‘All hands on deck’ to strengthen education in Northern Nigeria, say experts at CIES

March 13, 2017

By Natalie Lovenburg

5 min read

More than 30 percent of school-aged children in Northern Nigeria do not have access to basic education. Attacks by the Boko Haram insurgency in the region compound the problem; more than 1 million school-aged children have been forced to flee their homes.

In crisis-affected environments like this, strengthening education systems and enrollment in secure learning environments is critical. Yet reform cannot succeed and be sustained unless all key stakeholders take clear ownership of their respective roles, said experts on a panel at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 7.

“A close collaborative working relationship between all of the partners—the project implementers, USAID and the state government is imperative,” said Croshelle Harris-Hussein, Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Education Office in Nigeria.

Opening the panel session called “System Strengthening for Improved Reading Outcomes and Increased Access in Northern Nigeria: Perspectives and Practices from the USAID Northern Education Initiative Plus Program,” Harris-Hussein said that when thinking about system strengthening in education, certain factors should inform the design of the project—such as governance, transparency and accountability. These are necessary to reach the ultimate goal of creating safe learning spaces for all beneficiaries.

Establishing strong local and state governmental systems can result in improved service delivery for teacher training, curriculum development and delivery of instructional materials, she added.

With these best practices in mind, USAID has launched the Nigeria Education Initiative Plus project to rebuild and strengthen the education system and increase access to quality education in Nigeria’s Sokoto and Bauchi states. It is implemented by Creative Associates International.

The project is building program ownership among federal, state and local government education authorities, as well as ensuring commitment to quality early grade reading instruction and access to education.

Early assessments map challenges and guide project design

In Sokoto state, the Northern Education Initiative Plus supports 10 out of the 23 local government areas. Sokoto’s Commissioner of Basic and Secondary Education, Muhammed Jabbi Kilgori, Ph.D, partners with the project to oversee basic education in the targeted schools.

On the panel, Kilgori discussed pre-existing challenges to the education system in Sokoto and Bauchi. “We discovered weak implementation of policy, inadequate political will and lack of proper budgetary allocation and fund release for basic education,” he said.

He also noted several other systemic challenges in both states, such as no existing reading policy and a lack of teaching quality and motivation among teachers—all resulting in low student performance.

A 2011 Early Grade Reading Assessment conducted in Sokoto and Bauchi revealed that more than 80 percent of Sokoto students and 70 percent of Bauchi students assessed scored zero on the oral reading fluency subtask.

The findings from this early grade reading assessment— the first in Nigeria’s Hausa language—have helped inform and shape project priorities such as delivering basic education focused on reading skills, training and managing teachers, budgeting and ensuring school governance is sufficient.

Kilgori added that poor school facilities and a lack of community and parental participation, such as Parent Teacher Associations, are additional challenge for the education system to address.

Given the quality of education offered, Kilgori said families in poverty carefully weigh the cost of keeping their children at home to contribute to the household income versus spending hours traveling back and forth to school and sitting in a classroom all day.

“Parents see no point in bringing their child to school when the classroom isn’t operational and the children go back home knowing nothing,” said Kilgori.

To begin to address these challenges and bring quality education to Sokoto and Bauchi states, stakeholders came together as a cohesive group to establish a strategic plan of action.

“Basic education in Sokoto and Bauchi requires all hands on deck,” said Kilgori. “That means that everyone must work together to address the challenges on the ground.”

Kilgori noted progress is being made in the targeted areas and learning competencies–especially with girls–have improved through the various project interventions.

Rethinking existing basic education policies

Despite the challenges, the coalition of partners working on the Nigeria Education Initiative Plus are optimistic about what their sustained and collaborative efforts to strengthen the system can achieve.

“Education is the most viable platform to empower people,” said Muhammed Bello Yusuf, Nigeria Education Initiative Plus Reading Officer. “The partners are committed, motivated and have the political will to fix problems and to transform Nigeria’s education system.”

All of the partners meet monthly for joint planning and to review the project’s progress and tackle issues that arise. Timely measurement and monitoring of these activities, as well as regularly communicating success and challenges with all of the stakeholders, helps to address issues quickly, explained Yusuf.

Recognizing that states need support to effectively implement these sustainable and systemic education reforms, the project uses an integrated approach to strengthen the education system. The project partners with states to assess in-depth institution capacity; establish Technical Working Groups and Education Steering Committees; strengthens the policy environment; and leverage the expertise of multilevel stakeholders.

The integrated model is essential to the project’s goals, said Musa Salami, Nigeria Education Initiative Plus System Strengthening Specialist.

“To reach the project’s education objectives, bringing all of these key aspects together has been important to articulate why there is a need for education policy reform and how it contributes to state GDP gains,” he said.

Early project achievements are moving in the right direction, he noted.

