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Rewrite the Future
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Delivering education in conflict-affected fragile states: An inventory of Rewrite the Future resources
Rewrite the Future
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Contents
About Rewrite the Future ..........................................................................................5
Who is this book for?........................................................................................................5
Implementation ...................................................................................................................... 6
Access ..................................................................................................................................6
Quality ................................................................................................................................. 8
Child participation .......................................................................................................10
Accelerated learning ..................................................................................................12
Child-friendly spaces ..................................................................................................14
Advocacy .......................................................................................................................................16
Education and peace .................................................................................................16
Budget analysis and tracking ..................................................................................18
Education in emergency response .....................................................................20
Accountability.........................................................................................................................22
Monitoring .......................................................................................................................22
Evaluation .........................................................................................................................24
Guide to resources .............................................................................................................26
“The happiest day of my life was when I received my school equipment. I wanted everybody
to see me on my way home, and to know that I go to school.”
—Mungwakonkwa, accelerated learning student, Democratic
Republic of the Congo
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About Rewrite the Future
Millions of children around the world suffer from the wars of adults. Caught in a cycle of poverty and conflict, it can seem as though their future has already been written for them. But with education, these children can rewrite their future.
So in 2006, Save the Children launched our first global campaign, Rewrite the Future. Across more than 20 countries, we’ve worked to improve the quality of basic education for millions of children affected by conflict and to help more than a million children gain access to school. We’ve asked governments and international organizations to mobilize increased resources to provide quality education across situations of acute emergency, chronic instability, and post-conflict reconstruction.
Three years on, we’ve helped a million children enter school, and we’ve improved the quality of education for ten million. We’ve seen global education aid to countries affected by conflict increase by 50 percent and humanitarian aid to education double.
Throughout this campaign, we’ve also gathered evidence on effective interventions and developed reources to help guide future programming. This book provides an overview of those resources.
About this book
Save the Children and its member organizations have developed many reports, manuals, and other resources throughout our Rewrite the Future campaign. Based on our experiences delivering eduation in conflict-affected countries, these resources offer recommendations on implementation, advocacy, and accountability. This book—aimed at Country Office program staff—offers an overview of those resources.
This book is not meant as an exhaustive list of all education interventions Save the Children supports in countries affected by conflict. Instead, it provides an overview of those areas for which we developed resources under Rewrite the Future. Readers can learn more about the recommendations that seem relevant for your impact area. More information about all the resources is available at the end of the book.
In countries affected by conflict, forty million children remain out of school. We hope that the lessons we’ve learned through Rewrite the Future will help you design programs to extend the promise of education to these children. Together, we can help ensure that, even in the most challenging contexts, children have the opportunity to get the quality education that is their right.
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AccessChildren affected by conflict represent more than half of the 75 million children of primary school age who are out of school around the world. For this reason, improving access to basic education has been a major goal of Rewrite the Future. Through a wide variety of interventions, Save the Children has worked to help conflict-affected primary education systems accommodate more children, regardless of their age.
Why?
Education is a key prerequisite for many development goals and the right of all children. However, access is often particularly difficult in countries affected by conflict. Some children in these countries drop out when armed conflict closes schools or makes schooling unsafe. And in many fragile states, the same tensions that trigger conflict also cause inequalities in access.
But access to quality education in these countries is critical to the wellbeing of children and young people. Rebuilding and improving the education system are increasingly seen as essential steps in post-conflict reconstruction. Getting children back to school enhances peace, gives communities hope for the future, contributes to long-term economic growth, and promotes political stability.
Rewrite the Future works to address the barriers that keep children out of school through a variety of interventions. Some examples:
Establish education delivery model alternatives like • accelerated learning programs, multigrade classrooms, or flexible community-based schools.
Support development of school infrastructure.•
Address costs of schooling—both direct (e.g., school • fees) and indirect (e.g., loss of child’s work at home)—through advocacy or by raising community awareness.
Target children who may be excluded from schools • (e.g., children with disabilities, girls, ethnic minorities).
Train teachers to make classrooms more inclusive.•
Work to make schools safe and child-friendly to • prevent dropout, especially for girls.
Mobilize parents and school communities to achieve • stronger involvement and participation in school and school management.
How?
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What does it look like?
To establish nonformal education programs in Afghanistan, Save the Children first approached the community through the local shura (town council), working the members to establish a community education council. The education council was responsible for finding a learning space (often a room in a private house or a mosque), appointing a teacher (or mentor), and identifying the students. Save the Children provided pre-service and in-service training and salaries for teacher/mentors.
Classes did not specifically target girls, but were attractive to them because parents saw them as safer than the formal primary school, which was far away. Many of the teachers were also female, partly because of lower requirements for teaching qualifications, but also because there were fewer cultural barriers as the community schools were seen as less visible than formal schools.
