Interim M&E Form (to transition to CRM system) CRS VAS-Y Fille... · Web viewdThe Girls’ Education Challenge: VAS-Y Fille Key Partner Organisation Narrative Proposal. Section

dThe Girls’ Education Challenge: VAS-Y Fille Key Partner Organisation Narrative Proposal

Section 1: Organisation details

Key partner organisation(s) and % of the budget they will deliverKey partner organisations (KPOs) are those members of the consortium who deliver 20% (in monetary terms) or more of the overall project.Organisation’s full legal name and % of the budget they will control Catholic Relief Services, USCCB (28%)

Is the partner organisation not-for-profit or for-profit? Not-for-profit Organisation

Registration numbers, as applicable For companies – company registration number For charities – charity registration number Any other Government-issued registration number

(if relevant and available)

United States Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) record: 068205541

DRC Government Registration Number: 193/PL/2011(in Annex 7(c))

Key personnel identification

Section 2: Project summary details

Project title

Valorisation de la Scolarisation de la Fille (VAS-Y Fille!)(In English: You Go Girl!: Valuing Girls’ Formal Education)

GEC funding requested (GBP) £Project start-date March 2013Project end-date January 31, 2016Project country focus Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Project will be focused on:( X ) Primary education( X ) Lower Secondary education

VAS-Y Fille! Valorisation de la Scolarisation de la Fille! | 1

Section 3: Project summary (maximum 1 page)

In the DRC, girls face a plethora of economic, socio-cultural and physical barriers to education: 71% of the Congolese populations live below the poverty line, boys’ schooling takes priority over girls’, poor quality teaching and lack of materials hinder learning, and school infrastructures do not accommodate girls’ safety needs. The situation is exacerbated in poor rural areas where 36% of girls (ages 7-16) have no access to schooling while 39% of them have less than 4 years of education.

To respond to the economic, social and educational barriers that have kept too many poor ruralCongolese girls from succeeding in and completing school, the International Rescue Committee(IRC), in partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Save the Children Fund (SC), TrustMerchant Bank (TMB), and Airtel propose to implement the Valorisation de la Scolarisation de la Fille(VAS-Y Fille!) project in five provinces where girls’ enrolment, learning, and completion are thelowest in DRC – Bandundu, Equateur, Kasai Oriental, Katanga and Orientale Province. As a result,VAS-Y Fille! will improve the life chances for 34,400 marginalised girls in the DRC as demonstrated through the number of girls completing a full cycle of primary school as well as adecrease in the proportion of girls who are married by age 15. This will be achieved by ensuring that56,026 marginalised girls across the targeted provinces stay in school and 63,360 girlsdemonstrate improved learning outcomes.

VAS-Y Fille! will accomplish these results using a holistic approach that engages alleducation stakeholders to ensure girls’ enroll in school, stay in school and learn while there. For these stakeholders, VAS-Y Fille! will deliver: increased parental financial capacity to support girls tosucceed in and complete primary school; improved girls’ reading and math skills; increasedcommunity involvement to ensure girls’ access to quality education in a safe environment; andincreased civil society engagement in providing alternative learning opportunities for over-aged, out of-school girls.

Specifically CRS will implement the project in the Provinces of Bandundu and Equateur to leverage efforts ongoing under the USAID funded Project to Improve Education Quality (PIEQ). Thus, CRS will build on parents committees (COPA) improved capacity as well as the well-established working relations with local education and administrative authorities. CRS will also bring to Vas-Y Fille project its expertise in community mobilization by taking the technical leading role in the implementation of this component. According to CRS theory of change, ‘’Parental and community engagement in children’s education especially girls’ education will help alleviate the barriers for girls’ education and improve the educational environment for girls; thus, more girls will be able to enroll, stay in school and learn.”

CRS will stress the following elements to make the expected change happen: - Promoting COPAs-led activities to create an enabling environment for girls to pursue education.

COPAs will be supported to develop a gender-responsive SIP and community outreach sensitization activities that will help to identify relevant solutions to issues affecting girls, and increase community ownership and commitment.

- Increasing motivation of girls themselves for education: various opportunities will be provided for girls to express their needs, build self confidence and grow their aspiration for education and well-being through clubs, mentoring, and participation in community outreach activities.

CRS will work with partners and an array of stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, local NGOs, community groups, private sector as well as children and girls themselves to bring the theory of change into actions for girls improved access to quality education.


Section 4: Overall approach / Theory of ChangeContext: For far too long Congolese children faced an exceptionally bleak future, making primary school completion beyond their reach. Currently ranked last on the human development index, 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5 in DRC, life expectancy is 48 years and the average adult has only 3.5 years of schooling.1 Life chances are especially grim for Congolese girls: 51% of adolescent girls are illiterate, and among the poorest households illiteracy is as high as 72%; 49% of women marry before the age of 18;2 28% of married adolescent girls have either given birth or are pregnant; and the prevalence of sexual violence is one of the highest in the world.3 The government of DRC is rolling out free and compulsory education; however, the MEPSP currently operates on 11% of the national budget and does not yet have the capacity and structures to ensure these policy shifts reach all pupils,4 leaving 36.2% of girls out of school.5 In primary schools, boys outperform girls in reading and maths and this gap increases as children progress in grade level6, leading to only 38.2% of rural 6th grade girls participating in the primary school leaving test and 69.2% of girls completing primary school overall.7

Despite large-scale quality basic education programmes in DRC such as OPEQ, PAQUED, SESAM, PAI, PARSE, and C-Change (See Annex 8 for acronyms and abbreviations), systemic barriers to education for girls are not being adequately addressed at the local or national level. While the C-Change project in Katanga Province works specifically towards the elimination of gender-based violence towards girls, it only intervenes in secondary schools and does not address access, retention or completion challenges in primary schools. Local NGOs and faith-based organizations also implement ad-hoc girls’ education initiatives at small-scale. At present, the national Education Interim Plan (MEPSP, 2012) prioritises girls’ enrolment and achievement, yet is without financing or a targeted implementation zone for these programmes.

Rationale: The Education Interim Plan and MEPSP-commissioned, DFID-funded study on out-of-school children and youth (Université de Ouagadougou, 2011) have highlighted the major barriers that prevent girls from accessing, remaining in and learning/completing primary schooling as follows: 1) Limited economic means leaves families unable to afford the direct and indirect costs of girls education and pushes 48% of girls (ages 5 to 14) to engage in child labour.8 These economic barriers prevent girls from enrolling and regularly attending as pupils are sent home for having not paid school fees, leading to high repetition rates. As pupils progress in school, drop-out rates increase due to the increasing financial burden of multiple years of school fees of greater cost and higher opportunity cost (20.2% of girls drop out after age 9). 2) Socio-cultural norms devalue girls’ education resulting in late enrolment, early marriage, unwanted pregnancies, the prioritisation of boys’ education, and the stigmatisation of in-school girls.9 For girls age 10 and older who have never enrolled or have interrupted their education, common assumptions around the ‘school-age’ result in older girls being refused enrolment to primary schools. 3) Educational barriers, such as low quality teaching and inadequate learning materials, lead to poor pupil reading and maths skills and high repetition rates which contribute to high drop-out rates.10 Late enrolment and high repetition mean that the few girls who stay in primary school are likely to be 14-16 years old by the time they reach 6 th grade, are of marrying/childbearing age, and are therefore less likely to transition to secondary school. 4)

1 UNDP.(2011). Human Development Report. New York, NY: United Nations2 UNICEF.(2011).Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition.2010 Report Evaluation.3 UNICEF (2010). Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey: UNICEF and DRC Ministry of Planning4 MEPSP.(2012).Plan intérimaire de l’éducation: 2012-2014. In Fall 2012, primary education will be free for pupils in grades 1 to 5.5 Université de Ouagadougou. (2011). Rapport sur l’État des Lieux, Recherche sur les Enfants et Adolescents en dehors de l’école en RDC. Commissioned by the DRC MEPSP. 6 Torrente, Aber, Shivshanker, et al. (2011). OPEQ Baseline Report: Results from the EGRA, the EGMA, Katanga, DRC.7 MEPSP. (2010b). Rapport général des résultats du Test National de Fin d’études Primaires (TENAFEP)8 (UNICEF, 2011) 9 (MEPSP, 2012)10 (Pearson, 2011)


Image 1: VAS-Y Fille! Theory of Change

Insecurity and sexual violence in and around schools affects attendance, learning, and completion for girls. When girls don’t feel safe in the school environment, they avoid school, aredistracted from learning and are more likely to drop-out before the 6th grade.

