Education Global Initiative Moving ahead on education...Moving ahead on education A focused strategy...

Education Global Initiative

Moving aheadon education

A focused strategy for achievingour education goals 2012-2015

OPENING MESSAGE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2. THE GLOBAL EDUCATION CHALLENGE

3. THE ROLE OF THE EDUCATION GLOBAL INITIATIVE

4. EDUCATION GLOBAL INITIATIVE – STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

Strategic objective 1: Basic education

Strategic objective 2: Education in emergencies.

Strategic objective 3: Early childhood care and development

Strategic objective 4: Education for youth empowerment

Strategic objective 5: Driving global and national policy change.

5. EDUCATION BREAKTHROUGHS

6. MEASURING OUR IMPACT

7. FUNDRAISING

8. RISKS

9. ANNEXES

Contents

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Cover and contents page:Delhi – Street to SchoolCredit: Lucia Zoro/Save the Children

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OPENING MESSAGE

Save the Children is the leading independent organisation working to improve

the lives of children living in poverty throughout the world. In 2010, Save the

Children members raised more than US$1.4 billion to support programmes that

reached 100 million children in more than 100 countries worldwide. These funds

were used to: provide basic education and healthcare; protect children affected

by conflict or natural disasters; and advocate for the rights of children.

This paper sets out Save the Children’s education strategy from 2012-2015.The overall goal of our education policy, advocacy and country programmesis to ensure that all children and young people enjoy their right to a goodquality education.

The strategy provides a broad framework for our education work over thenext three years. We know we cannot do everything. The strategy explains ourpriorities and how we will measure our success. The strategy will guide oureducation programme across all members and country programmes but we donot expect every country to do everything in the strategy. We propose twobreakthrough areas where we will advocate for change to make a lasting globalimpact for children. We know that we cannot achieve these changes for childrenon our own. Partnerships with local organisations, national governments andinternational organisations are a fundamental part of our strategy to achievea better education for all.

In 2009, all Save the Children members set out an ambitious strategy to cometogether as one global organisation. We have agreed a shared vision, mission andvalues and Theory of Change. Each member will continue to direct and supportits own programmes but we all have an agreed set of objectives to deliver betterresults for children. The member-led global initiatives on education, childprotection, child rights governance and HIV/AIDS provide an important frameworkto strengthen our collaboration and promote innovation in key thematic areas.This strategy takes this process one step further by setting out how we will moveahead on education and deliver a key part of Save the Children’s global strategy.

I am very grateful for the extensive collaboration and the active participation ofSave the Children members, country and regional offices in the preparation ofthis strategy. The success of the Education Global Initiative will only be achievedby the joint efforts of all stakeholders working together for our ultimatebeneficiaries: the children of today and tomorrow.

I look forward to working with you all on this exciting and important venture.

Tove R Wang

CEO Save the Children Norway and Chair of the Education Global Initiative

A FOCUSED STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING OUR EDUCATION GOALS 2012–2015

5Credit: Jane Hahn


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Students attend a lesson given by one of their fellowstudents – a peer educator. Young people often find iteasier to ask their peers about sensitive subjects ratherthan teachers who they can find less approachable.

Credit: Kullwadee Sumnalop/Save the Children


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The story so far

Save the Children – in partnership with many others – has achieved a huge amount through

our education policy, advocacy and country programmes in over 100 countries worldwide.

Through our global campaign – Rewrite the Future – we provided access to primary school for

an additional 1.6 million children in conflict-affected fragile states (CAFS) and helped to put

education in emergencies firmly on the global humanitarian agenda.

We have a clear vision of what success looks like: Every child receives a good quality education andlearns the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in the 21st century. This is the right of everychild, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, social class, and income or whether they live in conflict zonesor fragile states.

Sadly, we are still a long way from achieving this vision. Twenty-seven million children in CAFS are deniedtheir right to go to primary school. Around the world, hundreds of millions of children enrol in school butare excluded from learning as a result of poverty, discrimination, disability, linguistic disadvantage or beingtoo hungry to learn. These children leave school before they acquire basic skills and knowledge. We mustfind ways of reaching these children and ensuring that they receive a good quality education and acquirethe basic skills and knowledge they will need to thrive in modern societies. We know that investing in earlychildhood education brings high returns later in life, yet in most developing countries, early childhood careand development is available only to the lucky few. We also know that healthy children learn better andthat schools are important in educating children and parents about health and nutrition. And we must findways to increase opportunities after primary school, so that young people can continue their education andbe empowered to become active citizens.

