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Concept Note

ANCEFA Africa Network Campaign on Education For All

AWEN African Women in Education Network

BEI Basic Education Inspectorate

CEC Commune Education Commissions

CEC Community-Based Early Learning Center

CP Child Protection

EFA Education for All

EFTP Technical and Vocational Education and Training

FAWE Forum for African Women Educationalists

GER Gross Enrollment Rate

GPE Global Partnership for Education

GRP Gender-Responsive Pedagogy

IC Introductory Courses

IDP Internally displaced person

LEPG Local Education Partners' Group

PASF Girls Enrollment Support Project

PEC Management

PMA Pupils Mothers Association

PTA Parent-Teacher Associations

SMC School Management Committee

SMT Sciences, Mathematics and Technology

SRGBV School-Related Gender-Based Violence

TFP Technical and Financial Partners

UNGEI United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative

UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund

UWP Unwanted Pregnancy

WCARO UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office

VGMS Violences de genre en milieu scolaire

List of acronyms and abbreviations

In West and Central Africa, 24 million children including 13 million girls do not attend primary school. This same geographical area records the world’s lowest literacy rates. Less than half of women above the age of 15 can read or write. While progress in education has been made over the last fifteen years in Africa and elsewhere, enrollment rates remain very low in many areas. If multiple factors impede access to education for children in general, they are particularly varied and complex when it comes specifically to girls. Beside the very high early marriage rate in the region3, a large number of girls are victims at school of physical, psychological and sexual violence (corporal punishments, insults, abuses, sexual harassment, rape). A good deal of field surveys conducted in West Africa highlight the fact that school-related gender-based violence is “widespread and affects primarily young girls“4. These harmful factors to girls’ education along with a real lack of gender-responsive facilities (construction of separate latrines, facilitated sanitary access, MHM5, etc.) negatively affect the progress expected in terms of girls’ education and gender equality.

The persistence of gender inequalities in education raises many questions regarding the coordination and harmonization of the initiatives put in place but also the relevance of measures, actions and policy advocacy efforts. in 2014, UNICEF (West and Central Africa Regional Office), (with the support of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), Aide et Action, Plan (West Africa Regional Office), the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and ANCEFA (Africa Network Campaign on Education for All) have established a regional partnership on girls’ education around a good practice documentation project in girls’ and women’s education programs in West Africa. One of the targeted objectives is to combine efforts made in this area but also to create a knowledge and experience sharing as well as exchange framework to improve the coordination of activities. The objective is to significantly improve the access and quality of girls’ and women’s education in West Africa.

The purpose of this report is to highlight the best practices of partner organizations involved in girls’ and women’s education in the sub-region by reviewing the strategies, initiatives, procedures and behaviors which have generated good results. In addition to compiling a set of experiences, this report seeks to improve the quality of girls’ and women’s education and advocacy programs based on validated best practices from the experience of the different participating organizations. The report also provides an analytical framework of best practices and a template for the monitoring of good practices through an accurate evolving documentation, which fits within a reviewed framework. This template will also allow easier communication and sharing between different partner organizations for joint strategies around best practices in girls’ and women’s education in West Africa. This template may encourage exchanges and connections between organizations and enable them to join their voice around common paths in girls’ and women’s education. This document is also intended to be a joint tool for identifying, documenting, sharing and promoting proven solutions in the field of girls’ and women’s education in West Africa. With the constant hope to always improve future projects and programs.

Executive Summary

3. Statistics relating to early marriage ages in West and Central Africa are alarming. West and Central Africa experience the highest rates with, respectively, 40% and 49% of girls under 19 living in a conjugal relationship. Niger, Chad and Mali have the highest rate of women aged between 20 and 24 who report being married or living in a couple from age15. Sources : Mapping of early marriage in West Africa, September 2013

4. Les violences de genre en milieu scolaire en Afrique subsaharienne francophone – Comprendre leurs impacts sur la scolarisation des filles pour mieux les comprendre – Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et européennes - 2012

5. Menstrual Hygiene Management

Methodology used

The analytical review of good practices presented in this report is based on the information collected by the consultant from the five organizations and a detailed documentary review. These documents, varied in terms of geographical areas (sub-regional, regional, national, local) partner organization, methodology, objectives, intervention areas, break out as follows: program and project description, annual reports, progress reports, final reports, capitalization documents, evaluation reports, research reports and training manuals.