The two supported states have committed over 20 percent of their annual state budgets to education. They have taken steps to improve systems for book allocation, distribution and utilization, and have enrolled more than 35,000 learners in non-formal learning centers.

This renewed state commitment, along with the support of communities, donors and other partners, is critical to improving quality basic education in the two states, said Garba Gandu, Deputy Director of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council.

“To be sustainable, education system strengthening in the North is everybody’s business– from the local community to government officials,” he said.

Applying behavioral insights leads to targeted solutions, say experts at CIES

March 9, 2017

By Natalie Lovenburg

5 min read

Combining behavioral insights with social emotional learning are essential to improved student achievements for school-aged children in conflict and crisis environments, according to experts on a panel at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 7.

Panelists at the session called “Using Behavioral Insights to Improve Learning and School Safety in Humanitarian and Development Contexts: Preliminary Findings and Potential New Directions” point to case studies from India, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria and Timor-Leste, among other countries, that are leveraging behavior insights to reach education program targets.

Behavior insights—the emerging science that goes beyond traditional economics that analyzes how people make decisions and take actions—can play a role in complimenting existing programming, shaping effective policy and addressing future issues in the classroom, said panel experts.

“Why does the science of behavior matter?” asked Josh Martin, Vice President of Ideas42, an organization that applies behavioral science research to tackle complex social problems. “Addressing challenges and applying targeted low-cost interventions requires understanding psychological barriers that can have a detrimental impact on learning outcomes.”

While education is the foundation of the Nigeria Education Crisis Response project, children traumatized by conflict and upheaval can only learn when their fears are also addressed.

Exposure to conflict can result in deep psychological trauma that can have long-lasting effects on children’s mental health and cognitive abilities. Many of these children are fleeing violence, having witnessed the destruction of their homes and even the killing of family members.

“When considering refugees in the humanitarian context and the extreme challenges they face that creates cognitive depletion, behavior insights are going to be extremely important to the kind of problems and solutions we are able to provide,” said Martin.

Integrating behavior insights in education programming design allows the development of effective and tailored intervention strategies to support students with specific psychosocial needs.

With more than 263 million children and youth out-of-school worldwide, analyzing barriers to education is needed. In conflict-affected countries, children face significant challenges in receiving a quality education–or an education at all. Lack of school infrastructure and sufficient learning materials, as well as ongoing safety and security concerns, keep the most vulnerable students out of the classroom.

Natan Last, Innovation Strategist on the Research and Development team at International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Airbel Center, works closely with IRC technical units in health, education, among others, to spur innovation in humanitarian aid. By bringing together field staff, designers, strategists, researchers and technical experts, the Airbel Center aims to uncover innovative ideas that make positive impact.

“We need the spur of innovation now more than ever,” said Last. “To demonstrate higher impact but to help solve enormous global challenges in delivering interventions, like the increasing urgency of the humanitarian crisis–especially in education.”

“Through better design, we can gain a clearer understanding of behavior in context that has the potential to lead to promising interventions and solutions,” said Last. “And lean from failure to success.”

Innovative education interventions leveraging social emotional learning

Julia Finder, Technical Manager, Education in Conflict at Creative Associates International, presented a framework that Creative developed to provide at-risk youth in both humanitarian and development contexts with support needed to positively change social behaviors.

“Context is extremely important when examining how to best support social emotional learning and social behavior change,” said Finder.

To demonstrate the framework, she provided case studies based on Creative’s projects in Nigeria, Honduras, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste and Morocco, among other countries.

Creative’s Julia Finder, Technical Manager in Education in Conflict, presented on a CIES panel called ““Using Behavioral Insights to Improve Learning and School Safety in Humanitarian and Development Contexts: Preliminary Findings and Potential New Directions.”

To properly address social behavior change, understanding what impacts children and youth is essential.

“When designing a new project, there are several key technical questions Creative aims to address,” she said.

Among the technical issues Creative seeks to address are:

What are the behaviors are we seeking to change?
What conditions in the school environment lead to positive and also negative social behavior?
What type of support is realistic, given the context?
Who can deliver these interventions?
How will this be sustainable one the project ends?

Targeted interventions in the school, the community and home all play a role in supporting social emotional learning.

Creative applies a “whole child, whole teacher, whole school, and whole system approach,” to address critical supply and demand factors that affect learning, teaching, management, parental participation and responsiveness to children’s needs.

“Each entity play’s a critical role in providing holistic support and they must all interact together to be effective in changing social behavior,” according to Finder.

Creative applies a multi-tiered approach in design, where the least at-risk learners are at the top and the most at-risk learners are at the bottom. This approach helps assess and identify individual need and tailors intervention to encourage stability, learning and growth.

Finder demonstrated how this approach works by applying it to the Nigeria Education Crisis Response project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative, IRC and local partners.

