ss

BASIC EDUCATION AND GENDER EQUALITY

Thematic Report 2012

unite forchildren

2

Contents

Executive summary ........................................................................................................3

Strategic context ............................................................................................................6

Resources ...................................................................................................................11

Results .........................................................................................................................16

Key Result Area 1 ....................................................................................................18

Key Result Area 2 ....................................................................................................21

Key Result Area 3 ....................................................................................................27

Key Result Area 4 ....................................................................................................33

Future workplan ...........................................................................................................35

Financial implementation .............................................................................................38

Expression of thanks ....................................................................................................41

Acronyms .....................................................................................................................42

Cover image: @UNICEF/NIGB2010-00532/Giacomo Pirozzi: A girl raises her slate in the Garin Badjini primary school in the Niger, one of 600 schools working towards attaining the child- and girl-friendly school label.

3

Executive summary During 2012, UNICEF continued its long history of jointly developing strategies with countries to address issues of equity in education from preschool through primary to post-primary levels, in all regions and categories of countries – from emergency and post-crisis countries to rapid economic growth countries and to the middle-income or emerging economies. The organization’s medium-term strategic plan 2006–2013 focused our efforts around four key result areas: reducing disparities and increasing access, with special attention to gender; improving quality and enhancing learning outcomes; increasing retention and higher rates of completion; and restoring access to education in post-crisis situations and after emergencies. UNICEF’s work is grounded and framed by our mandate on the rights and well-being of children. With equity as a top priority, we sharpened evidence-based programming in 2012 by using the recommendations of evaluation studies and findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, and by working with the Simulations for Equity in Education model. In addition, we employed the Monitoring of Results for Equity System – UNICEF’s strategy for achieving greater equity results for children – to place greater emphasis on more frequent, decentralized monitoring of intermediate outcomes, particularly in terms of removing bottlenecks and barriers. UNICEF’s 2012 expenditures for its work in Basic Education and Gender Equality (Focus Area 2) was US$604.5 million, with US$122 million funded through thematic contributions from the Governments of Norway, which contributed 74 per cent of total thematic funding for Focus Area 2, Sweden, Brazil and Luxembourg, which together gave nearly US$105 million; and from 31 national committees, including the Korean Committee for UNICEF, which provided more than US$2 million, and 7 more committees, which each provided more than US$1 million. The thematic contributions were instrumental in enabling UNICEF to exercise its agility and know-how to navigate the opportunities and challenges in this area and produce results for children. UNICEF continued to show flexibility in deploying its resources effectively and efficiently, especially in emergencies and post-crisis situations. Our strong in-country presence, clear checks and balances, and long-standing relationships with key stakeholders are among the organization’s comparative advantages. UNICEF does not merely deploy resources in routine ways. It is also able to take calculated investment risks that may be necessary to achieve results in basic education. Such flexibility and risk tolerance enabled UNICEF to continue to provide transparency as well as accountability in the use of resources, even under some of the most difficult circumstances. As the 2015 deadline for achieving global education goals approaches, progress on enrolment and completion rates has slowed down, despite past gains.1 This may be partly due to constraints, such as rapid population growth rates, civil conflicts and deepening poverty as well as decreasing levels of aid funding. Progress appears to have reached a threshold such that it is now much more difficult for children out of school to successfully access and complete quality basic education. Most of those who do not complete basic schooling are likely to be children and adolescents, especially girls, who are living with disabilities, living in poor countries and communities or countries affected by civil conflict and natural disasters, or who belong to ethnic and religious minority

4

communities. Their chances of making progress will depend on policies and resources that can address the barriers to equity that impede access and completion of quality basic education. In each of the four key result areas through which it invests in Basic Education and Gender Equality, UNICEF acted on opportunities and addressed challenges throughout 2012. This included a shift towards support for system-wide changes in education. In many countries, UNICEF advocated for and provided inputs into education policies, plans and budget allocations. UNICEF has continuously retained its strong support for marginalized communities as a high priority, using targeted interventions to help provide access to early learning and school readiness, quality primary schooling or alternative learning programmes for disadvantaged children and adolescents. The organization helped countries provide early learning and school readiness either through national policies and budget allocation for preschool services, or by supporting community-based and non-governmental preschool initiatives. UNICEF helped countries provide access to quality basic education by expanding schools and improving the quality of education, or by creating alternative learning programmes outside the formal school system. UNICEF’s support for quality basic education has involved use of its child-friendly schools models and life-skills education programmes. These models and programmes have been applied successfully over the years to support quality education at the school and community levels, and they have now reached maturation. Building on sustained success, UNICEF has emphasized upstream work for holistic improvement of education systems through advocacy as well as technical and programming support. This has enabled the organization to shift seamlessly to a more systemic child-friendly education model for supporting countries, while continuing to make use of its downstream work of targeted interventions at the school and community levels to help countries expand quality basic education in the most disadvantaged areas. UNICEF has had to make major investments in personnel, facilities and supplies, and in related logistics and management. It has also had to do much cross-sectoral programming that involves strong collaboration with other sectors, including protection; water, sanitation and hygiene; nutrition; and health. Such investments and collaboration have been well rewarded with direct benefits to marginalized communities. They also continue to yield concrete examples of what is possible for governments and development partners to do to address the needs of marginalized populations. Partnerships are core to UNICEF’s work, and there were increased opportunities to take a leading role in key strategic partnerships during 2012. UNICEF continued to strengthen its leadership role in the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, with a renewed commitment to advocacy for gender equity. In the design and execution of sector plans funded by the Global Partnership for Education, UNICEF served as the coordinating agency for 26 countries, managing entity for 8 countries and supervising entity for 2 countries. Through these roles, UNICEF helped countries integrate key elements of child rights, quality and equity into their national education sector plans. The organization has therefore been able to marshal its experience of working at the school and community levels, and to use this experience to advocate for (and support) inclusion of equity principles, child rights, school quality and learning outcomes as priorities in national education sector plans.

5

The progress achieved in 2012 has not been without constraints and challenges. In the case of gender, for example, there are equity challenges around the rights and participation of women and girls in decision making for development. Many countries have achieved impressive progress with enrolment and completion for girls in basic education, and even in secondary and higher education. Women and girls are still disadvantaged, however, by patriarchal power structures and harmful cultural practices as well as gender discrimination. In the face of continued massive unemployment of the young women and men graduating from education systems, investments in education will need to move beyond quality and learning achievement to focus more on skills for life and work. In some cases, progress on access was constrained by a lack of capacities and resources of governments as well as other partners. In other cases, the constraints faced have been more politically oriented, as with national issues around bilingual education, for instance, or because of internal political bottlenecks that delay Cabinet-level approval of programmes developed by line ministries or due to internal controversies over rights-based education planning. Looking ahead, as countries embrace equity principles in their education sector plans and practices, UNICEF will increasingly shift to more upstream work on policies and budgetary allocations. The focus will continue to be on equity as a priority as well as gender and learning outcomes. There will also be an emphasis on ensuring that teachers have the time and resources for promoting quality programmes and student learning. As co-lead of the post-2015 Global Consultation on Education, UNICEF is in a strong position to help shape the post-2015 agenda on gender, education and development, but it will also have to deal with new challenges. Recognizing that it is learning achievement, rather than enrolment or completion rates, that delivers the expected benefits of education, UNICEF will intensify its focus on this important area of work and put learning at the heart of its efforts in all countries and contexts – with special emphasis on teaching/learning processes and assessing performance in learning. In 2012, UNICEF’s expenditure pattern in Basic Education and Gender Equality reflected the priorities of learning outcomes and equity. More than half (53.2 per cent) of expenditure in Focus Area 2 was invested in supporting national capacity to improve educational quality and increase school retention, completion and achievement rates (Key Result Area 3). The fact that the highest expenditure in Basic Education and Gender Equality was in Key Result Area 3 is partially a reflection of UNICEF’s increasing role in partnerships around upstream work to support system-level changes in terms of equity and quality as well as completion and learning achievement rates. Investment in schooling has raised enrolment levels and completion rates, but it is not yet yielding high dividends in learning achievements2 for all or in empowering marginalized children and communities. Securing such dividends will require consistent investments by countries and continuing funding and technical support from key donors – as well as much smarter approaches to programming and monitoring equity and learning outcomes by countries and development partners. UNICEF currently gives the highest priority to these dividends in equity and learning outcomes, even as it continues to monitor and provide support for the prevailing goal of universal access and completion of basic education as unfinished business on the global agenda for the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All.

6

Strategic context Countries have made good progress with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education and gender (MDGs 2 and 3) and the Dakar goals on Education for All (EFA). More children than ever before are attending preschool, completing primary school and making the transition from primary to secondary school. Some of the most impressive gains since 2000 have been made by the countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which started from the lowest base in terms of education enrolment and completion.3 Globally, gains continue to be made in many of these areas. The World Bank estimates that only 19 out of 212 countries will likely fail to meet the goal of universal primary completion by 2015.4 But as this deadline approaches, equity and learning have now emerged as crucial challenges in terms of access to education opportunities, school experiences and learning outcomes for different population groups. Achieving the EFA goals and the MDGs is a process that requires vigilance and engagement in order to identify and overcome the many challenges that threaten to impede or derail progress. It is about facilitating the rights of all children at all times and under all circumstances, without which progress can stall and hard-won gains can be reversed. Despite the progress that has been achieved with school enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, for example, the enrolment rates have not kept pace with population growth rates, resulting in high levels of out-of-school children. So, with all the investments made in education, sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for about 50 per cent of all the out-of-school children in the world, rising from just over 45 per cent in 2011.5 In general, the trends show that the rate of progress for the MDGs and the EFA goals slowed down between 2008 and 2011, and that the level of aid is also decreasing; therefore, most EFA goals are unlikely to be met. Because of this, it has been suggested that the major push for universal primary education, which began in Dakar in 2000, may now be grinding to a halt.6 Gender equity also remains an elusive goal, with many countries still in danger of not achieving the goal of gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2015. It is estimated that there are 68 countries that have still not achieved gender parity in primary education, and girls are disadvantaged in 60 of them.7 Without vigilance and engagement, millions of children remain at risk of being left behind in the progress that is being achieved in education and development. This in itself is a recipe for dysfunction and disruption in society, quite apart from the ethical implications around use of national and external resources in a way that denies the rights of these children. The shift to learning achievement as a priority goal Emphasis within the education and gender goals (MDGs 2 and 3) has shifted repeatedly since they were first formulated. First, there was a shift from primary education, as stated in MDG 2, to an implied ‘basic education’ as the preferred goal. Basic education in this case was variously

“Enrolment and completion

goals will not prepare children

for the world economy … any

education goal needs to focus

on learning, not just outputs.” ‘From Schooling Goals to Learning Goals’