1. Executive Summary

Our Vision: Every child receives a goodquality education and learns the skillsand knowledge they need to thrive inthe 21st century.

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• Strengthened the focus on quality in our basic education programmes;

• Expanded our work on literacy;

• Developed a major new proposal on youth education and training which will allow us to invest and test our innovations in this important area.


Save the Children’s approach

In 2010, Save the Children provided more than US$300 million in support of education programmesworldwide and reached more than 22 million children through the combined efforts of our memberorganisations. This is an important contribution but it is modest when compared to the estimatedUS$16 billion global financing needed to achieve the goals of Education for All. We therefore need toadvocate for increased resources for education at the global, regional and national levels.

We will continue to work to increase access to school for the millions of marginalised children whoare still denied their right to education. We will also go beyond access to strengthen our focus on thequality of education, in particular the quality of learning environments and literacy. And we will continueto build our emergency response capacity in education and advocate for government and donor supportfor the sector. Our work on early childhood care and development is essential to help young childrensurvive and thrive and to prepare them for school. Disadvantaged children and those living in poverty willgain the most from this support. Lastly, we will continue to invest and test approaches to working withvulnerable youth – from the age of 12 to 18 – to empower them to be active economic, social andpolitical members of society.

Save the Children’s Theory of Change – our general approach – is founded on working in partnership withothers to develop innovative programmes, provide a voice for children and use evidence to persuadegovernments and other agencies to adopt the right policies and implement them at scale. We have shownthat this approach can work even in the most difficult circumstances and that we can successfully advocatefor the scaling-up of programmes and policy changes to improve the lives of millions of children. We willcontinue to use this approach throughout our education work.

The overall global strategy for ‘One Save the Children’ sets out the core elements of our work. Thestrategy explains where we believe we are currently well placed to bring about meaningful change andareas where we will ‘invest and test’ to identify opportunities for future development. The global strategyalso identifies areas where we offer support on a case-by-case basis, depending on opportunities and ourability to respond (see Annex 1 for the Global Strategy Matrix).

We have made several important changes to our education objectives since this strategy was approved in2009. In particular, we have:

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Save the Children works in partnership with governments, donors, civil society and many other non-government organisations that support education programmes in developing countries. Wherever we can,we work with national governments to ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities to deliver a good qualityeducation to all their children. We have a strong track record in working with the poorest and the mostmarginalised communities, working in CAFS and delivering education in emergency situations through ourhumanitarian programmes. We have also demonstrated success in shaping global and national educationpolicies through well-targeted advocacy and evidence-based policy work.

This strategy proposes building on these strengths and responding to the challenges that continue toprevent all children from receiving a good quality education.


Credit: Ingrid Lund/Save the Children


Strategic objective 1: Basic education

Result 1:

Schools and informal learning situations supported by Save theChildren are Quality Learning Environments (QLEs).

Result 2:Children enrolled in basic education learn literacy, numeracy, life skillsand their rights.

Result 3:There is increased access for excluded and marginalised children toinclusive basic education of good quality.

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Our education strategy for 2012-2015 proposes five strategic objectives where we believeSave the Children can have the greatest impact.

All children have

access to a good

quality basic

education –

especially those

who are excluded

and marginalised

or living in

conflict-affected

fragile states.

Strategic objective 2: Education in emergencies (EiE)

Result 1:

Rapid scale-up of support to education in emergencies benefiting at least25% of the children affected by emergencies each year.

Result 2:

Significant increases in technical capacity for EiE and disaster risk reduction(DRR) in education within Save the Children members and at an inter-agency level.

Result 3:

Partnerships, including the Global Education Cluster, are leveraged toensure a more coordinated response and systematic documentation ofinnovative approaches and learning.

Result 4:

Awareness and commitment to education in emergencies and DRR ineducation is strengthened, both within Save the Children and the widerhumanitarian community.

Children and

youth at risk of,

or affected by,

emergencies

have access to

quality education

as a fundamental

part of all

humanitarian

responses.


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Strategic objective 3: Early childhood care anddevelopment (ECCD)

Result 1:There is increased access to ECCD interventions for marginalised,vulnerable and hard-to-reach children.

Result 2:

Early learning environments for young children are high quality andincorporate holistic understanding of children’s needs and communityparticipation.

