Impact Evaluation of GEC Programme for the Advancement of Girls Education in Mozambique by Save the
The Programme for the Advancement of Girls Education in Mozambique (PAGE-M) aims to enable marginalized girls to access education, learn effectively, and be supported to remain in school. Through a multi-faceted approach addressing key barriers to educational access and quality, the project aims to improve the life chances of 54,431 marginalized girls in Mozambique. The project operates in the provinces of Manica, Gaza, and Tete.
PAGE-M targeted both in-school and out of school girls. This included girls who are at risk of dropping out, have dropped out, or have never enrolled in school. Whilst some intervention lines, such as teacher training, benefit all girls in project schools, others target girls transitioning from lower to upper primary, and upper primary to lower secondary. Further initiatives, such as girls’ clubs, a peer education programme and representation on school councils or child parliaments and conferences, impacted on specific, sometimes ‘self-selecting’, groups of participants.
To improve girls’ access and enrollment in school, the project provided marginalized girls with school kits, containing necessary school supplies, and bursaries for girls to attend secondary school. To reduce the socio-cultural barriers to girls’ participation in primary and lower secondary school the project conducted several sensitization activities at the community level aimed at improving community and values towards girls’ education. These activities included events on recognized annual days, sensitization conducted through the community radio programme, as well as door-to-door awareness raising conducted by community activists.
At the school level the project established Safe School Committees (SSCs) to ensure child protection mechanisms are put in place and schools are safe places, especially for girls. SSCs engaged in several sensitization activities to improve attitudes towards girls’ education and sensitization on child protection. SSCs also administered the Safe Schools Fund, a fund to support infrastructure development at schools. At the school level, the project also established and ran Girls Club’s to improve girls’ support networks and provide a platform for girls to learn about and discuss their rights.
To improve literacy and numeracy instruction, PAGE-M trained teachers in the Literacy Boost (LB) and Impulse to Numeracy (IAN) methodologies. Literacy Boost is a program designed to guide schools, parents, and communities to support the literacy development of their children through good literacy practices in- and out-of-school. The programme was developed by Save the Children International and is structured around three components, namely (1) reading assessments, (2) teacher training and (3) community action to improve literacy learning. Impulse to Numeracy provides interactive approaches to teach and train early numeracy skills.
At the policy level, the project worked in partnership with government at all levels. In collaboration with other CSO actors, PAGE-M advocated for the implementation of education policies towards (1) access for the most marginalized children, particularly the most marginalized girls, (2) gender equality and safety for girls in school, and (3) better quality of teaching and learning.
Scope of Work
The evaluation will be used by the project management team, project partners and stakeholders to understand the impact, effectiveness and sustainability of PAGE-M and consider successful components for future programming. The research will seek to gather evidence that generates realistic and implementable recommendations with the purpose of replicating or scaling up approaches and activities that are proven to work. The project evaluation design gathers data from a range of sources across three evaluation periods. Throughout this report, this evaluation will seek to answer five programme-level questions, namely:
To what extent has the project reached and affected marginalised girls?
What impact has the project had on marginalised girls’ learning?
What impact has the project had on enabling marginalised girls to be in school?
What has worked, why and with what effects?
How sustainable are any changes the project has led to?
The Endline Study Report is currently being reviewed by the GEC Fund Manager.
