The Community Drive Primary Education for All (CDPE)

Context and Issue

Over the past two decades, Ethiopia's education system has made significant strides, expanding access to educational opportunities and improving the system's quality, equity, and efficiency. However, despite this encouraging progress, over 1.7 million primary-age out-of-school children (OOSC) are still in the country. This situation is estimated to cost Ethiopia over 1 percent of its GDP annually. Negative attitudes toward education, particularly for girls, poverty, and a lack of educational resources (schools, learning materials, adequately trained teachers) all contribute to the high number of OOSCs.

Solution

To address this pressing issue, a project aimed to increase the primary school net enrollment rate in three northern Tigray Region and two districts in the southern Oromia Region from 66 percent to 89 percent by mid-2018. The goal was to enroll 52,675 primary-age OOSC. Additional objectives included reducing the overall grade 1-8 dropout rate from 5 percent to 1 percent and decreasing the rate of late entries to primary school from 11 percent to 1 percent. This project was built upon the success of Imagine1day's Bale Out of School Children Initiative, which was implemented with EAC in 2014.

Impact

The project adopted a focused strategy and implemented holistic and integrated activities to create significant changes in the five targeted districts. A model school was created in each district to promote education possibilities. Through targeted awareness campaigns and capacity-building efforts involving community-based organizations, religious and political leaders, Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), and women's associations, girls and other vulnerable children were enrolled in schools.

Professional development programs for teachers and improvements in school learning environments aimed to bring about achievement and attitudinal changes, helping reduce dropout rates. The project benefited 260 schools and communities in the target districts.

Overall, the project achieved and overachieved most of its targets, exceeding the number of out-of-school children enrolled by reaching 56,308 children (107% of the target). Specific achievements included:

Reduction in out-of-school children (OOSC) by 56,308 (107% of the project target).
Construction of 15 schools with project funding, comprising 86 classrooms, 17 latrines, and 15 libraries.
Professional development training for 7,396 teachers.
Training 4,929 community members on community mobilization strategies, strategies for fighting harmful traditional practices (HTPs), the value of education, and strategies to enroll and retain OOSC with parental involvement.
Participation of 23,288 community members in coffee ceremony discussions focused on OOSC enrollment, retention, improving school attendance rates, school improvement, and community contributions.
Education campaigns were carried out twice in all 260 schools, involving 6,339 community association leaders in awareness creation campaigns.
Enrollment of 189,610 adults in the integrated Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) program, with 157,931 adults graduating.

Analysis

The project's comprehensive approach, encompassing awareness campaigns, capacity-building initiatives, infrastructure development, and community engagement, has yielded remarkable results in addressing the challenge of out-of-school children in the targeted regions of Ethiopia.

By involving a diverse range of stakeholders, including community-based organizations, religious and political leaders, PTAs, and women's associations, the project fostered a sense of ownership and collective responsibility toward ensuring access to education for all children. The targeted awareness campaigns played a crucial role in shifting negative attitudes toward education, particularly for girls, and highlighted education's value in breaking the cycle of poverty and marginalization.

The construction of new schools and improvements to existing learning environments, coupled with professional development opportunities for teachers, created a conducive learning and academic achievement environment. These efforts not only facilitated the enrollment of out-of-school children but also aimed to reduce dropout rates and promote timely entry into the education system.

Furthermore, integrating the Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) program demonstrated a holistic approach to addressing educational challenges, recognizing the interconnectedness between adult literacy and childhood education. By empowering adults with literacy skills, the project created a supportive environment for children's learning and reinforced the importance of education within families and communities.

The project's ability to exceed its targets, particularly in enrolling over 56,000 out-of-school children, illustrates its effectiveness and the commitment of all stakeholders involved. The learnings and best practices derived from this initiative can inform future efforts to address educational inequalities and ensure access to quality education for all children in Ethiopia and beyond.