Save the Children also found that involving religious leaders improved enrollment. The community recruited two mullahs to act as teacher/mentors in accelerated learning classrooms. The involvement of the mullahs encouraged families to enroll their children, especially their daughters. The mullahs regularly spoke in the mosque about the importance of education and child rights, for girls and boys.
“My uncle, who is the head of our family, won’t allow me to go out of the house
alone, even to study. But he says the classes held by Save the Children are okay because they’re inside someone’s house. It’s the only chance many girls have to learn something.”
—Asifa, a 15-year-old girl who attends a Save the Children accelerated learning program in Afghanistan
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QualityIt’s not enough just to get children into school; the education they receive must also be of good quality. High quality education can protect children from the impact of conflict and become a positive force for peace. For that reason, Save the Children made improving the quality of education a priority goal of Rewrite the Future. The campaign recognized four areas for quality improvements: (1) teaching and learning; (2) relevance of curriculum; (3) participation; and (4) safety of the learning environment.
Why?
In countries affected by decades of conflict, education systems often must be rebuilt virtually from scratch. In the effort to quickly return children to school, quality can too often be forgotten.
Quality education—featuring trained teachers, appropriate curricula, child and community participation, and a safe, protective environment—can give children hope for a better future. It can encourage children to respect values and give them the confidence and ability to question intolerance and conflict.
Without quality, education can become a weapon to fuel conflict. Textbooks may stereotype or scapegoat different groups, contributing to social tensions, and lessons may become vehicles for divisive propaganda. Irrelevant curricula and unsafe environments can make school an unhappy place for children, leading to high dropout rates.
Quality is complex; it’s not always easy to predict which interventions will have the greatest impact. Our advice:
Have a strong, ongoing monitoring plan to • determine what’s working, especially in a rapidly-changing context.
Focus teacher training efforts on literacy development • in the early grades to ensure children gain reading skills that support learning in later grades. Emphasize delivery of the curriculum, especially participatory and non-violent teaching methods.
Seek active involvement of communities, and promote • participation of girls and mothers especially. Give extra attention to supporting school communities with low levels of literacy and those lacking strong traditions of participation in development.
Infrastructure is the most visible aspect of school • development, but often not the most important in promoting quality. Look first at teaching and learning and community participation.
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Following the signing of a peace agreement in Southern Sudan, one of the main challenges of ensuring a quality education system was the lack of educated, trained teachers. Save the Children responded with five different teacher training programs:
• Phase training in subject content and teaching methodologies for teachers with no previous training.
• In-service training with school-based supervised practice.
• Primary education equivalency training to prepare women to begin teacher training programs.
• Intensive English courses.
• Training in accelerated learning methodologies.
In lesson observations, teachers trained by Save the Children were rated significantly better than comparison teachers. The same evaluation showed that—with the exception of the in-service training program—there was no follow-up training or supervision for teachers, a problem since follow-up is key to sustaining the benefits of a teacher training program. Ongoing supervision in schools hadn’t been possible given the poor security situation in some areas.
Now, greater stability and security have made it possible for the Country Office to replace phase training with a four year in-service training model. The Country Office is continuing to monitor its program, and expects to see a greater impact on quality in its next evaluation.
“Since I have gone to school, my life has changed. The lessons are interesting. Our teachers like us and don’t try to hit us. I’ve learned about children’s
rights—that children have freedom of speech and freedom to be in school. Life is different for people who have an education and those who don’t.”
—Mary, a 12-year-old girl whose teacher was trained by Save the Children in Southern Sudan
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Child participationChild participation gives children the chance to express views, influence decision-making, and achieve change. In the planning stage of a project, children can work with program staff to identify problems and develop strategies to address them. When the project is underway, children can meet regularly with adults involved in implementation. Children can also have roles in advocacy, monitoring, and evaluation. Child participation efforts must be sensitive to the local context, fostering participation in ways that don’t place children at risk. And nondiscrimination is key —children who are marginalized must also participate.
Why?
Child participation puts children at the heart of the program cycle. When a project involves all children—including the most marginalized and those of different ages and abilities—they have a voice in matters that affect them.
The right to participation is a general principle guiding the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. When you facilitate children’s meaningful involvement in your program, children are empowered to make improvements in their everyday lives. In this way, participation helps children achieve additional rights.
Save the Children has identified seven practice standards for child participation:
An ethical approach: transparency, honesty and 1. accountability. Children understand their roles and responsibilities; organizations are accountable to children; children are treated with respect.
Children’s participation is relevant and voluntary. 2.
A child-friendly, enabling environment. 3. Adults (including parents) are sensitized to respect child rights.
Equality of opportunity. 4. Regardless of age, race, sex, language, religion, ethnic origin, disability, etc.
Staff are effective and confident 5. and encourage genuine participation.
