Building Girls to Live, Learn, Laugh and ‘SCHIP’ in Strong, Creative, Holistic, Inclusive, Protective, Quality Education

The Building Girls to Live, Learn, Laugh and ‘SCHIP’ project supported 10,923 girls and was implemented by Viva/CRANE in Uganda.

In project communities, the cost of education was the main barrier to girls enrolling and staying in school. Negative social norms that place more value on girls’ role in the domestic sphere than their education meant that girls were more likely to be out of school than boys. Other factors pulling girls out of school was early marriage and early pregnancy – both often marked the end of a girl’s education. Access to schools and long distances was an issue, particularly for rural and remote communities. A lack of teaching and learning resources in school, poorly trained and poorly paid teachers, and a lack of protection mechanisms in schools also impacted negatively on girls’ learning.

The project improved marginalised girls’ literacy and numeracy skills, life skills and safety outcomes. It focused on improving school governance and management and on strengthening links between the school, community and local government to keep children safe and improve learning. Life skills, career development and vocational training were provided, as well as catch-up classes and learning assistance in literacy and numeracy through Creative Learning Centres (CLCs). Learning Support Teachers who were placed at schools to support girls’ learning when they transitioned from the CLC to formal schools.

Main activities

• Establishing CLCs to teach out-of-school girls’ numeracy, literacy and life skills.
• Training and providing continuous support to teachers
• Training girls as peer leaders so they could establish Safe Clubs in schools where girls could address local issues.
• Establishing Child Protection Committees and providing safeguarding training on safeguarding awareness, child development and psychology in case management to police, judges and public prosecutors.
• Creating Village Savings and Loans Associations (VLSAs) to allow parents to access low-cost business loans which increased their household incomes.
• Implementing the Viva Quality Improvement Scheme (QIS) training programme to build the capacity of school management and improve child protection, governance, financial accountability, planning, and child well-being.

The project in numbers

Lessons learned

Identify learning needs early. It is important to invest in and support early access to education for all children by prioritising early identification and assessment of learning needs upon school entry. There should be a collaboration between the health and education sectors to ensure this happens. Rolling out the National Learning Needs Identification Tool to all schools across the country is critical.

Delivering education interventions within a local network setting is more cost-effective. Investing in training local mentors who then reached multiple girls and families had a multiplier effect, which was cost-effective. Working with the government was the most cost-effective strategy of all because the tools and resources created could potentially positively impact hundreds of thousands of children if rolled out across the Ministry of Education.

Continuous evaluation of teachers’ competence and areas of development leads to better learning outcomes for girls. Efforts should be made to continuously encourage and provide continuous support teachers to provide an enabling environment for all girls regardless of their ability to learn. The use of lesson observations, regular training and the creation of a monitoring tool were key to building a pool of teachers who will be effective in the classroom beyond the life of the project.

Safeguarding initiatives should take centre stage in all education programming. It is important to ensure that continuous training on safeguarding is provided at school and community level. It is also important to work with government officials to ensure policies and procedures are accessible and operationalised. Education projects and schools need to be encouraged to screen those working with children properly. Creating Safeguarding Committees, establishing Safe Rooms, and training duty bearers is essential to ensure child protection incidents are addressed properly and legally.

Viva: https://www.viva.org/