Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Making waves: Supporting adolescent girls’ access to accelerated learning in the DRC

Wed, April 17, 5:00 to 6:30pm, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Pacific Concourse (Level -1), Pacific O

Proposal

Over 7.3 million children (ages 5-17) in the DRC are not in school, 3.9 million of whom are girls (UNICEF, 2013). Retention of girls is an ongoing challenge, with only 60% of girls completing primary school nationwide and only 35% completing lower secondary school (World Bank and UNESCO, 2013 and 2014). The Education Cluster reported that military use of educational institutions and other factors, including teachers forcibly recruited by militia, disrupted schooling, impeded girls’ access to education and led to early marriages and pregnancies (GCPEA, 2018). The incidence of violence against women and girls in the DRC is very high and according to UNESCO, the impact of rape and sexual violence on girls’ education has been largely underestimated (Elliott, 2011).

Given these barriers to education there is a need for innovative approaches to formal education with the flexibility to reflect the unique needs of children in conflict-affected communities.

In response, War Child Canada piloted an interactive radio instruction program for 300 previously out-of-school children (with a focus on girls, ages 12-16) in conflict-affected rural communities of South Kivu, DRC. The pilot included the development of an accelerated learning program (ALP) for lower secondary school. The successful pilot provided many lessons learned for moving forward and the next phase and scale-up of the model, currently underway.

The successful pilot was evaluated using an external consultant and produced some promising preliminary findings. Children who sat for their exam at the end of the course, did as well or better, on average, than students in the formal schools. The findings highlighted the fact that community engagement and buy-in are integral to the program’s success. After the completion of the initial phase, community members joined together to sustain the funding of the lesson broadcasts. The evaluation also pointed to the need to explore different modalities for the program (options for classroom-based support for struggling learners, options for securing additional air time) and ways to target even more female students.

During this next phase of the roll-out, we are focusing on sustainability and better understanding the potential contexts and modalities best suited to the approach. The War Child Canada team has been working with the government at the national level to ensure the curriculum is aligned with the existing ALP curricula for primary school and discussing the development of subsequent secondary school levels for ALP. We are engaging with both the Ministries of Education and Social Affairs and other partners working in radio-based learning. In order to better understand the unique learning needs and challenges of girls in disparate settings, we are looking at implementation in different provinces and contexts, ie. refugee camps and harder to reach areas.

We look forward to the opportunity to share some of the progress of the program with colleagues at CIES and hear from other education stakeholders who have engaged with IRI programming.

Author