As a result, VAS-Y Fille! has been designed as a holistic project to address each of these supply and demand-side barriers, which have kept too many poor rural girls from enrolling in, succeeding at and completing primary school and thus realising their full potential. VAS-Y Fille! will operate in the 5 provinces in the DRC where in- and out-of-school statistics for girls are the worst and the number of schools are the highest -- Bandundu, Equateur, Kasai Oriental, Katanga, Oriental Province (See Annex 10). These provinces were also chosen based on the potential for extended impact for all project interventions beyond the reach and lifespan of the project. VAS-Y Fille! has brought together an innovative consortium of public and private partners that have the capacity to efficiently and effectively provide sustainable solutions for poor, rural girls who have (i) never enrolled in school, (ii) have enrolled late in school, (iii) have dropped out of school, (iv) are at-risk of dropping out, and (v) are struggling to learn while in school. The project will work through the MEPSP, local NGOs, faith-based organisations, community groups and private sector partners as well as with children and girls themselves to achieve transformative results for girls’ education.

Strategic Goal, Outcome and OutputsA total of 39,900 primary school pupils in CRS targeted Provinces of Bandundu and Equateur will benefit annually from VAS-Y Fille! through its support to 133 rural primary schools. Because of VAS-Y Fille!, 19,271 marginalised girls will stay in school and demonstrate improved learning outcomes11. VAS-Y Fille!’s theory of change assumes the combination of multiple interventions focused on overcoming supply- and demand-side barriers to girls’ education lead to better learning and girls staying in and completing school (as shown in Image 1). VAS-Y Fille!’ believes that its holistic program of economic support to families, quality teaching and learning activities, community involvement in education and alternative learning programs will have the combined effect of girls enrolling and attending primary school (or equivalent) more regularly and improving their reading and maths skills, which are predictive of future academic success. As a result they will stay in school with improved learning outcomes in all subject areas and will progress more efficiently through the school system. These additional years of schooling and increased knowledge will enable them to complete a full cycle of primary school (or equivalent) and effectively delay marriage. To achieve these outcomes for girls, CRS will deliver: 1) Increased parental financial capacity to support girls to succeed in and complete primary school: To overcome the extreme poverty in DRC, CRS will provide immediate cash support to girls’ education while simultaneously building the capacity of their families to maintain this financial commitment beyond the life of the project. Given the highly effective results of conditional cash transfers in ensuring additional years of schooling for girls in DRC and other contexts12, CRS will 11 Improved life chances will be measured as the number of marginalised girls who complete a full cycle of primary school and the prevalence of women married before age 15.12 Lloyd and Young, (2009); World Bank, (2009); Evans, Kremer and Ngatia (2009); Baird, McIntosh, and Ozler, B. (2010)


award need-based scholarships and vouchers 18,620- girls in Bandundu and Equateur to pay for direct costs of education (school fees). A voucher system will be organised to provide an opportunity for girls’ to choose the educational supplies they need to succeed. In year 2 of the project, CRS will also engage 3,990 community members13, specifically girls’ parents, to participate in IRC’s innovative and highly successful EA$E savings and loans model. The three-pronged EA$E model empowers participants economically by using a well established savings-led financial intervention known as Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA)14 as a platform to introduce business skills training and household dialogue on relevant socio-cultural topics related to girls education within the family. EA$E provides sustainable support to families and has proven successful in increasing individual and household welfare in eastern DRC with an average of 45% return on investment, and enabled families to invest in education in Burundi,15 Cote d’Ivoire and other contexts. Scholarships and economic empowerment for families complements the MEPSP’s progressive school fee abolition strategy and will ensure that families will be able to afford the non-official school fees and in-direct costs of education that are not addressed through these reforms2) Improved girls’ reading and maths skills: CRS will address poor quality of instruction and learning through proven interventions that build reading and maths skills inside and outside of the classroom. CRS will leverage partners’ existing teacher professional development (TPD) models to provide a progressive package of support to 931 teachers that includes MEPSP-approved modules on reading and maths instruction as well as gender-responsive pedagogy. The proposed TPD is based on globally recognised best practices in TPD in reading and maths. These TPD models are currently under rigorous evaluation in rural DRC under the IRC-led OPEQ Project. After-school tutoring will be organised for 9,975 low-performing 3rd to 5th grade pupils (5,985 girls) in reading and maths, helping close the gender gap. While out-of-classroom tutoring is an innovation in DRC, global research in similar contexts has demonstrated that it provides pupils with additional time on task in reading and maths,16 and tutored pupils have made significant improvements in reading and maths scores and overall learning outcomes within one academic year.17 Knowing that children with access to books in the home who were being read to regularly score higher on early grade reading assessments18, CRS will bring reading into the home by engaging parents of 1st and 2nd grade pupils19 in SC’s promising Literacy Boost community action approaches in 20 communities starting from year 2. Through this approach, parents will develop local ‘Book Banks’ and organise public reading events. The combination of improved quality instruction and additional time dedicated to mastery of basic skills will lead to the enhancement of girls’ and boys’ learning outcomes in all subject areas and contribute to girls staying in school. 3) Increased community involvement ensures girls’ access to quality education in a safe environment: Community involvement is highly correlated with pupil enrolment and retention and targeted information campaigns can be one of the most cost-effective, sustainable programme interventions in education reform.20 As such, CRS will leverage partnerships with the private sector, Caritas diocesan networks, and existing Parent Committees (COPAs) to spearhead community information campaigns with messages promoting on-time enrolment, championing the importance of education for girls and boys, and combating socio-cultural barriers to girls’ education. Girls’ and 13 3990 parents = 133 communities x 2 EA$E groups per community x15 parents per group14 The VSLA model consists of a group of community members who save money together and contribute to a shared fund once a week. Individual members borrow from this common fund and pay the loan back at a modest interest rate, helping the fund grow over time. The group agrees on a pay-out date when each member will receive a share of the common fund, plus accumulated interest.15 Bundervoet, Annan and Armstrong (2011)16 DFID (2010). Learning for All: DFID’s Education Strategy 2010-2015; USAID (2008). Opportunity to Learn: A High Impact Strategy for Improving Education Outcomes in Developing Countries, EQUIP Working Paper17 Banerjee, Cole Duflo and Lidnet (2004) and Save the Children US (2010)18 Bingham, G E. (2007). Maternal Literacy Beliefs and the Quality of Mother-Child Book-reading Interactions. Early Education and Development. 18(1), 23-4919 75% of 1st and 2nd grade pupils’ parents in 100 communities with 50 pupils per class20 Jossey-Bass (2004). Research on families, schools and communities: A multicultural perspective. Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education; J. A. and Bray. (2001). Community Partnerships in Education: Dimensions, Variations and Implications:


