Educate kids in community schools

Problem statement

Zambia has been very hard hit by HIV/AIDS. The adult HIV prevalence (women and men age 15-49) is 14.3 percent. The rising mortality in the adult population is leading to an increase in the number of orphans and street children. The impact of HIV and has multiple effects on individuals, families and communities, and on national development. In Zambia infection levels are peak amongst the 20-49 year olds, which is society’s productive age group. As their parents become ill and die, young children are pre-maturely confronted with care-giving and provider responsibilities. There are 4 million children of school age in Zambia and there are over 8,596 schools, catering for grades 1 to 12, of which 4,936 are government schools, 441 grant-aided, 503 private and 2,716 community schools. Community schools have contributed significantly to the increase in primary school enrolment. In 2003, community schools accommodated about 176,000 pupils with about 9 percent of total primary school pupils. In 2007, the number of children in Community Schools was estimated at 495,563 in grades 1 to 9, higher than in private schools at 103,692 and grant-aided at 131,692. The total enrolment in the basic school sector was 3,166,310, of which 495,563 were Community School pupils (i.e. 10%). It was estimated that about 300,000 primary school age children (7-13 years) were not in school in 2007. The causes of low enrolment are complex. One is the lack of schools especially in rural areas which requires children to walk long distances to access the schools. This is particularly a problem for younger children, who are unable to cope with walking long distances, especially with no one to supervise or accompany them. The lack of financial resources for families to purchase school supplies such as uniforms and books required at school also contributes towards access to education. In addition, high opportunity cost also hinders access to education as children are an important source of family income as well as domestic chores particularly in the case of poor families. HIV and AIDS further exacerbates the situation through additional drain on family incomes due to sickness (medical expenses) and/or loss of source of income of a family member of working age. Cultural practices such as early marriage and pregnancy have further negated opportunities for education of girls in particular.

Goal

This specific project on Pifworld will contribute to the larger ING supported project in Zambia. The overall expected result is improved access to basic quality education and completion of the school curriculum by the children, particularly the girls in the Luapula Province.

Main activities

School construction is step one. More is needed to enable children to get quality education. To make this happen for children, ING and UNICEF: 1. Provide building material for school construction (covered by ING) 2. Construct a water borehole and school latrines 3. Provide school furniture 4. Dialogue with community about importance of child education 5. Train community teachers 6. Develop a syllabus

External risks

Unicef's main strategic approaches include: Improvements of learning environment, targeting the most vulnerable communities who have initiated community schools. This will be done by improving the physical infrastructure through construction of classroom blocks, provision of furniture and improvement of sanitation facilities and provision of safe drinking water. Evidence has shown that improvements to the learning environment not only enhance teaching and learning processes, thereby not only resulting in children remaining in school, but also has a pull factor for those that have left school. For community schools, it also motivates government to provide qualified teachers and additional incentives to the schools. By being in a functional school, children will also be exposed to HIV prevention life skills training, which is integrated in the curriculum. Community mobilization - This will target parents, community leaders and traditional leaders. Evidence suggests that when parents and community members are more involved in the affairs of the school it improves the performance of the school in providing education. Additionally, parents and traditional leaders play a key role in ensuring that children go to school and stay in school. This is pertinent especially for Luapula Province where girl children are often pulled out of school for early marriage and boys are withdrawn from school to support the family in fishing which is the major source of livelihood in Luapula. Capacity building - This will be at two levels: education of managers and teachers. For the education manager, the aim will be to support them with skills aimed at enhancing education management (including school-based HIV and AIDS planning) so as to improve efficiency in the delivery of education services. For instance education standards officer will be oriented on the new outcomes-based basic education syllabus to assist them to monitor the quality of learning. Teachers will be oriented in the new basic education syllabus and also child-centred teaching approaches which include life skills. Additionally, learning materials will be provided to selected basic and community schools.

Budget breakdown