Overcoming the Odds: AGSP Girls Continuing to Secondary School
NIGER, 2010 — International efforts to achieve education for all in recent years have been effective in increasing access to primary school in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet access to secondary education continues to be elusive for many children, particularly for girls. In Niger, AGSP has helped a core group of vulnerable but talented girls stay in primary school and continue to secondary school and beyond. During the 2004-2005 school year, AGSP’s implementing partner, Groupe d'Appui a la Scholarisation des Filles (GASF), part of the Association Nigerienne des Educatrices Pour le Developpement (ANED) consortium, targeted girls in third grade for four years of AGSP assistance. The expectation was that supplementary support in grades three through six would help girls stay in school through the end of the primary school cycle, succeed in their primary school exams, and become equipped with the skills necessary to perform well in secondary school.
In its initial four years, AGSP promoted community support and provided educational materials, mentoring, and tutoring to help girls overcome the odds and succeed in primary school at astonishing rates. According to the Education Policy & Data Center (http://epdc.org), between 23 and 26.5 percent of girls completed primary school in Niger in 2006; yet in the 10 schools in the Maradi region where GASF implements AGSP, 88 percent of AGSP girls—compared to the 8 percent rate of girls in the region—scored highly enough on their End of Primary School Exams (CFEPD) in 2007-08 not only to graduate from primary school but also to exceed the minimum scores necessary to enter secondary school.
At the individual school level, AGSP girls are also outperforming their peers. The two examples highlighted in the chart above represent GASF’s lowest and highest performing schools. In the poorest performing school, Ecole Dan Filo, 60 percent of the AGSP girls succeeded in their exams compared to 6 percent of other girls in the school—a result that indicates the importance of AGSP support even under the most difficult circumstances. At the opposite end of the spectrum, 100 percent of AGSP girls at Ecole Tessaoua Residentielle succeeded in their exams compared to 79 percent of other girls. In 2008-2009, after receiving a fifth year of AGSP funding, the vast majority of AGSP recipients who completed their primary education continued to secondary school, where they have received ongoing AGSP assistance to enhance their academic success.
AGSP: Breaking Through Boundaries
NIGER, 2010 — The astonishing academic performance of all girls at Ecole Tessaoua Residential (referred to as “Residential”) is at least in part due to AGSP support. In the 2007-2008 school year, 100 percent of AGSP girls and 79 percent of other girls at Residential succeeded in their primary school exits exams in a region where only 8 percent of girls normally do so. At first glance, one might assume that this school has substantial resources and is populated with the sons and daughters of civil servants. These are the normal correlates of such high success.
However, this is not the case for Residential. In fact, the school has only three permanent classrooms. Other classrooms have been built from clay or straw hangers. The school’s two toilets are in desperate need for refurbishment, and the school teachers complain that their classes are disrupted by livestock herders crossing the school campus with their animals.
Why are these girls outperforming boys from areas with better educational resources and opportunities? One does not have to look far for the answer. After receiving AGSP training on mentoring and girls’ education strategies, Mme Kollo, mentor and former teacher, actively promoted and advocated for a new vision and direction that would support and encourage all girls in the school. In addition, she conducted professional development sessions and encouraged teachers to develop participatory, student-centered, and girl-friendly classrooms.
In 2007-2008, Mme Kollo’s mentoring efforts paid off. All 16 of her AGSP mentees completed their primary school exam with high enough scores to enter secondary school. “I miss them. But, they come by and visit. We still discuss the issues that they are facing and look for solutions.” Mme Kollo hopes that one day a girl who graduated from Residential will become a great leader—even President. One of the major obstacles facing girls, Mme Kollo believes, is the lack of parental support and encouragement. “[Although] most parents today are happy to see their girls go to school, they still force their girls to spend all their free time on domestic work. I have to talk to the parents to encourage them to let the girls have time to study. If the girls can’t study, they won’t perform well in school.” She feels that when parents are sensitized, the girls achieve as much as they desire.
In 2007, in recognition of her growing leadership skills, Mme Kollo was appointed School Director of Residential. Now, despite the lack of the proper classrooms, books, and resources that many schools take for granted, students at Residential shout and sing answers to questions, act out sketches in French, and simulate simple scientific experiments using sticks, rocks, and sand. “At Residential, we focus on positive rewards and try to make learning fun,” explained Mme Kollo. “I also try to provide support and learning tips to all the teachers. I regularly visit and co-teach with my staff so that we can learn and share.”
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Africa
Mothers' Associations in Chad Make Headway in Girls' Education
CHAD, 2010 — Lead Tchad, an Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Program (AGSP) partner in Chad, has been working with mothers’ associations in 63 communities to raise awareness and gain support for girls’ education as well as provide crucial support in managing schools and ensuring safety and equity in the classroom.