Milestones Snapshot19,271 girls in Equateur and

Bandundu Provinces in the DRC stay in school and demonstrate improved learning outcomes;

18,620 girls receiving scholarships and vouchers regularly attend school;

90% of 3,990 parents participating in EA$E groups have increased financial assets to afford girls’ education;

50% of teachers trained apply improved teaching practices by the end of the project (466 of 931 teachers);

A monthly average of 10 additional instructional hours is provided to 9,975 pupils (5,985 girls);

10% community members in 20 communities participate in literacy boost activities with their children;

10% increase in the number of community members participating in COPA-led awareness raising activities;

6% increase in the number of community members who report their comprehension on the importance of girls education has improved;

120 Gender-enhanced SIPs financed and completed by COPAs to create safe learning environments;

5% increase in the number of girls and parents who report the school environment as being more girl-friendly;

2,216 children (1,108 girls) enrolled in ALP;

1,996 children (998 girls) remain in ALP during the project cycle.

boys’ voices will drive peer awareness campaigns on issues of their choosing. COPAs will also carry out participatory school safety assessments, and develop and implement gender-focusedSchool Improvement Plans (SIPs) that respond to girls’ safety needs in and around schools, such as the need for a buddy system walking to school or separated latrines. SIPs will build on awareness initiatives and will also include activities to honour pupil and teacher performance throughout the year. By addressing safety barriers to education for girls in a way that listens to girls’ concerns, girls will feel valued and safe in and around their schools and will be more likely to enrol, attend, stay in school and learn. “Champions” of girls’ education from civil society organisations (CSOs), the private sector and the government will also be trained and supported to advocate for girls’ education in provincial and national policy forums. 4) Increased civil society engagement in providing alternative learning opportunities for out-of-school girls to catch up and complete primary level: In order to provide access to education for 2216 girls and boys (age 10-19) who have never enrolled or have interrupted their education, CRS will support local CSOs to expand their non-formal Accelerated Learning Programmes (ALP). CSOs have proven highly successful at providing the ALPs; consortium members’ experience supporting ALP in DRC has demonstrated female pupil enrolment rates of over 50% and completion rates of over 90%. This makes ALPs a viable entry point to education for girls who have missed out on education.

Impacts and Consequences: VAS-Y Fille!’s integrated, stakeholder-focused project model seeks durable solutions for girls’ education beyond the life of the project and change the trajectory of girls’ and boys’ lives towards better life chances. VAS-Y Fille! will be transformative for girls, as it will reduce the previously mentioned barriers to school access, retention, learning and completion. Additional years of education and small shifts in socio-cultural norms for girls will contribute to delays in marriage and pregnancy for Congolese girls.21 Both girls and boys will directly benefit from learning improvements as a result of TPD, tutoring and community reading interventions. Learning will be measured through the project evaluation (described below in Section 10) using internationally validated Early Grade Reading and Early Grade Math Assessments (EGRA / EGMA), which will help demonstrate a reduction in the learning gap between girls and boys as a result of VAS-Y Fille!. At the family level, households will be able to provide financial and social support for girls’ education, therefore creating a higher value for girls’ schooling. The EA$E intervention has also proven effective in transforming household decision making, and conflict resolution, leading to a reduction in gender-based violence. Men and boys will also benefit from teacher training, tutoring, COPA support, community outreach activities and ALP in order to attain project 21 Lloyd C.B. and J. Young. 2009. New Lessons: The Power of Educating Adolescent Girls. New York, N.Y.: Population Council.


outcomes. These shifts at all levels will, over the long-run, lead to a more highly educated population and increase economic growth. Section 5: Project activities and work plan Output 1: Increased parental financial capacity to support girls' to succeed in primary education

Milestone 1.1: 18,620 girls receiving scholarships regularly attend school [Y1 – 5,320 girls ; Y2 – 13,300 girls cumulative]

CRS will distribute 18,620 need-based scholarships and vouchers to 5 th and 6th grade school girls over the life of the project as well as to 6th grade girls who transition to secondary school in Years 2 & 3. Pupils in upper primary school must pay official fees, teacher salary top-up fees and have indirect costs (copybooks, pencils, uniforms, etc.). For 5th and 6th grade girls, they will receive £18.75 in scholarships and a £12.50 voucher to offset these costs. The girls who transition to lower secondary (LS) school will receive more significant awards to reflect the higher costs in the secondary level (see Annex 9). TMB has committed to designing and managing a system of cash transfers to schools.

After the first disbursement at the beginning of each school year, subsequent scholarship payments will be conditional on girls’ regular attendance (present at least 80% of school days). Awards will continue to be granted to scholars who complete primary level as incentive for them to enrol and regularly attend secondary school. School Management Committees (COGE) will receive cash transfers from TMB as COGE’s have the remit of school budget management. Payments will be made based on verification of scholarship girls’ regular school attendance and will replace teacher salary top-up fees. CRS will put systems in place to ensure accurate reporting of pupil attendance and to mitigate against school fee inflation. Vouchers will be given directly to girls so they can choose what indirect costs of education they need covered, for example notebooks, pens, uniforms, etc. This may be done by setting up education fairs or partnerships with education material suppliers. COPAs will also be highly involved in scholarship public meetings, recipient selection, monitoring and reporting, creating shared responsibility for awardees’ attendance and retention.

Milestone 1.2: 90% of 3,990 parents participating in EA$E groups have increased financial assets to afford girls’ education [Y1 – 0%; Y2 – 0%; Y3- 90%]

To promote retention and mitigate the risk of post-project drop-out, CRS will provide IRC’s EA$E programme to families in order to sustainably tackle the socio-economic barriers to sending their girls to school. In year 2, CRS will identify, train and support an EA$E Community Volunteer (CV) in each community. CVs will introduce the process of EA$E to the community at large and will train two self-selecting EA$E groups in the VSLA methodology. CVs will strongly encourage scholarship awardees’ parents to participate in EA$E groups and select the two groups with at least 15 members and the greatest number of awardees’ parents. Each EA$E group will establish a leadership committee, create by-laws, start a loan fund, establish an emergency social fund and agree on a pay-out date when each member will receive their accumulated savings plus return (generally 8-12 months after saving begins). After the group is running smoothly, CVs will receive additional training and co-facilitate the EA$E Dialogue Series. The discussion series brings spouses together to examine household financial well-being, cash-flow and planning, and is a catalyst for shifts in women’s value and participation in household decision making about girls school attendance and more equitable spousal power relations. CRS will also provide basic business skills training to EA$E groups using the well-established Competency-based Economies, Formation of Enterprise methodology developed by IRC to help group members identify profitable business opportunities and plan the most effective uses for loans. TMB will offer participants savings accounts to safely guard their money. EA$E will be monitored using the VSLA Management Information System (MIS) Tool to monitor three thematic areas: 1) Member attendance and satisfaction; 2) Financial performance;


and 3) Group Process Efficiency. These data will permit CRS to measure parents’ increased economic capacity to support girls’ education.

