school children, then work with their families to make sure the children can start learning. Since 2015, we’ve enrolled more than 214,000 out-of-school children.

The program does this through four strategies that work together, each aimed at a different reason a child could stop going to class. While each strategy on its own might help encourage children to get back to school, when all four are combined, they create a powerful force to promote education and community growth.

What You’ll Find in This Story

• Why millions of children are out of school, and why many never return
• The four strategies the Enroll Program uses to get children back into class
• What the program looks like for children across the globe

Why Are Millions of Children Out of School?

Millions of school-aged kids around the world remain out of school, and many may never return. In the rural communities buildOn partners with, children face many barriers to education, including education costs, child labor, and discrimination. Behind those broad categories are six specific obstacles, and a single child often faces several at once.

No school within reach. In many rural communities, there is no school at all, and the nearest one is in another village, sometimes a long walk away. Younger children can’t make that trip, so they start school late. For older children, the route itself can be unsafe, with rivers, mountains, or dangerous roads to cross.

Schools that can’t hold up. Where a school does exist, it is often built from mud bricks, millet stalks, or plastic tarps. In some places, lessons are held under trees. In these communities, there is little protection from the weather, and learning and teaching is difficult, leading many students to drop out of school.

Not enough classroom space. Some schools run out of room, and when they do, they can’t offer every grade. A child whose grade level isn’t available has nowhere to continue.

Costs families can’t cover. School uniforms and supplies add up, and some families can’t afford them. In other families, children need to work to help support their household.

Gender discrimination. Girls are disproportionately kept home to do household chores or care for younger siblings, which takes them out of class.

Missing birth certificates. Without a birth certificate, a child may not qualify to enroll at all.

These barriers rarely arrive one at a time, which is why no single fix brings every child back.

What Building a School Solves, and What Remains

Building a school with the community addresses several of these barriers directly. A school in the village ends the long, sometimes dangerous walk to another one. Sturdy classrooms replace mud brick walls, tarps, and leaky roofs, giving children a safe place to learn, and enough rooms to offer the grade levels children need.

Other barriers need a different kind of help. A new building can’t pay for uniforms and supplies, change the expectation that girls stay home to care for siblings, or produce a missing birth certificate. A child can live next door to a brand-new school and still be unable to attend.

That’s where Enroll comes in.

How our Enroll Program Works

Enroll picks up where construction leaves off. In each community that has partnered with buildOn to build a school, the program begins with the people closest to the children, then adds the support families need to say yes to school.

1. Community Engagement

Local community members take an active role in enrolling children who are out of school. Community leaders identify the children who are not in class, and buildOn works with their families to make sure they can start learning. Because the people who know these children best are their own neighbors, enrolling a child becomes a community effort.

2. Income Generating Initiatives

Cost keeps many children out of class, so Enroll also works on household income. Community members receive seed money to start small businesses, and the earnings can pay for school fees and uniforms for students in need. In some communities they receive livestock which they then breed to give to other members of the community.

The results can be significant. In a study of 30 villages in Senegal, households that took part in buildOn’s Enroll and Adult Literacy programs saw monthly income rise 54 percent, from $84 to $129. That finding is specific to the Senegal study villages, but it shows what small businesses can do for a family’s budget.

3. Accelerated Learning Courses

Children who have been away from school need a way to catch up. Accelerated learning courses, held during school breaks and led by trained facilitators, give out-of-school children the literacy and numeracy skills they need to reach their grade level.

4. Direct Support

For the most vulnerable children, buildOn provides direct support, including school supply kits and the birth certificates children need to qualify for school enrollment.

Together, the four strategies cover what keeps children out of class: finding them, paying for fees and uniforms, helping them catch up, and clearing the paperwork.

What the Program Looks Like for Children

The program’s stories show how these pieces fit together.

Khady Diouf, 12, is in sixth grade in her community of Keur Djibril Fall, Senegal, and she is well known in her village as one of the best students in her class. Her parents never had the chance to attend school, but they understand how much learning matters and are proud of their daughter’s success.

School did not always look like part of Khady’s future. She spent her days at Koranic school and helping her mother with household chores, and she did not yet know how to read or write.

That changed in 2021, when buildOn introduced accelerated classes in her community and gave her a second chance to learn. She studied hard and did so well on her final exam that she was placed directly into second grade.

She has kept moving up since. Khady is always ranked first or second in her class, and she regularly receives school supplies as rewards for her good grades. Her teacher, Mr. Diagne, has taught her since third grade and describes her as one of the most dedicated students in the class. He often points to her as an example of perseverance.

Khady is the first child in her family to attend formal school. She loves mathematics, enjoys solving problems and learning new concepts, and dreams of becoming the mayor of Keur Djibril Fall one day so she can help people. Her confidence has grown along with her reading and writing skills and her success is rubbing off on the people around her; her cousin now tries her best to earn good marks and follow Khady’s example.

Her story shows what accelerated learning can open up. A child who had never been in formal school and could not yet read or write finished the catch-up program ready for second grade, and she has kept climbing from there.

What Comes Next

We operate our Enroll Program in Burkina Faso, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, and Senegal. Since 2015, we have enrolled 214,455 out-of-school children, with a goal of 30,775 more by 2027.

Each of those children starts the same way Khady did: with a community that wants them in school, and a program built to help them return.

Want to help more children return to school? Consider making a tax-deductible donation to support buildOn’s work today.