Education
Basic Education Programs: In Africa, thirty-eight percent of school-aged children, mostly girls, do not attend primary school. USAID's efforts support the international community's goal of Education For All (EFA), that every child has access to a quality basic education by 2015. Toward this end, USAID supports education programs in 18 African countries: Benin, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. Additionally, USAID supports education programs in Angola, Madagascar and Somalia.
Over the past decade, USAID support has focused on strengthening African education systems through the Education Sector Support approach which emphasizes support to host government-developed and led sector reforms and capacity building. Following respective national reform plans, USAID's education programs respond to country-specific needs including policy and curriculum reform, teacher and administrator professional development, community involvement supporting schools, increasing access to school for girls and other marginalized populations, and the development of learning materials.
The Africa Education Initiative (AEI): Since many African countries will be unable to reach EFA targets without substantial financial inputs and creative programming strategies, USAID has doubled its investment in education in Africa through President Bush's Africa Education Initiative (AEI), a $600 million commitment over eight years (2002 - 2010).
To achieve the goal of improving basic education in Africa, AEI will provide 550,000 scholarships for African children, mostly girls; train more than 920,000 new and existing teachers; and support partnerships between minority serving institutions in America and African institutions to provide 15 million textbooks and other learning tools for children in Africa. Strengthening parent and community support in children's education and HIV/AIDS awareness and mitigation are cross-cutting themes. Beginning in FY07, AEI will support new components to enhance the current activities, including: outreach to marginalized populations, such as orphans and vulnerable children, out-of-school youth and Muslims; rehabilitation of schools, mainly in areas recovering from conflict; and the use of technologies as a new cross-cutting theme. Over its life, eighty million African children will benefit from AEI.
School Fees Pilot in Holistic School Reform: In FY 2005, the U.S. Congress encouraged USAID to set aside funds to design and implement a program in Africa that would minimize the out-of-pocket costs of schooling, especially for the most needy children and families, while at the same time increasing the quality of teaching and learning in the schools. The countries selected for this "school fees pilot in holistic school reform" were the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Malawi.
In the DRC the program focuses on responsibly reducing school fees at the local level while increasing access, equity and quality of education. Since the program began, a provision has been included in the new constitution of DRC "eliminating primary school fees". In Malawi, where the official tuition fee was abolished in 1994, the focus is on increasing resources at the school level while minimizing private costs of schooling that still exist, especially for the most disadvantaged children, and improving the quality of learning. Both programs focus not just on getting children into school, but keeping them there and ensuring that they are learning.
Fast Track Initiative (FTI): In FY06, $40.65 million was allocated to Ghana, Senegal and Zambia to support EFA Fast Track programming. In Ghana, FTI funds are being used to develop and implement a Literacy Acceleration Program (LAP) which includes assisting the Ministry of Education (MOE) to develop and mainstream a national literacy approach training 9,000 teachers annually and directly reach 500,000 school children. In Senegal, FTI funds are being used to scale up a successful rural middle school construction program and in Zambia, FTI funds are being used to: a) enhance the quality of education for over 600,000 learners in community (non-formal) schools; b) promote interactive teaching tools to benefit 150,000 Grade One learners in government schools and; c) build the institutional capacity of both the MOE and Ministry of Finance.
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Forty percent of school-aged children in Africa do not attend
primary school and 46 million African children have never stepped
foot in a classroom. USAID's goal, and that of the international
community is Education For All, with every child having access
to a basic education by 2015. To help meet this goal, USAID
supports education programs in Benin, Democratic Republic of
the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi,
Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda
and Zambia.
Education reform is the foundation of USAID's work to strengthen
African education systems. Over the past decade, the Agency
has developed and refined the Education Sector Support approach
to improve the availability, quality and equity of basic education
in Africa, and has worked with USAID missions and partners to
incorporate this approach into education programming. Education
Sector Support emphasizes support to host government-developed
and led sector reforms and capacity building in order to ensure
sustainability and focus on what children are actually learning
in the classroom or non-formal learning venue.
Although there is a strong consensus in favor of Education For All and education system reform, it is recognized that many African countries will be unable to reach these goals without substantial financial inputs and/or creative programming strategies. In support of this effort, USAID has redoubled its investment in education to complement long-term education system reform efforts with near-term assistance to enable African countries to have an immediate impact on the challenges of too many children out of school, low quality of learning, and lack of teachers and learning materials – all exacerbated by the impacts of HIV/AIDS on the educational system.
This year, USAID has begun implementation of The Africa Education Initiative (AEI ), which will provide $200 million over the next four years to address the immediate learning needs of African children. AEI focuses on teacher training; providing textbooks and other learning tools for children; providing scholarships for girls and other vulnerable children; increasing parents' involvement in their children's education by working to make school systems more transparent and open to reforms proposed by parents; and mitigating the impacts of HIV/AIDS on the education sector.
AEI Teacher Training: AEI complements existing
teacher training programs by supporting the development and
implementation of new and innovative training methods that promote
innovative and interactive teaching practices. AEI teacher
training activities started in 2003 in Benin, Ghana, Guinea,
Malawi, Mali and Zambia .
Eight thousand, three hundred new teachers were trained in 2003 and over 16,000 existing teachers had their skills upgraded through in-service training programs. In Benin, 4,500 community recruited and paid teachers received training for the first time through AEI. In Guinea, AEI funds were used to expand an innovative reading instruction program. To date, over 15,000 teachers, school directors, teacher support personnel and student teachers have been trained in this reading instructional model which includes instructional methods, the use of large demonstration books and student readers. In Ghana, AEI funds were used to develop an HIV/AIDS curriculum for training teachers. One hundred, twenty-five tutors and principals have been trained in the new curriculum and will begin the process of training their colleagues.
AEI Textbooks and other Learning Materials:
In January, 2003, a contract was awarded to Hampton University
as a first step in the development of a partnership with a consortium
of five historically black colleges and universities:
Elizabeth City State University, Alabama A&M University,
Dillard University, St. Augustine University, and Albany State
University. This consortium works in close collaboration
with USAID Missions and African education institutions to develop,
publish, and distribute high-quality learning materials in Benin,
Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and South Africa . Education Program Design: Last year, USAID
provided technical assistance that led to stronger program design
and implementation in nine African countries. The Agency
was instrumental in launching new education programs in Democratic
Republic of Congo and Djibouti. USAID also provided technical
assistance that led to improved program designs in Ethiopia,
Ghana, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Multisectoral Approaches: Multisectoral approaches are becoming increasingly important to USAID's work in education and other sectors. For example, USAID/Zambia's School Health and Nutrition program delivered and documented measurable pupil-level improvements in learning following delivery of de-worming medicine, micronutrients and community-wide nutrition and health education. Systems are now in place in the Zambian Ministry of Education to begin expanding the activity, aiming to serve 20 schools in each district within four years, and all schools in Zambia within six years. As Zambia and USAID began telling the story by documenting results through reports and presentations, interest in replicating the success is growing in Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti . Similar multi-sectoral education strategy support in Ethiopia resulted in focused efforts to support pupil nutrition in this hunger-stricken country .
USAID's support for HIV/AIDS impact mitigation in education
continued to break new ground through the cooperative agreement
with the University of Natal Mobile Task Team for HIV/AIDS and
Education (MTT). The MTT has assisted many ministries
of education in the southern Africa region to incorporate HIV
impact response in their education systems and the Task Team
has helped education ministries in Zambia, Namibia, Malawi and
KwaZulu Natal in South Africa to adapt their information systems
to gather HIV-sensitive data for improved implementation of
sector plans.
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