Output 2: Improved girls' reading and maths skills

Milestone 2.1: 50% of teachers trained apply improved teaching practices (466 of 931 teachers) [Y1 –0%; Y2 – 20%; Y3 – 50%]

CRS will build on existing MEPSP-approved “best practice” reading and maths in-service TPD for 931 teachers (average of 7 teachers per school). These materials are aligned with the MEPSP national primary level curriculum and focus on improved reading and maths skills. They also facilitate teachers’ acquisition of key content with ongoing opportunities to practice and reflect on new teaching techniques. In Y1, CRS will participate in the revision of the existing training materials to ensure that they use gender-responsive pedagogy and include topics such as child/girls’ rights22.

With support from CRS at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, MEPSP-teacher trainers will train 67 head teachers who will then train 931 primary school teachers during a 6-day workshop on reading and a 4-day workshop on maths instruction using gender-responsive pedagogy. VAS-Y Fille! will also support follow-up trainings via TLC cluster discussions23, three layers of systematic teacher support with weekly Peer Group Sessions; monthly School Discussion Groups; and quarterly Learning Clusters. New training modules will be integrated into the TLC cluster discussion series. This “community of learning” approach creates opportunities where teachers are supported by colleagues, head teachers, and school inspectors to apply improved teaching practices and develop skills needed to manage large classrooms. CRS staff alongside MEPSP inspectors will use a “Direct Teacher Observation” tool to monitor how teachers apply these new teaching practices.

Milestone 2.2: 5,985 girls and 3,990 boys have a monthly average of 10 additional instructional hours to improve performance in reading and math; [Y1 – 6 additional hours; Y2 – 8 additional hours; Y3 –10 additional hours]

Starting in Y1, CRS will offer afterschool tutoring to 5,985 girls and 3,990 boys who underperform in reading and maths in grades 3, 4, and 5,24 enabling them to catch-up on fundamental skills. In Y1, CRS will contribute to the design of the tutoring programme that IRC will lead based on key approaches in the MEPSP-OPEQ reading and math model as well as lessons from an exchange visit to observe a successful tutoring programme in Sub-Saharan Africa. Materials will include a Tutor’s Guide (enjoyable lessons and activities), Reading and Maths Learning Box (letter/word cards, phonetic charts, maths problem cards, etc.), and a Tutor Training Manual (using a “practice” approach). The Learning Box can also be used by teachers during formal classroom instruction.

During summer holidays of Y1 & Y2, volunteers teachers or high performing secondary school youth, graduates, especially female , will be recruited and trained to be community tutors. The seven-day tutor training will cover: 1) Rapid assessment of pupils’ reading and maths skills; 2) Applying OPEQ-based reading and maths activities; 3) Using effective tutoring materials. Following training, tutors will liaise with school personnel and COPAs to conduct a programme orientation and set-up a tutoring schedule. At the beginning of the school year, tutors will conduct rapid baseline assessments of all grade 3, 4 & 5 pupils to determine reading and maths skills levels and select the 25 pupils per grade (15 girls; 10 boys) who in need of tutoring. Pupils will be placed into ability-based groups. Tutoring will take place for two hours each day. Throughout the year pupils will be regularly assessed to provide continuous data on learning. Once a cohort of pupils demonstrates grade-level reading and math skills, a new cohort of pupils will be selected. Tutors will meet regularly with school personnel to 22 Teacher training modules will be revised based on OPEQ impact evaluation findings expected in Y1 of VAS-Y Fille!.23 TLCs, known as “forums d’échange” in DRC, is the MEPSP in-service TPD strategy highlighted in the education sector plan, with the goal of providing quality in-service follow-up TPD. MEPSP (2010c). Stratégie de Développement de le MEPSP : 2011 – 2014.24 These grades have been selected because pupil drop-out rates increase drastically in 4,5 and 6 grades and in 3rd grade pupils are automatically pass from 3rd to 4th grade, independent of their actual learning levels (PIE, 2012).


report on pupils’ attendance and skills progression, and will receive a meagre stipend based on their performance. CRS and its partners staff will conduct regular monitoring and support follow-up visits for tutors. A three-day refresher training will also be provided to tutors during the academic year.

Milestone 2.3: 10% of community members participate in literacy boost activities with their children; [Y1 – 0; Y2 – 0; Y3 – 10% of community members ]

VAS-Y Fille!’s community-led literacy activities have been designed to build local capacity to create reading materials that form ‘Book Banks’ and facilitate fun and active reading activities for young readers (Grades 1 & 2) – key aspects of literacy and future learning.25 In Q1 & Q2 of Y1, SC will train consortium partners on the Literacy Boost (LB) community action techniques using existing training materials. Starting in Y2, CRS will train at least 2 community volunteers in 20 communities to run extracurricular programmes that build reading skills. Communities will be supplied with age-appropriate reading materials in local language and French to begin ‘Book Banks’ that will be used in periodic community reading activities. For example, during school holiday periods, community facilitators will organise Reading Camps, motivational clubs that help girls and boys practice reading skills learned throughout the school year. LB incorporates the MEPSP core reading competences which are at the foundation of quality learning in VAS-Y Fille!.

Output 3: Increased community involvement ensures girls' access to quality education in a safe environment

Milestone 3.1: 10% more community members participating in COPA-led awareness raising activities (disaggregated by sex and age group) [Y1 – 4% above baseline; Y2 – 7% above baseline ;Y3 – 10% above baseline]

Milestone 3.2: 6% community members who report their comprehension on the importance of girls education has improved [Y1 – 0% above baseline; Y2 – 3% above baseline ;Y3 – 6% above baseline ]

Development of an awareness raising strategy: CRS will develop an awareness raising strategy in the first quarter of Year 1. The strategy will have illustrative activities and tools including an M&E instrument to measure impacts of community sensitization – examining the key community stakeholders reached and changes in their knowledge and behaviours related to girls’ education. CRS will share the strategy with IRC and Save for them to prepare an annual plan for community sensitization tailoring to their local context. The strategy along with annual plans will be reviewed at the mid-term period and will be fine-tuned if necessary.

Public campaign and events: as part of the awareness raising strategy, CRS will develop and deliver mass media “back to school campaigns” in partnership with the telecommunications giant, Airtel, via SMS and posters promoting on-time enrolment, especially for girls. SMS messages will be economically delivered to a minimum of 65,500 in Bandundu and Equateur provinces as well as 134,500 people in provinces covered by IRC and SC, at no cost to the user. Posters emphasizing the importance of girls education will be placed in schools as well as public places in each community. CRS will also develop public awareness messages about girls’ rights and access to education that will be conveyed in each community throughout the year. In addition, CRS will provide guidance to other consortium members on how to support COPA to develop complementary awareness raising

25 Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., and Griffin, P. (eds.) (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; Hood, Michelle; Conlon, Elizabeth; Andrews, Glenda. Preschool home literacy practices and children's literacy development: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 100(2), May 2008, 252-271.


activities their community For example, COPAs may organise radio listening groups in cooperation with community radio stations broadcasting programmes featuring girls’ education issues or initiate door-to-door school enrolment campaigns. Other illustrative activities include a community walk to bring back school dropouts to school and/or identify out-of-school children and enroll them in regular classes or accelerated learning programs; celebration events highlighting high-performing girls and boys; provision of hygiene kits to girls, etc.

COPA will also be supported to develop outreach activities with youth whereby girls and boys will be active advocates for their own empowerment. CRS will develop in collaboration with consortium partners, the Directorate of Partnerships and Parents associations a guide that COPAs will use as a reference to organize outreach activities. Using the guide, COPAs will work with existing clubs and associations to deliver gender-sensitive messages in the most effective way for young people. For example, COPAS may work with children’s clubs to perform theatre, dances, or art exhibitions to provoke discussions among peers or with adults on how to alleviate the barriers that prevent girls from going to school.

