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Accelerated education working group: principles in action!

Wed, April 17, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Bayview B

Group Submission Type: Refereed Round-Table Session

Proposal

Over 263 million children and adolescents are out of school worldwide. This includes children who never started school or who dropped out after enrollment (UNESCO, 2016). The most vulnerable and marginalized—often displaced children and young people, ex-combatants, girls, and children with disabilities—are more likely to find it difficult to get an education.

Education not only provides vital basic skills and competencies, but offers stability, security and the promise of long-term peace. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Education 2030: Framework for Action have set a global compact to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong education for all” (p. iii). For children and young people who have missed out on education or had their education interrupted by conflict, crisis, poverty and marginalization, Accelerated Education Programs (AEP) are a way to realize this commitment. AEPs offer equivalent, certified competencies for basic education, enabling a return to formal education at age-appropriate grades, or transition into work or other training.

The Accelerated Education Working Group (AEWG) is an inter-agency working group currently led by UNHCR with representation from UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID, Norwegian Refugee Council, Plan, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, Education and Conflict Crisis Network and War Child Holland. With the goal of strengthening the quality of Accelerated Education (AE) programming through a more harmonized, standardized approach, the AEWG has identified a set of 10 evidence-based Accelerated Education Principles. The Principles help establish clear, common aspirations for AEPs globally.

In 2017, the AEWG conducted four case studies and a desk review to assess the utilization and effectiveness of the 10 AE Principles and supporting guidance. One of the main findings of this research was that there is a critical need for the AEWG to consider initial and ongoing processes for supporting the socialization and contextualization of the Principles. This process, it was posited, will allow AE program implementers, policymakers, and donors to identify possible constraints to achieving particular Principles or to identify key tensions within the local context between the Principles, and to work together to resolve these issues.

In light of these findings, the AEWG has developed a number of supporting tools and conducted numerous trainings for implementers, ministry of education officials, and donor agencies globally. AEWG members and partners have also used the Principles and supporting materials to design programs, develop curricula, and evaluate program effectiveness. In this panel, presenters will discuss key issues related to dissemination, socialization, and contextualization of the Principles and supporting materials, focusing on three key themes: (1) Alignment with MOE and development of national standards; (2) Curriculum, learning materials, and assessments; and (3) Teacher training and professional development. The panel will also touch on partnership with communities and research and evaluation on AE.

The first presentation, given by War Child Canada, will demonstrate the process of developing a lower secondary AEP that is aligned with the Ministry strategy in Uganda, collaborating with community members to identify AE center sites and students, and developing and piloting the curriculum. The presentation will highlight some of the preliminary reflections from the process, as well as preview War Child Canada’s efforts to support the Ministry of Education in DRC to validate the lower secondary AEP curriculum, using lessons learned from Uganda.

Next, a presentation by an independent consultant to USAID Leer y Aprender and the Ministry of Education in Guatemala will review the current provision of AE in Guatemala; describe the process of using the Principles to enhance AE provision, including development of curriculum, learning materials, and placement tests, teacher training, and research and evaluation; and discuss some of the successes and challenges of contextualizing the Principles in the Guatemalan context.

Third, a presentation by the team at Teachers College (TC), Columbia University, who developed and piloted a training pack for AE teachers, will explain the collaborative process of developing the teacher training materials, introduce the content of the training pack, and discuss how it can be adapted to meet the context-specific needs of learners and teachers.

Fourth, a presentation by the Carey Institute will describe an online introductory training based on the 10 Principles. The presentation will review the process of offering the training online to global audiences and suggest implications for future trainings using ICT.

Finally, a presentation from the Accelerated Education Working Group demonstrates how stakeholders interested in developing national-level guidelines for accelerated education contextualized the AE Principles to support harmonization of programming across implementers and across camps in Uganda. The presentation will discuss the process of developing the guidelines, including “big issues” in their development and successes and challenges of using global principles of best practice.

The closing discussion will reflect on the importance of accelerated education in equitable and sustainable development, the application and contextualization of the Principles in the various contexts discussed, and the imperative of monitoring and measuring the dissemination strategy and the uptake of the Principles, guidance, and tools to ensure they contribute to their objectives of harmonization and standardization of AE programs globally, with the long-term goal of increased equitable access to education for out-of-school children and youths.

References:
Accelerated Education Working Group. (2017). Guide to the Accelerated Education Principles.

UNESCO (2016) Leaving no one behind: How far on the way to universal primary and secondary education? Policy Paper 27 Fact Sheet 37, July 2016.

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