These may range from increasing access to educational opportunities to those relating to gender responsive teaching and learning approaches, improved gender relations in schools and education systems, and enhanced girls’ learning and achievement, including non-cognitive measures relating to self-esteem and leadership.This report on good practices in girls’ and women’s education aims also at identifying ways to build on existing good practices and ensure greater and wider positive impact on education in Africa. In this regard, the Consultant responsible for this report provides a template for evaluating good practices based on the UNGEI criteria for identifying good practices. This template captures the main questions, reflections and issues related to the evaluation of a good practice and suggests ways to document and share some of the key successes and good practices for girls’ and women’s education in West Africa.

This report includes:- a contextualization of girls’ and women’s education in West Africa ;

- a review of the concept of good practice and good practice capitalization as an efficiency factor ;

- identification and good practice analysis criteria ;

- a template to collect and evaluate good practice examples of girls and women’s education programs ;

- a compilation of good practices in girls’ and women education in West Africa ;

- recommendations;

- a conclusion ;

- a bibliography

“Mankind owes to the child the best it has.“ Geneva Declaration, 1924

Education is a basic and universal human right, which should be enjoyed by all children, without distinction or discrimination. Enshrined worldwide through national and international legislations, education should enable all children, boys and girls to benefit from the same conditions and opportunities to build a favorable future for their fulfillment. Indeed, every child deserves a quality education which includes a gender equality dimension. Such education, focusing on human rights, will allow fighting against inequalities, which are deeply rooted and enshrined in most societies, and almost always to the detriment of girls and women.

In 2000, the representatives of 164 Nations-States participated in the World Education Forum, held in Dakar, Senegal, and undertook to achieving six key goals to ensure Education for All by 2015. Adopted during the World Education Forum, the Dakar Framework for Action, “reaffirms the goal of education for all as laid out by the World Conference on Education for All“ held in Jomtien, in 1990, and particularly emphasizes both on the achievement of Universal Primary Education and girls’ and women’s right to education. While the Dakar Framework for Action and Millennium Development Goals set a goal of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and to establish, by 2015, gender equality at all levels of education, still in 2014, a -very- large number of girls are deprived of their basic human right of access to education. Although education is the area recording most significant progresses in reducing gender inequalities during the last twenty years, there are still numerous gender disparities. And if parity has been achieved globally in boys and girls enrollment in primary school, there are still large geographic, economic and social disparities in actual schooling. So, while 32% of girls do not complete a full education cycle, 39 millions of girls aged between 11 and 15 are dropouts, this represents 26% of the age group.

If raising children contributes to reducing poverty, decreasing infant mortality and promoting gender equality, girls’ education overall favors the development of all. Indeed, girls’ education, particularly their enrollment and retention at school, has a «multiplier effect6. “Having completed a basic education broadens their choices and empowers them to evolve throughout their life, resulting in multiple benefits for the country, the household and the family“7. Education is undoubtedly a key factor in enabling women to carry out income-generating activities, contribute to household income and achieve economic and social autonomy. Thus, it is demonstrated today that an educated girl will marry later, have fewer children, and feed herself better, will obtain better paid job, and will be more involved in decision-making in social, economic and political areas. And her children, in turn, will be more likely to go and stay at school in better conditions.

Background

6. UNICEF

7. Girl’s Education in Africa, What do we know about strategies that work, Eileen Kane, The world Bank

If barriers to children’s education are multiple (poverty, isolation, etc.), many factors are specific to girls and explain girls’ exclusion from education and gross gender inequities existing today in the education area. Girls, who are always the first to be withdrawn from school, face a number of specific barriers. First, they are discriminated against because of their social role which is different from that of men. The role of girls is perceived as being to stay at home, assist their mother in household chores (productive role), and parents do not always value their education as much as their brothers. Girls also leave school because of early pregnancies preventing them from attending classes. Early marriage also appears as an important barrier to education. There is a double link between education and child marriage. Indeed, girls drop out of school more frequently because of early marriage and education is a major parameter for the prevention of marriage among girls and young women8. “It is important“ […] to convince parents to keep their daughters in school and provide them with the basic education they are entitled to9“. Widespread but still taboo, inconspicuous and often unpunished school-related gender-based violence is another very important factor of girls dropping out of school. This violence experienced at school, on the way to school or around school, involves “multiple dimensions: economic (as is the case in transactional sex), socio cultural (taboo on sexuality, lack of sexuality education, unequal gender relationships) and health10“. They take several forms (physical, psychological or sexual) and affect a large number of school girls in West Africa. Although difficult to quantify, school-related gender-based violence has multiple consequences and impacts and constitutes a major barrier to girls’ and women’s access to education.