In Y2 of the project, CRS will provide guidance to consortium members to connect with distinguished female figures – local politicians, government authorities, community leaders, and entrepreneurs to take part in public campaigns and events to demonstrate the importance of education in their lives and inspire girls and communities. CRS will also adapt its advocacy module and work with IRC and Save the Children to train female leaders along with male leaders in advocacy skills so they can become “champion” campaigners for girls’ education and work to influence government policy and programs, carrying forward message of girls’ education over the long-term.

Milestone 3.3: 90% of Gender-enhanced SIPs financed and completed by COPAs to create safe learning environments [Y1 – 0%; Y2 – 50%;Y3 – 90%]

Milestone 3.4: 5% of girls and parents who report the school environment as being more girl-friendly [Y1 – 0%; Y2 – 3% above baseline ;Y3 – 5% above baseline ]

In line with the MEPSP Education Interim Plan which calls communities to action to maintain and improve the school environment, CRS will build upon the capacity of COPAs to implement gender-specific activities within SIPs to create a safe learning environment for girls in targeted schools. CRS will execute the following activities to support the development and implementation of gender –focused SIPs.

COPA Assessment: In the first quarter of the project, CRS will develop a tool to compile data/information about COPAs level of functioning and participation in schools activities, consolidating tools and methodologies developed by IRC, Save the Children and CRS. CRS will provide guidance to other consortium partners on the use of the tools. After data collection and data analysis, CRS will work with IRC and Save the Children to lay out a plan of COPAs/COGEs reinforcement for each region. For the schools whose COPAs do not exist or are not functional, partners organizations will support the formation of COPAs and train them in their role and responsibilities as well as in institutional development. At mid-term and end of the project, CRS will assess the levels and types of parental and community involvement in education and examine the impact on girls access and learning in schools. After the mid-term assessment, CRS will work as needed in collaboration with consortium partners to


strengthen COPA capacities to reach the “transformational engagement” level taking initiatives on their own to improve girls’ and boys’ schooling and learning.

COPA training manual on gender issues and girls education: CRS will take a lead in developing a COPA training manual on gender issues and girls education, adapting the assertiveness training manual created by CRS/Ethiopia, and USAID-produced training manual – Doorways - focusing on school-related gender-based violence prevention and response, CRS will also incorporate educational materials and tools developed by IRC and SC in the manual. The topics in the manual will include concept of gender (women/girls and men/boys), gender stereotype (masculinity for men and femininity for women), human rights/women’s rights/ children’s rights including rights for education, status of girls education in DRC and target provinces, value of girls education (demonstrating the examples of women’s transformational social, cultural, economic and political role), and benefit of educating girls for girls themselves, families, communities and society. The training manual will also cover the particular factors affecting girls’ schooling including safety in school, girls-friendly school infrastructure, poverty, a burden of household chores, health and nutrition, cultural and social norms related to girls and women, and early marriages and pregnancies. Furthermore, the training manual will introduce various PRA tools (such as mapping, diagramming, and daily activity profile of girls and boys), to enable communities to visualize and grasp the issues related to girls education.

In Q2 of Year 1,the draft COPA training manual on gender issues and girls education will be finalized through rapid consultation with girls, boys, parents, teachers, community members, and local education officials. In year 2, CRS along with other consortium members and key stakeholders will review the manual based on lessons learned and will revise it if necessary. In the last quarter of the project, the final version of the COPA training manual on gender issues and girls education will be presented to the central and local MEPSP, donors, CSOs, and private sector organizations so that the COPAs training in gender-responsive SIP will be replicated widely in the country.

COPA training: Upon finalization of the COPA training manual, CRS will train its community mobilization staff as well as consortium members agents. The training will also be extended to provincial MESPS officials and representatives of Parent associations.

Subsequently, the Community Mobilization staff along with MESPS officials and parents association members will conduct training of COPAs/COGEs clustering 5 schools together. The first training sessions will focus on general gender issues and girls education. Subsequent sessions will emphasize the development of a gender-responsive school improvement plan. There project will conduct COPAs/COGEs training periodically featuring the SIP implementation and monitoring, various gender-related topics such as school-related gender-based violence, parental involvement in children’s education, early marriages, etc.. The clustering approach will promote information exchange, mutual support and a platform to approach the local government and other organizations to generate their attention and support for education in general and girls’ education in particular.

Gender-responsive SIP Development: CRS along with consortium partners will support COPAs/COGEs to organize community workshops to analyze the condition of girls’ education, identify major barriers for girls’ education, prioritize action items to improve girls’ education, and develop a gender-responsive SIP. COPAs/COGEs will invite the community actors who play a key role in girls’ education: teachers, traditional community authorities, religious leaders, various government authorities – health, social affairs, labour, police, child protection committees, women’s and youth groups, and local businesses). Girls and boys representatives will also be present at the


Community Workshop and their opinions will be incorporated in decision-making. Afterwards COPAs/CGEs will be supported to finalize their gender-responsive SIP.

Upon completion of the gender-responsive SIPs, COPAs will be provided a small grant to help implement action items identified for improving girls’ education. Community Mobilization staff , local MEPSP and regional parent associations will monitor COPAs progress in implementing SIP and will provide technical support during activity implementation if necessary. Periodically COPAs will organize community workshops gathering the local key actors once again to review the progress and plan upcoming activities. An assessment will be conducted at mid-term and end of the project to determine the level of satisfaction of girls and parents about the changes in school environment.

COPA Networking: Starting Y2, CRS will work with IRC and SC to network COPAs with regional and national Parents’ Association for collective advocacy focusing on gender-specific policy changes. at local, provincial and national levels This will enable COPAs to raise their voices more effectively, make contacts with government, CSOs and private sector figures, and generate interest and resources. The gender-enhanced COPA training manual will also be shared with MEPSP, donors, CSOs, and private sector organisations, encouraging replication.

Output 4: Increased civil society engagement in providing learning opportunities for out of school girls to catch up and complete primary

Milestone 4.1: 2,240 children (1120 girls) enrolled in ALP; [Y1 – 1440; Y2 – 1840] Milestone 4.2: 2,016 children (1,008 girls) remain in the ALP program during the project

cycle [Y1 & Y1 - 0]CRS will work with local NGOs and local faith-based Caritas partners to create 40 ALP classes for out-of-school girls ages 10-19 years in targeted areas of each of the two project provinces. CRS will provide subgrants to existing local partners to expand their ALPs to more pupils. Where no local partner currently exists, CRS will publish a call for partners that will be dispatched via the national and local ALP network RENACERAS (Réseau National des Centres de Rattrapage Scolaire) and carry out the partner selection process (details in section 13). At the beginning of each project year, selected local NGO partners will sensitise parents and other community members through door-to-door and media campaigns to raise awareness of the benefits of ALPs for out-of-school, older girls and boys in order to enrol a total of 2,240 pupils over the life of the project, including 1,120 girls (720 in Y1, plus an additional 200 girls each of the following years). ALP pupils will be provided with a basic school kit (notebooks, pens, etc.). CRS will support partners to train ALP teachers and lobby education officials to waive the exit exam fee for ALP pupils. Partners’ experience in DRC has shown that ALP pupils, particularly girls, generally complete the entire primary cycle. Therefore, graduating girls will be eligible for the scholarships described in Output 1 to enrol in Grade 1 of lower secondary school. CRS expects that 600 girls (200 girls each year) will complete primary school through supported-ALPs. Local partners will monitor and report regularly to CRS on ALP indicators of access, quality and completion, including on-going evaluation of learning outcomes. These reports will be verified and local partner performance will be evaluated by CRS M&E staff prior to sub-grant payment disbursements.