In Northern Nigeria, more than 2.2 million people—including more than 1 million school-aged children—have been displaced from their homes due to the Boko Haram insurgency.

In addition to psychosocial support, the project has established non-formal learning centers that provide literacy and math education and, for older youth, livelihoods training as many families have been uprooted from their homes and sources of income.

“Once we apply the framework and assess individual needs, we then devise a plan,” said Finder. “Depending on the changes we’re observing with the students, we then change the dosage and frequency of support.”

Looking through the multi-tiered approach lens helps to tailor specific interventions.

When applying the multi-tiered approach in the targeted schools, findings emerged that female students were not staying in school and not completing their education.

Creative provided additional support and training for the girls in order to achieve the same outcomes as their male peers.

Moving forward, Finder emphasized the need for additional research to promote behavior change.

“We need to build a further understanding on what support is available and how we can effectively design measurement tools to isolate specific interventions to determine their individual impact,” said Finder. “And we want to support communities in identifying what skills they need to ensure they can provide continual support to at-risk children and youth.”

Tech can help bridge education gaps in crisis, say experts at CIES

March 9, 2017

By Jillian Slutzker

5 min read

Children and youth in conflict-affected countries are more than twice as likely to be out-of-school than their peers in non-conflict countries, reports UNESCO.

Schools that manage to retain students during conflict face other challenges—including insecurity, a lack of materials and limited support for teachers.

Technology-based solutions may help to remedy some of these education challenges in crisis, but only when tailored to the specific conflict context, said project implementers and Information Communications Technology experts speaking on “Conflict Sensitivity in ICT for Education in Crisis and Conflict Programming” at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 8.

Working on education in Nigeria’s northern states of Bauchi and Sokoto, where the terrorist group Boko Haram has attempted to take control, Daniel Fwanshishak has seen firsthand the strains on an education system in the midst of conflict, as well as the benefits of targeted technology solutions.

“Every time Northern Nigeria is mentioned of course we think about the conflict going on now,” said Fwanshishak, Teacher Education Officer for the Northern Education Initiative Plus. The project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

Fwanshishak said that conflict in the region compounds pre-existing problems facing students and teachers, such as limited access to education, a lack of resources, deteriorated infrastructure and poor teacher professional development and training.

“What we are doing with the project in Nigeria is trying to bridge the gap that already exists and is already complicated because of the conflict situation, so we are emphasizing access and supporting the system to provide that,” he said, noting that the project works hand-in-hand with Ministry of Education to shore up a sustainable system, even through insecurity.

The project has developed three ICT-based solutions.

To pay teachers, many of whom do not have formal bank accounts and cannot risk their own safety traveling with large cash payments, the project implemented a mobile payment system benefiting 200 teachers in Bauchi and Sokoto states.

To help ensure teachers had the resources they needed to teach students, the project jumpstarted a mobile supply-chain tracking system, by which the state governments, local education offices and then the schools are all notified at each subsequent stage of materials shipment. Schools confirm delivery, which helps to hold education authorities at the state and local level accountable.

Lastly, to motivate teachers working in isolated or insecure environments, with poor training and little support, the project initiated a mobile coaching system through which they could stay connected and receive ongoing support.

As with all interventions in conflict, adaptability is an asset in a shifting security landscape, Fwanshishak added.

“Because of an absence of a very good working environment, sometimes the systems fail, but we take that into consideration…We make it as open as possible and as flexible as possible.”

Tech can supplement, not replace holistic and interactive programming

Technology can provide targeted solutions to specific obstacles in conflict, such as paying teachers where banks are inaccessible, but it is not a substitute for a holistic, conflict-sensitive program, noted panelists.

“The ICT doesn’t work alone. It is embedded in a larger system and it’s not there to replace the human interaction, but there to support it,” said discussant Lisa Hartenberger Toby, Senior International Technical Advisor at Education Development Center.

One example of such a program is the Learning and Empowerment for Adolescent Refugees in Neighborhood program, which aimed to provide learning opportunities for out-of-school Syrian refugee adolescents in Gazientep, Turkey. It was implemented by Mercy Corps, until its operations were closed on March 7 by Turkish authorities.

The program’s intention was to address the unique situations of out-of-school adolescent refugees, including social isolation, especially for girls, nontraditional schedules due to work to support family and misinformation about educational opportunities available to them.

It combined a blended learning model of individual sessions with an instructor, self-study using tablets, peer group sessions with the same instructor and parental awareness sessions.

This blended approach offered an on-ramp to education for students displaced and out-of-school for potentially years, explained Karen Scriven, Senior Director of Strategic Programs at Mercy Corps.