7

defined as primary plus junior secondary, or nine years of schooling rather than the usual six of seven years associated with primary school. This shift was a reflection of the concern that primary education may not be an adequate foundation on which to build for future learning and functioning in societies that are increasingly complex and demanding. Second, the early concern with access or getting children into school as a goal shifted to a focus on quality as a necessary part of the goal. ‘Beyond access’ became a clarion call as questions were raised about what goes on in schools and whether poor children should make do with poor-quality education in the quest to increase access. In line with this, the importance of enrolment rates (gross enrolment ratio/net enrolment ratio) as the indicators for measuring progress towards achieving MDG 2 also shifted to a new focus on completion rates. The argument was that the number of children completing an education cycle is much more significant as a goal than the number of children who are enrolled in school. Third, and most importantly, interpretation of the education goal shifted from ‘schooling’ to learning. The rationale for this shift in interpretation is that “meeting schooling targets (enrolment or completion) does not equate to children leaving school equipped with the skills and capabilities they need for the 21st century.”8 Underpinning the ‘new emphasis’ in the education goal raises questions about what is really being achieved in return for investments in education. While the case for investing in education remains strong, there is also the realization that it is what children learn as a result of being in school that matters, not just how long they stay on in school or what grade they complete. Globally, it is estimated that 120 million primary-school-age children, out of a total of 650 million, do not reach Grade 4, and a further 130 million who are in school are failing to learn the basics. In low- and lower-middle-income countries, many more children than expected are completing primary school without being literate. The shift in focus to learning as a priority goal in education has given rise to a sense of urgency in addressing the factors that contribute to learning. An adequate and competent teaching force in terms of numbers, qualifications, training and teacher performance is one of the important areas now receiving renewed attention.9 Many such concerns are reflected in UNICEF’s child-friendly schools model, which emphasizes the importance of a school environment that is conducive to learning. Moving beyond schools, the systemic child-friendly education (CFE) approach calls for trained teachers who spend adequate time on the task of promoting student learning; motivated students who invest enough time and effort on learning; resources that are adequate and appropriate for learning; schools that function properly for enough days in the year; and engaged communities. In effect, the call is for those inputs and processes that would lead to successful learning outcomes and good results. The shift to equity as a priority goal In education, the gender goal (MDG 3) was initially interpreted mainly as ‘gender parity’, or the number or percentage of girls enrolled in primary and secondary school vis-à-vis the number or percentage of boys enrolled. Progress was measured in terms of the ratio of girls to boys enrolled or ratio of eligible girls enrolled as compared to ratio of eligible boys enrolled. These have been refined over the years to produce the gender parity index. On the basis of this index, impressive progress has been made globally, and narrowing the gender gap in primary school enrolment has been described as one of the biggest EFA successes since 2000.10

8

Despite such progress, girls face major challenges in school, at home and in the wider society that adversely affect their experience of schooling. The rise in gender-based violence in and around schools; threats of sexual exploitation and bullying; social norms that have a negative impact on girls; harmful sociocultural practices; gender-restrictive regulations and other forms of gender discrimination – all these add to the many factors that are already known to impede the enrolment and completion of quality basic education by girls. Thus, gender parity in enrolment and completion is necessary but not sufficient for achieving the intent of the gender goal (MDG 3). The interpretation of this goal has therefore shifted to a focus on ‘gender equality’ – ensuring that all girls, as well as boys, have positive experiences of school, have their rights respected, achieve learning outcomes that are in line with their full potential and become empowered as part of the education process.11 This shift in interpretation of the gender goal is also reflected in a deeper concern about how disparities relating to poverty, geographical location, disability, ethnicity, social class, ideology, religion, etc., affect the opportunities and progress of children in different countries. While aggregate statistics show impressive progress globally and for most countries, the situation remains dire for children in those population groups that are adversely affected by these disparities and inequalities. Throughout the world and in every country, those left behind are the children – especially the girls – who are from poor families, who live in the rural areas or urban slums, who are living with disabilities, who are from ethnic or religious minorities and who do not have access to the decision-making processes that determine their life chances. The force of this reality makes it clear that the world cannot achieve meaningful progress with the education goals, or any other set of development goals, unless these deep issues of lack of equity are addressed vigorously. By embracing equity as a top priority, UNICEF has put itself in a position to be an effective partner in supporting meaningful progress towards achieving the MDGs. Equity and learning outcomes as priorities in Basic Education and Gender Equality The strategic context in which UNICEF and its partners provide support for achieving the MDGs is defined by the shifting realities that have elevated equity and learning outcomes to high priorities. It is a context in which there has been progress towards achieving important goals, but also one in which there has been justified concern about what is really being achieved beyond the numbers and how much that is vital for changing lives is not being adequately addressed, to the detriment of millions of children and their families and communities. Since 2000, a combination of strong partnerships, political will and strategic investments by governments in developing countries and their partners, such as UNICEF, has resulted in the highest-ever numbers of children benefiting from preschool services, starting and completing primary school, and successfully making the transition to secondary school. The number of children out of school had been reduced to 61 million by 2010 from a high of 108 million in 1999 (just before the Education for All forum in Dakar). There has also been an impressive narrowing of the gender gap in primary school enrolment and completion. The number of countries where the gender parity index is the worst (below 0.70) has decreased over the years from 16 in 1990, to 11 in 2000, and down to just 1 (Afghanistan) in 2010. But meaningful achievement of the MDGs and EFA goals has to be seen in the realities of the lives of all children, rather than in mere numbers. This requires much more intensive efforts to support countries in a way that puts equity and learning outcomes as the central concerns in the process of achieving these goals.

9

Starting right from the beginning Learning starts early in life, just as the disparities and inequalities that impede learning begin in the earliest stages of life. Giving all children the right start in life and the proper preparation for learning at an early stage is therefore crucial for achieving the goals of quality basic education for all in a meaningful way. Globally, the number of children enrolled in preschool has risen steadily by an estimated 50 per cent since 1999. Yet the global reality is that more than half of children 3–6 years old do not have the benefit of some form of early learning services or preschool. Globally, the proportion of children aged 3–6 who are attending some form of organized learning varies from 1.5 per cent to 91.5 per cent. In most countries surveyed, access to organized early learning is less than 40 per cent. Access is particularly low in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq; moderate in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; and highest in the Caribbean countries, including Jamaica and St. Lucia. The greatest disparities in attendance levels hinge on area of residence; with few exceptions, rural children have less access.12 In rural areas of China, Peru and the United Republic of Tanzania, preschools tend to have overcrowded classrooms with fewer teachers and caregivers, and fewer learning resources, than preschools in urban areas.13 There are also significant disparities related to ethnicity and poverty. Analysis of the situation in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Georgia, Morocco, Rwanda and Uganda – which have focused on early childhood development (ECD) and organized learning, and are among the 27 countries engaged in UNICEF’s new Monitoring of Results for Equity Systems (MoRES) – shows that expansion of ECD services is hampered by such problems as lack of physical infrastructure and qualified caregivers, and high student-teacher ratios. The analysis reveals some increase in demand for ECD services but also indicated overall issues stemming from weak leadership, lack of data that are sufficient for designing and monitoring programmes, and inadequate budget allocations. The apprehension is that without extending the benefits of early learning and preschool to all children, many of the children from disadvantaged backgrounds will start school late and will not be adequately prepared to learn. It is estimated that 5 out of 6 children in the poorest countries are not enrolled in preschool. In Nigeria, less than 1 in 10 children from the poorest 20 per cent of households attend preschool, and in Colombia, 42 per cent of children from the poorest households started primary school two or more years later than the prescribed age. Similarly, in a sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 41 per cent of children starting primary school were two or more years older than the official school entry age. Most of these children are likely to repeat classes in primary school and drop out before completing the cycle as well as failing to achieve learning outcomes that match their full potential. This is not only tragic for children and their families, it is also an indictment of governments and their partners who are failing to address education and development in an equitable manner. Most of all, it represents dismal returns for the investments made in education.

10

Putting UNICEF’s work in the strategic context Given the strategic context outlined above, UNICEF’s work in 2012 reflects a highly responsive approach to this changing context. First, UNICEF enhanced its evidence-based approach by using lessons from evaluation studies. At least eight major evaluation studies were completed during the year, including those on the topics of life-skills education programmes14 (global); child-friendly schools (CFS) initiatives and projects in the Republic of Moldova15 and in the State of Palestine16; the Basic Education Assistance Module17 in Zimbabwe; UNICEF’s role as lead partner in the education sector18 in Sierra Leone; the Accelerated Learning Programme19 in Liberia; and the global partnerships of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI).20 UNICEF further enhanced its evidence-based work on equity by using findings of the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children to identify bottlenecks that make it hard to reach marginalized populations with quality education that can yield efficient learning outcomes. It has similarly made use of the Simulations for Equity in Education as an important planning and budget tool to enhance equity in education systems. Second, UNICEF strengthened collaboration with external and internal partners to improve the support provided to countries and enhance cross-sectoral programming. UNICEF continued to be a key player in the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). In 2012, the organization served as the coordinating agency for 26 countries that were receiving funds from the GPE to support their education sector plans. It also served as the Supervising Entity for GPE-funded work in Afghanistan and Yemen, and as the Managing Entity in 8 countries that received GPE funding (Chad, Comoros, Eritrea, Guinea, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe). These lead roles provided UNICEF with the opportunity not only to facilitate efficient service delivery and financial management, but also to advocate for equity and learning outcomes as priorities in national plans and budgets. In addition to the GPE partnerships, UNICEF continued to strengthen its leadership role in UNGEI, with a renewed commitment to advocacy for gender equity. UNICEF also continued its work as co-lead, with Save the Children, of the Education in Emergencies Cluster, and it has taken key roles in other strategic partnerships, including the Global Education First Initiative, led by the United Nations Secretary-General, and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Working Groups. Third, UNICEF intensified its upstream work in 2012, with continuing use of tools for scaling up and mainstreaming proven or promising intervention strategies. For example, UNICEF provided support to China for piloting a national indicator system in five regions to help monitor and assess the regional disparities in equity and quality. Indicators cover education popularization, balanced education and minimum standards. They measure enrolment rates in early education and basic education; system capacity (school infrastructure and teacher quality); and equity in terms of financial allocations, condition of school facilities, availability of information and communication technologies, and teacher qualifications. Fourth, UNICEF continued its education and peace-building work in an initial set of 13 countries, with analysis of barriers and bottlenecks affecting efforts to rebuild education systems in post-conflict situations. This is intended to identify and tackle the underlying causes of civil conflict and disruption in countries. It reflects a more pre-emptive and preventive approach to disruptive emergencies as well as a recuperative methodology for dealing with post-crisis situations. Thus, UNICEF works not only to support progress in normal times, but also to help countries make progress under difficult conditions.

