IMPROVING ACCESS

Kenya Programme 2016-2018

TO QUALITY BASIC EDUCATION

About UsSave the Children has been operational in Kenya since the 1950s, providing support to children through developmental and humanitarian relief programmes delivered both directly and through local partners. Current Save the Children programming in Kenya focuses on Health, Nutrition and WASH, Child Protection, Child Rights Governance, Education and Child Poverty.

In 2012, as part of a global reorganization process, Save the Children combined the programmes of SC UK, SC Canada and SC Finland to create a single operation in Kenya. In February 2014, we completed a second transition, which saw us join forces with the British INGO, Merlin, and merge their health and nutrition programmes with our own. Save the Children has an operational presence in Bungoma, Busia, Garissa (Dadaab Refugee Camp), Mandera, Nairobi, Turkana and Wajir counties and works through partners in many other parts of the country.

Our Theory of Change

Our approach to programming is driven by our Theory of Change. Being the voice: We advocate and campaign for better practices and policies to fulfil children’s rights and ensure

that children’s voices are heard (particularly those of children most marginalized or living in poverty. Being the innovator: We develop and prove evidence– based, replicable breakthrough solutions to problems facing children.Achieving results at scale: We support effective implementation of best practices , policies and programmes for children, leveraging on our knowledge to ensure sustainable impact.Building partnerships: We collaborate with children, civil society organizations, communities, governments and the private sector to share knowledge, influence others and build capacity to ensure that children’s rights are met.

THEORY OF CHANGE:how we work to create impact for children

We will…

… build partnerships

… be the voice

… be the innovator

… achieve results at scale

Our Education work in Kenya

Education is a key component of Save the Children’s work in Kenya and we strive to see that every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. We are working to increase children’s access to quality basic education and early childhood care and development (ECCD), and to empower vulnerable young people through education and vocational training. By doing this, we will give children the foundation they need to thrive and secure a better future for themselves and their families later in life. Our approaches aim to leverage a broad range of partnerships to develop contextualized, innovative programming approaches that can be replicated at scale. Aule aged nine, is the only one of his school-aged siblings who does not attend

school. Instead he watches over livestock in the arid pastures of Turkana

Our current strategy: 2016-2018

What is our global breakthrough for education?By 2030, all children learn from a quality basic education

What do we want to achieve in Kenya by 2030?• In Kenya, we will work with the Ministry of Education

Science and Technology (MoEST) and like-minded organizations to:

• Increase the transition rates of children from primary to secondary schooling from 73.3% to 90%

• Increase the number of children (aged 10-16) who have mastered Grade 2 literacy and numeracy skills from < 70% to >90%

What is our target for 2016 - 2018?• Working together with the Ministry of Education,

and the County Governments in the Counties Save the Children works, we aim to:

• Pilot a low-cost model of quality Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), and an evidence base generated for scalability by one Arid and Semi Arid Land (ASAL) County Government.

• Document an effective model for improving pastoralist children’s learning, including the most deprived and out of school children that can be shared with Ministry of Education for scaling up

• Work with the Ministry of Education through National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) to set up the legislative and organisational architecture required to ensure the most deprived children, including children from pastoralist communities have access to quality education.

• Support the Ministry of Education to build the capacity of County Education clusters and adapt County specific Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans in Wajir, Mandera and Turkana counties to ensure all children caught up in humanitarian crises have continuous access to quality ECCD and basic education.

Which children will we target?Out of school children and children in basic education in the most deprived areas in Kenya including: • Arid and Semi-Arid Land areas (ASALs) • Refugee and IDP settings • Urban informal settlements

Our cross thematic interventions

Inorder to achieve the above, Save the Children will test innovative and evidence based methods for behaviour change communication, integrate WASH & Child Protection for safe quality learning environments and prioritise evidence-based advocacy on issues to do with ensure adequate opportunities for children. among others In addition we will ensure that we programme cross-thematically and ensure the synergies between themes are realised by working with:

Child Protection to eradicate violence of all types in schools, strengthening the role of teachers in the child protection system and ensure that children caught-up in humanitarian crises are protected

Child Poverty to identify economic barriers to child development and education and reduce these barriers both within families and communities but also in the education system.

Child Rights Governance to hold governments to account as duty bearers for ensuring all girls and boys receive a good quality early learning support and education.

Health & Nutrition so that children – including very young children and those with a disability or special educational needs - receive the health, nutrition and developmental support they need in the early years.

“Through our education programming in Kenya we aim to support the Ministry of Education and the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya - to develop, test and scale up basic education solutions for pastoralist populations, addressing the challenges that children in the arid and semi-arid lands in particular face interms of accessing quality education.” Duncan Harvey, Country Director, Save the Children in Kenya

Our programmes in Kenya

We are helping children in the arid and semi-arid lands to access quality educationBased on research conducted in Wajir in 2014 and 2015, and with funding from BASF Foundation, Save the Children is working with communities in Turkana to increase access and retention with a particular focus on girls in 5 primary schools in Turkana County, by responding to needs identified by communities with innovative culturally appropriate and demand driven solutions..

We are improving access to education for children in DadaabAccess to quality education and relevant skills training for refugee children and youth in Dadaab remains a challenge. Average Gross Enrolment Rates for pre-primary stand at 24%, primary 58% and secondary at 11%, with net enrolment much lower than gross. The figures also point to a large number of overaged children in school, which is associated with many protection concerns and also impacts negatively on the quality of learning. With funding from the European Union, Save the Children is working with partners NRC and AVSI to improve access to education for children and youth in Dadaab refugee camps and those returning to Somalia and ensure that children, youth, teachers and communities have improved prospects and skills for repatriation.