Just five years ago, many families in these communities were not even aware that girls had the right to an education. As a result of the efforts of mothers’ associations, religious leaders along with local leaders and school officials have united to promote girls’ education. They have joined together to sign public declarations to demonstrate their support. Signing ceremonies are large public events, with participation from all community members; declarations are then posted for public display in local schools. As a part of the ceremonies, Imams have spoken eloquently about the harmony between Islam and girls’ education. During one such declaration ceremony in Dagana region, Imam Mbobou said, “In our environment, anchored in the Muslim culture, many people justify their resistance to send girls to school as part of their local and religious traditions. However, the Islamic world has reached out and embraced girls’ education. Islam is not an obstacle in education, and I pronounce a firm commitment to work with Lead Tchad in our community to support this movement in Dagana.”
During the last four years of AGSP in Chad, women’s status in these communities has been raised substantially, not only because of the training for mothers’ associations but also because of sensitization campaigns regarding the importance of girls’ education. Today, many mothers’ association members have been invited to participate in village councils and are becoming leaders, positions that they did not hold previously in their communities.
Trainings for mothers’ associations have focused on school management, income-generating activities, and life skills. After the trainings, members of mothers’ associations travel door-to-door to encourage families to send their girls to school. In many cases, mothers’ associations are responsible for collecting and managing the use of school fees. School fees are used to pay for simple thatched school construction and local teacher salaries and supplies. Trainings have also helped generate systems of support and forums for sharing success stories. In one village, despite the fact that the mothers’ council members were illiterate, they took responsibility for working with the local AGSP partner to interview and hire the local teacher.
In many ways, mothers’ associations have become school managers and watchdogs. They have taken the responsibility of ensuring the safety of girls in and out of school, promoting gender-equitable teaching practices, maintaining the school building and grounds, providing school supplies and clean water, and handling the book-keeping and accounting for the schools. Mothers’ associations are also financial supporters of schools and girls’ education through a variety of income-generating activities. They are a tremendous force to make all stakeholders accountable for girls’ educational success.
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Improving Girls' Employment Opportunities in Tanzania: Intern Success Story
TANZANIA, 2010 — As part of their life skills mentoring, girls have a lot to share from life experiences and daily challenges in their environment. Amina Salumu admits that AED has played a great role in her educational life. She is 18 years old studying at Somangila Secondary School, focusing her studies in the arts. Amina says “I would like to give special thanks to AED who has been supporting us in different aspects of education. Before this project at our school my education life was miserable.” Bursting into tears as she recalls the past, she continued, “Since I lost my both parents I had no permanent home to stay, I had to move in with different relatives (aunt and uncle) hoping that I will get one who can take care of me and cover my school expenses, but it was not easy and life was not good at all.” She ended up living with her uncle who then lost his job. Her uncle could no longer afford to pay her school fees because he was not earning enough to support the family. It was at this time when Amina lost hope completely. Amina said, “I did not see any future ahead of me, there was a time I would miss school for many days because I had no school fees and I could do nothing! Thank God now I can see bright future before me.” AED has provided a helping hand to her since it is supporting her with a uniform, text books, school fees and nutritious snacks. Now Amina’s uncle can pay for other basic needs.
“AED is keeping me alive I know I can reach my dream”. These are the words of Amina Salumu. She is a form four graduate from Somangila Secondary school and she has now joined the internship program at CCBRT Community Outreach Program where they will be helping to identify women with fistula, children with cleft lip and eye cataract. Talking about the CCBRT community outreach program she said: "I was very interested with the explanations about CCBRT community outreach program from the very beginning when I was still at school. Every time I listen to it I felt something in my heart, the heart of helping and changing lives. As a young lady I feel very proud bringing the new light to different group of people especially women with fistula. During the training I was really touched with the fistula problem."
She also added that she is very interested and enjoy working with the community, she sees soon she will start getting a positive attention in the community for the work she is doing. Speaking about the career guide transition from school to work, she said communication skills, work attitude, writing CV and dressing code to be very practical topics in her field: “You should know how to talk to people, how to put words clearly so that people understand you” she also insisted the importance of considering the dressing code when you go around the community, “the dress code alone is enough to judge you and make you acceptable or not, likewise work attitude is also very important, this makes you value your work and increase your commitment and motivation.” She also explained on the importance of knowing how to write a good CV, she commented to use the skills she got from the mentoring session to write a good CV which she can use to apply a job together with her certificate. Her future dream is to become a lawyer; she is drived with the heart to help people who are denied their rights because of corruption. Although she would be very glad to get a job at CCBRT after the program in order to earn some money to support her dream of becoming a lawyer.