11

Fifth, UNICEF continued to address gender equity through the UNGEI partnership and its own programming support to countries for dealing with gender disparities and inequalities in basic education. For UNICEF, gender has become a means of leveraging change for greater equity in basic education and development generally. Sixth, UNICEF has been helping to define a post-2015 agenda for education and development. It is co-lead for the post-2015 Global Consultation on Education. UNICEF is already helping countries to address the defining issues that cannot be ignored in a post-2015 agenda, such as food security, climate, gender and employment. The organization has, for example, supported work in Kenya on a new approach to skills training for youths based on their interests and talents. The 2012 evaluation of these ‘Talent Academies’ provides insights and lessons for better ways of linking education and training to employment prospects.

Resources Overall expenditure in 2012 for Focus Area 2, Basic Education and Gender Equality, was US$604.5 million, coming from UNICEF’s core budget and regular resources.

Table 1. Expenditure by funding source for Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2012

Funding type Expenditure (in US$ millions) Expenditure (%)

Regular resources 125.5 20.8

Other resources (regular) 389.7 64.5

Other resources (emergency) 89.3 14.8

Total 604.5 100.0 Some donors give flexible funding, which is pooled, for the five focus areas of UNICEF’s medium-term strategic plan (MTSP) or for Humanitarian Response. In 2012, UNICEF received a total of US$122 million in thematic contributions for Focus Area 2, around 43 per cent of all thematic funds received by the organization, which totalled US$287 million.

12

What is thematic funding?

Thematic funding was created after the adoption of UNICEF’s medium-term strategic plan 2001–2005 as an opportunity for donors to support the goals and objectives of the MTSP and to allow for longer-term planning and sustainability of programmes. While regular resources continue to be UNICEF’s preferred type of funding, thematic contributions are the next best option because they have fewer restrictions on their use than traditional ‘other resources’. Donors can allocate thematic funds to the five MTSP focus areas and humanitarian response as follows:

• Focus Area 1: Young Child Survival and Development • Focus Area 2: Basic Education and Gender Equality • Focus Area 3: HIV/AIDS and Children • Focus Area 4: Child Protection from Violence, Exploitation and Abuse • Focus Area 5: Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights • Humanitarian Response

Contributions can be provided at the global, regional or country level. Thematic contributions from all donors to the same focus area are combined into one pooled-fund account with the same duration, which simplifies financial management and reporting for UNICEF offices. As funds are pooled, UNICEF cannot track individual donors’ contributions. Thematic donors also agree to accept one annual consolidated narrative and financial report that is the same for all donors. Due to reduced administrative costs, thematic contributions are subject to a lower cost recovery rate of 5 per cent (compared with the standard 7 per cent).

Figure 1. Thematic contributions to MTSP focus areas and humanitarian response, 2012: US$287 million

Basic Education and Gender Equality

$122m 43%

Humanitarian Response

$89m 31%

Young Child Survival and Development

$41m 14%

Child Protection from Violence,

Exploitation and Abuse

$18m 6%

HIV/AIDS and Children $11m 4%

Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children's Rights

$6m 2%

13

In 2012, the largest donor to thematic funding for Focus Area 2 was the Norwegian Government, followed by the Governments of Sweden and Brazil, the Korean Committee for UNICEF and the United States Fund for UNICEF to round out the top five donors. None of these donors was a first-time donor to thematic funds. UNICEF appreciates the consistent donation record of these and other thematic funds donors, a number of whom have donated since thematic funds were first sought.

Table 2. Thematic contributions by donors to Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2012

Donor type Donor Amount (in US$)

Government

Norway 90,926,000

Sweden 9,371,115

Brazil 3,445,044

Luxembourg 996,015

Spain¹ (290,833)

National committee

Korean Committee for UNICEF 2,008,086

United States Fund for UNICEF 1,463,111

United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF 1,315,611

Spanish Committee for UNICEF 1,216,494

German Committee for UNICEF 1,179,515

French Committee for UNICEF 1,152,567

Australian Committee for UNICEF Limited 1,114,806

Dutch Committee for UNICEF 1,010,885

Belgian Committee for UNICEF 910,379

Swedish Committee for UNICEF 816,473

Norwegian Committee for UNICEF 811,070

Danish Committee for UNICEF 563,627

Austrian Committee for UNICEF 421,687

Polish National Committee for UNICEF 392,889

Czech Committee for UNICEF 358,923

Finnish Committee for UNICEF 344,898

Canadian UNICEF Committee 344,804

Turkish National Committee for UNICEF 253,953

Swiss Committee for UNICEF 251,291

Japan Committee for UNICEF 229,967

Hellenic National Committee for UNICEF 173,846

UNICEF Hungarian Committee Foundation 164,288

14

Portuguese Committee for UNICEF 163,960

New Zealand National Committee for UNICEF 97,660

Hong Kong Committee for UNICEF 61,787

Israeli Fund for UNICEF 57,231

Slovak Committee for UNICEF 49,169

Italian Committee for UNICEF 44,764

UNICEF Ireland 15,331

Icelandic National Committee for UNICEF 8,594

Slovenian Committee for UNICEF 4,912

Private sector field office fundraising

UNICEF United Arab Emirates 276,194

UNICEF Croatia 97,106

UNICEF Thailand 53,013

UNICEF Malaysia 43,855

UNICEF Romania 42,367

UNICEF China 39,325

UNICEF Russian Federation 32,775

UNICEF Bulgaria 10,902

UNICEF Nigeria 9,327

UNICEF South Africa 6,499

UNICEF India 269

Total 122,061,551 ¹ The negative amount is due to adjustments to contributions from prior years. Since 2006, Norway has given the highest amount of funding to Focus Area 2 via thematic funds, followed by Spain, Sweden, the Korean Committee for UNICEF and Brazil.

15

Table 3. Top 15 donors to thematic Focus Area 2: Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2006–2012*

Donor 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total 2006–2012

in US$ thousands

Norway 72,129 83,216 64,340 77,870 80,645 91,695 90,926 560,821

Spain 6,345 14,749 32,384 29,586 25,413 (291) 108,186

Sweden 13,590 13,693 15,332 11,094 10,143 11,721 9,371 84,945

Korean Committee for UNICEF 600 853 584 765 915 11,412 2,008 17,137

Brazil 100 485 3,012 2,623 2,793 3,086 3,445 15,545

Luxembourg 948 1,200 2,118 1,969 1,050 1,056 996 9,337

United States Fund for UNICEF 342 495 406 1,165 643 1,106 1,463 5,620

United Kingdom Fund for UNICEF 353 524 136 218 362 1,809 1,316 4,716

Spanish Committee for UNICEF 362 331 7 303 1,180 1,016 1,216 4,416

Italian Committee for UNICEF 868 1,296 16 26 1,955 45 4,205

Danish Committee for UNICEF 274 507 602 785 487 543 564 3,761

Denmark 618 1,378 881 281 215 3,373

French Committee for UNICEF 17 11 2,089 73 1,153 3,343

Dutch Committee for UNICEF 175 233 581 1,031 1,011 3,031

Turkish National Committee for UNICEF 213 1,014 1,197 16 254 2,695

* The change in accounting policy from United Nations System Accounting Standards to International Public Sector Accounting Standards on 1 January 2012 does not allow comparisons between 2012 figures and prior years.

16

Figure 2. Top 15 donors to thematic Focus Area 2: Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2006–2012 (in US$ thousands)

* The change in accounting policy from United Nations System Accounting Standards to International Public Sector Accounting Standards on 1 January 2012 does not allow comparisons between 2012 figures and prior years.

Results UNICEF supports countries through investments that lead to positive outputs, outcomes and impacts. These investments reflect an underlying understanding of how to bring about change in education. In effect, this is about the theory of change with which UNICEF operates. It involves assumptions about which investments will lead to certain results, as well as managing the risks associated with making wrong or faulty assumptions. This theory of change can be summarized in a generic results chain for Basic Education and Gender Equality, as shown below.

-1 000 99 000 199 000 299 000 399 000 499 000

Norway Spain

Sweden Korea NC

Brazil Luxembourg

United States NC United Kingdom NC

Spain NC Italy NC

Denmark NC Denmark

France NC Netherlands NC

Turkey NC

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

17

Figure 3. Theory of change for Basic Education and Gender Equality

INPUTS/INVESTMENTS

Invest in preschools; capacity building for basic education; quality with equity in education; education in emergencies; advocacy for policy and budget; diagnostic/equity studies; innovation and reform; monitoring and evaluation; cross-sector programming; systems management, etc.

OUTPUTS Trained staff; facilities; resource materials; tested programmes; good learning environments; improved health, nutrition and well-being of all children; safety and security in and around schools; children who are ready to start school; reliable budgets; well-managed institutions; sustainable curriculum process; good system to test learning; accountability and transparency, etc.

OUTCOMES Increased enrolment in and completion of preschool, primary education and transition to secondary; equitable access and positive experience of school; positive learning outcomes for all children; local and national ownership of the education system; reliable school financing; robust teaching force, etc

IMPACT Equitable, resilient and sustainable education systems that can provide good quality basic education, leading to learning achievement for all children, in normal times as well as in times of emergency and in post-crisis conditions; education systems that link with employment and nation building, etc.

ASSUMPTIONS Evidence exists for what works in the context of the country concerned. The local authorities and communities are willing to work to improve education. The national government is willing to invest in education and development. UNICEF has adequate resources.

ASSUMPTIONS Targeted interventions can be scaled up to national level; policies support innovation and reform; management is reliable and sustainable; education is high priority in the national budget; the national environment stays peaceful and stable, etc.

ASSUMPTIONS Good governance, economic growth and sociocultural progress continue; resilience to overcome adversity caused by civil conflict or natural disaster; a sense of national pride in the quality and equity of the education system, etc.

18

Theory of change in practice (country programme example)

Association Mères Educatrices (AME), or Mothers’ Associations, in Burkina Faso

Inputs

∙ Since 2007, UNICEF – in partnership with the Ministry of National Education and Literacy – has piloted the provision of financial support to Mothers’ Associations for the development and implementation of income-generating activities. This support, granted in the form of a lump sum given to the AME bureau, is intended to help its members work together to attain financial self-sufficiency.

2007–Present

Outputs

∙ Programmes include those for women’s literacy and training for and development of income-generating activities for AME members to help them support their daughters’ education.

∙ The funds jointly generated are used, in part, to support girls’ access to and attendance in school, while contributing to improving the schooling environment when the latter is identified as a barrier to children’s education.

2009–2012

Outcomes

∙ Progressively, UNICEF’s advocacy and the positive results observed in the field (girls have increased access to and attendance in school, and the welfare of parents and children is improved) have encouraged the Government of Burkina Faso to integrate AME into education sector plans and the national budget, and to take actions to mainstream the associations throughout all schools in Burkina Faso. This commitment was taken following the first international forum on the promotion of income generating activities for AMEs.

2011

Impact

∙ The development of income-generating activities for AME members to help them support their daughters’ education has contributed to increased enrolment of girls in primary school, from 75.5% (80.3% for boys) in 2009 to 83.8% (87.6% for boys) in 2010.

