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Improving Early Grade Education through Food for Education. Lara Evans, Deputy Director Food Security and Livelihoods World Vision, Inc. Problem Statement. There is a Global Learning Crisis Hungry children are not able to learn
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Improving Early Grade Educationthrough Food for Education Lara Evans, Deputy Director Food Security and Livelihoods World Vision, Inc.
Problem Statement There is a Global Learning Crisis • Hungry children are not able to learn • Previous efforts to improve attendance and enrollment rates have not always translated into learning • Marginalized children have been most affected by this crisis • Reference - Brookings Institute, A Global Compact on Learning: Taking Action on Education in Developing Countries
World Vision’s Response • Build the capacity of teachers and volunteers to improve children’s reading • Strengthen community capacity to support learning outcomes, especially reading • Ensuring an abundance of relevant teaching and learning resource material • Effectively monitoring and evaluating reading outcomes
WV’s Children Well-being Aspirations • WV’s child focused approach is community based and holistic to offer sustained development • Children “Educated for Life” is one of WV’s Child Well-Being Aspirations. Another is “Enjoy Good Health.” • Two major education outcomes: • Children, read, write and use numeracy skills • Children access and complete basic education • One of the health outcomes: • Children are well nourished
USDA FFE - Afghanistan • Objective 1: Increase access, entry and continuation of students--Achieve higher enrollment and attendance rates, with an emphasis on girls, through monthly take-home rations. • Objective 2: Educational Progress--Improve student achievement levels through improvements in the learning environment/conditions, including teacher training, materials and books, etc. • Objective 3: Nutrition and Maternal Child Health Progress--Improve maternal, child and student health and nutrition • Objective 4: Community Development--Infrastructure and community support
Objective 1: Increase access, entry and continuation of students
Objective 2: Educational Progress • Teacher and Headmaster Training • Management training for MoE staff • Technical support to the MoE in the development new national standards for in service teacher training • Distributions of school kits to students and school supplies to teachers
Objective 4: Community Development • Creation of Early Childhood Care and Development Spaces • Support for Education Defense Committees • School Improvement Program (SIPS) – competitive infrastructure voucher program • Ongoing community sensitization to the importance of education
USDA FFE - Mozambique • Result 1: Improved quality of literacy instruction -- more consistent teacher attendance, better access to school supplies, improved instructional materials, teacher and administrator training. • Result 2: Improved attentiveness-- short term hunger reduced withschool feeding • Result 3: Improved student attendance-- improved school infrastructure, increased enrollment, increased community awareness of benefits of education • Result 4: Increased use of health and dietary practices-- improved knowledge of health and hygiene practices, increased access to water and sanitation
Increased Skills and Knowledge of Teachers & School Administrators • Teacher training focused on literacy support and curriculum development • Develop capacity of school councils and other community members to support learning (e.g. develop supplies from local resources). Using basic education improvement planning strategy to dialogue and plan with community. • Support Ministry of Education to plan for adequate teaching and learning supplies
Increased Skills and Knowledge of Teachers & School Administrators • Establish mobile school and community libraries with some materials in local language • Encourage parents to participate as teaching assistants • Ongoing monitoring on teacher performance and school environment by administrators, school councils and students • Assessing children’s literacy skills
Summary of Promising and Good Practice Approaches • Basic Education Improvement Planning – empowering the community to take local level actions towards improve learning outcomes • Developing teaching and learning materials using local resources (e.g. supplementary readers, etc.) • School and community libraries • Teacher training to improve reading • Assessing reading
Conclusions/Take Aways • A holistic approach is needed to address the educational needs of the more marginalized children: • A nutritious meal for enrollment, retention, completion and more importantly cognition and learning • Focusing on teacher skills to improve literacy • Support the community’s demand for a relevant and positive learning experience for their children through awareness raising and training • We can see profound impact on girls’ enrollment and retention from this type of program because of this whole school/holistic approach
Questions? Thank You Very Much! laevans@worldvision.org