Improving Girls' Employment Opportunities in Tanzania: Empowering Girls
TANZANIA, 2010 — Commenting about her future, Neema Sinyael says, “As an educated woman I would like to reach a stage where I can fight the patriarchal system which is widespread in our country and in other African countries.” Neema has benefited from AED in terms of receiving text books which, according to her, has allowed her to perform very well on her exams and on the Form IV mock exams this year. She said she was able to get 16 points which is graded division one and she has no doubt that with this trend she is going to perform well on the actual end of year exam. Neema is aiming to go to university. She also said the project has benefited her “in life skills mentoring we are learning a lot of different subjects such HIV/AIDS, how to cope with the challenging environments as a girl, hygiene, and self esteem, among many other topics. Having this information has improved my confidence and I can even challenge boys in case they seduce me.” Neema is also getting scholarship support in the form of uniform, school fees, and sanitary pads which her parents could not afford. She is a second born in her family, majoring in science at Aboud Jumbe Secondary School. Her brother could not have opportunity to continue with secondary education as their parents were not able to pay for private secondary school. Her father is a policeman while her mother is a house wife.
Neema Sinyaeli is one among the graduates at Aboud Jumbe who was well organized hard working and determined. Her teachers had a great hope that Neema will perform well in her final examinations and she certainly did. She passed her examination well and obtains a division one and selected to join Tabora Girls’ High School one of the famous and oldest girls school in Tanzania. It is also one of the few remained schools which enrol only most brilliant girls. She is studying Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (PCB) “I will not be tired to say that: my achievement is a result of the day to day emphasis and encouragements which I get from AED. Thank you very much for the follow up. You are giving my parents the helping hand, books and half school fees you are the big support and on top of that seeing you visiting me here I feel tenderness and how important I am. I promise to study hard.”
Neema did not select Tabora girls in her school list, but she said that the school has turned out to be a nice school. It has a nice environment and she is learning a lot. About what she likes at the school is: she learns how to live with others in boarding school, to manage time and that there is a good competition academically and everyone is aiming to perform high which makes her study very hard. About her career future she is determined to be an Engineer (telecommunication or electrical engineering.) Speaking about the mentoring session transition from school to work she said, most of the topics have been useful to her and most of the issue cut across her daily life. Some of the topics overlap in her “general study subject” which makes her found the subject easy and interesting. She was also impressed with the personal finance and preparing for career topics. These topics have helped her to re-assess her career and imagine her dream job as an engineer.
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Student Councils Promote Girls' Education in Yemen
YEMEN, November, 2010 — Arwa, an 8th grade female student at Al-Malah School in Yemen’s Shabwah Governorate, was one of eight students forced to drop out of school for financial reasons in January 2010. Arwa’s parents, like many of Yemen’s poor, were unable to pay their child’s school fees and to provide her with the necessary school supplies to support her education.
For many Yemeni girls, dropping out of school is not a choice but a fact of life. Poverty, unemployment, and family tradition often restrict females’ access to education. According to UNESCO’s National Education Support Strategy: Yemen (2009), there is a significant discrepancy in the enrollment rate for females and males in basic and secondary education in Yemen. Specifically, the enrollment rate for girls in basic education is 64.16%, whereas the enrollment rate for boys is 89.15%. For secondary education, there is only a 30% enrollment rate for girls compared to a 64% enrollment rate for boys, which means that there is less than one girl for every two boys taking part in secondary education in Yemen.
For Arwa and her female classmates, however, things are changing as the gender gap in their school is beginning to narrow thanks to the work of the school’s Student Council. Within days of dropping out of school, Arwa received a knock on her door by male and female members of the Student Council encouraging her to return, and informing her that they had started a school-wide fundraising campaign to raise money for her school.
Arwa’s story is not unique. Since the Government of Yemen’s adoption of the Students’ School Councils Bylaw in 2008, more and more schools are bringing awareness to the issues and problems affecting their communities, including the need to promote girls’ education.
Recently, at the Khaled Al-Dhafar School in Sana‘a, the Student Council put on a play to educate students and parents about the importance of educating girls, as well as other issues, including the problems of revenge, kidnapping, and the sabotaging of services in the community. The play also addressed ways of overcoming these problems through the promotion of behaviour modification.
The Student Council collaborated with the school’s Parents’ Council to write the play and, in the end, they decided to use comedy as the medium to address this sensitive subject matter. The play drew a large audience from across the region and succeeded in creating a safe forum for community members to openly debate such controversial issues. One of the parents who attended the play stated, “I have been touched with what I saw, and I call upon everyone to pay attention to the education of their children, particularly girls. We must also make those who come to us feel safe and that they are in fact among family.”
