Discovery Project

The Discovery Project supported 461,351 girls and was implemented by Impact(Ed) International in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

Girls in all three countries face barriers to learning and transition, especially as they reach adolescence and look to transition from primary to - and through - junior secondary school. Poverty is the key driver of educational marginalisation, affecting girls’ attendance at school, their ability to fully participate in lessons and in extracurricular activities, and their ability to concentrate during their lessons. In addition, poor school infrastructure and the lack of qualified teachers and female teachers pose barriers to learning across the three countries. Concerns about distance and safe travel to school, as well as the need for girls to carry out household chores and support their household economically, often resulted in girls not attending school.

The project aimed to increase girls’ learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy, their self-esteem and self-efficacy, and their successful completion of the primary cycle and transition into junior secondary school. This was done through the provision of educational content and technological solutions alongside teacher professional development to primary schools. Remedial classes were established to support academic learning and Girls’ and Boys’ Clubs were established to build life skills. Core to the project approach was working closely alongside communities and school leaders to address the barriers to girls’ learning.

Main activities

• Providing sustainable technology, educational video content and teacher professional development to improve the quality and gender-inclusiveness of education at the primary and junior secondary level.
• Delivering an accelerated learning programme through supporting small-size remedial classes for mid-to-upper primary school children
• Investing in girls’ and boys’ clubs with a print and visual life skills curriculum and training and support for club mentors. Creating a new, multi-media life skills series called My Better World, in collaboration with CAMFED, to develop a range of practical knowledge and real-world skills for club members and beyond.
• Providing intensive teacher training and follow-up coaching to improve students’ literacy and numeracy outcomes in primary school while reinforcing child-centred and gender-responsive teaching methods.
• Involving school leadership and community representatives in community action planning to identify and address persistent barriers to girls’ attendance, learning and transition.

The project in numbers

Lessons learned

Remedial classes should target those most in need and teaching and learning should be aligned to the level of the learner. To ensure learning at the right level, diagnostic testing is important as is a curriculum that targets specific learning gaps. Classes should be free of charge and target the most vulnerable students by identifying those that lack economic, social, and familial support.

Engaging community in education planning is effective in identifying and addressing barriers to education. The CAP process worked best when there was a clear identification of ‘champions of change’ and when both school leadership and influential community members were engaged in the process. It is particularly important that participants in the CAP workshops are representative of the community, with emphasis on ensuring the perspectives of girls, women and the most vulnerable groups are heard.

To reach most marginalised through girls’ and boys’ clubs, careful consideration to scheduling is needed. Decisions on the time slot and the duration of club sessions should be made with learners and community members. After-school sessions sometimes posed attendance challenges, particularly for girls and boys from more vulnerable homes or distant communities.

School-based mentoring helps ensure quality teaching in the classroom. Teacher and mentor training followed by regular, structured and sustained observation and coaching can generate sizable improvements in teaching practice and mentor facilitation of clubs.

Impact(Ed) International: www.impacted.org