Participation promotes the safety and protection of 6. children. Safeguards minimize risks and prevent abuse.
Ensuring follow-up and evaluation.7.
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In Côte d’Ivoire, Save the Children facilitated children’s involvement right from the start. of its Rewrite the Future effort. During the program design phase, the Country Office team consulted with more than one hundred children, using the findings to develop a program plan.
The program team also established 115 children’s clubs to help create more opportunities for child participation. Students elected club members, who received training in child rights and project planning. Club members identified problems in their schools and developed school improvement plans to address them. Each club identified a mentor adult to help club members translate plans into action. Clubs also raised awareness of children’s rights among teachers, parents, and community members.
Next, the Country Office worked with the Ministry of Education to train nearly 200 school management committee members (close to a quarter of them children), focusing on the importance of child participation. Trainers asked committee members to discuss obstacles to child participation and to develop strategies to overcome them. The school management committees came up with many ideas that were then included in school action plans.
“It’s important to know how to read so that I can know what’s happening in my country. I will be able to earn a living if I go to school. School helps
you to evolve. School is a right.”
—A 12-year-old boy, president of a children’s club supported by Save the Children in Côte d’Ivoire
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Accelerated learningFor many children in conflict-affected countries, education is interrupted for months or even years because schools have been destroyed or closed, children have been used as combatants, teachers have fled, or the journey to school is too dangerous. In accelerated learning programs, special teaching methods are used to speed up learning and compress the standard curriculum, allowing children who’ve been deprived of education to reach age-appropriate class levels. In some countries the programs are fully recognized and accredited by governments; in others they are not. The goal of an accelerated learning program is for children to complete primary education or rejoin same-age peers in the formal system.
Why?
Children who drop out of or fail to enter primary school due to conflict are at great risk of missing out completely on a basic education. Accelerated learning programs meet the unmet needs of these children, fulfilling their right to access education and giving them the opportunity to learn.
When young people miss out on education, their options in adulthood are limited. Conflict-affected fragile states with large populations of uneducated youth are at high risk for recurring conflict.
Alternative schooling models such as accelerated learning can help children who otherwise might be denied their right to education. For example, in areas of low security and strong cultural resistance to girls’ education, Save the Children has found that accelerated learning programs can be a quality education option for girls.
Some Rewrite the Future programs used this process:
Conduct a needs assessment. Save the Children 1. recommends accelerated learning for out-of-school children and youth ages 10–18. Younger children should join formal schools.
Work with the community and local government 2. to identify an appropriate location for the program (within or connected to a formal school, if possible), and to recruit teachers, who should be trained in accelerated learning principles.
Work with local educationalists to adapt the 3. conventional primary school curriculum to a compressed schedule.
Identify access barriers and respond to them—have 4. flexible school hours, allow young mothers to bring children to class, change instructional language, etc.
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In Uganda, Save the Children worked with the district education authorities and the target communities to identify safe, convenient locations for accelerated learning centers. When possible, the centers were places within established formal primary schools to allow sharing of textbooks, toilets, and other resources. Where no schools existed nearby, communities identified appropriate shelters near sanitary facilities.
The community also worked with Save the Children to set minimum qualifications for teachers, and to identify and recruit suitable community members to train as teachers. District education authorities agreed to formally recognize and supervise the new teachers. Save the Children trained the teachers in accelerated learning approaches over three five-day sessions, followed by regular in-service training.
The district education office helped adapt the conventional primary school curriculum, compressing the typical seven year course of study into three years. The accelerated learning centers were then integrated into the existing school management structure.
The accelerated learning centres in Uganda have been very successful, attracting more than a thousand students in the first year. The program is particularly attractive for young mothers who dropped out of school when they got married or became pregnant.
“I was ten when I started fishing, and I found it quite hard. I was also worried about missing school, but there was
nothing I could do about it. Then one of my old teachers told me there
was an opportunity for learning even when you had problems like mine. I
registered as soon as I heard about it.”
—James, a 13-year-old boy who attends a Save the Children accelerated learning program in Uganda
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Child-friendly spacesWhen schools are damaged or destroyed, child-friendly spaces provide a protective environment where children can play, socialize, learn, and express themselves as they rebuild their lives. These supervised spaces offer relevant, child-centered activities—often using simple play materials—that build on children’s natural resiliency. Child-friendly spaces should not compete with or substitute for formal or nonformal basic education activities, but should promote active learning with a goal of helping children transition to longer-term learning environments once they are available.
Why?
Our experience shows that children are better able to cope in and after an emergency if a familiar routine allows them to return to a sense of normalcy. In child-friendly spaces, children can play, continue basic learning tasks and socialize with other children in a safe setting.
