Synthesis of Evidence and Learning on Scaling Educational Options for Out-Of-School Children and Youth (OOSCY)

• In Event: Fostering Agency and Resistance in Out-Of-School and At-Risk Children Claim their Right to Education through Alternative and Innovative Education Programs

Proposal

There are an estimated 244 million children and youth worldwide that are out-of-school. Even greater numbers of children and youth are at risk of failing to complete their education. For these young people, marginalized by poverty, social status, geography, gender, disability, and more, the mainstream education system does not represent or serve their needs. Consequently, a large proportion of children and youth remain marginalized from the education system and fail to achieve their right to education.
Governments, NGOs, and civil society have experimented with innovative approaches to meet the needs and barriers of OOSCY. Consequently, there is a growing body of evidence and a growing understanding of best practices around accelerated, alternative, and other innovative education programs and practices intended to address the issue of OOSCY. At the same time, there are considerable knowledge and evidence gaps in the pursuit of solutions at a sufficient scale to address the scope of the challenge. Many of these innovations remain small in scale. Even when solutions are implemented by governments, there are often insufficient resources allocated to alternative learning, these approaches are often isolated from broader changes in mainstream education systems, and students are returned to mainstream systems that failed to meet their needs in the first place.
This presentation will provide evidence on how innovative education practices and programs for out-of-school children and youth and children and youth at risk of dropping out can be adapted and scaled up at national levels, based on a comprehensive synthesis of the four research projects. The presentation will focus on pathways to scale, comparing approaches, policies, and processes across the four research projects. The presentation will also consider the enabling environment for policy uptake and investment in innovative solutions for OOSCY, the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of various approaches, ongoing barriers and challenges to scale, and lessons learned. The presentation will explore ways the research projects have integrated a gender-transformative and inclusive lens and approach; the core features of successful accelerated and alternative education practices; and strategies to reach boys and girls at risk of dropping out. It will conclude with a set of recommendations for extending this work at national, regional, and global levels.
In a context where the overall number of OOSCY is stagnant or increasing, education resources are constrained due to poor economic growth and the impact of COVID-19, and children and youth globally are denied from reaching their full potential, identifying opportunities to increase access to quality education for those most excluded, at scale, is imperative.

Author

• Kimberley Kerr, Inspire Education