∙ Access to quality basic education and retention in school for girls has increased; the national primary school completion rate rose from 33.5% in 2008 to 37.8% in 2009, and from 42.5% in 2010 to 49.1% in 2011.

2011–2012

KEY RESULT AREA 1: Support national capacity to improve children’s developmental readiness to start primary school in time, especially for marginalized children. Main issues, opportunities and challenges Preschool programmes (ECD, early learning, school readiness) enable children to start school at the prescribed age and ready to learn. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to start primary school two or more years later than the officially set age,21 due to distance to school, poor health and nutrition, cultural bias against girls, poverty, safety and security concerns, prioritizing household chores over schooling, or just lack of awareness on the part of

19

parents and households. Such children are more likely to repeat grades, achieve less learning, and drop out before completing primary school. By Grade 3, these children can be up to four times as likely to drop out as children who started school at the correct age.22 This creates a disadvantage for children at an early age and compounds the challenges faced by children who are marginalized due to other factors. Preschool programmes provide an opportunity for greater equity in education. Studies in brain science have consistently established that early childhood (0–5 years old) is the most critical period for human development.23 Building on such studies, preschool programmes help address inequities by reducing impediments to learning that children face in disadvantaged communities, including undernutrition, ill-health, poor hygiene standards, lack of access to basic services and inadequate levels of stimulation. Preschool programmes bring children into the ‘rhythm’ of schooling through interaction with other children in safe, healthy and nurturing environments, and through participation in structured learning based on play and stimulation under the guidance of a trained caregiver. Such programmes can also enhance the efficiency of education systems by reducing repetition and drop-out rates as well as improving completion rates and learning outcomes in primary school. The main challenge is that, despite the overwhelming evidence on the benefits of ECD and early learning, many countries are not investing adequately in these programmes – particularly countries that are struggling to finance expansion and improvements in primary and secondary education. Nepal and the Niger, for example, invest only 0.1 per cent of their gross national product in preschool, and Madagascar and Senegal invest less than 0.02 per cent. While the number of children in preschools has increased steadily since 1999, more than half of the eligible children in the world are not attending any form of preschool. In Indonesia, for example, fewer than 30 per cent of the 30 million children 0–6 years old have access to early childhood education. In the poorest countries, 5 out of 6 eligible children are not enrolled in any form of preschool.24 In most countries, the provision of preschool services is concentrated in the urban areas and offered mainly by private-sector service providers that charge fees. Preschools that require fees for attendance are not accessible to the poor households that are most in need of these services. Overview of investment patterns In 2012, UNICEF continued to advocate for national policies and budgetary provisions to support preschool services. It also continued to invest in targeted interventions to support early learning and school readiness for marginalized children, who require timely intervention and cannot wait for the effects of national policies to trickle down to their level. Through these targeted investments, UNICEF continued to provide concrete evidence to governments of what can be done at the national level. The organization buttressed this two-track approach with investments in measuring the school readiness of children using the Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS). Preschool investments are cross-sectoral because they address the health and well-being of children in nurturing environments as an integral part of early learning through play and stimulation. They are also multi-pronged because they involve the home, the school and the community working together to ensure that children start school at the right age and ready to learn. In 2012, UNICEF continued to invest in a range of preschool programmes that provide communities with appropriate options for their circumstances. Examples of these early learning and school readiness programmes in which UNICEF invested are summarized below.

20

Category Investments in early learning and school readiness

Community-based early learning and school readiness

Provide training for all caregivers, including teachers, parents, health workers, social workers and managers; creating and refurbishing facilities; providing equipment, furniture, play kits, toys and other supplies; facilitating access to basic services such as water and sanitation, etc.

Child-to-child-based early learning and school readiness

Provide training for teachers, who in turn train children in primary school to provide care and early learning for their preschool siblings at home. Provide play kits, toys and take-home learning materials, which builds on the natural inclination of older children to care for and play with their younger (preschool-aged) siblings.

School-based early learning and school readiness

Establish ‘Grade 0’ in primary schools so children can get early learning and be ready to enter Grade 1. In Ethiopia, this approach has been adopted as the best way to provide preschool education for all children.

Mobile ECD centres for early learning and school readiness

Provide ECD training for teachers, social and medical assistants, and parents. Provide and equip vehicles as mobile ECD centres. Provide training for teacher trainers, as well as toys, play kits and learning materials.

Home-based early learning and school readiness

Provide structured play, singing, games and other stimulation activities, carried out by the main caregiver (parent) at home and guided by radio programmes and access to periodic training in designated centres, and supply equipment and materials.

Outline of progress achieved By investing in these preschool programmes in 2012, UNICEF helped countries achieve progress, mainly in terms of outputs and outcomes. In some cases, progress has been made with national policy for preschool and accompanying budget allocation. In China, for example, the Government has declared a national policy making kindergarten education universal through provision of three years of pre-primary experience for all children. In support of this declaration, the Government of China has already made budgetary provision to allocate resources for expansion of pre-school services. UNICEF works closely with the Government to ensure quality and equity, and to help build capacity as this policy is implemented. The ELDS have been validated in China to measure quality. Similarly, in Uzbekistan, advocacy and technical assistance from UNICEF resulted in ELDS being endorsed by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education for use in all pedagogic colleges nationwide. In Georgia, UNICEF successfully advocated for the establishment of a central body (a division in the Ministry of Education and Science) to coordinate preschool as responsibility for funding and administration of preschools resides with 65 municipalities in the country’s decentralized system. As a result of UNICEF’s advocacy and its work on a preschool municipality survey and costing exercise, the Parliament of Georgia is enacting a law on free access to preschool education for all children. In other cases, progress has been achieved at the community level with gains in preschool enrolment for marginalized children. In the Central African Republic, the focus was on providing ECD kits and supplies to the most vulnerable communities. Examples of progress achieved in various other countries are summarized below.

21

Country Progress achieved in early learning and school readiness

Bangladesh

Successful advocacy by UNICEF resulted in a government policy on universal preschool, which adds a year of pre-primary to government primary schools. Also, all Registered Non-Governmental Primary Schools are being converted into governmental schools so they can include the pre-primary year as preschool. ELDS has been put in place to ensure quality of these rapidly expanding preschools.

Ethiopia Support by UNICEF has resulted in rapid expansion of preschool opportunities through the child-to-child approach, increasing from 5 schools and 2,250 children in the 2008 pilot to 1,103 schools reaching 200,000 children in 2012.

Pakistan Technical support for mainstreaming early childhood education into 47,311 Punjabi government schools was provided.

Philippines

UNICEF’s advocacy resulted in the Kindergarten Education Act being signed into law in February 2012. It provides equal opportunities for all children to access mandatory and compulsory kindergarten education. Access to these services for 5-year-old children increased dramatically, to 80 per cent, after ratification of the act.

Republic of Moldova

Preschool services were expanded and improved with UNICEF support for creating and/or rehabilitating 41 additional preschools. A tool to assess school readiness was developed by the Ministry of Education (MOE), and a plan for mentoring teachers put in place, with UNICEF support, to ensure quality and sustainability. 40 community centres were set up to provide quality preschool services in small rural communities that do not meet the criteria for opening formal preschools. These are communities with vulnerable populations, including Roma-majority settlements. ECD training was provided for teachers, social and medical assistants, mayors and parents. For sustainability, commitment by the local authorities was secured to continue financing these centres for at least five years. GPE funds of US$4.4 million were allocated exclusively for national expansion and improvement of preschool services by the MOE.

Turkey Capacity building by UNICEF resulted in a new, extended and more inclusive preschool curriculum, as well as a guidebook for the community-based model of preschools.

Moving forward In 2012, there continued to be an increase in the number of countries rising to the challenge by expanding early learning and school readiness programmes to reach more communities and vulnerable populations. UNICEF’s priority will be to advocate for national policies and adequate budget allocation to establish and support universal access to quality preschool services.

KEY RESULT AREA 2: Support national capacity to reduce gender and other disparities in relation to increased access and completion of quality basic education.

22

Main issues, opportunities and challenges Despite significant progress in access and completion rates, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, there are still 61 million children of primary school age who are out of school, and girls are still worse off than boys. An additional 71 million adolescents are also not participating in any form of basic education. Progress has been stagnating due to such factors as rapid population growth, the recent financial crisis, deepening poverty, disruptive conflicts and natural disasters, as well as persistent gender inequalities and other disparities. Progress may have reached a threshold such that it is increasingly difficult for ‘hard-to-reach’ populations missing out on school to access and complete quality basic education. Most of those who are excluded are likely to be children and adolescents, especially girls; those living with disabilities, or living in poor countries and communities or countries affected by civil conflict and natural disasters; or those in ethnic/religious minority communities. These groups face very deep-rooted equity challenges related to gender, poverty, etc. that impede their chances of accessing and completing quality education. UNICEF’s renewed mandate on girls’ education is an opportunity to address these equity issues from a gender perspective, through the work of UNGEI as well as in its regular programming for Basic Education and Gender Equality. UNICEF’s approach to girls’ education has evolved from a focus on factors that determine access and completion rates for girls in primary and secondary education (gender parity) to a concern with the variables that result in differing experiences and outcomes of schooling for girls, vis-à-vis boys (gender equality). In addition, UNICEF has moved to a comprehensive treatment of gender as one of several interrelated disparities/inequalities that determine participation and outcomes in basic education. These shifts provide UNICEF with an opportunity to address the complex interrelatedness between gender and other disparities, as well as the deep-rooted nature of equity issues that could not be addressed purely through gains in enrolment for girls and other disadvantaged population groups. The challenge is that there are limits to how far gender can be a proxy for other disparities and inequalities such as poverty or disability. So, while UNICEF has used its comparative advantage in girls’ education and gender to influence partners within the GPE and EFA Monitoring Report, it has also expanded its concerns, particularly as regards children with disabilities. Overview of investment patterns In 2012, UNICEF continued to invest in girls’ education and other forms of inclusive education at all levels, from local communities to national policy and advocacy. These efforts have helped not only to highlight gender issues, but also to mobilize global attention on children with disabilities. These are often the most marginalized groups in education and make up almost one third of the children excluded from school. Inclusive education also means that the significant numbers of children and adolescents who are out of school, for whatever reason, have the right to quality basic education in some form. UNICEF and other partners have therefore invested in designing and implementing alternative programmes that offer quality learning outcomes to this population group. Examples of such alternative forms of inclusive education are summarized below.