Child-friendly spaces can play an important role in identifying child protection concerns and referring children to appropriate health or other facilities. The spaces also give caregivers a safe, supportive place to leave children while adults collect food and water, rebuild homes, or seek income-generating activities. Through active involvement from parents and caregivers, child-friendly spaces can help build or rebuild a sense of community.
Child-friendly spaces can also help link out-of-school children with formal or nonformal education, and offer a great opportunity to raise community awareness of the importance of education.
Some Save the Children programs used this process:
Conduct an assessment of children’s psychosocial and 1. protection issues. Coordinate with other agencies and relevant government authorities.
With the community, select a safe, convenient site 2. near potable water and toilets—such as an existing structure, tents, or open, shaded ground, preferably within or near the community settlement.
Choose safe, age-appropriate play materials, suitable 3. for both boys and girls and for children with disabilities or language differences. Mix activity types: structured/unstructured, active/quiet, indoor/outdoor, etc. Provide activity plan to staff and community.
Be sure to target vulnerable groups, who may be 4. made more vulnerable during emergencies.
Plan a transition/exit strategy. Spaces should evolve 5. into development programming when possible.
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When four severe storms struck conflict-affected Haiti over three weeks in 2008, Save the Children’s Haiti Country Office responded with new programming to respond to the needs of these children, many of whom had been forced to leave their homes and were now living in temporary shelters.
Save the Children worked within the United Nations cluster approach to coordiante a nationwide needs assessment. Cluster partners identified large numbers of displaced children in need of physical protection and psychosocial support. Save the Children established more than a dozen child-friendly spaces, each serving about 250 children. To staff the spaces, the program team trained three hundred social workers, civil servants, and displaced people in emergency child protection.
The spaces gave children a safe place to play and heal, while also working as a delivery point for other social services. A referral system linked children in need of mental health assistance to a team of four mobile psychologists working with Médecins Sans Frontières. The Country Office partnered with other NGOs to integrate child-to-child health and hygiene activities.
As schools were repaired and reopened, Save the Children worked to transition child-friendly spaces into school-based child clubs.
“I like the safe space because I play and make new friends. But I love school, and I want to go back to school.”
— Mondesire, a 9-year-old girl who attended a Save the Children child-friendly space in Haiti
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Education and peaceSave the Children and other organizations have long recognized the role of education in preventing conflict and building peace. The right sort of education promotes peace and the wrong sort makes conflict worse. Our program experience shows that education can help prevent conflict if it is: (1) inclusive and accessible; (2) safe and protective; (3) relevant; and (4) accountable to children, parents, and communities. For this reason, the role of education in peacebuilding is an important advocacy issue before, during, and after a conflict.
Why?
Education can help prevent conflict in fragile states by acting as a counterweight to those who seek to promote conflict. An open and inclusive education system reduces perceptions of social inequality, which helps reduce tensions. Quality education encourages critical thinking, making people less likely to follow charismatic leaders into armed conflict.
Quality schooling also promotes peace during and after conflict. Education helps children resist recruitment by armed groups. It improves children’s survival skills and coping mechanisms. After a conflict, schools can pave the way for reintegration of ex-combatants and displaced populations. Schools can also serve as models for reconciliation, strengthening connections between schools and communities, and bridging ethnic and social divisions. Finally, quality education equips citizens with the skills they need to contribute to rebuilding their country.
Ways to promote peace before, during, and after conflict:
Before a conflict, support changes to the school 1. system that promote peace. Some examples: (a) Advocate equal access to quality education for all groups, as exclusion from social and economic opportunities is a common cause of conflict; (b) If the formal system is unsafe, or noninclusive, promote nonformal alternatives; (c) Work to make education systems transparent and accountable.
During conflict, advocate for strategies to protect 2. children from violence, such as the Schools as Zones of Peace effort used in Nepal.
After conflict, encourage governments and donors 3. to focus on improving education systems. Some examples: (a) Promote an education system that is inclusive, safe, relevant, accountable, and addresses root causes of the conflict. (b) Work to ensure that any peace agreements includes support for necessary education reform.
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In a time of ongoing conflict in Nepal, schools had become targets. Parties on both sides used schools to spread political messages, teachers and students were sometimes abducted or arrested, and schools were often forced to close. In this context, Save the Children’s Nepal Country Office introduced the “Schools as Zones of Peace” campaign (SZOP) to promote the idea that schools should be free of fear, violence, and political interference.
Save the Children joined together with other organizations to form a national coalition that promoted the SZOP concept across Nepal. The County Office team used rallies, posters, stickers, and booklets to reach out to political leaders across the spectrum, and to educators and security forces. They worked at the community level to spread awareness of the campaign at the grassroots level. And they engaged with the media to promote the SZOP message. Save the Children also trained schools to use the SZOP concept during negotiations as a tool for getting political groups to commit not to disrupt learning.
