Because our girls deserve the best: A 7-Year journey in Afghanistan

• In Event: Paying Attention to Youth Perceptions on Conflict

Proposal

During the last decade, major progress has been made in education in Afghanistan, increasing access to services by over 900% (Ministry of Education, National Education Strategic Plan 2017-21). While girls’ access to education still lags behind boys’, it has progressively increased. A large proportion of this success is linked to the support for community-based education (CBE), a local solution that has emerged as key to improve retention, transition and learning outcomes, particularly for adolescent girls living in rural areas. The limited availability of education services, associated to restrictions to girls’ mobility due to security issues and social norms, results in low transition rates into upper primary and lower secondary education, particularly for girls; the gender parity index at secondary level is only 0.57. Disparities are even stronger in rural areas and among marginalized groups (Ministry of Education, NESP 2017-21). In this situation, CBE has progressively established a clear niche as an outreach strategy, ensuring that education can be locally provided, with good quality and using a culturally acceptable approach, overseen and supported by the community.


This paper will discuss the results of a seven year initiative that adapted the CBE model in an iterative manner to respond to the evolving needs of the communities. As support for education grew during this period, so did the demand for expanded provision of lower secondary education, resulting into the development of a lower secondary CBE model. The CBE model incorporated robust components on STEM, vocational skills and leadership skills development, thus equipping graduates, particularly girls, with individual and collective capabilities to take on new roles within their communities, including working outside the home. Through the years, local teams worked with community shuras to progressively build their skills to oversee quality standards, as well as the regular management of classes, and to promote advocacy actions within the community to increase access, attendance and retention. Progressively stronger linkages with district education officials and the central government were built as the model evolved and local ownership resulted in increased advocacy for the expansion and incorporation of CBEs in the education system.

A total of 24,053 students (78% female) attended CBE classes during the seven years of implementation. Participants were longitudinally tracked in partnership with communities, thus allowing for a comprehensive picture of retention and transition outcomes. While the retention rate exceeded 95%, it was observed that in communities where lower secondary CBE was not available, only 10% of the girls completing Grade 6 would transition into a regular school for lower secondary. On the other hand, in communities where lower secondary CBE classes are available, 87% of the girls who completed lower secondary at a CBE class would transition into a regular school to attend upper secondary classes. The results suggest that the presence of lower secondary CBE and its positive outcomes for girls – increased skills, opportunities for employment, increased agency - resulted in a major shift in gender norms, breaking the traditional boundaries that restrict adolescent girls’ mobility after puberty.

The paper will conclude by exploring how the learning emerging from this model could inform the implementation of similar approaches in fragile contexts, particularly in areas where insecurity and social norms also restrict student mobility and transition into post-primary education. The expanded lower secondary CBE model also represents a valuable model to support transition in extremely poor rural areas where large numbers of adolescents have completed primary, but lack the resources to access secondary services located far from their homes. As global efforts towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal #4 continue to evolve, the limited supply of lower and upper secondary education services remains a major barrier, and most education systems lack the resources for a dramatic expansion of those. The lower secondary CBE model represents a potential alternative to support post-primary transitions, and to deliver quality education services that are locally owned and relevant to the context and market, equipping students with skills for life.

Authors

• Wahidullah Wahid, CARE Afghanistan

• Lotte Marianne Pires Renault, CARE USA