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Using the Rapid Education and Risk Analysis in a rapidly changing context: Lessons learned from an early-grade reading program in Afghanistan

Mon, March 26, 1:15 to 2:45pm, Fiesta Inn Centro Histórico, Floor: Lobby Floor, Room B

Proposal

Afghan Children Read is a USAID-funded primary education initiative designed to improve equitable access to education and generate measureable reading outcomes for girls and boys in Afghanistan. Afghan Children Read supports education service delivery, through building the capacity of the Ministry of Education to provide an evidence-based early grade reading program for students in grades 1 to 3 in both formal and informal schools.

The Rapid Education and Risk Analysis (RERA) was developed using USAID’s Education in Conflict and Crisis Network (ECCN) guide to inform USAID and its partners in addressing the goal of increasing equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments. The RERA had three purposes: first, to provide USAID/Afghanistan an updated snapshot of conflict and other risks in the country and how they affect education; second, to provide a qualitative understanding or resilience strategies within target communities; and third, to offer USAID, ECCN and other partners with lessons learned from adapting and contextualizing the RERA tools to a conflict affected environment.

The RERA provided quantitative and qualitative data to better understand how the risks of insecurity, attitudes towards girls’ education, education infrastructure stresses and natural disasters are perceived to affect learning and teaching in the early grades. The findings were pertinent but did not carry itself across time period. Given the rapidly changing security environment in Afghanistan, the findings did not inform the project implementation.

There are several research questions which serve to better understand the perceptions of the school community members living in areas of high risk. These questions cover perceptions of educational quality, parental roles in the education of their children, perceptions of communities regarding the quality of public schooling versus community school (NGO delivered schooling), and the perceived barriers to access, safety, and retention of teachers.

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