Synthesis of findings and lessons learned about access to education programming with a focus on crisis and conflict environments

• In Event: Evaluations of USAID-Funded Education Projects: Quality Review and Synthesis of Findings (2-part panel, second part)

Proposal

In the 2011-2015 USAID Education Strategy, the Agency asserted its commitment to access to education by setting the goal of increased equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments for 15 million learners. For this study, the Office of Education instructed the study team to categorize evaluations to Education Strategy Goal 3 thematically as access to education (rather than geographically limited to crisis and conflict countries). This review synthesized the findings and lessons learned results of 28 research studies, performance evaluations and impact evaluations funded by USAID and published between 2013 and 2016 and which met minimum evaluation quality criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. The final pool of evaluations included 18 projects (multi-country projects had multiple reports and some reports were from research studies that did not evaluate USAID-funded projects) that were deemed as relevant to Goal 3 by the USAID Office of Education.
The first part of the synthesis addressed three broad questions, specifically the program modalities, the strength of the body of evidence based on the Building Evidence in Education (BE2) guidance note, and main findings in terms of access to education, safer learning environments, and school dropout and retention. The second part of the synthesis considered in-depth questions. Topics of interest were identified in collaboration with USAID’s Office of Education, namely safer learning environments for children and youth, equity, violence prevention (VP) and countering violent extremism (CVE), social emotional learning (SEL), improved programming, and strengthened institutional capacity.
This presentation will discuss the following results:
• For safer learning environments for children and youth, the review found that in most evaluations respondents mentioned the effects of internal or external threats of violence—such as school attacks and gender-based violence—to school attendance, and community perceptions of how the conflict context is impacting education yielded a plethora of recommendations. This suggests continued assessments are a worthwhile focus for USAID’s education in crisis and conflict strategy.
• For equity, the review found that it was predominantly expressed in the form of gender inequalities and unfairness towards marginalized children, including Orphans and Vulnerable Children. The review also found that inequity and inequality were often used interchangeability, which might suggest there would be benefits to linking the concepts of equality, liberty and fairness with the concept of equity under a common conceptual framework.
• For CVE-VP, the review found that models include initiatives for youth empowerment, social and economic inclusion, media and messaging, improved local governance, reconciliation, and conflict mitigation. Most evaluations had a focus on social and economic inclusion which usually took a workforce development approach by offering people skills training, entrepreneurship promotion, and employment services. Another common approach was improving local governance. Other approaches used included youth empowerment and, media and messaging for conflict mitigation. The least common approach was reconciliation, which was part of only three projects.
• For SEL, the review found that evidence from crisis-affected contexts remains limited, without conclusive findings on students’ improved performance or personal development. It may be worthwhile for projects to design SEL components more explicitly so that future evaluations can target mental health and bullying more effectively.
• For improved programming, the review found that research studies about Situational Analyses of Conflict/Crisis provided the best representation of the key barriers the conflicts may be producing or enhancing and how these could be addressed in subsequent program design.
• For strengthened institutional capacity, the review found that about a third of the evaluations mentioned improved access to basic education through either strengthening institutional and/or environmental and material capacity. However, these evaluations also represented the greatest variation of targeted beneficiaries and methods, which makes it unclear which are the most effective approaches.

Author

• Nitika Tolani, MSI