BASELINE SURVEY OF CHILD-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS IN TEN PROVINCES OF AFGHANISTAN REPORT submitted to UNICEF Afghanistan 8 March 2014 Society for Sustainable Development of Afghanistan House No. 2, Street No. 1, Karti Mamorin, Kabul, Afghanistan +93 9470008400 [email protected] CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 STUDY MODIFICATIONS ......................................................................................................... 2 1.3 STUDY DETAILS ...................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 REPORT STRUCTURE ............................................................................................................... 6 2. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY ........................................................................ 7 2.1 APPROACH .......................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 8 3. TRAINING OF FIELD STAFF ..................................................................................... 14 3.1 OVERVIEW ......................................................................................................................... 14 3.2 FIELD STAFF TRAINING IN KABUL ............................................................................ 14 3.3 FIELD TESTING OF FORMATS ...................................................................................... 15 4. KEY FINDINGS ............................................................................................................. 16 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 19 APPENDIX 1: Terms of Reference for the CFS Baseline Survey ................................... 31 APPENDIX 2: Literature Review ....................................................................................... 38 APPENDIX 3: Quantified Participatory Assessment: A Note ....................................... 62 APPENDIX 4: List of schools to be surveyed ................................................................... 67 APPENDIX 5: Kabul Training Workshop: Participant details ...................................... 93 APPENDIX 6: Kabul Training Workshop: Agenda......................................................... 94 APPENDIX 7: Final Field Formats ..................................................................................... 95 i ABBREVIATIONS ACER Australian Council for Educational Research AGEI Afghanistan Girls Education Initiative AIHRC Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission ALC Accelerated Learning Classes BESST Building Education Support Systems for Teachers CBE Community Based Education CFHE Child Focused Health Education CFS Child Friendly School CP Country Programme CPAP Country Programme Action Plan DEO District Education Officer EMIS Education Management Information System FGD Focus Group Discussions GOIRA Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan GPE Global Partnership for Education GPI Gender Parity Index MDG Millennium Development Goals MICS Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey MLSAMD Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Martyrs and Disabled MoE Ministry of Education MoHE Ministry of Higher Education MPA Methodology for Participatory Assessment MTR Mid Term Review NESP National Education Strategy Plan NGO Non Governmental Organisation NSP National Solidarity Program PED Province Education Department PTA Parent Teacher Associations PTSA Parent Teacher Student Association QIA Qualitative Information Appraisal QPA Quantified Participatory Assessment SHMs Stakeholder Meetings SIP School Improvement Plan SMS School Management Shura SSDA Society for Sustainable Development of Afghanistan TLM Teaching and Learning Material TOT Training of Trainers TTC Teacher Training College UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational and Scientific Cultural Organisation UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USD United States Dollar WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene ii 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND Although Ministry of Education (MoE) of the Government of Afghanistan has made rapid progress in advancing education in the last decade or so, education in the country still faces a multitude of challenges ranging from a lack of schools and, in existing schools, proper classrooms and basic facilities (including water points and separate toilets for girls) to corporal and other abusive punishment by teachers and inadequate quality of education. These have contributed towards poor levels of learning achievement, high dropout and low retention rates, particularly among girls which, in turn, causes persistent gender disparities in education. The National Education Strategy Plan (NESP) and Education Interim Plan (EIP) of the MoE stipulate that ‘inclusive and child-friendly education is a vital tool to reach Education for All’ and the Child-Friendly School (CFS) package introduced by UNICEF Afghanistan (see Box 1.1) in its Country Programme Action Plan (CPA) of 2010-13 is a key strategy to support the MoE in its efforts to enable all children to realize their potential through quality basic education. Box 1.1: Child Friendly School Package According to UNICEF, child-friendly schools ‘embrace a multidimensional concept of quality and address the total needs of the child as a learner’ (UNICEF, 2009, Introduction, p. 4). Although various school models illustrate ways to improve the quality of education, the CFS-model promoted by UNICEF has emerged as ‘the most comprehensive in their approach and the most widespread, both in the number of countries in which they have been put into practice and the geographical distribution of those countries’ – even though CFS models ‘vary from country to country’ (id.). Generally speaking, therefore, ‘CFS models are not simply an abstract concept or a rigid methodological prescription’ but they ‘represent pragmatic pathways towards quality in education that have evolved (or are still evolving) from the principle of education as a human right to a child-centered ideology that regards the best interest of the child as paramount at all times (ibid., Chapter 1, p. 2). In Afghanistan, the CFS approach introduced in 2010 was re-conceptualized following a mid-term review (MTR) of UNICEF Afghanistan (Government of Afghanistan and UNICEF , 2012) that provided the feedback that ‘while the concept of CFS is well-aligned with the MoE policy, the programme activities and standard need to be clearly defined in order to generate a common understanding among the stakeholders’ (TOR, p. 2). Post MTR, therefore, the CFS initiative was focused on five thematic components: (1) inclusiveness; (2) effective teaching and learning; (3) safe, healthy and protective environment; (4) gender responsiveness and (5) participatory decision-making. Detailed guidelines on each component are being developed by UNICEF Afghanistan. In order to track the progress of the CFS programme interventions on the ground, UNICEF Afghanistan and the MoE decided to carry out a baseline survey (BLS) of all the 1,500 schools in 10 Provinces of the country, where this approach is to be used, and contracted the Society Inception Report 5 September 2013 Page 1 Child Friendly Schools Baseline Survey in Afghanistan for Sustainable Development of Afghanistan (SSDA) to carry out the survey (a province-wise list of schools is in Appendix 4). The BLS was to ‘assess the current status of schools as per the CFS minimum package standard, identify priority areas of improvement, and develop effective support strategy’ and also to ‘systematically measure the progress and demonstrate the efficacy of the CFS as a comprehensive school improvement package and [measure] its impact on enrolment, retention and learning achievement’ (Study Terms of Reference, p. 2; see Appendix 1). A subsequent Impact Assessment Survey, to measure changes from the BLS, would provide evidence of impact of the CFS approach and the basis for advocacy ‘to guide the decision- makers in MoE to promote mainstreaming of CFS approach at national policy level’ (id.). Discussions between UNICEF, MoE and SSDA, however, resulted in a division of these tasks into two phases, with the present BLS being Phase 1 and a more detailed survey to be carried out later in a smaller sample of schools. This and other modifications to the study are discussed below. 1.2 STUDY MODIFICATIONS Following discussions between SSDA, UNICEF and MoE, the original study Terms of Reference (TOR) was modified in four significant areas: sampling of schools, study objectives, overlap with the proposed Learning Achievement Assessments (supported by the Australian Council for Educational Research or ACER) and the role of province-level government staff. SAMPLING The objectives laid out in the original TOR of this study combine an assessment of the current (baseline) situation in all 1,500 schools vis-à-vis the minimum standards of the CFS approach, with an assessment of the impact on enrolment, retention and learning achievement of the CFS as a ‘comprehensive school improvement package’. These two, however, require a different framework for analysis, with different implications