Adaptive management in Nepal and India: A case study of South-South collaboration

• In Event: South-South Cooperation and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Ensuring Equitable Education

Proposal

It is estimated that 20% of the population age 7-14 is not attending school in India; rates are dramatically higher for adolescent girls, reaching 42% at age 14 and 51% by age 15 (Education Policy and Data Center, based on DHS 2006 data). Increasing access and quality of education is at the core of the Government of India’s 2010 Right to Education Act. The Udaan accelerated learning model is a locally developed solution that caters to the needs of adolescent girls, particularly those from marginalized castes and tribal backgrounds, who had never attended school or dropped out without completing early primary grades.

The Udaan model condensates Grades 1-5 in a period of 11 months. Based on their competency level, girls who successfully complete the course can transition directly into Grade 5 or 6 of government schools. The Udaan curriculum incorporates life skills, including a comprehensive leadership skills development approach. This approach enables marginalized girls to develop their personal agency and to learn about their rights, as well as equipping them with skills to cope with the new experiences faced in school. Upon graduation, girls are better equipped to take different roles at home and within their communities. A synchronized approach is used to work with the girls’ communities and parents, and with the government schools they will transition into upon graduating from Udaan. This approach promotes shifts in social and gender norms, building an enabling environment for adolescent girls to participate in Udaan, to learn and to apply their new skills.

Udaan proved to be extremely successful; 95% of the girls completed the course, and 80% of the graduates transitioned into Grade 6. The Udaan curriculum was adopted by the state of Uttar Pradesh and is being replicated into a network of government-led residential learning centers for girls (Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vindyalaya or KGBV), as part of the push for expanded access promoted by the Right to Education Act. In Uttar Pradesh, this approach is reaching a total of 75,000 girls per year, through 746 KGBV centers.

In a successful case of South-South collaboration, the Udaan model was implemented in Nepal in 2014, supporting government efforts to increase access to education for Dalit and Muslim children in rural and remote villages of the Terai region, home to the largest proportion of out of school children in the country (UNICEF/ Ministry of Education of Nepal, Global Initiative on Out of School Children: Nepal Country Study, July 2016). The model was adapted to better respond to the local context and curriculum, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and local communities, and approved by the Government for implementation across the country. The initial pilot of the model, reaching 466 girls, showed high completion rates (98%), with 77% of the graduates transitioning into formal education. Nonetheless, as coverage expanded through the years, the model passed through an iterative adaptation process to respond to the changes in the profile of out of school children and emerging learning patterns.
This paper will reflect on the multiple layers of adaptation undertaken to maximize impact and ensure responsiveness to the needs of an evolving context. The adaptive-iterative process was guided by studies that determined the evolving profile of out of school children and tracked students’ learning outcomes through the first and second rounds of Udaan. As a result, key changes are being made in the coaching of Udaan facilitators, particularly on numeracy, and on the transition process into upper primary, and an off-shoot of Udaan is being developed for out of school girls who have dropped out of upper primary without acquiring basic skills. This paper will also discuss the potential for the changes emerging from this adaptive-iterative process to influence changes in the original model, as well as informing the broader dialogue about alternative education models in South Asia.

Authors

• Shikha Sunuwar, CARE Nepal

• Lotte Marianne Pires Renault, CARE USA

• Prabodh Mani Devkota, CARE USA