We are saying, let us learn together through Inclusive Quality Basic EducationThe main challenge in achieving equity in education in Kenya is the fact that children with disabilities (CWDs) are still often hidden in homes and not admitted to schools or not considered as citizens with equal rights. Girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable. Taboos, cultural prejudices and ignorance hinder their full participation in community life and education. Through Inclusive Quality Basic Education (IQBE), - funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Finland - Save the Children aims to promote social and academic inclusion for all children, particularly CWDs, to enable them attain their right to education. IQBE seeks to ensure CWDs can attend their immediate neighbouring schools and are not separated from their communities.

We are generating evidenceSave the Children is the implementing partner to Population Council on the DFID funded Adolescent Girls Initiative–Kenya (AGI–K): a programme that will

deliver multi-sectoral interventions for 6,000 girls ages 11–14 in two marginalized areas of Kenya: the Kibera slums in Nairobi and Wajir County in Northeastern Kenya. Interventions will run for two years and include a combination of girl-, household- and community-level interventions. The longitudinal research study will compare the impact of four different packages of interventions, combining violence prevention, education, health and wealth creation.

Literacy Boost:

Literacy Boost is Save the Children’s innovative program to support the development of reading skills in young children. Teachers, students, parents and community members are engaged to help enhance the skills required for independent reading, while fostering growth in children’s vocabulary, building their confidence in expression and expanding the background knowledge that they bring to every reading task, inside the classroom as well as outside. In Kenya, World Vision and Save the Children are working together to improve children’s learning outcomes by providing early grade learners with quality literacy programmes – in school and out of school – that significantly improve reading skills acquisition and reading comprehension.

Advocating for Equal Access to Quality Education for all ChildrenThrough our advocacy work, we are ensuring that we are the voice for children especially in our programme areas which have some of the most deprived children in Kenya.

Our approach to advocacy is based on the following key principles:

Evidence (research and policy): our advocacy work draws directly on our programmes and is informed by evidence and best practices. One example is the DFID funded 18 month pilot Cash Transfer for Education Programme in Garissa County; part of the wider Kenya Essential Education Programme (KEEP). Save the Children implemented this research programme - as a randomised control trial - to establish whether Cash Transfers can have an impact on educational enrolment and retention. The qualitative findings showed significant improvement in enrolment among all three cohorts; while the quantitative findings found that receiving cash transfers increased the probability of having at least one child enrolled, with conditionality increasing the effect size. From the evidence, cash transfers have a positive, if modest and temporary, impact on increasing enrolment and attendance, with a suggestion, that this is limited to the CCT cohort. However, there are a number of other constraining factors, which neither the cash nor the condition is able to overcome.

Influence (media and advocacy): Our advocacy work engages all media and aims to catalyse public opinion and influence decision makers to bring about change.

Outcry (mobilisation): in partnership with civil society, children and community led initiatives, we mobilise children and communities to claim their rights and to monitor their implementation. One example is following training by Save the Children, Boards of Management for schools in Dadaab called for UNHCR to gather all implementing partners so that they could voice their concerns and priorities, share solutions and inform strategic planning and support from partners going forward.

Using technology to monitor attendanceIn August 2015, Save the Children conducted a biometric registration exercise for 3,000 adolescent girls in 60 schools in Wajir, north-eastern Kenya. The easy to use and inexpensive equipment will read students fingerprints to record daily attendance. The attendance

The Essential Package (EP)

Developed by Save the Children, CARE and the Consultative Group on ECD, the EP provides a set of tools that enable programs to address the development and protection needs of young vulnerable children and their caregivers. It is grounded in the science of early childhood development and is meant to support governments to reach their most vulnerable young children to ensure they reach their full development potential. In 2014/15 Save the Children led a national process to adapt and validate the EP, trained stakeholders in the use of the tools and facilitated learning at a national level on how the EP may contribute to improvements in child development and child protection outcomes.

records from the schools are aggregated wirelessly to a central location (Salesforce), from which the programme team are able to analyse the data and identify students who will meet a conditional threshold of 80% school attendance. The biometric system generates reliable data at a much lower cost than other methods of monitoring conditional cash transfers.

Save the Children aims to test the potential for using a similar approach for more effective school attendance monitoring at the school, sub county and county levels. Informal data gathered from schools with high enrolment and attendance rates in Wajir indicates that a key success factor is having teachers who are actively engaged in following up on student absenteeism with parents or caregivers. This easy to use and cost-effective technology could make it even easier for them to do so, with a positive impact on retention.

Strategic partnerships for educationClose collaboration with implementing and strategic partners, national and local governments, and community level stakeholders has always been a hallmark of Save the Children’s work. In Kenya Save the Children has a strong working relationship the MoEST, particularly at the County and Sub-County levels. Save the Children also has a strong track record of working collaboratively with and building the capacity of local NGOs, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), community members and authorities, and children. Furthermore, Save the Children has strong working relationships with other INGOs and donors working in Kenya at both the strategic and implementation levels.

We collaborate closely with the newly established National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) as it is the body charged with promoting education in the ASALs, working along with them in the implementation programmes and supporting them to develop strategies and leverage support for the replication of proven approaches in other ASAL areas in the country that experience similar challenges.

Save the Children is also the global Kenya co-lead of the Education Cluster together with UNICEF, which coordinates assessments and response in times of emergencies.

Save the Children - Kenya Country ProgrammeMatundu Close, Off School Lane, Westlands

P.O BOX 27679—00506 Nairobi,Kenya Tel +254 20 4444006/1028/1032/1031 Email: info@savethechildren.org Website: kenya.savethechildren.net

BASF Stiftung