Accelerated Schooling Centers- Government

• In Event: Accelerated Schooling Centers- A Game-Changing Solution for Girls in (and out of) Conflict in Mali

Proposal

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 were 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 region of Mopti, where the ongoing conflict has further prevented girls from enrolling and staying in school.

As such, the USAID-funded Mali Girls’ Leadership and Empowerment through Education (GLEE) project seeks to increase access to education for adolescent girls (10-18 years) and enable them to obtain greater educational attainment. GLEE’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 formal panel presentation, representatives of the GLEE 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 even outperform their peers. 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 also shed light on how to tap into the potential of ASCs to serve other populations by sharing results of how the model was adapted to bring children who were forced out to work in Kayes back into the formal schooling system and in accelerating the back-to-school efforts in the wake of COVID-19.

Mamadou Keita will be sharing insight from the perspective of the Malian government through their role within the DNEF on how Accelerated Schooling Centers have successfully bridged the gap to bring Out of School youth back into the formal schooling system in Mali.

Authors

• Mahamadou Keita, DNEF

• Aboubacar Coulibaly, Winrock International

• Assa Keita, Winrock International