Now, children, parents, and teachers say they feel schools are safer, and schools are closed less often, giving children more time to learn. Most SZOP-participating schools have also developed their own codes of conduct, leading to a sharp reduction in corporal punishment of students. Children and community members are also more involved in other school improvements.
“[The program] has made our school a better place to go. No one hates you now even if you are poor and Dalit. Unlike the earlier days, teachers and other friends care and support and encourage you.”
— A student at a school that adopted the Schools as Zones of Peace model
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Budget analysis and trackingA government’s budget translates its policy priorities into decisions on how funds should be collected and spent. Budgets are critical to understanding the planning choices made by a government. In the education sector, understanding how the budget is developed (budget analysis) and how money is spent (budget tracking) are key to effective advocacy. Budget analysis will help you influence a government’s policy priorities. Budget tracking will allow you to hold the government accountable for its commitments.
Why?
A government’s budget decisions affect all its citizens, and often the poorest and most marginalized are most affected. Many common issues for advocacy in education are tied to budgets, for instance: school fees, teacher salaries, and the availability of teaching and learning materials. The information you gather through budget analysis and budget tracking can be the basis of a plan to advocate changes that solve these problems and improve access to quality education.
Through budget analysis, you can examine if education funding is adequate, if it’s increasing or decreasing, if it addresses priority areas, and if it is equitable. Budget tracking determines whether resources allocated in the budget have been spent according to plan. It can also help you identify mismanagement and corruption in budget implementation. You can use this information to achieve the objectives of your larger advocacy campaign.
There are often four stages in a budget cycle:
As the budget is put together (called the 1. budget formulation stage), focus advocacy work on influencing how money is allocated. In some countries, organized consultation processes provide an opportunity to build relationships and influence key officials.
If the legislative branch in your country debates, alters, 2. and approves the budget plan (enactment), consider providing your budget analysis to legislators in a simple format that will allow them to challenge the budget formulation.
While the budget is carried out (3. execution), track actual expenditures against the budget and consider sharing your findings with beneficiaries, service providers, policymakers, and the media.
After the budget is spent (4. auditing & assessment), compare findings from your tracking against findings of the office responsible for budget auditing.
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In Uganda, Save the Children used budget work to advocate greater government support of nonformal education for children affected by conflict.
The education team began by working to increase their influence in decision making at the national and district levels. They developed strong working relationships with key government stakeholders by meeting with representatives of influential committees. And they built their evidence base by collecting relevant data from the field to support their advocacy messages.
As a result of their relationship-building activities, Save the Children was invited to participate in meetings of the working group that sets funding priorities for the education sector. The national government included nonformal education as a priority in its plans for the coming year, and, going forward, Save the Children hopes to influence greater investment in remote areas and communities affected by conflict.
The education team in Uganda continues to track the national education budget, and can see that the government is allocating greater funding to education. They also analyze the budget to determine how much funding the government dedicates to areas affected by conflict. Save the Children uses this information to guide its education advocacy work in Uganda.
“Yasin used to go to school, but he had to leave because they demanded 5000 shillings
per term. Last year we heard there was a new education program starting which we wouldn’t have to pay for. If it wasn’t
for [this] program it would be impossible for me to send the children to school.”
— Christine, guardian of Yasin, a 10-year-old boy who attends a Save the Children nonformal education program in Uganda
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Education in emergency responseUrging donor governments to include education as an integral part of humanitarian response has been a major focus of advocacy efforts under Rewrite the Future. Donors often do not recognize the lifesaving aspects of quality education, or do not believe it is possible to rebuild education in an ongoing emergency. Through co-leadership of the Global Education Cluster and advocacy worldwide, Save the Children aims to raise international awareness of the value of education as a source of protection in emergencies and as a key to development. Emergency education interventions vary depending on the type of emergency and government capacity in the affected area.
Why?
In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, education can help protect children from harm. It can impart critical lifesaving information on simple hygiene and safety issues that have emerged as a result of the emergency. Children who are in school may be less vulnerable to being recruited into armed groups or being trafficked. Education can offer children a sense of normality, structure, and hope for the future. Obtaining a quality education is also a fundamental human right regardless of where a child lives.
Over the longer term, quality education is a critical ingredient in the reconstruction of post-conflict societies. Education can promote conflict resolution, tolerance, and a respect for human rights. And quality education can increase children’s earning potential, enabling them to keep their families healthier and improving their ability to break out of the poverty cycle.
Save the Children recommends focusing advocacy efforts in this area on four key messages for donor governments:
Include education as an integral part of humanitarian 1. response efforts.
Ensure adequate financing of education.2.
Better coordinate and integrate emergency 3. response programming with long-term development programming.
Commit to support the UN’s Global Education 4. Cluster, which coordinates emergency education response, and ensure that it is adequately funded.
You should also use evidence from your own programming to demonstrate that it is possible to provide quality education even in the midst of conflict and that more could be with additional support from donors.
