British Council World Voice Legacy Evaluation Report (2013-20)

March 2020 marked the end of the British Council’s World Voice Programme after seven years in 23 countries. In partnership with governments, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), United Nations (UN) agencies, arts organisations, headteachers and schools, the programme – which trains teachers to use singing to develop musicality, and as a tool for learning in the classroom – has enriched the lives of over 1. 5 million children worldwide. It started modestly in 2013 with two pilots, in India and Senegal. In the beginning the British Council team had little idea that the success of the pilots would lead to seven inspiring years during which time the programme would develop and expand into many more countries.

In January 2020, the British Council commissioned Sound Connections to evaluate the impact of World Voice. The brief was to focus on five countries with interesting and insightful World Voice stories to tell: Colombia, Ethiopia, Greece, Nepal, and Palestine. We used a mixed methodology that combined reviewing evaluation reports from the last seven years with questionnaires and depth interviews conducted by Sound Connections during 2020.

The evaluation was designed to share learning from the programme, and specifically to inform its next stages of development as World Voice Intellectual Property and resources are handed over to the Sing Up Foundation for further development.