Research

Quality Education, Care and Protection: Undertaking a baseline study in five SSA countries for an integrated school-based model of Quality Education, Care and Protection for Children affected by HIV and AIDS

Learning Plus Bold Initiative:
Quality Education, Care and Protection:
Undertaking a baseline study in five SSA countries for an  integrated school-based model of Quality Education, Care and Protection for Children affected by HIV and AIDS

A PROPOSAL FOR COLLABORATION
BETWEEN TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND UNICEF 

1. BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE
Developing countries are confronted by major political, economic and socio-cultural challenges that are threatening social institutions including the family and community structures as well as delivery of essential social services. The multiple threats to social-community-family systems include: deepening poverty; political instability and conflict situations; recurrent drought; food insecurity; ill-health and the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. These problems have given rise to a rapid increase in the number of orphans and children affected by HIV and AIDS in multiple and complex ways, which has further intensified the strain on conventional care and support systems. As a result, we have turned increasingly to delivering services for children through schools and alternative learning centres where they spend a high proportion of their time. Despite some success with this, we now recognise that schools in their current form and mandate are being stretched beyond their original purpose and their current capacities are often insufficient to bridge the gap in service delivery for children.

In the face of these threats to services for children and the resulting strain on schools that are used to bridge the gap, it is urgent to accelerate action for achieving Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals relating to universal primary education as well as gender parity and gender equality in education. There must be improvements in the way schools are staffed, funded, equipped, supported, organised and managed, if they are to retain their core integrity and viability as centres for learning, while also serving as places where children are provided with essential services.

A number of interventions are being implemented in school and education systems, but these are often localized in time and space. They are also often undertaken in a piecemeal way without coordination and maximization of funds and efforts, overburdening teachers, administrators and sometimes even weakening the school systems instead of strengthening them. The new challenges are around increasing demands on schools to provide not only for new learning needs, protection and safety, but also the care and support required by the most vulnerable children, particularly girls and children affected by HIV and AIDS. 

2. THE PURPOSE
The vision of Quality Education Care and Protection (Learning Plus Bold Initiative) is to intensify the systematic use of schools as integrated centres of learning and for the delivery of other social services for children, including care and support, in circumstances where the normal provision of these services by families and communities has come under increased threat from major challenges. The initiative has emerged from the search by countries in Eastern and Southern Africa for feasible solutions to the challenges posed to education and other essential services for children. The initiative is aimed at facilitating rapid changes to school-community-family systems to re-focus attention on schools as both centers of learning as well as centres for care and support, as a way of fulfilling children’s rights. The Quality Education Care and Protection project’s (Learning Plus Bold Initiative) uniqueness lies in its integrated approach linking issues of education, poverty, HIV and AIDS and/or violence against children in schools and their communities. It is designed to contribute to the accelerated efforts to achieve the MDGs and the EFA goals. 

3. STATEMENT OF OVERALL GOAL
The overall goal of the Project Collaboration Agreement between Teachers College, Columbia University, specifically the Center for African Education (CAE) and the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF), and UNICEF is to undertake mixed-method baseline assessments in Lesotho, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania and Nigeria on quality education, care and protection offered in schools. The unique collaboration between the CAE and the NCCF capitalizes on the differing intellectual and cultural competencies of each Center and their representatives as well as their complementary methodological approaches.  The findings from the baseline studies will inform the planning, implementation and monitoring of  the use of schools as integrated centres of learning and for the delivery of essential social services for children, including care and support, in circumstances where the normal provision of these services by families and communities has come under increased threat from major challenges.

Phase I of the project on baseline assessments will be done through existing and new partnerships that take due cognisance of the life cycle of the child from 4-18 years of age.  The baseline assessments will investigate what transpires at school-community levels and how this informs upstream policy decisions at district and national levels through mechanisms such as SWAps, Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) and Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEFs). In particular, how these upstream mechanisms ensure the mainstreaming of HIV&AIDS and violence issues into education sector plans to accelerate the governments budgeting and scaling up of the initiatives. 

The project will be designed and conducted in partnership with Governments and national universities in the five countries. The baseline assessments will make up phase one of the project and phase two will involve planning of strategies and interventions for implementation & monitoring access to quality education & protection.

Specific objectives
The specific objectives of the Project Collaboration Agreement between Teachers College, Columbia University and UNICEF are to:

Undertake a rigorous global review of related literature that will be thoroughly mined for emerging trends, themes and analytical frameworks. This will be done in collaboration with the five participating countries and their national universities.

