In too many African countries, public school systems have failed to deliver and many poor families scrape together the money to send their kids to private schools. Even then, the education can be of poor quality. Rising Academies delivers high-quality private education at very low cost. Their schools in Sierra Leone and Liberia combine a well-designed curriculum, effective coaching and supervision of teachers, and advanced management systems. Their kids learn 2 to 3x more than those in comparable schools at half the price of other private providers.

Paul began his career as a policy wonk, working at Demos, a think tank in London. He was a founding team member at Tony Blair’s Africa foundation and later served as its Deputy CEO. He studied governance and policy and went on to earn an MPA from Princeton University. Five years ago, he launched Rising Academies to begin to tackle the education crisis in Africa.