Section 6: Ethical and environmental considerations


Environment: The VAS-Y Fille! project has been designed to have a limited physical impact on the environment. It does not include large-scale infrastructure interventions, but rather supports locally selected and implemented SIPs through the COPAS/COGES. These committees will be encouraged to integrate environmental considerations into their SIPs and during the training sessions project teams will use the forum to posit questions around environmental issues that are pertinent to the targeted communities and request them to acknowledge these issues in the SIPs. For example, not building on protected lands like national parks, forests, or reserves; avoiding rehabilitation projects on ground that is prone to erosion, landslides or collapse; and/or ensuring proper waste management for construction materials, school waste or latrines. Prior to funding of SIPs, as part of the review process by the project engineer, an environmental impact assessment will be conducted.

The consortium and its local partners will also take certain operational measures to limit the project’s impact on the environment. Teaching and learning materials developed for the project will be made using durable materials such as plastic cardstock and laminated story sheets so that they can serve both in- and out-of-classroom activities as well as be reused beyond the life of the project. Teacher and tutor trainings will demonstrate how recycled materials can be used to develop read and math instructional aids. Finally, partners will prioritise local procurement of goods and services where goods and services are of equal or better cost and quality.

Ethical: Education is the means through which society transmits its values, habits and other information relevant to its culture and overall way of life. For a formal education system to be an accepted and effective tool for positive change in a community, it must not only provide quality learning outcomes against agreed upon standards of education, but meaningful ones as well. To achieve this, VAS-Y Fille! is designed to enable families and other community members to contribute to a change in the way girls’ education is prioritised. A participatory approach will create a shared understanding of the barriers and particular challenges that girls face, and of the importance of achieving the project’s selected targets around enrolment, retention and attendance. Project staff will meet with MEPSP and school staff, COPAS/COGES, beneficiary families (inclusive of girls and boys) and other local stakeholders to hold discussions around these issues and the project’s logic of intervention.

The VAS-Y Fille! project will give particular consideration to gender issues in the targeted communities. Even though the project targets communities where girls’ education and life chances are especially dire, there is not a significant gender gap in the enrolment, dropout and attendance statistics between girls and boys throughout the DRC. Therefore, VAS-Y Fille! prioritises the needs of girls in attaining improved learning outcomes and completion rates where a significant gender gap does persist, but the project will not neglect the needs of boys in this regard. At each step of design through implementation, it is critical to consider the potential value of project activities for boys, and how this is already or can be integrated at the lowest cost possible. Specifically, boys will directly benefit from improved learning outcomes through the project’s TPD component and involvement in tutoring programmes, as well as be considered in back to school enrolment campaigns and other community outreach activities. As detailed in section 10, VAS-Y Fille! will measure improved learning outcomes and other key educational indicators for both girls and boys.


Section 7: Monitoring and evaluation of progress (5 pages)

Monitoring Strategy

At the outset of the project, CRS will define its monitoring strategy using its SMILER methodology (Simple Measurement of Indicators for Learning and Evidence-based Reports). The SMILER methodology is a global and practical approach to operationalizing the M&E system that favours learning and decision-making based on evidence-based results. The approach brings clarity, consistency and rigor to documenting progress, managing performance and reporting on project accomplishments. Through this approach, the M&E system becomes the backbone of a project by linking the project’s objectives and indicators across the results framework and the M&E plan in a system to collect, analyse and report on data. Inclusive project staff participation throughout the reiterative process reinforces the system objectives in the project context and ensures that project staff (including CRS staff and sub-recipient organization staff) has a clear understanding of the project monitoring system and their role in its implementation.

Through the process of operationalizing the M&E system, SMILER outlines the flow of data from the point of data collection via routine usage of data collection tools and periodic evaluations to the transmission of data via reports on a pre-determined frequency that is approved by project staff and partners. The methodology defines data sources, data collection frequency at the indicator-level per the project logical framework. The multi-directional flow of communication and the transmission of reports between project stakeholders is established to ensure the consistent, timely and clear sharing of project information. Finally, the process aligns the M&E system with the detailed project implementation plan to enable analysis of the quality and intensity of project implementation. Routine learning is promoted through Learning for Action Discussions (LAD) that are held at a frequency identified by CRS and partner staff, though usually in conjunction with monthly and/or quarterly partner coordination meetings. These discussions ensure that time is set aside to understand and analyze project data and to discuss their implications for the management of the project.

The choice of data collection tools by CRS will be informed by standardized monitoring tools that VAS-Y Fille! will develop and/or adapt to collect data and track progress on each of the project components towards project targets against project work plans. As defined in the VAS-Y Fille! logical framework, monitoring data will come from both project-specific data collection sources as well as administrative data sources. Use of existing administrative school data to measure enrolment, completion, attendance and drop-out will promote sustainable programming and avoid parallel systems of education monitoring.

COPAs and community volunteers will be the focal point for routine monitoring data collection for indicators related to community-based activities. For activities related to tutoring and accelerated learning program (ALP), the person responsible for overseeing the activity implementation will be the primary focal point for data collection. However, some data will be directly collected by the site officers when the activity is directly implemented with their support. Data collection will occur on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on the indicator and frequency of the occurring activity. Monitoring data for project output and process indicators will come from existing school data and VAS-Y Fille! project records.

Project team and in particular field agents will provide intensive supervision and support to schools and ALP centres to ensure timely data collection and reporting. As the data are aggregated and reviewed by field managers and CRS M&E staff, completeness, coherence and correctness will be


assessed through descriptive data analysis by province and by project site according to the following pathway:

1. Submission of field data to field officer by the person in charge of monitoring data collection (when data are not directly collected).

2. Field supervisors check for completeness and timeliness of monitoring data, data entry in the database and data submission to CRS M&E officer

3. M&E officer cleans and analyses data for CRS respective provinces in the VAS-Y Fille! database and submits a report to the provincial managers, M&E manager and Education Director

4. CRS M&E officer aggregates datasets in the VAS-Y Fille! database, checks for completeness, coherence and correctness of all monitoring data across CRS VAS-Y Fille! provinces, and submits provincial datasets to the VAS-Y Fille! Research, Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator at IRC and field coordinators/managers.

CRS will use standardized protocol defined by the consortium for data entry and validation, including sign-off procedures for data analysis or use in project reports. Monitoring data will be used by project management team to track progress towards project targets and against project work plans. M&E staff will also perform audits on a random sample of project sites on a quarterly basis in order to compare monitoring data to data available on site. Field and M&E staff will also conduct on-site data reviews as well as regular spot checks to ensure that administrative data are valid, accurate and reliable. These audits will both reinforce the capacity of those collecting the data as well as provide CRS with real-time information on the status of project activities.

CRS will hold monthly review meetings to share progress and address challenges in project implementation with the participation of all stakeholders and collaborating organizations. Based on analysis of process and quality indicators, CRS will coordinate with IRC and Save the Children for the revision of implementation and data collection tools in all aspects of the project in case of need. CRS will use the standard reporting format developed by IRC to report on VAS-Y Fille! indicators.

Finally, CRS will contribute to the testing of the VAS-Y Fille! theory of change, by tracking a representative sample of individual pupils representing various cohorts over the life of the project as agreed by all partners. CRS will also use the cohort tracking system developed by VAS-Y Fille! to provide data on literacy and numeracy achievements per pupil as well as information on school completion and enrolment.

