BRAC is one of the largest providers of non-formal education globally, with schools in Bangladesh for over 30 years and internationally since 2002. BRAC runs a global pre-primary school program in Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Uganda, and is developing markets for early childhood development (ECD) for 3–5-year-olds through its ‘Play Labs’ project in those countries.

In Tanzania, this includes running 30 play labs co-located with the Tanzanian Government and funded through the Yidan Prize. BETL is piloting a cross-subsidy business model for ECD to improve the development of 3–5-year-old children in Tanzania. The goal is to catalyze the ECD private sector by developing a sustainable business model for a low-cost, high-quality, and scalable play-based ECD program. The BETL team recently opened five schools and is launching one mobile ECD program in Dar es Salaam.