Result 3:We have developed innovative, relevant and holistic ECCD approaches.

Result 4:There is an increased commitment to ECCD within Save the Children intarget countries and on the wider international development agenda.

Strategic objective 4: Education for youthempowerment (EYE)

Result 1:

There is increased access for vulnerable youth to effective EYE activities.

Result 2:

We are empowering children and youth by building workable links to Savethe Children’s basic education and literacy programmes and activities.

Result 3:Save the Children has increased expertise on EYE activities and is able toprovide timely and effective interventions for vulnerable youth.

Result 4:Save the Children has indicators to measure our impact in youth learningactivities.

An increased

number of young

children have access

to quality early

childhood care and

development

programmes that

ensure their rights to

survival, health and

education.

To empower

vulnerable youth in

rural and urban

areas through

education and

training to become

active economic,

social and political

citizens.


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We will focus our efforts on two key breakthrough areas. We will use evidence from our countryprogrammes in these areas to bring about change in global and national policies and practice. A globalbreakthrough requires a very significant shift from the current trend and a sustainable change in the waythe world treats the majority of children. Save the Children can only achieve this kind of change overseveral years, using our full Theory of Change and working in partnership with others.

Strategic objective 5: Driving global and nationalpolicy change

Result 1:Save the Children shapes the future of education goals in post-2015global frameworks.

Result 2:

Save the Children champions the right to education in emergencysituations, particularly ensuring education is seen to be part of bothdonor and government emergency strategy and response, thateducation obtains necessary funding and that education is protectedfrom attack.

Result 3:

Save the Children promotes the right to learn and highlights theimportance of improving children’s literacy and learning outcomes.

Result 4:

Save the Children is a leading voice in international and nationaldiscussions on the financing of education, in particular focusing onthe Global Partnership for Education and key multilateral institutions,bilateral donors and the efficient use of national resources indeveloping countries.

Result 5:

Save the Children strengthens the advocacy links between ECCD andchildren’s right to survival and development.

To secure global

and national policy

change so that all

children benefit

from their right to

a good quality

education.

Breakthrough 1: Education in emergencies.

Breakthrough 2: Improving literacy for all children and young people.


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Global outcome indicator

1. Quality of learning environment

Education Global Initiative indicator

2. Learning outcomes

3. Access in Rewrite the Future countries

Humanitarian global outcome indicator

4. Increase access to education in emergency situations

Target

Measurable improvement in the quality ofchildren’s learning environment1

Target

Measurable improvement in learning outcomes for600,000 children

3 million more children in school by 2015

Target

Provide quality education support to 25% ofchildren affected by emergencies

In addition, we will develop new methodologies to collect data on primary enrolment, early childhood care,youth education and education in emergencies. We will establish baselines for each of these indicators inthe next three years.

Save the Children is committed to using evaluations to learn lessons from experience in our globalprogrammes and to ensure accountability to our stakeholders. The independent evaluation of Rewrite theFuture provided valuable insights into the elements of success and the challenges facing our educationprogrammes in CAFS. In 2012-2015 we will commission independent evaluations on strategic interventionsin our priority areas, to gather evidence on the impact of our programmes and learn from successfulinnovations. We will use these evaluations to influence policymakers and demonstrate that it is possible todeliver a high-quality education to children and young people, even in very difficult circumstances.

Save the Children is committed to monitoring our impact through measurable and time-bound targets. Inaddition to total reach, the Education Global Initiative will track progress towards our objectives using fourglobal indicators:

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School children in Pakistan play a snakes and laddersgame designed to educate them into the practice ofgood hygiene.

Credit: CJ Clarke/Save the Children


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Education is the right of every child. This right was enshrined in the 1948 Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and state parties confirmed that they would make “primary

education compulsory and free to all” in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Dakar Education for All Framework for Action (EFA) set out plans to achieve this and

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include targets to achieve universal primary

education and gender equity at all levels of education by 2015.

Education is also a sound investment. An additional year of schooling is associated with a national grossdomestic product increase of 1%2 in low-income countries and with enhanced individual lifetime earnings,especially for women.3 An additional year of schooling for a mother reduces her children’s likelihood ofinfant mortality by 5-10%4 A good basic education is an important vehicle for better health and havingfewer pregnancies. Girls who complete secondary schooling reduce their risk of being infected with HIVand are more likely to practice safer sex.5 And levels of educational achievement have been linked tostronger democracies, increased stability and security at the individual, community and national levels.

