Instant Network Schools — Scaling Offline Adaptive Learning for Refugee and Host-Community Students in Nampula, Mozambique

Mozambique's Maratane refugee settlement in Nampula Province hosts roughly a third of the country's refugee population alongside neighbouring host communities with limited grid electricity or internet access, and the Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR launched Instant Network Schools there in June 2021.

The centres run on the open-source Kolibri platform, delivering offline digital libraries and mastery-based lesson sequences from a local server without needing an internet connection, while trained 'digital coaches' help teachers blend this content into regular classes; in late 2023 the programme piloted the adaptive Akelius language-learning app across 11 centres.

The 2023 annual report, produced with the Lutheran World Federation and Jesuit Refugee Service, recorded 15 centres in 12 schools, 52,070 students, 1,266 teachers and 15 dedicated coaches, with near-even gender enrolment at the original Maratane sites; the Akelius pilot reached 695 students and, in a survey of 412 participants, 95.77% said they wanted to continue, and by November 2025 the network had grown to 26 centres and over 91,000 cumulative students.

As with other Instant Network Schools sites, the strongest evidence here is on reach, retention and continuation intent rather than measured learning gains, since the figures come from implementing partners' own reporting and no randomised or controlled study of literacy or numeracy outcomes in Mozambique was located.