For around four days last week, members of the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network took part in the 4th annual family meeting in Saly, Senegal. PAL draws its membership from organizations undertaking citizen-led assessments (CLA) in nine countries. The objective of the meeting was to share experiences, perspectives and opportunities presented by citizen-led assessments for concrete actions for improved learning outcomes. Prospective PAL members and partners supporting such citizen-led assessments also attended the meeting.
Various countries across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have invested heavily in the education sector and this resulted in increased enrolment levels. In countries like India and Kenya, 96 % and 86 % of children are in school respectively. Despite the soaring enrollment levels, questions around the quality and relevance of learning are repeated across these countries and many others. The citizen learning assessments have been used by PAL members to ascertain if indeed learning occurs in schools. Using simple tools, they have sought to assess the numeracy and literacy competencies of children from 6-16 years based on level two work.
Themed “From Assessment to Action”, the Senegal meeting provided the platform for participants to discuss on how citizen led assessment can go beyond the mere collection of evidence to more concrete action at the local level. The meeting hall was ripe with very lively discussion and proposals on how best citizens can not only assess and help children to learn, but also take more advanced roles in actualizing attainment Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education. As Dr. Sara Ruto, the CEO of the network puts it, “our commitment to pursue SDG 4 will only become real, if we face the reality and target the children in the household. At least for Africa and Asia, school-based interventions remain inadequate in reaching all children and delivering the promise of ‘equitable’ and ‘lifelong”.
Several exciting and innovative ideas on enhancing citizen engagement were shared in the meeting. From Pratham India, Lakhon mein Ek (meaning one in a million), campaign stood out. It targets the involvement of citizens to drive the learning agenda across India. The campaigns includes using a simplified version of the ASER tool by citizens to assess all children in a village of their choice, produce a poster with the findings, discuss the findings in the village and run a 5-day reading and math camp with children. Dr. Rukmini Banerji, the Director of Pratham informed the meeting that the campaign launched in October 2015 has reached over 10 million children in 164,000 villages, driven by over 370,000 volunteers.
ASER Pakistan also presented their Chalo Parho Barho (let’s read and grow), the accelerated reading program targeting children left behind. On the other had Jangandoo Senegal introduced the participants, through field visits, to Keppaaru Jangandoo initiative, a partnership with municipal authorities to provide remediation to children experiencing learning difficulties. Other presentations came from Twaweza East Africa, MIA Mexico, and LearNigeria. Two tools were the uniting cord for all the initiatives – people and technology.
What do we learn from these initiatives? Three things came up from the discussions. First, evidence alone will be inadequate to make all children learn. While the learning assessments have played formidable role in focusing the world on learning outcomes, evidence in SDG 4, the connection that the citizen-led assessments create provides a goldmine for getting citizens involved. Second, the citizen-led assessments have demonstrated the worth of the ‘household focus’ and driving the learning agenda. Innovating greater involvement of parents and community members will be useful to achieving faster progress, moving towards 2030. Lastly, the space for ‘innovating for learning’ is indeed fathomless. What ASER-India has demonstrated that citizens want to participate, and want to achieve something for our society.
The outcomes of this meeting constitute a fresh call to everyone to rethink our role in ensuring that all children are in school and learning. Fortunately, we have in our hands two opportunities that we must utilize to make this happen – technology and people.
Dr. John Mugo is the Director of Data and Voice and Izel Kipruto is the Communications Officer at Twaweza East Africa. This opinion is personal and does not necessarily represent the view of Twaweza.