Education data speak to communities in seven African Countries

Summary:

Data Must Speak (DMS) is a multi-country initiative that unlocks data from national Education Management Information Systems. DMS aims to have data from different databases speak to each other, to decision makers and to communities. DMS is currently implemented in seven African countries. The DMS to communities' component seeks to act on the behavioural and social determinants to education. Demand-side barriers to education include negative parental attitudes, poor community understanding of the importance of education, violence against girls in schools, child labour, early pregnancies and child marriage, among others. Those barriers are exacerbated by the weak performance of schools and the education system, which results in the low perception of the added value of schooling. Supply-side barriers include lack of qualified teachers, low education budgets, insufficient educational resources, poor educational policies and inadequate facilities. DMS aims at using data and community engagement for (1) strengthening the social accountability of schools, and (2) for informing community dialogue and action on social and behavioural barriers to education. DMS has designed school report cards to be used at school and community level to inform participatory school improvement plans and performance monitoring, and to support community dialogue and collective action within and beyond schools. This initiative is an interesting entry point for SBCC in education, as it unlocks the potential of data to foster social accountability, to enrich community and societal dialogues on education and to encourage collective action for each child, especially vulnerable ones, to get a full education.

Background/Objectives

More than 250 million children of primary school age globally are unable to recognize basic letters and numbers. Families who engage with their childrens education encourage their children to spend more time learning and increase their motivation to learn. Still, barriers to these ideals exist, as teachers need support and recognition from communities to perform effectively, and families need guidance from teachers and school personnel to understand how to support their childrens learning. Recognizing the critical and often underutilized role of families and communities, ACR GCD sources and tests innovative approaches, often leveraging SBCC, to engage parents in childrens reading.

Description Of Intervention And/or Methods/Design

School-to-School International (STS) collaborated with each grantee to develop a robust research study design and advise on the sampling and research groups; conduct Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRAs) at baseline and endline; and provide technical assistance on monitoring and evaluation, and fidelity of implementation activities. STS also conducted qualitative end-of-project interviews to explore lessons learned from project implementation, understand the impact on beneficiaries, and assess the potential scalability. Makhalidwe Athu - Distributed crowdsourced stories via SMS to parents phones with monthly trainings. Mundo de Libros - Fostering parental engagement through a website, Spanish reading materials and training workshops. Manos Unidas - Interactive corpus of sign language words, a smartphone app, and a literacy outreach program for deaf children and families Resources for the Blind - Training and technology for teachers to create books and support parents of students who are blind.

Results/Lessons Learned

Projects can find even greater impact when they engage not only with parents and caretakers but also utilize school resources to change students learning. Parents can be better partners in a change process when they receive support and training on specific skills that can help their childrens learning. Building responsive, nimble monitoring systems of parental engagement allowed projects to address any project implementation challenges and ensure change processes were targeted at the right level. Different models can be successful to positively impact students learning, one size does not fit all. Projects that were developed to address specific needs and community realities were most successful.

Discussion/Implications For The Field

These small, technology-focused projects demonstrate different examples of how best to engage parents in a change process to improve student learning. Parental engagement takes many different forms and requires significant resources and this presentation will provide informative lessons that can be applied to other projects attempting to positively change parental engagement.

Abstract submitted by:

Shelly Hartman Malecki - World Vision

Kristina Solum - School-to-School International (STS)