23

Country Investments in gender equity, access & completion

Ethiopia

According to the Education Information Management System (EMIS) 2010/11, the gross enrolment ratio of girls at general secondary education is as low as 34.7%. More than 65% of school-aged girls in Ethiopia are not attending school, and only one third of them are able to reach secondary education, compared to 54% for boys. UNICEF has supported gender equity in this subsector. The MOE, with support from UNICEF, has revised and updated the national girls’ education strategy. A multi-sectoral scheme promoting girls’ education also empowered families in the Gambella and Oromiya regions. This scheme involves multi-sectoral and multi-institution collaboration, and resulted in 1,008 girls from Oromiya and Gambella being able to continue secondary education. During the reporting period, 5,596 girls in primary and secondary schools in target woredas (districts) in four regions were supported with selected girls’ education packages and access to a revolving fund for families to engage in income-generating activities so they could send/retain girls in upper primary and lower secondary schools.

Indonesia Technical support was provided to develop a national action plan on school-based management, to which the Government of Indonesia has pledged US$1 million in 2013 for the expansion of education access and quality to vulnerable and excluded boys and girls.

Niger

UNICEF supported inclusive education in the Niger through training for 50 counsellors and 50 teachers in Braille. Another group of 66 primary school teachers received training in inclusive education, while 200 parents of children living with disabilities received training on parenting and participation in school life. This has improved school enrolment of children with disabilities and also provided for better supervision during the school year. Support was also provided for capacity development for government officials and partners through training for 104 school principals and counsellors in the techniques of remedial teaching.

Togo In Togo, UNICEF provided support to pilot models of inclusive education that were designed to integrate children living with disabilities into the mainstream of the education system.

Outline of progress achieved In line with the new GPE Strategic Plan, UNGEI worked with the GPE partners to strengthen collaboration at the global and country levels. UNGEI has also worked with other partners to convene a broad range of GPE stakeholders to provide technical support in the development of the GPE Implementation Plan. At the country level, UNGEI initiated engagement in local-level sectoral planning processes to ensure that National Education Sector Plans take gender issues into consideration from the outset in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nigeria and South Sudan. UNGEI continued to coordinate strategic knowledge exchange and generation at all levels of engagement to highlight what works in girls’ education. This has contributed to a knowledge base on issues relating to adolescents in school, child marriage, gender-based violence, transition to secondary schooling and achievement in education. Key developments during the reporting period include an analytical mapping of gender tools in development/education. In addition, the companion volume to the E4 conferences (Engendering Empowerment: Education

24

and Equality) feature analytical chapters by the Institute of Education (London University), the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNICEF and the World Bank at the global level. At the regional level, in the East Asia and Pacific Region, the analytical paper on the reasons why boys in Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines and Thailand are underperforming in education25 was developed to better understand emergent gender disparities that tend to favour girls. The UNGEI website and social media outreach also witnessed increased traffic in 2012: subscribers to UNGEI’s Facebook page increased by 212 per cent, and subscribers to its Twitter account increased more than 180 per cent; YouTube views for UNGEI also increased substantially, by 155 per cent. In its programming, UNICEF continued to address the various known factors that affect access and completion of quality basic education for girls and boys, as well as improvements in their learning outcomes. This was done with innovative, cross-sectoral programming, such as WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) in Schools, child protection, the CFS model and CFE approach, advocacy for pro-poor policies and gender budgeting. In addition, evidence on what works in programming has been more systematically derived from studies in various countries. This evidence has informed UNICEF’s work in addressing the diverse bottlenecks that affect access, completion and learning outcomes for marginalized girls and boys. As a result of this, a wide range of measures have been used to help countries address disparities and inequities, including: multilingual education for the ethnic/linguistic minorities; alternative learning for out-of-school children and adolescents; accelerated learning programmes for overaged children in school; Quranic/religious schools for religious minorities; and mobile learning centres for children from nomadic population groups. In the Latin America and the Caribbean region, UNICEF gave high priority to advocacy, capacity development and knowledge management strategies on bilingual and contextualized education to help reduce the learning inequalities in countries, particularly among children from indigenous communities. Examples of such measures used by UNICEF as targeted interventions to address some of the known factors that impede access and completion are shown below.

25

Targeted interventions and policy support measures, examples used by UNICEF in 2012

Country Targeted interventions and policy support measures

Benin

Participatory dialogue with community leaders resulted in 1,000 pastoralists and children from Islamic communities either returning to primary school or enrolling in school for the first time. A community-based model of learning centres for adolescents provided alternative learning options for around 1,200 early school leavers.

Ethiopia A total of 81 new Adult Basic Education Centers (ABECs) were established and benefited 14,182 new learners; 93 existing ABECs were converted into formal primary schools through construction of additional classrooms and latrines, benefiting 19,457 children.

Ghana The Complementary Basic Education Model provided alternative learning for a total of 2,250 vulnerable children, including children with disabilities. About 700 completed the programme and transferred into the formal school system.

Iran Support was provided to the Ministry of Education for documenting lessons learned in the Rural Girls’ Education Initiative that the MOE has been implementing.

Pakistan Advocacy was used successfully to facilitate legislation making primary school free and compulsory for all children. Also, the Every Child in School campaign was used to raise awareness and encourage children, especially girls, to enrol in school.

Sudan

Support was provided to the MOE’s campaign in six low-enrolment states, with messages and supplies to encourage girls, nomadic children and out-of-school youths to enrol in school. As a result, 73,000 children were registered in Grade 1 and 39,000 adolescents were also registered in Accelerated Learning Programme centres.

Uganda and South Sudan

Advocacy and ‘go back to school’ campaigns were used to seek out girls and bring them back to school.

26

Targeted interventions in gender equity, access and completion

Country Progress achieved in gender equity, access & completion

Afghanistan

2,677 community-based schools were supported, providing education to 85,969 children (38,641 boys and 47,328 girls); 259 of the schools are newly established, with 6,272 children (3,262 boys and 3,010 girls). After Grade 3, a total of 38,922 children (17,498 boys and 21,424 girls) moved to Grade 4 in formal schools. To provide for the out-of-school children, 607 alternative learning centres were established and benefited 15,505 children (3,929 boys and 11,576 girls). The centres were continuously monitored and supervised by hub schools, so Grade 3 completers can move to formal schools.

Madagascar

With UNICEF support (scholarships and transportation) more than 4,000 girls continued and completed the 2011/12 school year in six districts in the three target regions of Analanjirofo, Atsimo Atsinanana and Sofia. Support continued with the construction of latrines, sports fields and fences (to improve security). Efforts were also made, in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications, to address cultural and other barriers, and to raise awareness of girls’ education.

State of Palestine

UNICEF worked with non-governmental partners (Ma’an, Tamer and NCSC) to support adolescent-friendly services reaching 29,520 adolescents (15,150 female) in 56 centres for adolescents (15 in Gaza, 31 in West Bank and 10 in Jerusalem) with active learning, creative thinking, recreational activities and life-skills-based education.

Togo UNICEF partnered with the Terre des hommes Foundation to help address issues of equity in access to basic education by developing non-formal and vocational education alternatives for adolescents and youths pushed out of mainstream education.

Somalia

UNICEF supported Ministries of Education in Somaliland and Puntland to create Gender Units that manage a girls' scholarship programme, provide training for female teachers, conduct social mobilization for the girls’ education campaign, and construct and rehabilitate ‘Girls Only Schools’ (with separate WASH facilities for girls). These gender equity strategies resulted in 88,799 more girls in school across Somalia (a 12% increase), as well as an increase in female teachers (20% in the Central and Southern Zone, 18% in North East Zone and 16% in North West Zone) from 2011 to 2012. Girls Only Schools, as well as improvement and provision of girl-friendly sanitation facilities in mixed schools, are believed to be key factors for girls’ enrolment and retention in schools. UNICEF has encouraged this type of intervention in a large number of schools across Somalia.

Moving forward Progress in this area requires a better understanding of challenges facing hard-to-reach populations as regards access and completion of education. The Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children has provided UNICEF with evidence on barriers and bottlenecks as findings emerge from initial studies. UNICEF will use this evidence to design quality programmes that can deliver access and completion on an equitable basis. Initial results of case studies illustrate how social norms operate in and through education to reinforce exclusion and disparities and, conversely, how they can positively impact on inclusion and equity.

27

The formative evaluation of partnerships in UNGEI has also provided further guidance on strengthening advocacy for gender in education. UNICEF will likely now need to add technical capacity at the global and regional levels for its gender advocacy role. The additional capacity is required to marshal evidence that will be necessary to mount and sustain advocacy and knowledge brokering on gender as a leveraging variable for addressing equity in education. UNGEI has defined a forward-looking agenda to ensure the partnership remains flexible and adaptable, while playing a strategic role at all levels and giving priority to strengthening country-level processes, improving access to knowledge of current issues related to girls’ education, and focusing on policy advocacy. UNGEI is committed to shifting policy discourse beyond the focus on girls and easily measurable indicators to gender as a variable that reproduced or challenges social inequities. A strengthened UNGEI partnership and organizational capacity will improve policies to accelerate momentum on girls’ education for the 2015 deadline. The main focus will be on policy advocacy, supported by knowledge management and capacity building to articulate a measurable theory of change.

KEY RESULT AREA 3: Support national capacity to improve educational quality and increase school retention, completion, and achievement rates. Main issues, opportunities and challenges The quality of education influences access, retention and completion, as well as learning achievement. Many factors determine quality of education, including availability of qualified teachers, a school environment that is safe and conducive to learning, an ethos that respects the rights of children, the nature of the curriculum and the forms of discipline. Quality is also tied to equity in the sense that good quality schools must cater to all learners in a responsive way to help them achieve their full potential. As the world gets closer to the 2015 deadline, there is some stocktaking about what has really been achieved since the MDGs and EFA goals were set in 2000, as well as looking forward to a post-2015 agenda. There are concerns that the impressive gains achieved in enrolment and completion are not being matched by gains in learning outcomes, which after all are the real benefits and rationale for investing in education.26 As a result of such concerns there is now a greater emphasis on learning outcomes by countries and their development partners. It is important that all children and adolescents are able to access basic education as a matter of their right under all conditions. It is also important that schools and other learning institutions and environments are safe, secure, healthy and conducive to learning in every way possible. But most of all, it is imperative that children and adolescents should be able to learn what is relevant and valuable in order to help them prepare for an increasingly complex and rapidly changing twenty-first century world. The CFS models and the life-skills education (LSE) programmes have provided UNICEF with a strong opportunity to support education quality with equity in schools and communities over the years. After 12 years of consistent use, these models and programmes have gained maturity. UNICEF has therefore been able to build on their key elements to provide countries with a more

