Towards a National Strategy for Accelerated Education in Mali

• In Event: How accelerated education strengthens public schooling: Experiences from Mali and Liberia

Proposal

Mali claims a long experience in implementing Accelerated Education Programs (AEPs). Since the 1990s, Mali has developed and institutionalized a second chance program at the national level with the support of the Stromme Foundation. This nine-month intervention provides access to education for out-of-school children (OOSC) aged 8-12 and enables them to enroll in a local public school to complete their primary education. It consists of a condensed curriculum covering the first three years of primary education. Upon completing the program, children are able to enroll in grade 4 of formal primary schools. Children learn to read and write in their local language during the first two months, and then continue with an accelerated curriculum in French.
As the conflict in Mali has stretched on since 2012, other AEPs have been developed to meet the various needs specific to conflict zones and to the children living in it. The multiplication of such programs and the increasing number of out-of-school children have raised many questions regarding best practices, prompting the MoE to undertake the creation of an National Strategy for Accelerated Education. This process brought to light the question of sustainability of such programs if concrete actions are not taken directed to formal school access and quality.
The MoE has a variety of experiences implementing strategies aimed at mitigating the potential negative impact that AEPs can have on host schools, improving the formal school system through AE programming innovations, and avoiding competition between AEPs and formal schools at the community level.
The following actions and strategies have been proposed by the National Strategy committee to find an appropriate place for AEPs within the school system:
• Conducting at the same time and in the same communities,
o actions to reopen formal schools and actions to support children to enter or re-enter school in the conflict affected areas that are experiencing massive schools closing
o actions to enroll children directly into formal school at the appropriate age, and open AEP in order to provide a second chance to children that could not enroll directly
• Identifying at the community level which alternative strategies best address education needs of children in a given community
• Engaging with communities in actions to enroll children directly into formal school or into alternative programs
• Setting up national guidelines to produce harmonized data on AEP graduates transfer into and retention in school.
Promoting collaboration between MoE services in charge of Accelerated Education and those in charge of formal school, with the support of organizations implementing AEPs in various contexts, will enable the Ministry to capitalize on pedagogical lessons learned with the goal of improving the Malian educational system.

Author

• Kinane Ag Gadeda, Ministry of National Education - Mali