The Right to Learn - Save the Children

THE RIGHT TO LEARN

Community participation in improving learning

Cover photo: Each Saturday, Malati reads stories, draws pictures and learns new songs and words at a Save the Children-supported reading camp in her village in Nepal.

Photo credit: Sanjana Shrestha

THE RIGHT TO LEARN

Community participation in improving learning

Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in 120 countries, including the United States. We aim to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives by improving their health, education and economic opportunities. In times of acute crisis, we mobilize rapid assistance to help children recover from the effects of war, conflict and natural disasters.

Acknowledgements

This report was written and produced by Kate Kenny, Philippa Lei, Will Paxton, Meredy Talbot-Zorn and Adrienne Henck. We would like to thank the following people for their contributions to the report: Virginia Morrow, Emma Wilson and the Young Lives Team at Oxford University, Sara Ruto from Uwezo, Yoliswa Dwane from Equal Education, Claudia Bandeira and Luis Felipe Soares Serrao from A??o Educativa, Rukmini Banerji from ASER India and Baela Raza Jamil, Safyan Jabbar, Imtiaz A Nizami and Sahar Saeed from ASER Pakistan. We would also like to thank the following Save the Children colleagues: Mariko Shiohata, Gerd-Hanne Fosen, Heather Simpson, Jenny Russell, Will Postma, Kate Dooley, Alison Holder, Lynne Benson, Sylvi Bratten, Desmond Bermingham, Davinia OvettBondi and Jenny Bloxham. Many thanks to colleagues working in countries included in this report, particularly Shireen Miller, Sanjeev Rai, David Skinner, Elson Mkhoma, Denise Ces?rio, Abimbola Jidearemo, Fatima Aboki, Els Heijnen-maathuis, Barbara Burroughs, Cleopatra Nzombe Chipuriro, Brian Hunter, Martha Hewison, Steve Thorne and Duncan Harvey We would also like to thank Allison Anderson at the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, Laura Henderson at Women Thrive Worldwide and Sarah Beardmore at Global Partnership for Education for their feedback on drafts of the report. Lastly, we would like to thank the Hewlett Foundation for their generous support of this project.

Save the Children USA 54 Wilton Road Westport, Connecticut 06880 1-800-728-3843

? Save the Children, December 2013 All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-888393-27-0

Nosheen, 10, studying at Save the Children supported Government Girls Primary School, village Darkhanwala, union council Ghousabad.

Credit: Fauzan Ljaxah

CONTENTS

Foreword

7

Executive Summary

9

Recommendations

9

Introduction

11

Securing the right to learn for every child

11

Chapter 1

13

Hearing from parents: perspectives on school quality and learning

13

Conclusion

15

Chapter 2

17

Overcoming the barriers: making education accountable to parents

17

Information on entitlements

17

Power to demand change

17

Conclusion

18

Chapter 3 ? Uwezo

19

Information on learning outcomes as a catalyst to spur citizens to act: examples

from Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya By Sara Ruto.

19

Chapter 4 ? Equal Education

22

Equal Education (EE) in South Africa: campaigning for minimum standards all

schools should meet By Yoliswa Dwane

22

Chapter 5 ? A??o Educativa

25

Collective action to improve the quality of education in Brazil

By Claudia Bandeira, and Luis Felipe Soares Serrao

25

Chapter 6 ? ASER India

28

Learning for all: the challenge of taking everyone along By Rukmini Banerji

28

Chapter 7 ? ASER Pakistan

32

Citizens and governments must take action to improve the quality

of education: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in Pakistan

By Baela Raza Jamil, Safyan Jabbar, Imtiaz A Nizami, and Sahar Saeed

32

Chapter 8

35

Strengthening local accountability: lessons from the South

35

Conclusion and recommendations

39

Endnotes

41

Hatiabo Haji Somir Uddin Community School, Gazipur District, Bangladesh. Proteeva Project: Pre-primary school student Kawser uses a bottle and funnel to pour water during an exercise designed to promote numeracy.

Credit: Jeff Holt

FOREWORD

Consider that, in some African countries, as many as 40 percent of young adults are illiterate even though they have completed five years of schooling. Yet this stark reality is not confined to a few countries, or even to just one continent. During my recent work with the United Nations High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, I observed there was a global crisis of too many poor quality schools and increasingly alarming trends in learning. A course correction is needed, which should be reflected in improved national education policy as well as the set of goals to follow the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire in 2015.

The leadership of governments is critical to improving the quality of education. To complement and enhance this, we must also harness the power and demand for improved education from parents, students, and community leaders around the world. Many communities remain dissatisfied with their local schools and are disappointed with the poor learning outcomes of their children. Many parents move their children into private schools at the first opportunity. But we ignore the voices of those who struggle with these issues daily at our peril. Without a significant change in the accountability of governments and schools to parents and communities, we will fail to achieve the transformational force of education in the places where it is most needed.

In my 30 years of work in development policy, I have observed the transformative power of education. A good education generates multiplier effects for national development. It provides a skilled workforce needed for economic growth and creates more informed civil society which can enrich national debates. However, to yield sustained benefits at the national level we must ensure that education is about learning outcomes, not just years of schooling. If children lack basic literacy and numeracy skills, they will not be able to benefit from further learning in their teen years and then prosper as adults. If youth are not able to develop the necessary practical and technical skills, then the impact of such an education system on economic growth will be very limited. With Africa's growing youth population, the continent can experience a demographic dividend if we are able to improve the learning outcomes of our children.

Through our endeavors to improve learning, our focus must also be on reducing the educational inequality that remains unacceptably high in countries around the world. While girls' access to schooling has improved, many disparities persist behind the national averages. There is a gender divide: young girls are less likely to learn than young boys. There is a rural-urban divide: rural populations are less likely to learn than urban populations. And there is a wealth divide: the poor are less likely to learn than the wealthy. If we are to prevent today's inequalities in education from becoming tomorrow's inequalities of income, wealth, and power, then every child must have the opportunity to learn.

It is clear that we need a paradigm shift in education, and the way forward is to improve learning outcomes by strengthening accountability of governments and schools to parents and communities. We also need to focus on equitable learning, ensuring that the poorest and most disadvantaged children are not excluded, and that all children are both in school and learning. We need to listen to the voices of the parents, communities, and civil society organizations, who struggle with these issues daily.

To achieve this paradigm shift in education, action and change for greater accountability over learning outcomes must take place in our communities, and must be reflected in our national and global policies. Robust mechanisms for local stakeholders to define priorities and monitor intermediate and learning outcomes are necessary for education planning processes and should be explicitly linked to an equitable learning goal in the post-2015 global development framework.

This report takes on the debate by arguing for the rallying of the citizens of the world to call for equitable learning for all. Changing our education systems and engendering a paradigm shift is not the work of the education ministry or even the government alone; it involves every one of us ? parents, teachers, students, and civil society. I call upon all of us to use this moment, when we are determining the next global development agenda, to seize the opportunity to make a difference.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance Federal Republic of Nigeria

7

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