28

systemic and comprehensive approach to child-friendly education that aims to transform quality and enhance learning achievement across whole education systems. Despite these developments there are important challenges to overcome in efforts to support quality and equity in basic education. For instance, the issue of violence against children by adults or other young people is recognized as a violation of children’s rights. Violence against children in and around schools often results in a negative experience of school. It affects the retention, completion and learning achievement of children and therefore serves as a barrier to quality and learning in basic education. In the process of dealing with violence against children, corporal punishment in schools has been identified as one of the more pervasive forms of violence against children, particularly in the Caribbean countries and in sub-Saharan Africa. Overview of investment patterns UNICEF has consistently facilitated gains in education quality and learning outcomes through the use of LSE programmes. These investments have helped with the development of relevant sociocultural curriculum content as well as promoting empowerment through a rights-based approach to learning. Key elements of LSE programmes, such as HIV/AIDS awareness/prevention, climate change and environmental education, have been supported by UNICEF in a wide range of countries. This type of support has made LSE programming attractive and beneficial to many countries as they seek to achieve quality with equity in education. The global evaluation of LSE has indicated that there is a recognized overlap between the aims of life-skills education and child-friendly schools relating to the rights of children in basic education. As UNICEF has developed a portfolio of material support to both CFS and LSE, there has invariably been some merging of key elements in the process of helping countries to deliver and sustain quality basic education within an empowering, child-friendly education system. This is helpful in the efforts to design a new CFE approach. More significantly, the 2012 Global Evaluation of Life Skills Education Programmes confirms the gains that are being achieved and the comparative advantage that UNICEF has brought to this area of work for enhanced education quality. Some of the key findings in the evaluation report are that UNICEF has demonstrated:

• A comparative advantage in its ability to provide quality technical support to curriculum design and training (often from in-house staff);

• The capacity to engage in policy dialogue and advocate for LSE with governments and other partners;

• The capacity to lead partnerships (including those with other development agencies and United Nations partners, such as the United Nations Population Fund) in negotiations with national governments and concerned agencies;

• The ability to provide technical inputs of a high standard, with exemplary material and support in the first instance, which contributes to engagement;

• The ability to respond flexibly (measured risk-taking) in the ways that it can disburse funds, as compared with government and other development partners.

National partners appreciate such flexibility because it allows them to respond to changing contexts and needs.

29

Strategy/country Investments in quality, retention & learning achievement

CFS design (quality standards)

UNICEF supported improved national school designs standards for the Sudan in preparation for use of GPE funds. In Kosovo and Nicaragua, improvements were supported as part of national education reform strategy. The improvements covered mainly structural issues, accessibility, and water and sanitation.

Capacity building for quality and learning achievement

Many countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa region organized capacity-building workshops for college tutors, teachers from pre-service and in-service education and community schools on key issues such as increased knowledge on child-centred methodology, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and on science, technology and mathematics.

Monitoring standards in quality and learning achievement

CFS monitoring tools are being used to monitor school design standards, school health and violence against children in schools, as well as learning outcomes in reading and life-skills education.

Bangladesh

A diploma in primary education teacher training course was developed to improve the quality of education. UNICEF, with the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, provided assistance to the National Academy for Primary Education for the design and piloting of this course, which will be offered to 10,000 teachers per year. Among government primary teachers in Bangladesh, 60% are female and through this course can be empowered as role models for girls.

Bhutan

20% of schools in Bhutan have included environmental and human values in the curriculum and have integrated games, sports, art and literary activities to broaden learning. Schools have also adopted child rights and positive discipline approaches into their principles and practices; they also teach media literacy and critical thinking, and practise holistic assessment to assess learning.

Central African Republic

UNICEF supported training for 1,500 members of parent-teacher associations to improve learning outcomes for children. This was part of the second phase of the GPE funding period. UNICEF also supported improvements in learning outcomes in the Central African Republic, which was ranked last in the 2006 regional PASEC: Analysis Programme of the CONFEMEN Education Systems tests in French, reading and mathematics. To monitor progress with this, UNICEF is supporting the MOE to organize the PASEC test for the academic year 2012/13. It has also helped with development and validation of the national CFS standards document and will support training on use of the standards during 2013.

Outline of progress achieved In 2012, 80 out of 156 countries reported that they have developed quality standards based on CFS or similar approaches; 48 countries also reported partial development of these quality standards. In addition, 84 out of 156 countries reported having environmental education or climate change adaptation plans integrated into the national school curricula at the primary level (44 partially). Similarly, 100 out of 156 countries reported having a national policy against corporal punishment. Countries throughout Eastern and Southern Africa are giving priority to child-friendly schools as pathways to quality education and learning outcomes, including key

30

issues such as climate change adaption and disaster risk reduction. These gains are the culmination of advocacy, persistent efforts, reliable investments and targeted programmes. Cross-sector programming One of the main advantages that UNICEF deploys in its work is the use of its expertise and capacity across several sectors to develop and implement appropriate interventions. This is most evident when it comes to programming for protection, girls’ education and gender equity. Many of the barriers affecting school access, quality and completion for girls have to do with issues of health and safety as well as lack of WASH support in schools. There has therefore been a high degree of collaboration between education and WASH in cross-sector programming for gender equity in basic education. Some WASH contributions to this type of programming are summarized below. Cross-sector examples: WASH in Schools (WinS) components in Basic Education and Gender Equality cross-sector programming

Component Main elements of the component

Advocacy for WinS target to be set for post-MDG WASH

A joint call to action for advancing health, learning and equity through WASH in Schools (WinS) was launched, with the endorsement of 70 international organizations. The recommendation is to advocate for a clear WinS goal that will be monitored as part of the post-2015 agenda. The agreed goal is “WASH in all schools and health institutions by 2030”(as recommended by the UNICEF/World Health Organization joint monitoring programme).

Promoting menstrual hygiene management through WinS

In partnership with Emory University and Columbia University, a programme of support for menstrual hygiene management through WinS has been developed. It involves research in Bolivia, the Philippines, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. There has also been a virtual conference involving 300 participants from 14 UNICEF country offices.

Scaling up programming for WinS

The Fit for School approach to WASH in Schools has been adopted in partnership with the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) for countries to adopt as part of their WinS programme. It involves the analysis of bottlenecks and the scaling up of low-cost high-impact programmes in schools. Technical support is being provided by UNICEF and GTZ, and training has been provided for an initial set of 10 countries.

Capacity building through courses at local institutions

UNICEF and Emory have collaborated to develop a distance-learning course for capacity building on WinS. The course involves 13 web-based sessions and the development of case studies. It is being adapted in Bolivia, Haiti and India, with technical guidance provided by UNICEF and Emory, and there are plans to advocate for local universities in developing countries to adapt the course.

Building the community of practice

Work with a wide range of partners has resulted in an active network and a global community of practice. This is being facilitated through a series of publications, including ‘Raising Clean Hands’, ‘Soap Stories and Toilet Tales’ and ‘Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Schoolchildren in Emergencies: A guidebook for teachers’. These publications are being translated and adapted locally in the Central African Republic, China, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan and Yemen.

31

Cross-sector examples: Targeted interventions on violence against children

Country Summary of targeted programmes

Albania

Support was provided for a communication for behavioural impact initiative to help reduce violence by adults towards children. This was done by increasing the practice of ‘new way discipline’ in schools, kindergartens and residential care institutions. By focusing on caregivers and teachers as the main defined ‘target’ to be reached, the initiative has put the issue of violence against children on the national agenda in Albania.

Central African Republic

To promote use of protection standards in schools, education and child protection projects are being implemented in post-conflict areas in the north of the country. These projects are based on evaluations showing that violence against children remains a problem. UNICEF has also conducted training for school directors’ associations on violence in schools, resulting in the adoption of a non-violence charter to make schools safer for children. The charter has been distributed to all schools in the Central African Republic.

Mali Twelve local workshops on gender-based abuse and violence in schools were conducted. These led to the design and implementation of action plans to prevent and fight against this phenomenon, which results in dropout from school for some girls.

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Support was provided for development of the National Action Plan and National Protocol on Reduction of School Violence (adopted by the Government in October 2012) and the programme for implementation of inter-ethnic integration in education. Teachers and students in all secondary schools have received training on how to reduce violence.

Togo A training module for teachers in non-discriminatory teaching methods was revised and updated in 2012 to integrate child rights and strategies to prevent school violence.

Based on sustained success with these types of targeted interventions, UNICEF has intensified its upstream work by supporting more comprehensive and system-wide approaches to quality that involve key elements from such models as CFS, LSE and others. Progress has been achieved, particularly in cases where UNICEF has had the opportunity to influence national plans for the education sector. In Ghana, for instance, UNICEF used its role as sector lead and coordinating agency for GPE to assist the MOE with preparation of the Annual Education Sector Operational Plan (AESOP) for 2012–2014, based on its Education Strategic Plan 2010–2020. The AESOP, which has a focus on equity and quality in education, formed the basis of Ghana’s GPE funding application. UNICEF provided support for the GPE application (US$75.5 million), which was approved by the GPE Board. Similarly, UNICEF supported the development of Yemen’s education sector plan, which was used to apply for GPE funding. Moreover, an increasing number of countries in Eastern and Southern Africa received support from UNICEF as they prepared their education sector plans to apply for funding from the GPE. To improve the level of qualifications and enhance the competencies of teachers in the Central African Republic, UNICEF supported the development of a national plan for parent-teacher training. It has also succeeded in having it included in the activities to be funded by the Global Partnership for Education (2013–2015). In a similar way, UNICEF advocated successfully for a national school health policy and planning to be included in Rwanda’s education sector plan,

32

and helped to get gender and equity strategies developed in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda to better address barriers to girls’ education on a system-wide scale. Further examples of progress with interventions on quality are summarized below. Support for regular quality improvement processes still matters

Country Progress with curriculum, teacher development and school management

Algeria UNICEF worked with the Government and other partners to help strengthen the process of monitoring education quality in Algeria.

Gambia The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, with support from UNICEF, drafted a national policy framework on teacher in-service training, together with consultants from the University of The Gambia. The policy has been finalized for dissemination to all the education sector stakeholders.

Morocco UNICEF provided support for a curriculum review process in Morocco.

Nigeria

Support was provided for states to establish school-based management committees and empower them by promoting community ownership of schools and participation in planning and managing school development. To sustain momentum in this area, UNICEF helped with development and use of CFS benchmarks in defining acceptable educational services. This has become the rule in most of the local government authorities of these states.

Uzbekistan Persistent advocacy and programming efforts by UNICEF resulted in the introduction of child-centred teaching methods into the curricula of all 15 teacher training institutions.

The increasing involvement of UNICEF in all these areas of the education sector has provided it with opportunities to advocate for, and support the inclusion of, CFE elements in national sector plans. The evidence shows that UNICEF has made constructive use of such opportunities in many countries during 2012. Moving forward As part of the seamless transition from child-friendly schools and life-skills education to child-friendly education, UNICEF will continue to provide support for regular quality-improvement processes in national education sector plans. It is these targeted interventions that enable UNICEF to continue with its support for addressing problems at the school and community levels, while also maintaining the trust of governments and other agencies as a partner that can deliver pragmatic results. Targeted support provided includes support for curriculum design, teacher development and school management, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of programmes. Also, as equity and learning outcomes become key priorities in the MDG/EFA agenda, the global community has been giving renewed attention to strategies for improving the curriculum and teacher development. These areas are pivotal for helping countries to develop the type of quality basic education that can deliver on learning achievement for all children. UNICEF has also made important contributions in these areas.