These various and multiple discriminations undermine girls and women’s future, but also that of their community and country, as girls’ education is recognized as a factor contributing to development and poverty reduction. Educated women have “more power in the household, they know more things and their opportunity costs are higher“11. One additional year of primary schooling for girls is correlated with a further increase in their future wages by 10-20%. This impact is also felt at macroeconomic level : an 1% increase in women with a secondary school level can increase the per capita income by 0.3%12. Girls’ schooling must therefore be considered from a broader perspective of inequality reduction as a major lever for development. Equality between girls and boys represent thus a condition and a lever allowing to ensure the quality of the educational environment, contents and learning.

8. ICRW, new insights on preventing child marriage : a global analysis of factors and programs, Washington DC, 2007

9. Digest Innocenti (UNICEF) N°7, Le mariage précoce, mars 2001

10. Les violences de genre en milieu scolaire en Afrique subsaharienne francophone – Comprendre leurs impacts sur la scolarisation des filles pour mieux les comprendre – Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et européennes - 2012

11. Girl’s Education in Africa, What do we know about strategies that work, Eileen Kane, The world Bank

12. Global Campaign for Education & Results Educational Fund, Make it happen. Ending the Crisis in Girls’ Education

13. Database of UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office, L’équité : un fil rouge des politiques éducatives nationales, Alain Mingat and Francis Ndem

A large proportion of adolescents aged 17/18 years are held back in a system that is not appropriate for their age:

1/10 17/18 year olds are held backin primary school 1/417/18 year olds are held back

in secondary school

1/4 children willnever goto school

11% are late entrants

16% will drop out during the primary cycle

32% are 3 or more years behind in primary school

2/4 children willnot completeprimary school

3/4 children willnot completesecondary school

2xmore likelyto be excluded

A girl froma poor householdliving in ruralarea is

than a boyfrom

a rich urbanhousehold

More than 23 million children are excluded from the primary education in the region and 14 million are at risk of being excluded

More than 8 million children are excluded from the lower secondary education in the region and 3 million are at risk of being excluded

For West and Central Africa

Key figures in West and Central Africa13

“A good practice is simply a process or a methodology that represents the most effective way of achieving a specific objective. Some people prefer to use the term ‘good practice’ as in reality it is debatable whether there is a single ‘best’ approach – and of course approaches

are constantly evolving and being updated. So, another way of defining a good practice is one that has been proven to work well and produce good results, and is therefore recommended as a model. The essence of identifying and sharing good practices is to learn from others and to re-use knowledge. The biggest benefit consists in well developed processes based on accumulated experience“.

SDC Knowledge Management Toolkit - 200414.

While there are several definitions in the international development area describing what a good practice is, it must be acknowledged that the above-mentioned quote gathers a number of key words helping to better identify the concept. Indeed, it is not easy to define a good practice because the concept includes a number of realities. It has commonly been written that “best practices“ are examples of processes and conducts that have resulted in successes. The term “good practice“ is to be linked to the term “best practices“ very popular in Anglo-Saxon countries where it is defined as a process that works well. This definition remains unsatisfactory in many respects, for being too simplistic; while it is true that, because of globalization, we generally find the same problems in most education systems in the world, it is however unrealistic to want to resolve them all exactly in the same way, i.e. to find one-size-fits-all solutions15. Especially as the integration of gender-based analysis in the various stages of a project involves specific responses according to the contexts.

As approaches are constantly evolving, the term “best practices“ could instead be used to define most successful practices. The “best practices“ would serve as a framework to list the best tools, methods and approaches in specific situations. As for good practices, the examples of best practices should include the ease of transfer to other situations with similar goals and a concern of physical and financial sustainability. On this basis, the expression “good practices“ remains more cautious than “best practices“, as the use of “best practices“ could be seen as exclusionary, as involving a notion of methodological hierarchy. More comprehensively, “good practices“ are often presented as including an innovative, tested and assessed approach16, and which can be assumed to be successful. It is innovation that helps improve the present and which, therefore, has (or can have) a model or standard value in a given system.

Concept of good practice

14. Identifying and Sharing Good Practices

15. Développement curriculaire et « bonne pratique » en éducation, Cécilia Bralavsky, Abdoulaye Anne and Maria Isabel Patino

16. Idem

In fact, “good practice“ and “innovation“ are close terms. But, if the two concepts are connected, they are far from being interchangeable. Any innovation, is indeed, not synonymous with success and cannot be considered as a good practice. Furthermore, a good practice is not simply a practice that is good, but a proven practice enabling to achieve good results, and which is as such recommended as a model. It is a successful, proven, validated, in the broad sense and repeated experience that deserves to be shared so that a greater number of people can adopt it17.

