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

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

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.

Over the last 10 years, Mali has been plagued by conflict and instability, resulting in fractured systems and government institutions and an out-of-school children population of more than 2 million children between ages five to seventeen. Initially conceived as a short-term solution, Accelerated Schooling Centers (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 4. ASCs have been a lifeline for many of the children who had never attended school before at all but who are now at the top of their class in terms of performance. In parts of north Mali part of north Mali, ASCs, coupled with vocational training, are the only education opportunity that children as all teachers abandoned the area.

A key element of this success has been integration with the government of Mali. Accelerated Schooling Centers were identified as a key part of the government strategy to “recover all of the out-of-school youth”, not an isolated activity for NGOs. In its quinquennial sector development plan the Ministry of Education made provision to build more classrooms and hire more teacher to accommodate children transferred from the Accelerated Schooling Centers. The MOE also created an Out of School Children committee to coordinate interventions among partners and avoid competition over the schools to host the ASC learners. GLEE partners with the decentralized bodies of the MOE to closely monitor quality of teaching and learning in the Accelerated Schooling Centers and also build capacity of the teachers in the host schools to minimize the gap between the play-based approach utilized during the 9 month period and the regular curriculum in the schools.

In Mopti where conflict persists, GLEE plays the connecting role between the communities and government services. In the Douentza, Pignari, and Doucombo CAPs, approximately 50 of schools have closed. Over the life of the program, GLEE has enrolled 11,206 girls from Mopti in ASCs, with 63% transition rate into formal schooling systems. As a result of this, communities have pushed for their own education resources, calling back local teachers who have moved away to teach in their communities, and advocate with the government for their own resources to support their schools despite the ongoing crisis.

Accelerated Schooling Centers also show promise to bringing children back to school outside of the conflict environment. In Kayes, gold panning is the source of revenue for most families but is also the main cause of not schooling the children because either they help in the work or take care of younger siblings. By adapting community mobilization communication in Kayes, Accelerated Learning Centers proved highly effective in Kayes, with 5,329 of children enrolled and 73% of children transitioning into formal schools. As the world shifts to bring children back to school from the most prolonged school closure period as a result of COVID-19, ASCs offer promising results. ASCs have adapted to COVID 19 by providing distance learning opportunities to children through radio broadcast or digital solutions which also proved to be challenging. Some families did not have radio devices which allow their children to participate. 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 drives results and learning in the classroom.

Sub Unit

• Africa SIG

Chair

• Aboubacar Coulibaly, Winrock International

Individual Presentations

• Accelerated Schooling Centers- Government - Mahamadou Keita, DNEF; Aboubacar Coulibaly, Winrock International; Assa Keita, Winrock International

• Accelerated Schooling Centers- Program Management - MAMOUTOU COULIBALY, USAID

Discussant

• Mahamadou Keita, DNEF