Global Schools Forum spins-out from Ark to become independent charity
On 1 October, Global Schools Forum (GSF) became an independent registered charity, spinning out from Ark, the education charity that has incubated us since its foundation.
Since GSF was formally launched as a membership organisation in 2017, we have experienced rapid growth, built a tight-knit community of members, secured multi-year funding, and established our reputation as the go-to organisation for non-state education.
Currently GSF represents a network of 64 members, spanning 52 countries across Africa, Asia and South America, who collectively run or support 30,000 schools that provide education to over 5 million children.
The spin-out follows the appointment of a new board of trustees to govern the charity in August, an expansion of the team, and a major investment by funders in a new Impact and Innovation programme that will see GSF support and fund member organisations to test, evaluate and scale educational innovations.
Ahead of the spin-out, Aashti has written a blog reflecting on the experience of setting up a network organisation, and GSF’s journey and future direction – which you can read here.
This marks an important milestone for GSF, recognising that we have reached a point at which we can sustain ourselves and thrive as an independent entity. I’d like to thank Ark for all their support in incubating and helping to grow GSF: we would not have been able to get to this point without them. It’s a crucial time for global education – with COVID-19 having compounded existing problems in accessing quality learning across many low and middle-income countries. As we spin-out, GSF recommits itself to step up our work to support the non-state education sector to tackle the world’s learning crisis.
We’re delighted at the success that Global Schools Forum has had in bringing together and supporting the non-state education sector in low and middle-income countries. The spin-out of GSF is just the latest example of Ark’s success in incubating and scaling ventures that create systemic change in education. We are looking forward to continuing to collaborate with GSF, who will remain an important part of the Ark family.