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Many Iraqis fled their country for Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria during the war that began in 2003. Save the Children worked with host governments, advocating that they open their education services to displaced children, and building the capacity of schools to accommodate the needs of students. This “system-strengthening approach” benefitted both Iraqis and host nationals. In Jordan, for example, Save the Children:
• Renovated, furnished, and equipped more than 100 kindergarten classrooms to improve the quality of services for more than 300 children, both Iraqi and Jordanian.
• Worked with the Ministry of Education to enhance the core training program for kindergarten teachers, building teacher skills in child protection and supporting classroom diversity.
• Distributed school kits to Iraqi and Jordanian children in need.
• Introduced new community and school participation processes to support Jordan’s wider education reform.
• Promoted child-friendly education methodologies in schools.
Program interventions, though initially designed to respond to specific needs of Iraqi children, proved beneficial for all children. The Ministry of Education is now considering how these approaches can be integrated system-wide. What started out as emergency response is now evolving into more integrated, sustainable development work.
“School is number one. More important than food, more important than anything else! The children build their lives on their
education. It enables them to realize dreams and ambitions and to form a new life.”
— Abbas, a displaced Iraqi in Jordan, and father of a young girl
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MonitoringMonitoring is the process of regularly recording information about what is happening in your program so that you can measure its progress. In a conflict-affected context, reliable school-level data may be unavailable, placing greater data collection demands on program staff, which may take resources away from implementation. Careful development of your monitoring plan can help mitigate this risk. When designing your monitoring plan, ask: what data do you need to adequately monitor your program, what will the monitoring plan cost in terms of time/resources, and is there available data you can use?
Why?
Monitoring your program gives you critical feedback on how your interventions are working and makes you accountable to stakeholders.
Monitoring also:
Allows you to measure progress toward objectives.•
Helps you identify problems in your program early so • that you can make improvements.
Helps you pinpoint areas where your program is • working well, allowing you to share successes with partners, beneficiaries, and donors.
Provides data that can support your international and • national advocacy efforts.
Makes your program credible to donors/governments. •
Allows you to compare results from different impact • areas, or over time.
Some Save the Children programs used this process:
As you design your program, consider which 1. indicators will help you measure progress toward and achievement of your objectives. Also inquire if any indicators are required by the donor or management.
Decide how you will define each indicator (e.g., 2. Rewrite the Future defined ‘beneficiaries’ as children who participated in at least two Save the Children-supported quality education interventions). Decide how and when you will collect data and learn if tools are available.
Train everyone who will be involved in data collection 3. (including those from partner organizations). Ensure they understand how to collect accurate data, when it is due, and why the data are important. Rewrite the Future recommends training at least once a year.
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What does it look like?
When Nepal began its Rewrite the Future programming, program staff used their needs assessment data to identify several problems with the quality of education: Children were not involved in decisions about their education. Large numbers of students dropped out of school or repeated grades. Teachers were unmotivated.
The Country Office team responded, basing their monitoring plan on their desired outcomes: improved teaching and learning environment, reduced repetition and dropout rates, and higher child participation. The Country Office then chose indicators for each outcome. For example, to monitor participation, they decided to count the number of schools with child clubs and the number of children participating in a school’s management committee. The Country Office organized bi-monthly internal review and planning meetings to analyze the monitoring data. Save the Children staff also held twice yearly review and planning meetings with partners.
As the program progressed, other stakeholders became interested in working with Save the Children to monitor education quality. At the request of the Department of Education, Save the Children used its experience to support efforts to set national indicators for education quality.
“The training we’ve had has made everyone more aware of what a good education is. A friendly relationship has developed between
the children and the teachers. I realize, you know, that our committee has no
student representative. If we could arrange that, we’d understand their concerns better.”
— A parent member of a school management committee in Nepal
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EvaluationEvaluation is a process of investigation aimed at answering questions about your project and its impact. You can use evaluation to examine project qualities like relevance, impact, and sustainability. An evaluation may reveal positive or negative effects of a project, and it may show the effects you expected, or reveal ones you didn’t anticipate. Evaluations can take many different forms. The approaches you use will depend on many factors, like: what you hope to learn; how much you can spend; whether your project is ongoing or completed; the population you are working with; and the data you can access.
Why?
Evaluating your program or project will help you measure the effects of your interventions. While monitoring data tells you how you are progressing toward your targets, evaluation —often based in part on your monitoring data—will help uncover the story behind those numbers: how your program is making progress and what impact it is having.
Evaluation also:
Helps you decide whether the costs of your project • are reasonable given the benefits.
Helps you understand • process—how your project is working on the ground.
Allows you to draw lessons learned that can be • applied to future programs.
Enables you to compare the impact of your • interventions for different groups or in different areas,.
