Accelerated Schooling Centers – A Pathway for Out-of-School Adolescent Girls to Catch-Up and Thrive in Formal Schools

• In Event: Teachers and Learning: Addressing learning poverty

Proposal

Presentation Overview:

Adolescent girls in Mali confront a host of barriers to educational access. Although enrollment rates for boys and girls have risen over the last 20-30 years, a gender gap has persisted nationally, with girls enrolled at a lower rate (63.4 percent gross enrollment rate in lower primary school) than that of boys (74.8 percent). After the coup d’état in 2012, normal systems and processes were fractured, leaving approximately 1 million primary age Malian children out of school. Over the last 10 years, the conflict in Mali has further unraveled the fabric of government institutions and services, including two additional coups, numerous teacher strikes, and the closure of 1,113 of schools across the country. This has particularly affected the northern regions of Bandiagara and Douentza, where the ongoing conflict has further prevented girls from enrolling and staying in school.

As such, this project seeks to increase access to education for adolescent girls (10-18 years) in the regions of Bandiagara, Douentza, and Kayes, and enable them to obtain greater educational attainment. The project’s theory of change suggests that to increase girls’ enrollment and success at school, change is needed at the level of girls themselves and within their social groupings and institutions: their peers, families, schools, healthcare facilities, communities and the structures that support them.

Through a panel presentation, representatives of the project team, including key stakeholders and changemakers, will highlight the impact of Accelerated Schooling Centers (ASCs) for out-of-school girls to catch up and outperform their peers in government-run schools. What began as a short-term solution to address the conflict, ASCs have grown over the last 10 years into a proven solution to adapt to “tectonic shifts” in the environment. This presentation will share results of how the ASC model was adapted to bring children who were forced out to work in the regions of Kayes, Bandiagara and Douentza back and thrive into the formal schooling system in government –run schools.

Technical Innovation:

In response to the low enrollment rate and the growing number of children of advanced age with no educational opportunities, the Government of Mali and the Stromme Foundation initiated the Accelerated Schooling Strategy/ Passerelle to increase access to basic education in 2004. Initially conceived as a short-term solution, ASCs were seen as an opportunity to address the immediate need of out-of-school children after the 2012 coup d’état. Through a play-based, condensed 9-month period of the grades 1-3 curricula, ASCs were dubbed a “second chance” school for not only the children who had dropped out of school due to the conflict, but children who had never attended school before at all. After the 9-month period, children are tested into the formal schooling system, beginning in grade 3. ASCs have been a lifeline for many of the girls who had never attended school before but who are now at the top of their class in terms of performance.

A key element of this success has been the project’s collaboration with the Government of Mali. ASCs were identified as a key part of the Government strategy to “recover all of the out-of-school youth”, and not as an isolated activity. The project's ASCs and its accompanying systems are seen as offering complete care of their students using pedagogical methods that result in stronger students when they integrate into the formal system. Since 2018, the project has enrolled a total of 22,245 girls in ASCs or formal schools, exceeding the project’s 13,362 target.

Once integrated in the formal schools, the project's transferred ASC leaners are monitored by the project staff and school authorities. At the beginning of the school year, every School Director establishes a list of recently integrated ASC leaners and works with a Development Agent to understand the strengths and challenges ASC learners face. These findings are shared with the School Management Committee (SMC) and the municipality, responsible for the management of education in the decentralized model, for decision making. Through social behavioral change campaigns (SBCC), SMCs sensitize communities on children’s educational and health rights and the importance of sending and retaining adolescent girls in schools. Through a gender sensitive plan, SMCs create an enabling environment for adolescent girls to go and stay in school. The project also provides trainings on gender-based violence in schools and communities, reproductive health/ family planning, and the provision of government grants to support communities cover educational costs associated with consumables. The project supports SMCs organize and institutionalize the trainings to ensure long term impact.

Lastly, the project's mentorship program, instituted while the adolescent girls are in ASCs, continues when they are integrated into the formal system to help them overcome barriers to quality education in the project’s partner schools. Through SBCC activities, mentors sensitize adolescent girls on topics like early marriage and pregnancy, the importance of girls’ education, drugs and alcohol consumption and abuse, and rural exodus. Mentors also support adolescent girls prepare for exams and complete schoolwork. When needed, mentors also serve as the connecting link between adolescent girls and Peer Educations /Youth Ambassadors, grandmothers/aunts, and health workers to ensure that these groups can effectively realize their SBCC activities among adolescent girls.

Connection to the Theme:

Accelerated Schooling Centers show promise to actualize educational equity by bringing out-of-school children back to school. In Kayes, gold panning is the source of revenue for most families but is also the main cause for not enrolling children in school because either they help in the labor or take care of younger siblings. ASCs ultimately offer a vision for not only adaptive education models but showcase what 21st century education could be in Mali and beyond- meeting children where they are through child-centered, play based, and relevant curricula that drive results and learning in the classroom and beyond.

Authors

• Sorelle Mbakop, Winrock International

• Kadiatou Cisse Abbassi, Winrock International

• Aissa Magaza Aly, OMAES