Performance Management Framework

CRS’s contributions to VAS-Y Fille!’s performance management framework will be guided by CRS’s SMILER system (outlined above) and comply with IRC’s project cycle management. The performance management framework will be geared towards a process of continuous learning and improvement to attain project outcomes and impact. CRS will contribute to the development of the annual work plans at the national level. CRS will work with partners to develop quarterly and monthly work plans to orient project team. Field teams will submit monthly reports that will include completed monitoring tools that demonstrate activities completed within the reporting period and how those activities contribute to the achievement of expected outputs. Information sharing will be an iterative process and will encourage dialogue between the field team and the management team. Documenting project implementation on a regular basis will ensure that learning is captured early in the project and transformed into improved implementation strategies. Regular reporting will also ensure that project performance is accurately and timely reported to IRC and key stakeholders.


Financial monitoring and oversight are integral parts of the VAS-Y Fille Performance ManagementFramework in order to ensure value for money through efficient, economical and cost effective projectspending. The CRS Project Coordinator will develop detailed spending plans and activity budgets to ensure effective and quality programming at a fair price. Accurate financial forecasting and regular planning will contribute to the efficient implementation of project activities, leading to more effective project outputs. Each month, the CRS Project Coordinator will analyze the monthly budget comparison report to ensure that all VAS-Y Fille! expenses are economical and attributable to the attainment of project outputs and outcomes, thereby ensuring project value for money.

CRS will hold monthly project coordination meetings with is partners to discuss progress, successes and challenges in technical and operational implementation. During these meetings monitoring data will be reviewed and analysed to ensure that the project is on track, to learn from the successes and challenges encountered and to redirect implementation priorities as needed. In addition, CRS will attend quarterly meetings organized by IRC with all consortium partners to discuss key performance indicators, including indicators linked to the project’s performance based financing structure.

Project Monitoring, Reporting & Evaluation Resources

Baseline PlanCRS will support the consortium efforts to conduct the baseline survey, which will occur in households (July/August 2013) and in schools (start of 2013-14 school year) with the aim of describing the initial conditions in a sample of intervention and non-intervention communities related to marginalisation of girls; potential root causes of, nature of and scale of marginalisation, and the initial level of learning abilities of pupils. The baseline will collect both quantitative data using household and school-level surveys and qualitative data using semi-structured structured qualitative interviews. Quantitative data collection will gather information related to: household and student characteristics; education system data for girls and boys; baseline project logical framework indicators; the level and nature of hypothesized risk and protective factors for marginalised girls; and, reading and math abilities for in- and out-of-school girls and boys prior to the intervention.

The selection of participants (stratified random sample; stratified by province to ensure provincial representativeness) will occur at the school level and most data analysis will be based on the two-level cluster model. This model will be modified by VAS-Y Fille! to include specific variables of concern. The school baseline will survey a random sample of in-school girls and boys from 3 rd

through 5th grade in 266 intervention and non-intervention schools (n=3,600; 2,400 girls and 1,200 boys). The household baseline will survey a representative sample of target households in intervention zones (n=400). Baseline data collection will be carried out by enumerators who will be deployed on the ground after having undergone a rigorous training in order to master the data collection tools and the survey strategy. To ensure the success of the operation and the relevance of the results, enumerators will be under the direct supervision of a data collection supervisor who will be responsible for quality-control checks and validating the data collection. The quality of the data collected will then be double check by M&E staff required to be in the field during survey implementation to guarantee adherence to protocols and proper completion of questionnaires.

The DRC MICS report (2010) suggests that between 66%-80% of primary school age children attend school at some point during the year in intervention provinces, implying that the average household is likely to have at least one child enrolled in school at some point during the school year. This means that a representative sample of households may not include many families with no children in school at all. We will consider purposively sampling households in order to have households with a mix of in-school and out-of-school children as well as a small sample of households with no children in school. The household baseline will gather information about 1) the level and nature of marginalisation in


nhearne, 05/28/13,

To be update once CRS portion is defined

target populations (in-school girls and boys ages 7-12) and non-target populations (out-of-school girls and boys ages 7-12) by measuring hypothesized risk and protective factors; 2) girls’ and boys’ exposure to school by measuring school enrolment and grade completion.

We will not measure learning outcomes for out-of-school girls or boys in households in light of existing research. Across four VAS-Y Fille! provinces (Katanga, Equateur, Bandundu and Orientale), Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and IRC have assessed literacy and numeracy abilities of students in grades 2-6 and found low achievement on these exams coupled with very little French spoken at home. IRC found that only 2.7% of children reported speaking French at home. In addition, the average scores on a series of 9 literacy tests ranged from a low of 0% to a high of 40%. 26 RTI had similar findings.27 In the DRC, French is the language of instruction starting in grade 3, requiring literacy and numeracy assessments to be in French. It is thus highly unlikely that an out-of-school child, to whom VAS-Y Fille! is not providing any service and who likely hears no French at home, would provide meaningful data through an EGRA/EGMA assessment in French.

Evaluation PlanVAS-Y Fille!’s evaluation focuses on six questions: 1) What is the impact of the full VAS-Y Fille! package of support (scholarships, EA$E groups, teacher training, tutoring, community reading activities, parent participation and ALPs) on enrolment, learning, attendance and retention of girls? (Impact) 2) What effed did VAS-Y Fille! Have on community attitudes and behaviours towards girls’ education? (Impact) 3) Which component of VAS-Y Fille! Was most effective in contributing to positive outcomes28 for girls? (Effectiveness) 4) Which component of VAS-Y Fille! Was least effective in contributing to positive outcomes for girls? (Effectiveness) 5) What is the cost-effectiveness of each of the components of the VAS-Y Fille!? (Efficiency) 6) What is the most cost-effective combination of VAS-Y Fille! components? (Efficiency). Key outcomes of interest include learning outcomes, school attendance, school enrolment, grade completion, primary school completion and retention. School enrolment, grade completion, school attendance and retention can all be found in administrative school records, which identify each child by name and class. Learning outcomes will be assessed using the Early Grade Reading and Math Assessments. Risk and protective factors will be measured by a tool developed in coordination with an evaluation partner.

In order to answer these project evaluation questions, VAS-Y Fille!’s evaluation approach will focus on accurately and reliably measuring changes in tehkey project outcome indicators of retention and learning attributable to the project. As a secondary priority, the VAS-Y Fille! Evalauation will accurately and reliably measure the incremental, additional effects that individual components of the project have on the key project outcomes of retention and learning as compared to a base package of support.

The project evaluation will measure the project effect in terms of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ changes on the target population but also in terms of differences between the intervention groups and non-intervention groups targeted by the project. At the midline and endline, the VAS-Y Fille! Evaluation will collect data from baseline survey participants using the same household and school-based data collection tools used at the baseline. Analysis of this data will be used to demonstrate that the program has contributed to the programme outcome of 1 million marginalised girls across 22 countries able to complete a full cycle of education and demonstrate learning.

In alignment with the GEC strategy, CRS will support consortium efforts to track a randomly-selected cohort of marginalised girls in intervention and non-intervention communities across each wave of

26 Torrente et al., 201127 RTI, 2010.28 Outcomes refer to enrolment, learning, attendance and retention.


data collection – baseline, midline and endline. Cohort tracking will enable the project to attribute variation in project outcomes to different levels of exposure to the project. Three cohorts will be tracked: households, girls enrolled in primary schools and girls enrolled in ALP. Based on these groups of cohorts, VAS-Y Fille! Will be able to construct strong counterfactuals for each element of the project evaluation and in order to demonstrate additionality.

