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Opportunity EduFinance
Level 18, 100 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 1GT

Telephone: +44 (0) 7768599834

© 2025 Opportunity International Education Finance functions under its US and UK affiliates. Opportunity International United Kingdom is registered as a charity in England and Wales (1107713) and in Scotland (SCO39692). Opportunity International United Statesis a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

Latest Blog

Opportunity EduFinance’s support of private education in the developing world

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

  At Opportunity EduFinance our absolute focus to help all children access a quality education.  Our School Fee Loans help kids access both public and private schools. Our School Improvement Loans help affordable private schools improve education access and quality provision for their local communities. We support private schools as we believe they fill the gap of accessibility where public schools are too large or too far away.  We believe locally founded and run affordable private schools are…

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What happens when we take the time to learn from one another?

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

Imagine you are an entrepreneur struggling with getting your business off the ground. You are sharing every day’s challenges and wins with yourself and your team, but no one else. Imagine that many people around you are going through the same process, trials and tribulations. Imagine that they too feel alone in their entrepreneurial adventure. Imagine you don’t have access to these other people, you don’t know they exist, you don’t know what they’ve learned, or how they’ve done things…

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Providing access to bathrooms, helping girls continue their education

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

  To date Opportunity EduFinance has helped over 2 million students in low income countries to secure access to affordable, quality, private education. Of those approximately 1 million are girls. This school in Uganda is just one of the hundreds of schools across the world joining Opportunity EduFinance in helping the children who need it most.  One of the most important, and insightful, parts to my role, involves visiting and talking to Opportunity EduFinance clients to get a deeper understanding…

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Colombia: A story of resilience and resolutions to improve early childhood education

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

Efforts in early childhood education have been found to be among of some of the greatest return on investment in human capital activities. Every dollar invested into early childhood education has a significantly higher potential of minimizing the achievement gap, improving health and increasing lifetime earnings, compared to investments later in the scholastic journey.[i] Each additional year of school can add up to 12% to a woman’s income and 10% to a man’s,[ii] early childhood education plays…

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Microfinance and Child Protection can – and do – work together!

by Sarah Morgan

Sarah Morgan is Opportunity International’s Child Protection expert.  She joined Opportunity UK in 2015 after eight years with Save the Children in Laos. Sarah has been advising Opportunity EduFinance on best practice and policy for Child Protection; in particular, our Education Quality field operations teams, the schools they work with, and some of our MFI partners.  Sarah shares her recent experience of running Child Protection training in Uganda:- “Earlier this year I was excited to be working…

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Ensuring Inclusive and Quality Education for All Through Sustainable, High-Quality Private Schools

by Allison Kooser

Following the announcement of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, the debate continues regarding the role of public and private education in the developing world. With unquestioning agreement regarding the importance of education, scholars and practitioners are deliberating the minutiae of how to impact today’s young people – and how to do so cost-effectively, sustainably and well. It’s a debate that can immediately get complicated and lost in the weeds of policy and opinion. Within…

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Education Impact Investment - New opportunities to leverage donor funds into greater impact

by Patrick Elmer

Impact Investing is a relatively new term, coined at The Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in 2007 to describe investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Today impact investment gets ample media coverage and is on the top agenda of many finance leaders and politicians for its claim to provide capital to address the world’s most pressing challenges. According to a yearly industry…

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Opportunity EduFinance shares big data enabling others to invest in education

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

Millions more children could end up getting an education, when Opportunity International's EduFinance Group shares its experience and data on education microfinance, enabling others to invest in education. With 263 million children out of school, banks and other financial institutions have been reluctant to lend into developing countries’ education because – in their view – of the small margins and high risks. But with backing from philanthropists, donors, and impact investors, Opportunity’s…

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G7 Statement: Education needs more resources, microfinance can help

by Faye Ruck-Nightingale

Ahead of this week’s G7 summit 2017, which is expected to focus on sustainability and reducing inequality, including on education, Nathan Byrd, Global Head of Opportunity International EduFinance, said: “We welcome the G7’s second pillar: their discussions on economic, environmental and social sustainability, and the reduction of inequalities (G7 Priorities). Complete and equal access to education will be a major contributor to poverty reduction and to socio-economic stability. National governments…

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'Education for People and Planet': The 2016 GEM Report & The Private Sector

by Opportunity International

The first and much anticipated Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report has just been published and it’s an important contribution to the discourse on how we tackle the global education crisis. GEM is the UNESCO-backed body charged with monitoring and reporting progress towards the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.  SDG4 pledges to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ by 2030. The authoritative report…

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