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Link Education International leads a consortium of organisations delivering the TEAM Girl Malawi project[1], which provides complementary basic education (CBE) to out-of-school adolescents. The project adapts the government’s CBE curriculum, which covers the first four years of primary school in the space of two years, to make it accessible to young people experiencing educational marginalisation. TEAM’s participants face multiple and intersecting barriers to learning, including poverty, early marriage and motherhood, child labour and disability. The project operates in 40 communities in Dedza, Mchinji and Lilongwe Urban districts, where 4,000 girls and 800 boys are currently enrolled in 2021.
Drawing on work by Amartya Sen and Sophie Mitra, the project is framed within a capability approach whereby the combination of individual characteristics, access to resources and the lived environment interact to affect a person’s opportunity to be and do the things they value, in this case, to be educated. Using a capability framework helps us understand how a learner’s multiple identities intersect to create educational marginalisation, rather than looking at the barriers in isolation. On that basis, we can design a holistic project which addresses the multiple barriers faced by marginalised learners.
In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Malawi government closed all schools and learning centres in March 2020. They remained closed for six months until Sept 2020, when they reopened in phases, before another five-week closure in early 2021. Distance learning provision relied on students proactively accessing centrally-created lessons through technology such as the internet and radio. However, such an approach does not meet the needs of the most educationally marginalised children, who require holistic support for barriers arising from their individual characteristics, available resources and lived environment.
TEAM Girl Malawi was able to carry out a rapid assessment with just 12% (287) of project the participants who had a working phone to assess how their needs and challenges have changed due to the pandemic as well as determining the most appropriate learning support. We found that 41% of this group had access to a radio and would be allowed to use it in the household to listen to the educational radio programme. Gender and other marginalisation factors may affect access to technology within households. Half of the group did not have any learning materials at home. Given the high level of poverty among the learners, it is reasonable to assume that learners without mobile phones who were not included in the survey are also less likely to have radios and reading materials.
In response, the project used a capability framework to develop three key innovations to support inclusion, equity and quality while learning centres were closed. First, a paper-based mode of delivery was complemented by in-person facilitator support. We provided home learning packs, including books, worksheets, pens and paper, and re-trained CBE facilitators to support home learning. Facilitators met their learners once a week in groups of three or four at a suitable and easily accessible location within the community. In-person teaching was achieved as safely as possible by teaching in small groups to allow for social distancing. Masks, additional handwashing facilities and extra staff training in line with government guidelines were also provided. Facilitators supported students to complete home learning journals to reflect on their learning progress and helped them with any challenges they faced.
Secondly, the lesson content prioritised resilience and socio-emotional skills as the foundation for learning, and teachers adapted the core curriculum (numeracy, Chichewa, English and Lifeskills) to individual learning needs. 21% of learners reported feeling more anxious, so in addition to academic work, facilitators covered COVID-19 prevention and emotional resilience activities. Working with the Government, we reduced the number of subjects in the curriculum to focus more on core subjects like literacy, numeracy and life skills.
The facilitators continued to use an Inclusive Education Approach, tailoring their teaching to take into account the way participants’ multiple identities affect learning. An inclusive facilitator who recognises that a student is struggling to concentrate in class for a range of reasons will reinforce key concepts using various techniques, multiple learning aids, provide additional breaks and support the learner to catch up with homework or remedial classes.
Thirdly, the facilitators’ roles were expanded to include child protection and community engagement, focusing on safeguarding the importance of education. Recognising that the facilitator would be the only trusted adult to see most learners on a regular basis, TEAM Girl Malawi expanded the facilitators’ responsibilities to be the main point of contact to support learners with child protection concerns. This extended to following up on absent learners at home in the community. This further included advocating for learners with families whose priorities had shifted during COVID-19 to ensure that the most vulnerable would stay enrolled and continue to learn. Facilitators also provided information to parents and community members about how to help students to continue learning while at home. They also visited learners with disabilities at home to discuss any additional support needs with them and their parents.
These adaptations will be continued beyond the pandemic as they have been beneficial to some of the most marginalised learners. Providing smaller study groups closer to the learners’ homes improves access for those with mobility challenges and caring responsibilities. These adjustments additionally enable more individualised teaching. Maintaining the same number of meeting times while reducing the number of subjects means that if a learner misses a class, they will have time to catch up at the next meeting. More time spent on core subjects means learners have a strong grasp of the content, while facilitators will be able to offer learners more targeted remedial support. Home learning activities will be continued to complement classroom instruction. This will help to reinforce learning, provide extra opportunities to practise key skills such as writing, support those who have missed classes to catch up and give more confident learners the chance to keep developing their skills.
The adaptations appear to be effective. In a follow-up survey, over 95% of the students asked about their learning experience said they found the content useful and the teaching of good quality. 75% of the learners surveyed felt they were progressing well, and this is supported by the data from termly tests. Disaggregating our data by disability and other marginalisation factors allows us to continue adapting our services to meet all the learners’ needs.
While data is useful, instead of relying only on the numbers to make decisions at project level, TEAM Girl Malawi aims to empower the facilitators who work directly with the girls to respond to them as individuals, addressing their unique barriers in ways that work best for them. Investing in facilitators as the primary drivers of inclusive, quality education, the project has taken measures to strengthen peer support networks through WhatsApp. Moreover, the project supports communities of practice to share challenges and solutions. An inclusive education helpdesk via WhatsApp has also been launched, allowing facilitators to ask questions and receive advice from disability and inclusion experts. A cycle of adaptation, reflection and learning means we are continually improving our inclusive teaching.
“I am now able to believe in myself and make good decisions about my life,” said one TEAM Girl Malawi participant.
[1] https://linkeducation.org.uk/project/empowering-marginalised-girls/
