Educational transformations and improvements in response to unprecedented health, socio-economic, and political requirements: Stories from Afghanistan

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Steps towards Afghan Girls’ Education Success (STAGES) and Leave No Girls Behind+ (LNGB+) are made up of a consortium of local and international education implementers, led by the Aga Khan Foundation. The six implementing partners are Aga Khan Foundation, CARE International, Save the Children, CRS, Aga Khan Education Services and Afghan Education Production Organization. The LNGB project supports 236 Accelerated Learning Program (ALPs) in 15 provinces, through CBE initiatives for the most marginalised persons in the hardest to reach communities.

The most significant change in context for Afghanistan girls’ education this past year has been the response to power shift and the continued fight against Covid-19. STAGES LNGB+ consortium partners have been consistent in providing innovative initiatives to navigate the Covid pandemic and the political and economic landscape. As part of a post STAGES study, we will evaluate the success, challenges and lessons learned from the inclusion of English language curriculum for marginalized girls in Afghanistan. LNGB partners will present on the learning initiatives implemented in conjunction with the Ministry of Education from their “Alternative Learning Mechanisms” options which ensured that learners continued to receive education despite the unprecedented barriers. LNGB learner profiles also meant that partners would need to protect the gains made by including older female learners from ethnic minorities, through a resilience program. There has also been a successful bid to include paraprofessional/vocational studies as part of the transition framework to ensure optimum transition and sustainability, which will be discussed against the success of transition in STAGES through handover of classes to nearest hub/government schools.

The first paper presented by AKES our partner in STAGES II will talk about “Methods and programs to improve Afghan English teachers’ professional development”. An assessment indicated that the large majority of the AKES teachers and staff were basic users, i.e. A1 & A2, on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). To improve English language proficiency of teachers and staff, AKES,A designed and piloted the English Language Improvement Project (ELIP), a combination of self-study and tutor-led lessons. Undertaking pretest-posttest analysis and through surveys and interviews, a thorough review of the ELIP project was conducted. This paper presents a brief overview of the ELIP project, its successes and challenges, and lessons learned.

In the second paper titled “Empowering adolescent girls' livelihood and education through the Paraprofessional Training Program; an integrated vocational and entrepreneurship, extracurricular intervention for adolescents in marginalized communities “, AKF discusses improvement of a paraprofessional training program aimed for adolescent girls. The initial paraprofessional training program focused on introducing students to the professional field of teaching or midwifery. However, after seeking girl’s agency, AKF found later that girls were unsure about which vocational topics to receive as they were unfamiliar with local market demands, career planning, etc. To address these findings, AKF designed a contextually relevant, holistic, and sustainable solution which could be used to inform progressive strategies for the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) curriculum and TVET department.

Our third paper will look at “Alternative Learning Mechanisms’ prescribed by the Ministry of Education following the closure of CBE classes at the onset of the Covid pandemic. The consortium developed a solution that was not only relevant for the local context, but also identified new ways parents, Shuras, and teachers could support home-based education. The collaboration resulted in the development of home-based study packages that included guidelines for teachers, students, Shuras, and parents on their adapted roles and responsibilities, lesson plans and materials for teachers to adapt and distribute to students on weekly basis, safe distribution procedures, and guidelines for teachers to maintain regular contact with students by phone calls. CARE will discuss the effectiveness of the alternative learning mechanisms introduced during Covid, and how they can be adapted to remain useful for education in emergency situations.

The paper entitled “Promoting youth resilience and wellbeing, Afghanistan” considers how change in leadership has resulted in limits to women’s and girls’ participation in the education system; it is even more challenging than before to ensure that girls have access to education. While there are intentions to gradually reopen primary and secondary schools, the Ministry of Education (MoE) de facto leadership under the IEA announced that secondary schools (grades 7-12) would only be open for male students and teachers. Before the de facto leadership finalises a national policy for girls’ education and female teachers and staff, it remains to be seen if girls and female teachers would be returning to schools. Additionally, the de facto government has indicated that classes should be gender segregated (i.e., female teachers can only teach girls). Given the lack of female teachers currently in the workforce, strictly implementing this policy will continue to deprive girls from accessing education. It has therefore become important to promote young people’s ability to respond to crisis by building their capacity for critical analysis and decision making, their self-confidence and ability to recognize their own potential thereby promoting their ability to recover from disruptive events. The presentation will reflect on the findings of subsequent assessment of the approaches, challenges, and recommendations of behavior related components, including data sets derived from qualitative interviews with boys, girls, care givers and community members.

Our final paper, “Forging a path beyond CBE: CBE learner’s transition to secondary education”, dissects the existing and emerging barriers to a successful handover of CBE class to government secondary school, in order to inform programming and adapt accordingly to ensure continued access to education for CBE learners. The study seeks to understand how the handover process has evolved under the new regime and similarly identify the new roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved. Through understanding the existing barriers and pathways, the paper will identify strategies required to ensure a successful handover of CBE learners to secondary MoE schools and additionally serve as a handover guidance document for all development partners implementing CBE programming in Afghanistan.

Sub Unit

• Education in Conflict and Emergencies SIG

Chair

• Ramazan Khademi, Aga Khan Education Service, Afghanistan

Individual Presentations

• Methods and programs to improve Afghan English teachers’ professional development - Ramazan Khademi, Aga Khan Education Service, Afghanistan; Qurban Ali Waezi, Aga Khan Education Service, Afghanistan

• Empowering adolescent girls through the Paraprofessional Training Program; an integrated vocational and entrepreneurship, extracurricular intervention for adolescents in marginalized communities - Atiqullah Ludin, Aga Khan Foundation in Afghanistan