To describe the concept of good practice, it is essential to choose a broad but clear definition which incorporates a flexible and inclusive reference framework. This broad definition of good practice helps include actions, processes and methods, which are documented, evaluated, containing a wealth of impacts and successes, replicable and constantly improved.

GoodPractice

Successful, tested and validated

Experience to be promoted

Gender sensitive experience

Replicable experience

Cost-effective experience

Iterative experience

Innovating experience

Sustainable experience

17. Les bonnes pratiques à la FAO : Une démarche de capitalisation d’expériences pour un apprentissage continu

In the field of education, good practices are organizational, pedagogical and educational achievements contributing to solve a problem18. Results-driven good practices in girls’ and women’s education should propose projects / programs that significantly improve girls’ and women’s participation and learning by enhancing their empowerment.

UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office, (with the support of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), Aide et Action, Plan (West African Regional Office), FAWE and ANCEFA consider it necessary to learn from the various past and on-going experiences to continue to make progress in girls and women’s education in West Africa. This approach, which involves the identification and understanding of good practices, should help improve used methods and have a methodology which is innovative, shareable and which can be disseminated at different levels. This work on good practices aims to capitalize experiences, while avoiding to reproduce the mistakes made but also to build on some successes and lessons learned to transform them into key success tools.

Capitalization of good practices as an efficiency factor To highlight these good practices, it is first of all necessary to capitalize experiences. This essential and guiding notion of experience capitalization was raised in 1994 by Pierre de Zutter, who wrote, in a book considered as a starting point of experience capitalization approach within ISOs and NGOs, that “Capitalize is to transform the experience into shareable knowledge19“. Once this capitalization process is completed, the practice can change, be improved, tailored, shared and disseminated. The idea is to understand better, to do better, share and disseminate it better.

18. Perspectives, vol. XXXVIII, n° 2, juin 2008, Ana Benavente et Christine Panchaud

19. Des histoires, des savoirs, des hommes : l’expérience est un capital, FPH, Paris, 1994

The experience capitalization cycle to define good practices : a participatory and non-linear process

Share and disseminate

good practices

Collectand documentgood practices

Learn lessons from past

experiences

Engagein action

Understand,integrate and apply

good practices

Explain

Develop

Model

Capitalizationserves to:

Good practice identification and analysis criteria To identify and analyze fruitful good practices in terms of girls’ and women’s education, it seems necessary to establish good practice identification criteria. We have decided in this report to build on the UNGEI’s criteria for identifying good practices based themselves on the Commonwealth Secretariat’s guidelines for the submission of the Good Practice Award in Education, 2012 and the UN Women’s Good Practices in Gender Mainstreaming20.

The 8 identification criteria of UNGEI

1) Relevance The good practice demonstrates a socio-culturally sensitive and economically appropriate response to the context and challenge of education delivery in a specific context as well as to the identified needs and priorities of the target population.

2) Gender-based analysis

The good practice design and implementation reflects systematically on the linkages between gender relations and the issue to be addressed in education, with a particular focus on social norms, practices or beliefs and rules, policies or procedures that influence the options, opportunities and achievement of girls and boys and women and men in the society.

3) Monitoring and evaluation

The good practice includes the use of an effective monitoring and evaluation system which is able to demonstrate: a) the impact of the intervention in measurable terms on the intended group, system or organization; or b) at least evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention; and c) the possibility for collecting data based on intervention monitoring and evaluation with a view to assess its performance and impact.

4) Efficiency and cost-effectiveness

The good practice indicates an efficient and economical use of resources in its implementation, and demonstrates the link between activities and results, actual or expected, in the lives of girls, women or related to systems to be strengthened.

20. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/resources/goodpractices/guideline.html

5) Participation and partnership orientation

The good practice demonstrates a broader participatory and collaborative approach, involving a range of actors (civil society, private sector, and government, etc.) as well as girls and boys and men and women exercising leadership on an equal footing.

6) Sustainability The good practice will include elements of sustainability, including leveraging funds for continuation, securing policy adoption of an intervention or approach, or building the capacity of actors to integrate the initiative into existing systems of service delivery - whether government, academia, civil society, schools, communities or other - to ensure continued institutional and financial support.

7) Replication In similar conditions and circumstances, the good practice is potentially replicable in different contexts, within the country or outside.

8) Lessons learned The good practice should facilitate learning and generate lessons that are relevant for dissemination and transfer in other contexts. It should take into account the conditions that facilitate success, potential constraints impeding progress and or provide additional knowledge likely to broaden reflection on girls’ education and gender equality.

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