Bridging Learning Opportunities: Evidence from Multi-Modal Intervention to Improve Formal Education Models, Learning Environments, and Out-of-School Student Performance in Southern Senegal

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This inter-institutional panel presents on findings from the implementation of the USAID/Senegal Passerelles Program (Passerelles-OOSCY), offering research perspectives on effectiveness and fidelity of implementation of specific activities within the program, and an external performance evaluation from a mid-course summative approach.

Background

Since 2013, the Senegalese Ministry of Education’s (MEN) Education Sector Plan set forth a priority to provide increased and improved quality access to education for children and youth in Senegal. Under this plan, the MEN expressed strong interest in comprehending the dimensions of the problem of out-of-school children and youth (OOSCY) nationwide to understand how to increase coverage of basic education services. In 2017, a USAID-sponsored nationally and regionally representative survey on OOSCY reported that 37 percent of learners between the ages of 6-16 were out of school, and another 20 percent were at risk of dropping out. Of children who were out of school, over three-quarters had never been to a formal school (though they may have been to a Koranic school). The study also found unequal coverage of and lack of diversification of education opportunities and insufficient number of programs to support re-entry to formal education and to prevent drop-out. USAID partnered with the Government of Senegal to address a key recommendation from the study, to create a model of complementary basic education to serve youth, age 12 to 16, who dropped from school or had never attended school.

In addition to the limited supply of educational opportunities in these regions, the COVID-19 pandemic increased the burden on families who already had difficulties to send their children to school. Despite several schools re-opened in November 2020, the economic downturn caused by the official mitigation measures led to financial constraints and reduced income for multiple households in Senegal. Throughout the course of the pandemic, the differences between the educational services quality offered at private and public schools has increased, as well as the inequalities in the learner’ access to remote education. In this context, the response to questions about effectiveness, efficiency, adequacy, and adaptiveness are extremely timely to assess the value of interventions and learn lessons to adjust and improve the interventions in place.

About the Passerelles Activity
Passerelles-OOSCY is a 5-year project (2018-2023) that works to improve access to a quality relevant education that develops essential life skills for boys and girls ages 9-16 in Southern Senegal, particularly in Casamance (in the regions of Kédougou, Kolda, Sédhiou, and Ziguinchor). USAID has implemented Passerelles-OOSCY since 2018 to provide safe, supportive, and responsive complementary education services, preventing drop-out from formal schools, and supporting learners out of school children to return by focusing on community, school, and household factors. The program offers four types of complementary basic education opportunities to communities: Classe Passerelle (CP), Ecole Communautaire de Base (ECB), Da’ara Communautaire (DC), and professional training. Overall, the Passerelles Activity aims to create pathways to formal education and training.

FHI 360, the implementing partner of Passerelles-OOSCY , has worked in several communes across the four target regions, in Southern Senegal. In addition to the non-formal structures mentioned above, Passerelles-OOSCY has targeted elementary and middle schools. Passerelles-OOSCY coaches foster school principals’ and schoolteachers’ capacity to manage safer and more equitable spaces for learning, as well as to promote the socio-emotional development of their students. USAID commissioned NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct an external mixed-methods performance evaluation of Passerelles-OOSCY, at its mid-course implementation.

About the presentations
The panel starts with an observational analysis on fidelity of implementation conducted by FHI of an instruction activity, part of the formal-model package of Passerelles-OOSCY, with schoolteachers, that helps them manage classroom dynamics. Such materials aim to increase the safety of a learning environment, assuming perceptions of safety are linked to improvements in students’ socioemotional learning. The second presentation assesses the effectiveness of a remedial program, implemented to support learners in regular education programming by increasing their ability to reach academic success.

Is Passerelles Bridging Better Opportunities?
The panel finalizes with the results of an external performance evaluation that assesses the efforts of Passerelles-OOSCY in its multiple components, from a mixed-methods approach. The outcomes of interest are school enrollment and retention; schoolteacher instruction on safe learning environment and prevention of gender-based violence; community-based work to transform local attitudes and perceptions towards formal models of education; collaboration with traditional koranic schools to include French literacy and math instruction; and activities to engage youth as promoters of academic enrollment of peers and younger children in their community. The ongoing evaluation collects data from households and administrative school records and triangulates findings with qualitative sources about community perceptions and attitudes towards local education opportunities.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Nina Weisenhorn, USAID

Individual Presentations

• Linking fidelity of implementation to SEL and academic learning outcomes in Senegal - Ibrahima Cisse, FHI 360

• Evaluation of the USAID/Senegal Passerelles Remediation Program - Rafael Eduardo Contreras Gomez, FHI 360