Some Save the Children programs used this process:
Organize a participatory workshop with an advisory 1. board of stakeholders. With the advisory board and the support of an M&E specialist, design your evaluation approach, considering your needs and the needs of the community.
Select your evaluation tools. Qualitative evaluation 2. tools may include focus groups or interviews with children, teachers, parents, supervisors, community members, and authorities. Quantitative tools may include learning assessments, targeted lesson observations, or collection of school data (including your monitoring data in some cases). As with monitoring, you will want to train your data collectors to ensure you get accurate, useful information.
Work with your advisory board and M&E specialist 3. to interpret the data you collected and to assess the impact of your interventions.
How?
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What does it look like?
For the Rewrite the Future mid-term evaluation in Angola, a five-day participatory workshop approach led the evaluation team to focus on interventions supporting teacher professionalism. Workshop participants also identified the objectives of Save the Children’s work in this area and the activities that support it.
Workshop attendees next identified key respondent groups and designed a set of research tools for data collection. Some tools were adapted from tools used in other places, and some were developed specifically for the Angola evaluation. On the final day of the workshop, the plan was approved by an advisory group that included senior staff of the Angola Country Office, representatives from the Ministry of Education and other NGOs, and two members of a local youth group.
Evaluators carried out interviews and focus groups with teachers, directors, supervisors, students, parents, and child protection committees from fourteen rural schools and six accelerated learning classes. The evaluation also included a learning assessment of 93 third grade students and observations of 30 lessons.
Based on the evaluation data, the evaluation team was able to see where the program was doing well, and where challenges still existed. The information was used by the Country Office to change the program strategy and design.
“I would like to become a doctor. Because then I will have to go to school for a very long time! And I just love going to school. It’s important, because that’s where you learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.”
— Ana, a 12-year-old girl who attends a school supported by Save the Children in Angola
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ACCESS
Literature Review: Barriers to Accessing Primary Education in
Conflict-Affected Fragile States (2009).
Save the Children review discusses three barriers to educational access in conflict-affected fragile states: under-investment; exclusion based on individual- and group-level characteristics; and systemic discrimination in policies and practices.
QUALITY
Learning from those who live it: An evaluation of children’s eduation
in conflict-affected states (2009).
Provides an overview of the Rewrite the Future mid-term evaluation in four countries. Summarizes recommendations for interventions aimed at improving quality, including: improving teaching and learning, providing a safe learning environment, facilitating participation, and reaching the hardest to reach. See the Evaluation section for more on the mid-term evaluation.
CHILD PARTICIPATION
Practice standards in children’s participation (2005).
The what, why, and how of each of Save the Children’s child participation practice standards.
Rewrite the Future Resources
Capacity building workshop facilitating the participation of boys
and girls from a rights based approach in education (2008).
Report of a Save the Children workshop held in Côte d’Ivoire. Looks at child participation in planning, implementation, advocacy, and evaluation. Describes potential barriers to participation, strategies to promote participation, information on child-friendly materials.
Participation is a virtue that must be cultivated and
A child participation bibliography (2008).
The report presents findings from an analysis of child participation working methods and materials within Save the Children Sweden’s programs. The accompanying annotated bibliography is organized by region, and includes tools, training materials, and reports.
Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Afghanistan Midterm
Country Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses Afghanistan’s efforts to increase children’s participation in education.
Equal you, equal me (2008).
A Save the Children-produced child-friendly booklet on discrimination and child rights.
All resources can be found at:
https://www.savethechildren.net/xtranet/key_challenges/rewritethefuture/index.html
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Getting it right for children: A practitioner’s guide to child rights
programming (2007).
The Save the Children guide helps programs apply child rights principles throughout the program cycle. It aims to answer “how to” questions asked by practitioners.
ACCELERATED LEARNING
A training module for accelerated learning (2009).
This Save the Children training manual can be used to introduce accelerated learning principles and practices in a three-day or longer training course.
Position paper on accelerated learning programming for children
living in conflict affected and fragile states (2009).
Explains why Save the Children sees accelerated learning as an important intervention to support out-of-school children ages 10–15 in conflict affected fragile states.
CHILD-FRIENDLY SPACES
Child Friendly Spaces in Emergencies: A Handbook for Save the
Children Staff (2008).
This Save the Children handbook contains a general introduction, key concepts, and guidelines for development and implementation. Also contains 40 implementation resources, such as assessment tools, activities, indicators, job descriptions, and materials/equipment lists.
EDUCATION AND PEACE
Where Peace Begins: Education’s role in conflict prevention and
peacebuilding (2008).
This Rewrite the Future report stresses the important role of quality education in promoting peace, and argues that education must be a priority in countries affected by conflict. Includes short case studies from countries around the world.
Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Nepal Midterm Country
Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses on Nepal’s SZOP effort, and provides a detailed look at the program’s successes and challenges.
