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‘Learning poverty’ is a global phenomenon whereby children’s schooling doesn’t necessarily equate to effective learning. Evidence has shown that many children go through years of school without learning basic reading and maths, and COVID-19 has only worsened the situation.
Pre-COVID, 617 million children and adolescents worldwide, a third (202 million) of whom were from Sub-Saharan Africa, did not have the foundational skills of reading and basic maths.
Assessments by PAL members and data from Ministries of Education (MoE) have shown that almost 50% of school-aged children cannot read, comprehend a simple sentence or work out basic maths. The global crisis has escalated due to the effects of COVID-19, characterised by prolonged school closures through 2020 and 2021. In Sub-Saharan Africa, children have accumulated learning losses equivalent to over 2.8 years of schooling.
The school intervention space, especially for primary school-aged children (typically 7-12 years), has considerably shrunk with all COVID-19-related protocols in place. Like all the sectors, the pandemic has exposed the gaps within the education sector. The school closures and other systemic discrepancies that have always existed have not only negatively affected children’s cognitive development, life skills and mindsets but have also taught us that our education system needs to be more resilient to external factors like pandemics.
‘My Village’ is an innovative concept that PAL Network will jointly implement with ZiZi Afrique Foundation, UWEZO Tanzania and ASER Nepal in Kenya, Tanzania and Nepal over the next two years. The project believes that to build back better, employing community-based interventions is the most effective way of teaching children the basics of reading and maths as well as developing their educational resilience.
The initiative is a community-led education intervention that will be implemented in 300 villages across the three countries. It will help target all children between the ages of 6-17 years. The project also intends to employ equity-sensitive programming by implementing interventions targeting the children left farthest behind by the effects of COVID -19. It’s been proven that girls have suffered the double burden of household work and school closures during the pandemic, and ‘My Village’ will be alive to this fact.
Why ‘My Village’? It’s time everyone personalised education. The world over, education has been known to be an equaliser and a key determinant of the enjoyment of other rights and freedoms and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Every community has a child who has been left behind, and everyone has the responsibility to reverse this. Therefore, besides the direct implementation, the project is a call to action for everyone.
My Village will seek to increase community participation in the teaching and learning processes involving them in children’s assessment, holding service providers accountable and supporting teachers and volunteers in story-telling and cultural development. The project will also provide culturally appropriate content to make reading an enjoyable habit for children.
My Village aims to improve the learning outcomes of all school-aged children by accelerating their reading and maths skills and boosting their soft skills, including problem-solving, communication, teamwork and digital literacy.