“The tablets allow [the youth] the flexibility of being able to get back into an educational routine without having to risk going out,” she said, especially for young women who may be more restricted in their mobility

Meanwhile, by adding the in-person blended learning components, the programs aimed to prepare adolescents for their unique goals: whether rejoining formal schooling, passing exams, continuing non-formal learning or entering the workforce, said Scriven.

“There’s a lot of different paths these adolescents can take, and we want to be sure that this blended learning program can help them with any of these outcomes.”

Critical considerations for ICT design in conflict settings

Today, more than 65 million people around the world are displaced due to conflict or persecution, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For technology for development designers, this means business can no longer operate as usual.

“The reality is that more and more people across the world and more and more people we work with and partners we work with are working in conflict settings, so that changes a lot concerning what we can do and how we can access our participants and beneficiaries, wherever that might be,” said Ben Donahue, Senior Business Development Manager at technology for development organization Souktel.

In particular, said Donahue, implementers introducing technology solutions into conflict settings must work to ensure safety and security of data and personnel; for example, by sending survey data collected immediately to a server and wiping it from mobile devices to protect survey enumerators from harm.

He said that implementers will also need to understand people’s levels of access to and familiarity with various types of technology, as access can often be limited in conflict-settings and well-intentioned tools may fall flat if they don’t resonate with the intended users and beneficiaries.

“There’s an increasing realization that ICT has a lot of capacity but it needs to be appropriate to the context, especially if you’re working in a conflict setting,” he said.

A last critical piece to using ICT in conflict settings, noted Donahue, is to build relationships with local and trusted partners form the start.

He cited a project designed to use SMS with built-in translation to allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to communicate with and get legal advice from Turkish lawyers.

The app failed to catch on, however, due to the refugees’ hesitation. They did not know or trust the lawyers on the other end of the message. It was only when the tool was paired with well-known and trusted refugee service agencies, as part of a broader array of supports, that the messaging service gained users.

Ultimately, panelists agreed, that should be the driving force behind any ICT solution form design to implementation and revision: developing a tool that works for and supports the intended beneficiaries to reach their optimal outcomes.

And that requires understanding the conflict context, partner and beneficiary needs and sensitivities around the technology itself, concluded Donahue.

“The technology itself is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Creative celebrates partnerships, success & future in Nigeria

February 28, 2017

1 min read

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Creative celebrates partnerships, success & future in Nigeria

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]On Feb. 23 in Abuja, Creative convened key partners, friends, donors and staff to celebrate important achievements and partnerships through Creative-implemented projects in Nigeria. Creative’s Africa Strategy for development was also an important topic of discussion.

The reception, held at the Transcorp Hilton, was attended by more than 130 key stakeholders, including DFID Education Advisor Esohe Eigbike and Bappah Aliyu, head of the National Commission for Colleges of Education, among other Nigerian government officials and international development practitioners.

Representing the company from Washington, D.C. were CEO Charito Kruvant, Director of Executive Operations Tim Kernan and Senior Advisor of Global Operations Charlie Alliman, among others. Also in attendance were staff from Creative’s three USAID-funded projects in the country: Northern Education Initiative Plus, Nigeria Education Crisis Response Program, and the Nigeria Regional Transition Initiative.

Photos by Erick Gibson.

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300,000 textbooks distributed to children in northern Nigeria

February 6, 2017

By Boco Abdul

3 min read

More than 300,000 textbooks were delivered to students and teachers in January through Northern Education Initiative Plus, a U.S. Agency for International Development funded project that improves the early grade reading skills of children in nearly 900 primary schools in Sokoto state.

At a ceremonial delivery of the new textbooks, representatives of the state government and USAID remarked on the importance of quality, locally focused reading materials for students.

USAID Mission Director Michael Harvey told attendees: “Every child deserves quality basic education. The United States is proud to partner with the Government of Sokoto state to provide more opportunities for children to not just go to school but learn to read and write.”

USAID was joined by Sokoto Gov. Aminu Tambuwal and Commissioner of Education Dr. Muhammad Kilgori, among other elected officials and community leaders, on Jan. 24 to kick off the distribution of the books in a ceremony at Buhari Model Primary school in the Tambuwal local government area.

“We remain committed to investing in the future of our children through education and the U.S government is a worthy partner in this vision,” said the Education Commissioner. “It is important that every child in school learns to read and this is why we are cascading the reading program of the Northern Education Initiative Plus to all schools in Sokoto state.”

Sokoto Gov. Tambuwal reiterated the government’s commitment to improving the quality of basic education in schools so more children acquire basic literacy skills.

USAID’s Mission Director agreed: “We will continue to meet the yearnings of parents for quality early grade reading instruction for their children. Our education efforts in Sokoto is an investment in the future of children who will grow to contribute positively to their communities.”