33

KEY RESULT AREA 4: Restore education after emergencies and post-crisis situations. Main issues, opportunities and challenges An increasing number of countries are susceptible to violent civil conflict within and beyond national borders. An estimated 40 per cent of all out-of-school children live in countries that are affected by armed conflict. Similarly, many countries are becoming increasingly more vulnerable to natural disasters. In 2012, 310 natural disasters were recorded in EM-DAT, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters’ database on emergency events. These disasters claimed 9,930 lives, affected more than 106 million others and caused economic damage of US$138 billion, according to 2013 EM-DAT data. Furthermore, from 2005–2009, more than 50 per cent of people affected by ‘natural’ disasters lived in fragile and conflict-affected states.27

Conflicts and natural disasters often cause extensive damage and can disrupt schooling and learning for a considerable period of time, from weeks to years, thus compromising entire cycles of learning. Countries affected by emergencies are given priority attention by UNICEF and partners. UNICEF has an established track record of responding to emergencies and assisting with recovery and reconstruction of education systems. However, ensuring children’s right to education in these difficult circumstances is becoming increasingly challenging. Education continues to be highly prioritized by affected populations but receives only 2 per cent of humanitarian funding. Insufficient investment in education in emergencies endangers the hard-won long-term gains in attaining Education for All. Hard-won education gains can be reversed by conflicts and other emergencies

In the Syrian Arab Republic, the programming environment is now subject to social, political and economic volatility – creating major security challenges – and the education system is said to be unravelling after almost two years of armed conflict. An assessment conducted by UNICEF in December 2012 indicated that the conflict is depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their education. “The education system in Syria is reeling from the impact of violence. Syria once prided itself on the quality of its schools. Now it’s seeing the gains it made over the years rapidly reversed.”

– Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, UNICEF Syria Representative28 School enrolment gains in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been in jeopardy since April 2012 due to renewed armed conflict in the east of the country, culminating in Goma being occupied by M23 rebels in November 2012. Numbers of internally displaced persons increased to 2.2 million, with an additional 70,000 people crossing into Rwanda and Uganda as refugees, while about 15,000 former refugees returned home to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (mainly Equateur Province).29 Schools were destroyed by rebel groups or occupied by displaced persons. UNICEF and other partners invested in provision of teaching and learning supplies and peace education training for teachers to address the needs of internally displaced persons, refugees and asylum seekers.

34

Overview of investment patterns Conflicts in the Syrian Arab Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are also impacting the two countries’ respective subregions by generating major refugee crises in vulnerable neighbouring countries and potential additional conflicts over competition for resources (e.g., overcrowded classrooms). This has made it necessary for UNICEF and other partners to provide support for refugee children’s education in neighbouring countries. In Turkey, for instance, tents were procured to create child-friendly spaces as part of the emergency response for Syrian refugees. In addition, supplies of Recreational Kits in a box and Early Childhood Development kits in a box were procured for Syrian children in the refugee camps. The same procurements were made for the Syrian refugee population in Jordan, including 5,280 School-in-a-Box kits and winterized clothing for Syrian children in refugee camps. Similarly, UNICEF provided support for education for refugee children from Côte d’Ivoire, as well as for host community children in the areas of Liberia bordering Côte d’Ivoire. Even for relatively brief emergencies involving very limited violence and displacement, a post-crisis situation can be challenging. In Egypt after the ‘revolution’, for instance, there is much uncertainty among MOE staff about the new Government’s vision for education reform. This is now threatening to slow down the ongoing education reform processes that UNICEF has been supporting over time. Outline of progress achieved In 2012, UNICEF continued to work globally to facilitate the development and application of technical standards and tools, while supporting services at the field level, to enable 3.6 million school-aged children, including adolescents, to access formal and non-formal basic education in humanitarian, recovery and fragile situations. Despite challenges, UNICEF and partners have become better organized and coordinated to support countries in emergencies and through the difficult post-crisis transition period. UNICEF, with Save the Children, has continued to co-lead the Education Cluster, with more than 30 active clusters in 2012. Recently, the emphasis of partners has shifted from simply responding to emergencies, to working with governments and other partners to prevent emergencies or be better prepared to mitigate their impact. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and conflict risk reduction and prevention have become key areas of work for UNICEF and partners. In Viet Nam, for example, UNICEF supported the Ministry of Education’s leadership on disaster risk management in education. This involved coordinated implementation of action plans on natural disasters and climate change, as well as training in disaster risk management for both central ministry and provincial-level staff. UNICEF was also instrumental in ensuring that the draft law on disaster risk management addresses education adequately. UNICEF provided technical support and coordinated the inputs from various partners. In Sri Lanka, UNICEF supported the MOE to include a comprehensive education in emergencies component in the new five-year education sector plan. In 2012, UNICEF provided technical assistance to both Libya and Jordan. In Libya, UNICEF advocated with the MOE for CFS standards as part of a future revision of national school design standards with a focus on equity, accessibility and gender-sensitive design solutions. In Jordan, UNICEF provided direct technical support at Za’atari camp to design and build transitional

35

learning spaces for Syrian refugee children. UNICEF also brokered a donation of US$300,000 for prefabricated schools to support activities at this camp. Moving forward In 2012, UNICEF strengthened its role in education in emergencies and in post-crisis transition situations, by enhancing the expertise and experience of staff in conflict analysis, cross-sectoral implementation, emergency preparedness response and strategic transitions to longer-term development. UNICEF will continue to support the development of a robust GPE process –particularly in the context of fragile states and contexts of emergency; the Global Education First Initiative; and participation in the multi-agency INEE Advocacy Working Group ‘Education Cannot Wait’ to build on the momentum of the high-level United Nations General Assembly side event in September 2012. In addition, the Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme, designed as a partnership between UNICEF and the Government of the Netherlands, continues to provide robust analysis of ‘conflict drivers’ to inform the rebuilding of post-conflict education systems in 13 target countries. Because there is no blueprint for social cohesion or for achieving peace through education, experimentation, adequate time, monitoring and documentation across contexts will be crucial to move the work forward. Most notably, Nepal hosted an international conference on Schools as Zones of Peace, featuring new alliances with the Norwegian Government and programming countries, and a partnership with Save the Children. UNICEF has also continued to leverage its position to advocate for the integration of emergency preparedness, as well as disaster risk reduction and conflict risk reduction, in education sector policies and plans. In 2012, 18 countries in Latin America were supported by UNICEF to carry out DRR education and training, with results achieved in policy engagement and capacity building.

Future workplan Equity in education In line with the priority of equity in its work, UNICEF will focus more on evidence of factors that impede equitable access to education services and completion of basic education, as well as equity in the experience of schooling and learning outcomes for different population groups in society. This will entail greater use of evaluation studies and research sources to provide the evidence base for advocacy and programming in support of the most disadvantaged groups in different countries. It will also require effective monitoring and tracking of the impact of interventions in order to promote timely use of feedback data to adjust support programmes relating to equity. The plan is to use MoRES to help sharpen UNICEF’s theory of change and ensure evidence through a continuous annual feedback loop to support corrective measures and other changes in strategies and interventions. This also means more intensive use of the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children tool, as well as increased support to countries for improvements in data collection and processing as part of their own EMIS. To help with further progress in achieving the MDGs and EFA goals, UNICEF will work closely with countries and partner agencies to help close equity gaps and support a human-rights-based approach to education for the most disadvantaged population groups. This will be a key part of UNICEF’s future work plan and will

36

be at the core of its continuing support to countries in their efforts to achieve the current goals as well as future goals that will be agreed for education and gender in the post-2015 agenda. Girls’ education Going forward, UNICEF’s mandate on girls’ education and gender equality will remain a core element of the education programme, with a refocused emphasis on how gender is implicated in other disparities relating to poverty, ethnicity and disability, among other issues. In particular, the education programme will focus on creating safe and supportive learning environments and addressing crucial issues, including gender-based violence in schools, transition to secondary education, and ensuring multiple pathways for learning for adolescents who missed the opportunity to continue in school. In addition, UNICEF will systematically work with health and nutrition programmes as part of the larger A Promise Renewed initiative on child survival to ensure that girls’ education and greater participation of women and girls in decision making for development is central to the health agenda at the global and country levels. UNGEI, with its renewed mandate up to 2015, will contribute to and complement the UNICEF programme to enhance the impact of efforts. It is looking at increased engagement in international policy dialogue on gender equality, bolstered by enhanced knowledge management and capacity development of partners in key areas, especially relating to better planning and monitoring of gender outcomes in education. UNGEI will also work closely with GPE at the global and country levels to support development of gender-responsive sector plans and build adequate local capacity to implement and monitor the plans. Learning outcomes To realize the benefits of investments in education, it is essential that all children should achieve the expected learning outcomes from being in school. It is learning achievement rather than enrolment or completion rates that deliver on the expected benefits of education. UNICEF will therefore intensify its focus on this important area of work in the future, with an emphasis on helping countries to improve on the teaching/learning process, assess performance in learning and making comparisons across regions through appropriate international standards. In effect, UNICEF will put learning at the heart of its work in all countries and contexts, and support the improvement of Basic Education and Gender Equality. Particular attention will be given to gains in learning achievement by the most marginalized and disadvantaged population groups, including those affected by emergencies. Innovations In developing new approaches and partnerships capable of transforming education opportunities for children, UNICEF will seek to broker partnerships that bring together country demand and ideas, social entrepreneurs and private capital. The focus will be on catalysing solutions and partnerships for specific problems, such as very low levels of learning, education in hard-to-reach areas and the effectiveness of core systems, and UNICEF will be seeking innovative solutions – including but not only technology – to solve these and other issues. An important component of this work will be to ensure systematic testing of innovations, with a view towards supporting countries to scale up those innovations with strong results. The challenges facing countries as they strive to achieve their goals for Basic Education and Gender Equality are complex and intense. They often require bold and unconventional action to

