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Good practice Imported

Instant Network Schools — Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR's Offline Adaptive Classrooms Reach Refugees in Équateur, DR Congo

Congo (the Democratic Republic of the) · Mbandaka · See the Congo (the Democratic Republic of the) profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 8% 73/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR's solar-powered 'school in a box' brings offline digital classrooms and local-language content to refugee children in DR Congo, part of a six-country network reaching 382,000+ students and 6,800+ teachers since 2013.

159
Instant Network School centres (all 6 countries) (as of January 2026)
382,000+
Students benefited since 2013
6,800+
Teachers benefited since 2013
61%
Increase in measured student digital skills
125%
Increase in measured teacher digital skills

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Vodafone Foundation & UNHCR
Period
2013–present (DRC sites active as of January 2026)
Keywords
refugee education, connectivity, digital learning, humanitarian response

Context

Instant Network Schools is a joint Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR programme that converts classrooms into solar-powered digital learning hubs for refugee and host-community children. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of six countries hosting the programme, alongside Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, South Sudan and Tanzania, with deployments concentrated in displacement-affected areas such as Équateur province.

Objectives

Each 'Instant Classroom' aims to keep lessons running even where grid power and internet access are unreliable, packing tablets pre-loaded with curriculum-aligned content in local languages, a laptop, projector, speaker and a satellite or mobile hotspot into a single solar-powered kit.

Activities

As of the programme's most recent public reporting (January 2026), the network comprised 159 Instant Network School centres across all six countries. The teacher-facing digital-skills training component is a core, well-documented part of the model, alongside student use of the pre-loaded classroom devices.

Results

The programme has benefited more than 382,000 students and 6,800 teachers since launching in 2013. Independent programme evaluation cited by UNHCR's Global Compact on Refugees found the model increased measured digital skills by 61% among students and 125% among teachers, programme-wide.

Conclusions

This is programme-wide evidence rather than a DR Congo-specific trial, and no randomised or DRC-disaggregated outcome data is publicly available, a limitation that should be weighed alongside the programme's durable, multi-country scale.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Vodafone Foundation programme staff, UNHCR field staff and partners, Local teachers trained in digital skills

Conditions for success

  • Solar power and satellite/mobile-hotspot connectivity to operate where grid power and internet are unreliable
  • Curriculum-aligned content pre-loaded in local languages
  • Joint telecom-foundation and UN-agency partnership sustaining multi-country funding

Common failure modes

  • No DR Congo-specific or randomised outcome data is publicly available
  • Public materials disclose little about data handling or content moderation on the devices

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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