Increasing access to quality education in local language

Based on global best practices in teaching young students, the Northern Education Initiative Plus program materials promote education quality, access, conflict sensitivity and particularly early grade reading. The program teaches children to read early, while building their socio-emotional and cognitive skills.

The 300,000 textbooks distributed to schools and are coupled with providing teachers in Sokoto with skills and tools to support early grade reading in Hausa, which is one of the most common languages in Northern Nigeria. The students will transition to English later in the program.

Developed by more than 100 local and international experts, the program’s learning and teaching materials contain illustrative pictures and local stories promoting social values that are attractive to children. The materials have been edited by Nigeria’s best Hausa and English experts to ensure that local language use is correct and that they are embedded in the local culture and traditions.

The five-year, Nigerian government-led Northern Education Initiative Plus program aims to improve reading outcomes of more than 2 million primary grade learners in 6,868 schools and 11,129 non-formal learning centers in the Bauchi and Sokoto states.

The program will train and equip around 45,000 teachers and learning facilitators who can reach children in schools and non-formal learning centers.

Last October, the Northern Education Initiative Plus program distributed 1 million textbooks in Nigeria’s Bauchi state, empowering even more teachers and students in the northern states to reach their full potential.

Mozambique – Vamos Ler! Let’s Read!

Program

2 min read

The Mozambique Vamos Ler! (Let’s Read!) program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, was designed to develop bilingual education pedagogical tools and activities, improve national early grade literacy policies and delivery and monitoring systems, enhance school leadership and increase parental and community engagement in early grade literacy. The five-year, evidence-based project built the government’s ability to create policies, tools and approaches to early grade literacy that are flexible, results oriented and affordable.

Let’s Read! assisted the government in delivering a quality bilingual education program for first, second and third grade students in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia, where a baseline assessment revealed more than 90 percent of second graders could not read two words in Portuguese. Based on classroom analysis, data and best practices, the project worked alongside government counterparts to develop instructional tools and learning materials in the local languages with oral language development and transition to Portuguese reading and writing in the fourth grade.

Taking a holistic “whole child, whole teacher, whole school, whole system” approach, Let’s Read! gathered critical data to inform policies and improve student performance, with the aim of institutionalizing and sustaining a bilingual early grade literacy package that the government could use to optimize learning, equip teachers, involve communities and transform schools into responsive centers of learning, care and support.

Creative implemented the program in partnership with international organizations with expertise in strengthening education approaches and policies. These groups included the World Education, Inc., American Institutes for Research, Overseas Strategic Consulting and Blue Tree Group.

New program promises early grade literacy reform in Mozambique

February 6, 2017

3 min read

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New program promises early grade literacy reform in Mozambique

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new early grade literacy program is assisting the Government of Mozambique to build a strong bilingual education framework for national expansion, Creative Associates International announced

The Mozambique “Let’s Read” (Vamos Ler! in Portuguese) is a five-year program designed to develop bilingual education pedagogical tools and activities, improve national early grade literacy policies and delivery and monitoring systems, enhance school leadership and increase parental and community engagement in early grade literacy.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Let’s Read! assists the Government of Mozambique in delivering a quality bilingual education program for first, second and third grade students in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia, where a baseline assessment revealed more than 90 percent of second graders could not read two words in Portuguese.

“Creative is honored to partner with USAID and the Government of Mozambique to positively influence the way early grade reading is approached and delivered throughout the country,” says Pieter Potter, who leads Let’s Read! from the capital of Maputo. “Increasing at-home support for learning, improving reading skills in the classroom and having access to bilingual materials is essential in expanding knowledge and growing young minds.”

The opportunity to inform a national literacy effort

The Government of Mozambique has committed to improving its early grade literacy outcomes through expansion of its national bilingual education program.

With the rollout of bilingual education training and a revised bilingual education curriculum in 2016-2017, the government hopes to reverse the worrisome trends plaguing its school system: fewer than half of Mozambican children complete primary school, and rates of teacher absenteeism are some of the highest in the world.

The government faces many challenges as it works toward reform. There is insufficient capacity to design and implement new programs and limited data on which to base them. Schools have gaps in resources including local-language reading materials and a limited amount of trained teachers and administrators. Furthermore, teachers, educators and parents require engagement and awareness of the value of learning to read in the local language.

Let’s Read! takes an evidence-based approach to strengthening the government’s ability to create policies, tools and approaches to early grade literacy that are flexible, results-oriented and cost-effective.

The program will simultaneously improve in-school instruction and at-home reading support in the targeted provinces, while assisting the Government of Mozambique to establish national policies and systems that lay the foundation for sustaining and expanding early grade literacy bilingual education.

Let’s Read! focuses on building the institutional capacity of Mozambique’s Ministry of Education and Human Development as it expands the country’s early grade bilingual literacy program, strengthens professional development, augments policy and research, builds its monitoring and evaluation capabilities and enhances parental and community involvement.

