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Advancing Youth Project Advancing Youth Project USAID’s Advancing Youth Project Year 4 Quarter 3 Quarterly Report Level 3 Learners from CH Henry ABE Site, Montserrado County using mLearning for English Language Arts Submitted by Education Development Center, Inc. Cooperative Agreement AID-669-A-11-00001 Year 4, Quarter 3: April – June 2015 This document was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Education Development Center, Inc. for the USAID/Advancing Youth Project, Cooperative Agreement No. AID-669-A-11-00001. This report is made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development. The contents are the sole responsibility of Education Development Center, Inc., and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. 1 Acronyms ABE Alternative Basic Education AfT Agenda for Transformation BBF Brother ’s Brother Foundation CDA Cooperative Development Agency CEO County Education Officer CESLY Core Education Skills for Liberia Youth Program CSI Center for Skills Innovation CYNP Community Youth Network Program DEO District Education Officer EO Education Officer FED USAID/Food and Enterprise Development (FED) project GBCC Grand Bassa Community College GoL Government of Liberia LOIC Liberia Opportunities Industrialization Centre LMA Labor Market Assessment LRC Learning Resource Center LTEP Literacy and Training for Employment Program LTTP Liberia Teacher Training Project M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MoE Ministry of Education MoHSW Ministry of Health and Social Welfare MoPEA Ministry of Planning & Economic Affairs MoU Memorandum of Understanding MoYS Ministry of Youth and Sports MT Master Trainer OSF Open Society Foundation PROSPER USAID/People, Rules and Organizations Supporting the Protection of Ecosystem Resources project PRS II Poverty Reduction Strategy II PTA Parent Teacher Association PTI Peer Training Innovator TA Technical Assistance TOR Terms of Reference TOT Training of Trainers TVET Technical Vocational Education and Training TWG Technical Working Group UNICEF United Nations Children Fund VCT Voluntary Counseling and Testing VSLA Village Savings and Loans Association YDLC Youth Development and Livelihood Coordinator YLA Youth Led Assessment YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................... 4 YEAR 4, QUARTER 3 QUARTERLY REPORT .......................................................................... 7 Progress Against Workplan ................................................................................................ 7 Result 1: Increased Institutional Capacity to plan, budget, deliver and measure ABE ................... 7 Result 2. Increased access to relevant basic education and life, work and technical skills training for youth ....................................................................................................................................... 14 Result 3: Increased access to sustainable livelihood pathways for targeted youth ..................... 21 Monitoring and Evaluation Activities ............................................................................... 29 Operations ...................................................................................................................... 32 AnneXes .......................................................................................................................... 34 3 Executive Summary Quarter 3 represented a return to classes for Advancing Youth Project and a time to re-mobilize returning and new learners as well as other stakeholders. Having carried out completion and placement exercises in Quarter 3, Advancing Youth was able to re-start classes in all sites in April 2015, excepting two where we had been operational prior to Ebola. In Montserrado, we continued to work with the Ministry and other stakeholders in planning for the re-opening around NV Massaquoi, a site in West Point Monrovia that has been used as an Ebola holding centre. In Grand Bassa, we also continued discussions with SOS International regarding the use of their building, while continuing to also work with the County Education Office’s in to find an alternative site that could be used. As implementation of the curricula rolls out according to the academic calendar, the Team has been working with facilitators and administrators to address site level challenges. We have had to re-think minimum class sizes due to the low levels of enrolment, and have had to work closely with the facilitators and administrators to address this challenge. Though two rounds of placement and completion testing were carried out in order to enroll youth for the new academic cycle, the project still recorded lower than expected levels of enrolment for returning learners (see detailed report in section on Monitoring and Evaluation). This was thought to be a direct result of some of the impact of Ebola including migration of learners from sites, as well as the overwhelming need expressed by youth to see how best to re-start their businesses – many of which were closed during the Ebola outbreak – and the starting of classes coinciding with the farming and rainy seasons. In several cases we were unable to meet the minimum class size of 15 for any of the levels. However in other cases including sites in Nimba and Margibi, we had large class sizes especially for Level 1 that needed to be split. The Team continues to work with individual sites to see how best to maintain classes, especially at level 3, but reducing the numbers of facilitators and where feasible combining Levels. We continued to collate data and information from our sites to see how best to address these challenges and conducted a number of focus group meetings with learners and administrators around curriculum implementation. Several activities that needed further support from the Ministry, including a number of activities in Result 1, were also delayed due to the length of time taken for the appointment of new Ministers. Despite these issues, Advancing Youth was able to progress in a number of the activities planned. We have been able to complete the Action Research process for finalizing the program quality standards which will in turn directly feed into the registration and accreditation processes that the Ministry of Education will be implementing for ABE Service Providers. This represents a significant milestone in the achievement of activities detailed in the Ministry’s Operational Plan for 2014-2017. We were able to further strengthen community level involvement in the monitoring and supervision of ABE activities by undertaking the training for Alternative Basic Education (ABE) Committees in 25 sites (5 per county) to fully implement the ABE progress report card process in their respective sites. A key deliverable in the Learning Agenda in determining how best to solicit community level involvement, the Project will also be able to share lessons from this process with the Education NGO Forum. This year the Education NGO Forum will be prioritizing strengthening civil society actors – PTAs and community participation – in school management issues as a part of its advocacy strategy. 4 Despite delays in the appointment of the new administration for the MoE, once appointed, Advancing Youth was able to work with the Assistant Minister for Basic and Secondary Education and her team to agree on and prioritize key deliverables including the Harmonization workshop focused on streamlining policy issues around Alternative Education, as well as setting deadlines for the implementation of the national and county Institutional Capacity Assessments and work plan processes. We were able to define the methodology for re-engaging with the County Alliances, focusing on the need to reflect on the past experiences to date and determine what would be needed for an integrated approach at this time to support youth to achieve ABE success as well as technical skills. At the time of this report, a number of review meetings with the individual county alliances have been set and will be implemented in Quarter 4. In seeking how to expand the number of local actors who effectively implement an integrated ABE program, we issued a Request for Applications (RFA) in May and continued to work with the organizations pre-approved under the learning agenda to start implementation. A significant achievement in Quarter 3 has been the finalization of the introductory course for ABE facilitators that have been jointly developed by Advancing Youth and the Stella Maris Polytechnic. This achievement also represents a major deliverable that has been prioritized in the MoE’s Operational Plan. Intended for implementation with new facilitators and administrators in Quarter 4, this is the first credit-bearing course for Alternative Basic Education being offered by a teacher training institution. With classes settling in, we were able to hold youth club elections in all sites, and we were able to undertake leadership trainings with the newly elected leaders, as well the orientation of mentors. Work around Learning Agenda activities involving the youth such as the leadership studies, in-kind incentive/internship trainings, was also advanced. Methodologies and tools to support the processes were developed, ad where appropriate training was done of staff who would play a key role. While recruitment continued for Livelihoods
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