Qualitative research will inform the interpretation of the six evaluation questions. VAS-Y Fille will use a randomized control trial (RCT) methodology to most accurately measure the impact of VAS-Y Fille on each cohort and sub-cohort of beneficiaries in intervention communities and schools. The research tools to be used will provide sufficiently detailed data to capture the myriad of intended and unintended impacts that VAS-Y Fille will have on individuals, schools and the household/community environment. The most rigorous research methods will be applied to ensure that samples are representative and that results can be generalised to this larger group of the VAS-Y Fille! schools and beneficiaries. Sub-cohort research will help the project to better understand the effectiveness of each component of the program and to confirm trends observed through monitoring data.

To these effects, quantitative data collections tools will include a household questionnaire and modified early grade reading (EGRA) and early grade math assessments (EGMA). The household questionnaire will be adapted to ensure appropriateness in the DRC context and to capture specifics related to the VAS-Y Fille! project. The questionnaire will include an expanded household composition and demographics module to make it possible to capture perceptions of the risk factors and include modules for in- and out-of-school children. The EGRA/EGMA will respectively assess French reading and math outcomes for out-of-school children identified through the household survey. The EGRA will include the following subtasks: letter identification, non-word identification and oral reading fluency and comprehension. The EGMA will include the following subtasks: number identification, quantity discrimination, missing number identification and addition/subtraction.

Qualitative data will be collected at the midline and endline in line with consortium guidelines through semi-structured interviews around questions about the scale and type of change that have occurred. Qualitative data will also explore exposure to activities and changes in awareness and attitudes of parents. The qualitative survey will be longitudinal and administered with the same households interviewed at the baseline to enable the project to investigate how response to the baseline questions have changed. The survey will also aim to collect feedback on families’ and girls’ experiences with VAS-Y Fille! Using a Qualitative Semi-Structured Questionnaire, the survey will aim to understand the following key questions: the relationship between girls’ marginalisation and outcomes expected and if the project helps to reach the expected outputs; how changes in project outcomes affect household attitudes and behaviour; and causality in the project theory of change.

Value for Money Assessment The value for money assessment will focus on the cost-effectiveness of VAS-Y Fille! components that have rigorous evidence of effectiveness and cost-efficiency. CRS will contribute to the development of and the implementation of cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency models that IRC will lead to estimate the cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency of VAS-Y Fille! overall and in particular components of VAS-Y Fille! as implemented by the consortium. Value for money metrics will be reported quarterly to capture the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of VAS-Y Fille in conformity with GEC requirements.


Section 7: Capacity partner organisations to implement the project

Catholic Relief Services (CRS)With an education programming budget of £35.63 million and child beneficiaries counting over 1 million, CRS supports education programs in more than 55 countries, targeting the most marginalised and vulnerable children, including girls, ethnic minorities, child labourers, children with disabilities and children affected by the HIV pandemic. Based on its unique Analysis Framework on Marginalised Children and Education, CRS analyses and prioritises interventions to enhance education access, education quality and relevance, and community engagement in education. With regards to girls’ education, CRS has successfully increased girls’ school enrolment, retention, attendance and academic performance in various countries including DRC, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Lesotho, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

CRS began education programming in DRC in 2001. Through the DFID-funded REVES project (Revitalisation of Education in Sankuru) in East Kasai, CRS mobilised families and communities to improve physical and psychological educational environments with particular consideration to the needs of girls, resulting in an 18% increase in girls’ access to school. CRS is currently implementing the aforementioned PAQUED project to improve the quality of education at 3,000 schools in Bandundu, Equateur and Oriental provinces. CRS is also implementing the IRC-led OPEQ project in North Kivu, and providing technical leadership in community mobilization.

Partnership is central to CRS’ philosophy, and the agency has a long history of, and strong commitment to, strengthening local partner organisations. CRS directly supports local partners, helping develop their capacities to acquire and manage donor resources and to achieve their operational goals, while providing both technical and managerial oversight to ensure sound programme implementation and accountability to donors. This commitment will be extended to the VAS-Y Fille! project to improve education. In DRC, CRS has a history of supporting the Caritas Diocesan partners, assisting them to implement education programmes with reinforced skills to address gender issues. Through PAQUED, CRS developed community sensitisation tools tailored to the local context, including radio programmes on the importance of education. CRS has also created and successfully applied a COPA training manual for the DRC that addresses in-school governance, developing and implementing School Improvement Plans (SIP), children’s rights, and child protection.

CRS Management Structure

CRS will use a highly-skilled team including both technical and support staff who will work together to achieve project goals. The table below describes the VAS-Y Fille! project team and key responsibilities in the management of the project.

Position Key Responsibilities Project coordinator project oversight and overall responsibilities for

achievement of project targets, quality of interventions, and ensuring sound financial and administrative management, including compliance with DFID and other applicable regulations; key technical person for the community mobilization component of the project.

Grant compliance officer Ensure compliance with CRS and donor regulations; financial oversight of project partners,including assessing local partner capacities and conducting regular financial reviews and monitoring


Teaching /learning manager Coordination and oversight for teacher professional development and tutoring activities in collaboration with school inspectors. Provide technical support to trainings.

Economic Strengthening Manager

Coordination and oversight for scholarships and ease-model activities. Provide technical support to trainings.

M&E Manager Technical support for the development and use of M & E system and tools. Supervision of data collection and data quality control. Coordination of project baseline and evaluations.

Provincial Coordinators (2) Will be based in the field to work with partners in project activities planning and implementation. Coordination and monitoring of activities in the field and technical guidance for community mobilization activities.

Assistant Program Manager Administrative and logistical support to project team. Ensure compliance with standards of quality management.

CRS finance and administration units will provide support to the project by ensuring overall compliance to DFID/IRC and government financial, human resources and other regulations that apply to the implementation of projects in DR CONGO; providing the monitoring and support needed to meet all financial compliance issues; ensuring the timely and accurate submission of all financial reports; ensuring that the procurement needs of VAS-Y Fille ! addressed in a timely and efficient manner

In addition, CRS in-country senior management team in Kinshasa will support and supervise the VAS-Y Fille! team, monitor overall project progress and conduct periodic visits to the field sites to verify implementation.

The project will also receive technical support from CRS Senior Education Advisors based at CRS Headquarters in Baltimore. They will provide technical backstopping and guidance in the design and the implementation of the community mobilization strategy as well as the design of training and assessment tools.


I have read the draft grant agreement and should we be successful in our application, we agree to the terms and conditions outlined therein.

Signed:

…………………………………………………………………………………………..(Signature of Chief Executive or other legal signatory)

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE, PLEASE SIGN, SCAN AND SEND THIS PAGE SEPARATELY.


AttachmentsPlease place an X against the documents that you have attached.

Organisation’s policy documents Child protection Anti-Bribery/Anti-Corruption Use of partners/ sub-contractors Staff training Quality assurance Equal opportunities

Annexes Annex 1: Completed project budget (as returned to CRS by IRC) Annex 2: Project logframe Annex 3: CVs of key personnel Annex 4: Detailed project workplan


Documents

Interim M&E Form (to transition to CRM system) CRS VAS-Y Fille... · Web viewdThe Girls’ Education Challenge: VAS-Y Fille Key Partner Organisation Narrative Proposal. Section