“Providing quality teaching and learning materials for teachers and students in languages children speak and understand is essential to the success of Let’s Read!,” says Potter. “With government ownership and leadership, the program can make lasting changes in communities and position them for sustainable, long-term success.”

Solutions that reflect the whole system

Creative will implement Let’s Read! in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia, where students speak a variety of local languages, although most school-based instruction is still carried out in Portuguese.

Based on classroom analysis, data and best practices, the project works alongside government counterparts to develop instructional tools and learning materials in the local languages with oral language development and transition to Portuguese reading and writing in the fourth grade.

Taking a holistic “whole child, whole teacher, whole school, whole system” approach, Let’s Read! is gathering critical data to inform policies and improve student performance, with the aim to institutionalize an early grade literacy package that the government can use to optimize and sustain learning, equip teachers, involve communities and transform schools into responsive centers of learning, care and support.

Experienced Partners

Creative is implementing Let’s Read! in partnership with international organizations with expertise in strengthening education approaches and policies. These groups include the World Education, Inc., American Institutes for Research, Overseas Strategic Consulting and Blue Tree Group.

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Innovative digital storytelling pilot project boasts positive results

January 31, 2017

By Natalie Lovenburg

3 min read

Parents in rural Zambia are using their mobile phones in a novel way—to bring local folktales to the youngest members of the household.

The 18-month project called “The way we live,” or Makhalidwe Athu in the local language of Chinyanja, encourages young readers in a creative way. The innovative mobile reading project uses digital Short Message Service (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) messaging platform to regularly share local language stories with the children and their families, conveniently on their personal mobile device.

A new study finds that Makhalidwe Athu is working.

During the first 12 months, the pilot project found that caretakers – parents, grandparents and other extended family members – in all 1,200 participating households reported reading the mobile stories with their children at least once a week, and 78 percent said they read every SMS message when it was received three times a week.

The survey highlighted that Makhalidwe Athu is positively perceived by parents. All caregivers reported that the project helps their children’s learning process, and many household members are actively participating in the digital reading activity.

“Creative’s Makhalidwe Athu project provides a unique and interactive learning experience for students and their caregivers,” says Angela Musonda, program field coordinator for Creative Associates International’s innovative project. “Building on the successes and learnings of the initial pilot, the scaled-up project will encourage even more young readers with innovative tools to reach their full potential and create a future full of possibilities.”

The project also aims to illustrate story booklets that will be distributed to the targeted schools, reaching even more students with new reading materials. Makhalidwe Athu, which is implemented by Creative, is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Vision and the Australian Government as part of All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development project.

Connecting students with reading materials

In the Chipata and Lundazi districts of Zambia’s Eastern province, many primary schools lack a variety of reading materials. In 2014, the Ministry of General Education started teaching all subjects in local language in primary schools, an important step in ensuring young students develop mother-tongue literacy skills before transitioning to English.

But a limited supply of published local language books impedes new readers from advancing their reading skills.

In Zambia, less than 50 percent of children start primary school at the right age of 7 years, according to UNICEF.

Providing reading tools and resources helps empower children to achieve academic success. With the proper resources, an educated girl or boy can help break the cycle of poverty within their families and communities. Students who fall behind in the classroom struggle to grow their reading skills at home. Often, these students don’t return to the classroom.

Though literacy is low across Africa, rates of mobile phone usage are quite high. Across Africa, 93 percent of people have access to cell phone service.

Uniting communities through reading

Not only does Makhalidwe Athu help preserve culture and bring families together but community members are participating in the project as well. On a weekly basis, the stories are submitted by various community members and shared through the digital platform, reaching a wider audience and preserving the cultural folktales. The local communities have learned about the program through local media and community meetings.

Children and their caregivers gather together to read the crowdsourced, digital short stories on their mobile phones. As each story segment – a total of three – is received on the device, the student writes them down in corresponding Makhalidwe Athu exercise books.

For further comprehension, each story segment is followed by a question parents ask their children. The questions are asked through SMS, and a recorded version of the story is available to assist illiterate parents. Sixty-eight percent of participants who were surveyed in the pilot phase said they listen to the voice recording with their child. The students also practice their understanding by writing the stories in exercise books.

More than 200 stories have been collected and shared during the project’s pilot phase and now the community can revisit the reading materials again and again for further practice and understanding. In the future, the stories can be repurposed for other education programs.

Refugees as “end users” help design tech solutions to refugee crisis in Greece

December 2, 2016

By Ayan Kishore

3 min read

Could a smartphone app make a difference in the lives of some 62,000 refugees and migrants in Greece? Could a mapping tool be part of the solution to the country’s refugee crisis?