Student Council Member Spreads Awareness
YEMEN, November, 2010 — Amal Al-Ziady, a student at the Balqis School in the Al-Meena District of Al-Hodeidah Governorate, was only familiar with the national seal of the Republic of Yemen from academic certificates, newspapers, and household bills. She never expected to receive a formal invitation in the mail with Government of Yemen’s official seal on it. However, in April 2010, an official invitation arrived at her door from the Government inviting her, as head of her school’s Student Council, to the Annual Educational Contest for High School Students.
Amal, like many other Yemeni student council members, considers such official invitations and recognitions an important step forward in making the voice and opinions of the nation’s student councils heard by the Government. Amal came away from the event with an idea about how to further spread awareness about the student council initiative. She decided to publish a pamphlet describing the activities of her school’s student council for distribution among the student body and to various community members. For Amal, the publication of the booklet represents a key tool in spreading awareness of the importance of student councils to her school and to education officials in her governorate. She also hopes it will be utilized by other schools as a model for their own student council processes.
YEDI Focuses on High-Quality Basic Education Programs
MOROCCO, November, 2010 — Start-up workshops, launch seminars, and formal presentations of CGE’s USAID-funded Youth Education Development Initiative (YEDI) have been heavily attended by youth, business, local government, and civil society participants. The activities are designed to present the ambitious initiative that aims to deliver relevant and high quality Basic Education programs, in conjunction with vocational training, psychosocial support, and other critical life skills services, to the marginalized population of youth aged 15-25 who received little to no formal schooling as children.
The project team unveiled the program to the governor of Sefrou and the president of the provincial council on October 11 before hosting a workshop attended by over 150 government, civil society, and private sector actors, as well as 80 members of local associations. The second day of the workshop, the number of local association representatives swelled by 50% as organizations brought more members to participate.
In each location, the project has collected comprehensive questionnaires on the availability of civil society activities and resources related to the basic education of out-of-school youth. The questionnaires will help AED staff, and its Moroccan NGO partner Association Marocaine de Solidarité et Développement (AMSED) identify and treat the gaps in education and support service delivery to the target youth.
A half-day regional launch of YEDI October 26 in Doukkala-Abda attracted 88 members of local associations, 80 local authorities and private sector representatives, and almost 50 youth who did not register. The enthusiastic participation in the activities thus far and the strong representation of diverse stakeholders signal a promising debut of the program, which will require cross-disciplinary collaboration to address the personal, academic, and vocational development of the crucial target population.
Start-up workshops, youth mapping exercises, and questionnaire distribution will continue throughout the fall in each of the nine YEDI target provinces.
Middle East & North Africa
ALEF Report Shows High Success Rate of Women’s Literacy Program
RABAT, MOROCCO, May 13, 2008—USAID, in cooperation with the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Moroccan Directorate for Combatting Illiteracy (DLCA) recently announced findings from an evaluation focusing on two years of the ALEF Project’s women’s literacy activities.
ALEF’s innovative literacy strategy, called “Passerelle,” or “Bridges,” teaches women literacy and numeracy using their mother tongue - Moroccan Arabic or Berber. This strategy allows them a better chance for success within the national Moroccan literacy program, which teaches women to read and write in Standard Classical Arabic. Students learn Arabic numbers and letters using vocabulary that is familiar to them from their daily lives. The content of the courses is based on Morocco’s new “Family Code,” a landmark document promoting women’s equality and granting them greater civil rights. This strategy was made possible and developed via a unique and successful partnership facilitated by ALEF between USAID, the DLCA, the Royal Institute of Berber Studies, the UN Development Fund for Women, and the twenty-eight local associations responsible for delivering training.
Published by USAID, MEPI, and the Government of Morocco, the evaluation report shows that the women who participated in this program are highly successful in attaining higher levels of literacy and are using the knowledge of their civil rights in their decision-making, family life, and day-to-day activities. For example, one beneficiary, divorced with two children, was struggling to pay her rent. After learning that a divorced mother has the right to the family home, and after learning her letters, she had the courage to take steps to ask her ex-husband to provide a decent lodging for her and her children. Another woman stated that she previously needed her husband’s assistance to vaccinate her children. “Now,” she affirms, “I can go by myself because I can read the number of the bus and the name of the hospital.”
Of the more than 10,000 women who benefited from the program, more than 90% passed, and only 2% dropped out, compared to an average of 70% and 15-20% respectively of women in the national curriculum. Evaluation shows that women in this program achieved the same level of literacy competency in 60 hours compared to women in the national program attained in 100. The Government of Morocco is in the process of adopting ALEF’s strategy on the national level, starting with 24,000 women receiving training in the Casablanca region in 2007-2008.