Work with the five governments in Sub-Saharan Africa to coordinate and support the conducting of the assessment studies that will provide information on the current situation of: learning, protective environments, the school & classroom, child participation, community participation and inter-ministerial involvement.

Produce a document that synthesis and analysis information from the five baseline studies

Utilize the evidence from the assessments to inform the planning, implementation and monitoring of a comprehensive and integrated school-based model of learning and delivery of essential services for children with a focus on quality education, care and protection at school level.

Utilize the findings of the assessments to develop preliminary operational guidelines that will inform the implementation of school-based models of learning and delivery of essential services for children with a focus on care and support in the two participating countries.

Expected outputs/deliverables:
I.        Project workplan generated by Teachers College (included as Annex C.2)

Evidence based document grounded in the review of policies and plans, research and other literature at global, regional and national levels. These should include: a) existing surveys and their data covering child and adolescent health and management of adolescent pregnancies, child rights, violence and abuse, health and nutrition status, and risk-taking behaviours; b) national poverty reduction strategies, HIV and AIDS plans, education sector strategic paper and plans for EFA, FTI, HIV and AIDS and OVC; c) documented structures within MoE and MoH and other relevant ministries and child-friendly school policies for protection, safety, teaching/learning and service delivery - and coordination thereof; d) existing education sector inclusion of these issues in formal curricula for pre-primary, primary, secondary and teacher training; e) agency and community partners involved in school service delivery and related school health interventions at national and local levels (CFS, HPS, FRESH and similar); f) existing short-term and localized project interventions and partnerships.

What to cover in the Review of Related Literature: (elements within output)

Legal frameworks and policies in the institution of the school and the education system

Learning:  Curriculum content, gender sensitivity, life-skills orientation

Protective environments: safety and security of children and teachers in classrooms, psycho-social skills, water and sanitation, schoolyard and the community around the school

Essential services: inter-sectoral and inter-ministerial involvement and coordination in provision of essential services for children including water and sanitation, promoting physical and mental health, nutrition

Child participation in the classroom, school and community to meet education aims

Community participation in school governance, provision of services for children and building safety and security in and around the school. (A-F undertaken by teams at national universities.)

International legal frameworks and policies regarding children’s rights;

Child-friendly schools;

Studies that demonstrate linkages between the provision of essential services and the creation of an educational environment that promotes children’s rights, with a special emphasis on children affected by HIV/AIDS;

Indicator research that uses specific methodologies for addressing similar topics; this literature will inform the baseline assessment. (G-J undertaken by TC, CU team.)

Design of Research Methodology. TC team will design research plan and instrument tools that will be used to collect and record data in the five countries, to revise based on two- country pilot.  

Data Analysis.  TC team quantitative data and shares with national teams.  National teams prepare preliminary qualitative analysis and write up with TC team.

Synthesis report. TC team brings together an analysis of the findings from each of the five SSA countries’ Reports on the Baseline Assessments of Risks to Children Affected by AIDS in and around Schools.  Draft to be circulated for UNICEF and country feedback.

Final report. Contains TC analysis of the data produced by the countries, with recommendations for next steps.

4. DESIGNATED PROJECT MANAGERS
At Teachers College, Columbia University, Lesley Bartlett, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies, is overall responsible for the collaboration with UNICEF under the project. The team will consist of four additional faculty members: Monisha Bajaj, Ed.D., Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies; George Bond, Ph.D., William F. Russell Professor of Anthropology and Education and Director of the Center for African Education; Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D., the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families, and Associate Dean for Policy; and, Frances Vavrus, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies and Associate Director of the Center for African Education.

Doctoral students Stephanie Bengtsson, Anne Smiley, and Sarah Smith will work with Professor Bartlett on the project.

In UNICEF, Cream Wright, Chief Education, has overall responsibility for the collaboration with Columbia University.  Changu Mannathoko, Senior Adviser, Education Section is directly responsible for the project and will work closely with Moira Wilkinson, Project Officer in the Education Section who be responsible for liaison with the five countries and other sections in UNICEF, in particular HIV and AIDS, ADAP, SFAI and Child Protection.

Please note that the Joint IATT Working Group selected two countries for the assessments, namely Tanzania and Swaziland.   However, UNICEF decided to undertake the initiative in five countries not just two because this is an issue of priority.

Teachers College, Columbia University.