A group of technology developers, migration and development experts, refugees and migrants met in Athens in October to try out some tech ideas that could do just that. As part of design teams and as designated assessors of new ideas, unaccompanied refugee minors themselves, a target group for the solutions, evaluated the pitches.

The first in a pair of “hackathons,” Hack the Camp, was an effort to instigate tech-enabled solutions to the refugee crisis in Greece. It is supported by the U.S. Embassy and several local and international organizations including Creative Associates International.

If you aren’t familiar with hackathons, here’s a primer: A hackathon is a several hour event (think marathon) that brings together software developers to use their skills to prototype their ideas or “hack” together solutions in response to a provided prompt.

Popularized in the for-profit tech sector, hackathons are increasingly being held by governments and civil society organizations to spark tech solutions to development problems.

A design that works for the user

“Design with the User,” or “human-centered design,” is recognized as the foremost principle for digital development, increasing the chances of the new tool actually being effectively used by the targeted demographic. Yet this rarely translates into a reality.

At Hack the Camp in Athens, refugees and tech developers worked side-by-side to ensure prototypes of new tools would actually be useful to the end users. Photo by: Ayan Kishore

Beneficiaries or end users should be active participants in hackathons to allow for a rapid user-centered design process.

For instance, one solution that a Hack the Camp team worked on was a platform for refugees’ stories to be told to the greater public. When the team pitched its idea, the panel of refugees asked why that would be of use to them and whether they would get any financial benefit from the publication of their stories—key points the team had not considered.

In another case, refugees unanimously advised one “makerspace” organizer—which sets up collaborative work spaces for hands-on exploring and training, often in tech—to focus on increasing the skills of immediate users of the space and placing them into jobs, rather than attempting to scale up into more camps.

In this way beneficiaries become co-designers and evaluators of assistance programs—something the development and peacebuilding fields have struggled to achieve.

When I asked people why they chose to participate in Hack the Camp, tech participants and others mentioned empathy for the refugee population and a desire to humanize and solve the refugee problem.

When I spoke to Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani and Pakistani refugees, they talked about how they enjoyed playing a key part in the creative and inclusive process.

In total, Hack the Camp teams generated 33 solution concepts—including an Airbnb-type solution to allow people to make vacant spaces in Athens and elsewhere available to refugees. Airbnb is not affiliated with the hackathon. Other solutions focused on education, jobs, health, urban planning and cultural identity.

Human-centered design and product development specialists guided the teams through a rapid design process, and they have now spent the last two months fleshing out the concepts more.

This Dec. 2 to 4 in Athens, 50 members of selected teams will reassemble to prototype and present their solutions.

What we hope to see are the beginnings of solutions that can make a real difference in the lives of those they are meant to serve—the refugee and migrant community. With human-centered design and refugees as part of design teams and feedback panels, the outlook for achieving this is bright.

Ayan Kishore is Director of Technology for Development at the Creative Development Lab.

Morocco: Boosting critical reading instruction, building a culture of literacy

November 9, 2016

1 min read

Middle school is a key time to master critical reading comprehension, but teachers often lack skills and resources to bring struggling students up to grade-level reading performance. See how Creative, USAID and the Moroccan Ministry of Education worked together to boost reading instruction and build a culture of reading.

NIGERIA: Fresh starts, new skills for internally displaced children

November 7, 2016

2 min read

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NIGERIA:

Fresh starts, new skills for internally displaced children

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]For thousands of displaced children and youth across Northern Nigeria, a long and perilous journey is finally giving way to hope and healing. In partnership with USAID’s Education Crisis Response program, host communities are providing these traumatized youth with shelter, psychosocial support, education and skills to regain stability and chart a brighter future.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

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FOR NIGERIAN CHILDREN, BACK TO SCHOOL MEANS BACK TO NORMAL

When Boko Haram attacked, 14-year-old Lillian and her family fled. For out-of-school, displaced and traumatized children like Lillian, the Education Crisis Response Program offers a chance to resume their educations and ultimately return to formal school.

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NEW SKILLS MEAN NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISPLACED NIGERIAN TEENS

Sixteen-year-old Muhammed learned how to make little jars of scented lotion through an after-class program. For internally displaced teens like him, having a trade helps them regain stability and chart a future.

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NIGERIAN ORGANIZATIONS STEP IN TO SUPPORT DISPLACED CHILDREN AMONG THEM

Violence in Northern Nigeria has forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes. Many of them have sought support and shelter in host communities that are stepping up in cooperation with USAID.

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IN REMOTE NIGERIAN VILLAGES, EDUCATION BUILDS COMMUNITY FOR DISPLACED STUDENTS

In the remote village of Lauki, USAID and local residents are finding ways to create greater access to quality education for displaced school-aged children. A community-built school is benefiting local and displaced children alike.

