Education in Crisis and Conflict Network (ECCN) Safe Learning Environment Assessment Toolkit

• In Event: Measuring school-related gender-based violence: tools, resources, and lessons learned.

Proposal

The Education in Crisis and Conflict Network (ECCN) Safe Learning Environment Assessment Toolkit is a rapid diagnostic tool that includes both quantitative and qualitative tools and guidance to obtain a snapshot of the variety of risks that can impact learner safety, including SRGBV, in education programs. The toolkit stands out in that it is usable as-is by junior research teams with limited capacity and/or financial resources, but is also appropriate to be adapted and contextualized by more experienced researchers. Because of its user-friendliness and adaptability, it is practical for use in conflict and crisis contexts where the situation is rapidly changing and may require more frequent and quickly-planned assessment to inform initial programmatic response, or highlight areas that need more in-depth research to program effectively.

The toolkit is also designed to be fit-for-purpose, involving a ‘Step Zero’ in which the user will determine the objectives and scope of the assessment, and from there the toolkit will guide the user to customizing the methodology. For example, a user may want to explore the perceived prevalence of bullying among students in order to set a baseline; here the guidance will direct the user toward conducting a representative quantitative survey and using questions from the SRGBV measurement tool (which was adopted from SRGBV Global Toolkit, discussed on this panel previously). In another example, if a user wants to obtain more nuance about the ways in which schools are already trying to overcome instances of teacher sexual assault, the toolkit will guide the user toward doing light-touch qualitative research in a small sample of schools.

SRGBV is just one component of the whole toolkit, which also considers other internal, external, and environmental risks (and assets) to safer learning, particularly in conflict and crisis environments. However, SRGBV has been one risk that has been identified in every assessment to date, and is of course not a risk that is exclusive to conflict and crisis environments. At the time of CIES, the SRGBV component of the toolkit will have been field tested in nine countries (6 countries were part of a pilot on the qualitative portion of the toolkit in 2016/17; 3 more were part of the full version in 2018), and will have been used for various parts of the program cycle: scoping studies, program / project designs, evaluations, monitoring strategies, and program adaptations. The presentation will describe these different applications and highlight what was learnt, and what were some of the high-level learnings around the benefits and limitations of measuring SRGBV using rapid assessments.

Author

• Gwen K. Heaner, USAID Education in Crisis & Conflict Network