37

make a difference. In addition, there are emerging realities such as climate change and food insecurity that increasingly threaten survival and development. UNICEF will continue to develop innovative programming and help countries with the strategic solutions that are required in difficult and challenging circumstances. It will also strengthen its programming on climate change, financial literacy and talent academies to support development of more robust education systems that can help young women and men to address the deep challenges in their societies. Teachers UNICEF will continue to make important contributions to addressing the problems of numbers and quality of teachers, as well as the cost and sustainability implications of expanded teaching forces in developing countries. UNICEF will also work with partners to support the use of the most appropriate technologies for efficient initial education and continuous training for teachers (e.g., through distance learning and use of open source learning materials), including in DRR, conflict risk reduction, school safety and emergency preparedness. Continued work in early learning/school readiness As successful efforts with a wide range of ECD and early learning models in different country contexts continue, UNICEF will sharpen its focus towards advocacy in countries to develop and enact policies on universal school readiness which provide investments that support a combination of public and private provision of contextually appropriate early learning and school readiness programmes. These will encompass all organized early learning centres, which could range from institutional preschools to community-based early learning centres, mobile centres, the child-to-child approach and interactive radio instructions – which can all prioritize reaching the most marginalized children. The upstream work will also include further development of ELDS, which set standards for what children should know and be able to do at certain ages, and will provide the foundation for quality early learning benchmarks for school readiness programmes. The challenges in this area are mainly in the translation of national policies on universal school readiness into action, for example, the allocation of appropriate national budgets and the provision of services as deemed necessary. Another major hurdle is in the area of early learning is competing with other priorities in the education sector, or the prioritization of primary schooling over early learning. Through continued advocacy – as countries understand the importance of these opportunities for children, and that they result in increased on-time entry into school, decreased school dropouts and increased performance in school – there will be added investment for these services, resulting in more children coming into school at the right time and more prepared to learn. Risk-informed policies and plans Investing in education can be a high-risk and costly business for countries affected by or recovering from civil conflict, natural disasters or bad governance. In these situations, there is usually a palpable lack of transparency and accountability, as well as weak technical, managerial and absorptive capacity to effectively utilize funds for education or anything else. Yet, if building back better is to take hold, these are also the countries that are most in need of major long-term investments in education and across other key sectors. UNICEF will strengthen its operational strategies in these countries by making full use of its capacity for cross-sectoral programming, its flexibility in deploying resources and its risk-management capabilities, as well

38

as its strong country presence and ability to use its comparative advantage (modelling what works for scale-up) at all levels. Partnerships for progress UNICEF will continue to lead and/or support a range of strategic partnerships that are crucial for progress on the goals of Basic Education and Gender Equality. In the interest of effectiveness and efficiency, however, UNICEF will also rationalize the range and number of partnerships with which it is involved.

Financial implementation In 2012, UNICEF’s expenditure in Focus Area 2: Basic Education and Gender Equality was US$604.5 million, representing 20.6 per cent of the organization’s total programme expenditures. This reflects a decrease in expenditure compared with the US$711.7 million spent on Focus Area 2 in 2011. However, expenditure on Basic Education and Gender Equality held steady as a percentage of total programme expenditure, at 20.6 per cent in 2012 as compared with 20.5 per cent in 2011.

Table 4: Total expenditure by MTSP focus area, 2012 (all funding sources)

MTSP focus area Total expenditure (in US$ millions)

% of total MTSP expenditures

Young Child Survival and Development 1,565.8 53.4

Basic Education and Gender Equality 604.5 20.6

HIV/AIDS and Children 102.5 3.5

Child Protection: Preventing and Responding to Violence, Exploitation and Abuse 331.1 11.3

Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children's Rights 263.6 9.0

Other 65.7 2.2

Total 2,933.2 100.0

39

Figure 4. Total expenditure by MTSP focus area, 2012 (in US$ millions)

Table 5. Expenditure by region and funding source for Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2012

Region Regular resources

Other resources (regular)

Other resources (emergency)

Total expenditure

Total expenditure (%)

(in US$ millions)

Eastern and Southern Africa (ESAR) 35.9 121.4 25.3 182.6 30.2

West and Central Africa (WCAR) 38.7 68.0 9.0 115.7 19.1

South Asia (ROSA) 23.7 52.1 26.5 102.3 16.9

East Asia and the Pacific (EAPR) 11.6 44.8 2.9 59.4 9.8

Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 6.0 26.0 13.8 45.9 7.6

Latin America and the Caribbean (TACR) 3.9 29.6 10.0 43.6 7.2

UNICEF headquarters (HQ) 1.7 26.7 0.2 28.5 4.7

Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS)

3.8 21.1 1.5 26.5 4.4

All regions 125.5 389.7 89.3 604.5 100.0

Young Child Survival and Development $1,565.8 53.4%

Basic Education and Gender Equality $604.5 20.6%

HIV/AIDS and Children

$102.5 3.5%

Child Protection: Preventing and Responding to

Violence, Exploitation and Abuse

$331.1 11.3%

Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children's Rights $263.6 9%

Other $65.7 2.2%

Total Expenditure: $2,933

40

Figure 5. Expenditure by region and funding source for Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2012

The largest expenditure in Basic Education and Gender Equality in 2012 was in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region, which accounted for 30.2 per cent of total expenditure for this focus area. The next largest expenditure was in the Western and Central Africa region, at 19.1 per cent of total expenditure in Focus Area 2. Taken together, expenditures for these two regions accounted for 49.3 per cent of total expenditure in Basic Education and Gender Equality for 2012. This pattern is similar to expenditures for 2011, during which these two regions accounted for 52 per cent of total expenditure in Focus Area 2.

Table 6. Expenditure by key result area (KRA) for Basic Education and Gender Equality, 2012

Key result area Expenditure (in US$ millions)

% of focus area expenditures

KRA 1 – Support national capacity increase children’s access to quality early childhood care and education in order to improve children's developmental readiness and to ensure that children start primary school on time, especially for marginalised children

55.0 9.1

KRA 2 – Support national capacity to reduce gender and other disparities in relations to increased access and completion of quality basis education (including transition from pre-primary and primary to post-primary)

133.0 22.0

KRA 3 – Support national capacity to improve educational quality and increase school retention, completion and achievement rates

321.5 53.2

KRA 4 – Restore education after emergencies and in post-crisis situations following sudden onset humanitarian crisis and/or during protracted crisis

73.3 12.1

Cross-cutting30 21.7 3.6

Total 604.5 100.0

0,0

50,0

100,0

150,0

200,0

Expe

nditu

re (U

S$ m

illio

ns)

Regular resources

Other resources - regular

Other resources - emergency

41

Expression of thanks UNICEF sincerely appreciates the support of all donors who have contributed to the work on Basic Education and Gender Equality through this flexible thematic funding window. This has made possible a wide range of technical, operational and programming support to countries in all regions. The support that UNICEF has been able to provide with thematic funding is both in terms of upstream work for countries to improve their education systems and the more targeted and strategic interventions that help to deliver quality services to marginalized children and communities. Thematic funding reflects faith in the track record and capacity of UNICEF to deliver quality support under all circumstances. Special thanks go to the Government of Norway for its consistent, reliable and generous contributions to Basic Education and Gender Equality over the years.

42

ACRONYMS

ABEC Adult Basic Education Centers (Ethiopia) AESOP Annual Education Sector Operational Plan CFE Child-friendly education CFS Child-friendly schools DRR Disaster risk reduction ECD Early childhood development EFA Education for All ELDS Early Learning Development Standards EMIS Education Management Information System GPE Global Partnership for Education GTZ German Agency for Technical Cooperation INEE Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies KRA Key result area LSE Life-skills education MOE Ministry of Education MoRES Monitoring of Results for Equity Systems MTSP Medium-term strategic plan UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNGEI United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative WASH Water, sanitation and hygiene WinS WASH in Schools

43

ENDNOTES

1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting

education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012. 2 Beatty, Amanda, and Lant Pritchett, ‘From Schooling Goals to Learning Goals: How fast can student learning improve?’, CGD

Policy Paper, no. 012, Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C., September 2012. 3 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting

education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012. 4 World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Global Monitoring Report 2011: Improving the odds of achieving the MDGs –

Heterogeneity, gaps, and challenges, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2011.

5 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012.

6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Beatty, Amanda, and Lant Pritchett, ‘From Schooling Goals to Learning Goals: How fast can student learning improve?’, CGD

Policy Paper, no. 012, Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C., September 2012. 9 Wright, Cream, ‘Transformative Models of Practice and Professional Development of Teachers’, in A Common Wealth of

Learning: Millennium Development Goals revisited, edited by John MacBeath and Mike Younger, Routledge, London, 2013. 10 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting

education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012. 11 This shift in the interpretation of MDG 3 as influenced programming in UNICEF and is reflected in the current medium-term

strategic plan for Basic Education and Gender Equality. 12 Rural children have the greatest access in Jamaica, St. Lucia and the State of Palestine. 13 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting

education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012. 14 UNICEF Evaluation Office, ‘Global Evaluation of Life Skills Education Programmes’, United Nations Children’s Fund, New York,

April 2012. 15 UNICEF Moldova, ‘Child-Friendly Schools: External evaluation report of the “child-friendly school” initiative (2007–2011)’,

Republic of Moldova, 2012. 16 ‘State of Palestine’ was designated for use in all official United Nations documents as of 19 December 2012. It reflects General

Assembly resolution 67/19. 17 CfBT Education Trust, Impact Research International and Paul Musker and Associates, ‘Process and Impact Evaluation of the

Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) in Zimbabwe’, Ministry of Labour and Social Services, Government of Zimbabwe, March 2012.

18 Hass, Anna, ‘Evaluation of UNICEF’s Role as Lead Partner in the Education Sector in Sierra Leone’, UNICEF Sierra Leone, Freetown, July 2012.

19 UNICEF Liberia, ‘Evaluation of the Accelerated Learning Programme in Liberia’, Ministry of Education, Government of Liberia, 2012.

20 United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, ‘Formative Evaluation of Country, Regional and Global Partnerships of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, United Nations Children’s Fund, New York, April 2012.

21 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012.

22 Ibid. 23 Shore, Rima, Rethinking the Brain: New insights into early development, revised ed., Families and Work Institute, New York,

2003. Early childhood is an opportune window for human development because the creation of new brain cell connections (synaptogenesis) is most rapid during this period, after which it peaks and then plateaus before beginning to decline slowly over an individual’s lifetime. It is also the time when many disabilities can be prevented or minimized through proper nutrition and health-care services.

24 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2012: Youth and skills – Putting education to work, UNESCO, Paris, 2012.

25 United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, ‘Why Are Boys Under-Performing in Education? Gender analysis of four Asia-Pacific countries’, UNGEI, 2012.

26 Beatty, Amanda, and Lant Pritchett, ‘From Schooling Goals to Learning Goals: How fast can student learning improve?’, CGD Policy Paper, no. 012, Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C., September 2012.

27 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED); "Disaster Data: A Balanced Perspective"; Credcrunch Newsletter Issue No. 31, CRED, March 2013.

28 United Nations Children’s Fund, ‘Syria Conflict Depriving Hundreds of Thousands of Children of Their Education’, UNICEF, Amman/Damascus, 5 March 2013.

29 United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2013 UNHCR Country Operations Profile: Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNHCR, New York, 2013, available at <www.unhcr.org/ga13/index.xml>.

30 The cross-cutting category includes cost recovery and other cross-cutting expenditures.

United Nations Children’s Fund3 United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017, USAwww.unicef.org

© United Nations Children’s FundMay 2013

United Nations Children’s Fund3 United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017, USAwww.unicef.org

© United Nations Children’s FundMay 2013