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Dangers to democracy: How election systems may be susceptible to “rigging”

November 2, 2016

4 min read

What constitutes electoral malpractice, otherwise known as “rigging” an election?

It includes a wide range of illegal, illicit and even violent practices designed to influence the outcome of an election to “substitute personal or partisan benefit for the public interest,” according to Sarah Birch, Professor at King’s College London. Such attempts to influence the outcome of an election may be systemic or isolated instances, and the perpetrators are constantly refining their techniques.

While the range of tactics employed to undermine democratic electoral processes remains consistent across the world, the use of violence appears to be more common in Africa and the Middle East, whereas the manipulation of resources appears to be more common in the more developed democracies of Western Europe and the Americas.

One thing is certain, electoral malpractice must be addressed in a timely manner to prevent its spread throughout the system of governance.

Shifting tactics require a holistic approach

What worked for the perpetrators of electoral malpractice in one election might not work in another. They employ a wide variety of tactics to overcome new laws, regulations and practices designed to stop fraud.

Electoral malpractice—a very serious concern during an electoral campaign, voting day operations, vote count and tabulation, among other periods of the electoral cycle—falls into four categories, according to the independent U.S. Election Assistance Commission. These include failures or refusals to act in a wide range of areas from voter registration manipulation to refusal to consider electoral dispute adjudication claims; acts of deception from “padding” voter registers to falsification of results; acts of coercion including violence and intimidation; and acts of destruction from polling station capture to stealing and spoiling ballots.

Efforts to detect and prevent fraud might address one area of malpractice, but perpetrators are constantly shifting tactics. For example, if ballot stuffing and poll worker bribery is effectively being addressed, as it is in many countries, then perpetrators might shift to vote buying, illegal campaign funding or violence.
Therefore, a more holistic approach is arguably required to investigate, understand and address the opportunities for and tactics of fraud employed in a given country.

Deploying electoral integrity agents

While the perpetrators of malpractice innovate so to must the electoral integrity system, which is a critical feature of a functioning oversight system that includes “electoral integrity agents.”

These agents include governmental enforcement institutions, such as election management bodies, investigatory bodies and prosecutorial bodies; social enforcement institutions, including political parties, “watchdog” organizations, nongovernmental organizations and media; and international assistance and electoral observation organizations supporting these electoral integrity agents.

With an understanding of the types of electoral malpractice, the profile of the perpetrators ranging from party agents to organized crime to disenfranchised youth, and the timing of their illegal or illicit practices, electoral integrity agents can prioritize and target appropriate responses and interventions that seek to prevent malpractice through efforts such as stakeholder education and audits of voters’ lists.

They can take measures to mitigate malpractice through initiatives such as developing or enhancing political finance transparency mechanisms, streamlining complaints procedures and undertaking real-time enforcement. They can also deter malpractice through efforts such as introducing or enhancing effective and timely election dispute resolution and post-election prosecution, sanctions and penalties.

Preventing, mitigating and deterring malpractice

Let’s review three examples of how electoral integrity agents can interact to prevent, mitigate and deter electoral malpractice.

First, in the case of preventing fraud such as ballot stuffing, multiple voting or voter impersonation that can stem from an incomplete, inaccurate or falsified voter registry, the electoral management body might take steps to ensure accuracy in the voters’ list through an audit and making the list open to public scrutiny.

This would allow political parties and civil society to conduct their own audits and challenge any inaccuracies or duplications. The judiciary would then play a role in adjudicating these challenges. While ensuring an accurate list makes it harder to conduct certain types of fraud, this effort will also enhance the credibility of the final list.

Second, to mitigate campaign finance abuses, political finance regulators might undertake the regular collection and auditing of campaign financial reports that are disclosed to the public. Media, civil society groups and political parties could then review the reports and could lodge official complaints with the appropriate body.

At the same time, the political finance regulator or other investigatory body could identify any abuses and either handle them administratively or prosecute criminal transgressions through the courts. Such steps could identify and discourage illegal or illicit uses of campaign money by political actors during the campaign period.

Third, the deterrence of future acts of electoral malpractice, according to ACE: The Electoral Knowledge Network, requires active, impartial and timely enforcement of the laws by investigative agencies and investigators free from political interference and with enough independence to initiate and thoroughly investigate allegations of electoral malpractice or other related illegal activities.

Taking these steps in a robust manner that protects the rights of whistle-blowers, witnesses and the accused presents a credible and effective process that will cause perpetrators to think twice before engaging in vote fraud or other illegal activities.

Finally, there is a significant role to be played by the international community, as well as domestic groups, in monitoring the electoral process across the electoral cycle. More importantly international community-led interventions to support electoral integrity agents should augment conventional technical assistance approaches and effectively confront the very different types of challenges facing electoral processes around the world.

Jeffrey Carlson is Director of Electoral Education & Integrity at Creative Associates International.