BUDGET ANALYSIS AND TRACkING
Budget Work: What, Why, How? (2008).
This three-page briefer, produced for a Rewrite the Future workshop, gives an overview of budget work for advocacy.
Advocacy: What, Why, How? (2008).
This five-page briefer, produced for a Rewrite the Future workshop, gives an overview of advocacy planning.
Last in Line, Last in School (years 2007, 2008, and 2009).
These Rewrite the Future annual reports explain the importance of donor country commitments to supporting education in conflict-affected fragile states. The end of each report includes useful information about budget allocations in donor countries.
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EDUCATION IN EmERGENCY RESPONSE
Delivering education in emergencies (2008).
This Save the Children report is an advocacy piece explaining why education should be included as an integral part of humanitarian response.
Myanmar six months on: Delivering education in emergencies
(video, 2008).
Illustrates how Save the Children included quality education as part of its emergency response following Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.
mONITORING
Rewrite the Future global monitoring report (2008).
Four page report provides an overview of what annual monitoring data shows about program progress in Rewrite the Future countries.
Alliance International Monitoring System process review
(2007, 2008).
One-page overview of successes and challenges in the second and third years of monitoring Rewrite the Future programming.
Monitoring and evaluation trifold (2007).
This trifold brochure gives an overview of the monitoring system for Rewrite the Future (called Alliance International Monitoring System, or AIMS).
EvALUATION
*Learning from those who live it: An evaluation of children’s
education in conflict-affected fragile states.
This report is an in-depth mid-term evaluation of Rewrite the Future done in 2008. It examines participation in Afghanistan, teacher professionalism in Angola, Schools as Zones of Peace in Nepal, and teacher training in Southern Sudan.
*Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Nepal Midterm Country
Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses on Nepal’s SZOP effort, and provides a detailed look at the program’s successes and challenges.
*Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Afghanistan Midterm
Country Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses on Afghanistan’s efforts to increase children’s participation in education.
Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Southern Sudan Midterm
Country Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses on Southern Sudan’s teacher training efforts.
Rewrite the Future Global Evaluation: Angola Midterm Country
Report (2009).
This Rewrite the Future evaluation focuses on Angola’s efforts to support teacher professionalism.
Global evaluation mid-term presentation
This PowerPoint presentation summarizes the Rewrite the Future global evaluation report for a general audience.
*These resources are also mentioned under other sections.
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PHOTOS
CoverUGANDA: Busamba primary school, high up in the Rwenzori mountain range, uses four trees to mark out four open air classrooms. (Teri Pengilley)
Page 1SUDAN. Students with their work books at a camp for people forced to flee their homes, West Darfur (Jenny Matthews)
Page 4AFGHANISTAN: Female teacher at an accelerated learning center for street working children in Kunduz. (Mats Lingell/Save the Children)
Page 7AFGHANISTAN: Students in a classroom at an accelerated learning center for street working children in Kunduz, Afghanistan. (Mats Lingell/Save the Children)
Page 9SOUTHERN SUDAN: Makier, age 8, studies at primary school (Colin Crowley/Save the Children)
Page 11CÔTE D’IVOIRE: Boys attending a children’s club in Mont Glas. (Amadou Mbodj/Save the Children)
Page 13UGANDA: Apolonia, 40, teaches Level One of the Save the Children Accelerated Learning Program at Ntoroko Primary School. (Teri Pengilley)
Page 15HAITI: Children attend a second grade class in Maïssade. (Rebecca Janes)
Page 17NEPAL: Children in the Nepalgunj district going to school. (Redd Barna/Save the Children)
Page 19UGANDA. (Inge Lie/Save the Children)
Page 21JORDAN. Iraqi refugee children in Jordan. (Karin Beate Nøsterud)
Page 23NEPAL. (Redd Barna/Save the Children)
Page 25ANGOLA: Fansony, 13, studies the second module of an Accelerated Learning Programme in Kwanza Sul Province. (Caroline Trutmann/Save the Children)
Page 29DRC: School for internally displaced people. At night the classrooms are used for new IDPs fleeing from the fighting in and around Gety. (Marcus Bleasdale).
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Delivering education in conflict-affected fragile states: An inventory of Rewrite the Future resources
In 2006, Save the Children launched its first global campaign, Rewrite the Future. Across more than 20 countries, Rewrite the Future has improved the quality of basic education for millions of children affected by conflict and helped more than a million children gain access to school.
Throughout this campaign, Save the Children has also gathered evidence on effective interventions and developed reources to help guide future programming. This book provides an overview of those resources. Based on Save the Children’s experience delivering eduation in conflict-affected countries, these resources offer recommendations on implementation, advocacy, and accountability.
Save the ChildrenCambridge HouseCambridge GroveLondon W6 0LEUK
