Participatory research with government partners supports scaling of a youth-led education innovation through multiple phases of scaling exploration

• In Event: Moving evidence into action through inter-country knowledge exchange: Lessons from the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX)

Proposal

Scaling education innovations through government partnership requires long and complex journeys, but our research is adding evidence that active regional knowledge sharing can support continuous learning for systems transformation. (Wilbard and Spence, 2023; Wyss et al., 2023)

Supported by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), a joint endeavour with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), CAMFED is researching how to work with government partners in Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to consider the potential value for scaling the Learner Guide model to achieve respective national objectives to improve equitable education and post-school opportunities for marginalized youth. Learner Guides are young women who volunteer to return to their local secondary schools to deliver structured life skills classes, provide individual mentoring and role modeling, and create school to community linkages through home visits to improve learning and reduce dropout, especially for girls.

In this initial phase, the project has engaged government partners in participatory research to examine how an innovation can be deeply understood and how its relevance can be assessed in terms of its potential to support national priorities, goals and objectives. The research illuminated the value of establishing focused structures (national scaling committees) with clear terms of reference, which bring together a range of officials who have technical knowledge and decision-making authority and create spaces for evidence gathering, analysis, knowledge exchange and solution generation. Stakeholder mapping clarified the range of potential contributors with expertise specific to the process of scaling the Learner Guide program and highlighted the need for both decision-makers and technical experts. Because the Learner Guide program is multi-sectoral cutting across education, youth and gender, representation from multiple ministries was required to mobilize the full synergistic potential of their mandates. The strategic value of engaging representatives from civil society organizations and coalitions who could contribute their perspectives and help drive wide systems change was also recognized.

Scaling committee members were engaged as participatory researchers to actively define questions reflecting their priorities and gather the data they needed. They conducted school visits to observe Learner Guides in action and interviewed stakeholders (students, Learner Guides, teachers and community members). They consolidated their data and shared learning with members who were unable to join the visits. A regional meeting drew together scaling committee members from three countries: Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was found that this method of knowledge mobilization through regional sharing moved the process forward, especially by catalyzing new ideas for practical implementation.

Having built confidence in and understanding of how key elements of the Learner Guide program effectively address national education and youth priorities, the scaling process is shifting to assess how the innovation can be adapted for integration by government through co-creation. We will present data gathered through participatory research to understand how government partners make practical decisions to adapt the innovation, and to uncover capacity and resources required to implement at larger scale.

Author

• Regina Lialabi, CAMFED Zambia