In the 21st century, climate change and related disasters, conflict, migration and the global economicrecession all threaten investment in education. At the same time, education has a central role to play inmitigating and overcoming multiple threats to peace, well-being and security. Economic recovery andsustainable growth will not take place without education for all. Conflicts and emergencies will not beresolved and addressed in the absence of educational opportunities for children, including those who havebeen forcibly displaced from their homes. And for future citizens to take responsibility for managing andsustaining the environment, they need appropriate knowledge and skills from an early age.

2. The Global Education Challenge


ProgressMuch has been achieved since the MDGs and EFA goals were endorsed in 2000. In that year, an estimated104 million children of official primary school age were not enrolled in either a primary or a secondaryschool (56.7% of whom were girls). By 2008, the total figure had fallen to 67 million (53% of whom weregirls). In South and West Asia the number of out-of-school children had halved while enrolments in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by a third. Countries with the lowest primary enrolment experienced the fastestgrowth in enrolment rates. There have also been significant increases in enrolment rates in pre-primaryand secondary education, although enrolment varies widely across regions and remains very low in Sub-Saharan Africa (see chart below).

The target date for the achievement of the MDGs and EFA goals – 2015 – is approaching fast. Recentanalysis indicates that the governments of developing countries have increased domestic investment ineducation but donor countries have failed to honour their commitments to increase aid for education.6

Official development assistance for basic education in low-income countries has only risen in line withoverall aid, and projections based on donor responses within the Global Partnership for Education indicatethat this may decline over the next few years.7 UNESCO estimates that an additional US$16 billion peryear will be needed in order to achieve the EFA goals.

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Growth in enrolment rates, 1999-2008

Pre-primary Primary Secondary

World

25

%20

1510

50

Developing Countries

Sub-Saharan Africa

Arab States

East Asia and Pacific

Latin America and Caribbean

South and West Asia

Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2011.


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Education For All goals

1. Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for themost vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

2. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belongingto ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.

3. Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes.

4. Achieving a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.

5. Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to, and achievement in, basic education of good quality.

6. Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognised and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

Goal 2. Achieve universal primaryeducation

Target 3. Ensure that, by 2015, childreneverywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able tocomplete a full course of primary schooling.

Goal 3. Promote gender equality andempower women

Target 4. Eliminate gender disparity in primaryand secondary education, preferably by 2005,and to all levels of education no later than 2015

Millennium Development Goal targets 8

Remaining challengesProgress towards enabling all children to benefit from a basic education slowed in the second half of thelast decade. One projection suggests that there could in fact be more children out of school in 2015 than in2008 (based on post-2004 trends).9 There are several remaining challenges to ensuring that all childrenreceive a good quality education.

Providing access to basic education for the hard-to-reachEnrolment data only tell a partial story. School registration is the first, but far from the only, step inensuring that children receive a basic education of good quality. Regular attendance and participation, andthe completion of a full cycle of schooling, must follow. Some estimates suggest that up to 500 millionchildren worldwide are excluded from learning for various reasons.10 This is a much broader interpretationof access, encompassing children who have never been to school, those who drop out and those who failto follow and complete the basic education curriculum.


If children are not healthy they will not be able to learn. Each year children lose an estimated 272 millionschool days because of diarrhoea, and an estimated one third of school-aged children in developingcountries have intestinal worms. Studies have shown that children with intense worm infections performpoorly in learning ability tests, cognitive function and educational achievement, and heavy infections at ayoung age can result in a six-month delay in development.

Conflict-affected countries present particular challenges. Eighteen per cent of the world’s primary schoolage children live in conflict-affected countries. It is estimated that they account for 42% of out-of-schoolchildren globally. Survival to the last school grade in poor, conflict-afflicted countries is 65%, compared with85% in other low-income states. In countries affected by armed conflict, access even to basic educationremains a huge challenge. Their youth literacy rates are 14 points lower than for developing countries as awhole.11

Significant progress has been made during the first decade of the 21st century in increasing girls’ enrolmentin primary education. Despite this, in the vast majority of developing countries, girls are more likely thanboys to be deprived of educational opportunities. If girls’ participation in primary education were equal toboys then 3.6m more girls would be in school. Girls face multiple barriers and forms of discrimination,resulting in them being more likely to drop out of school and being less likely to complete their educationsuccessfully. Gender inequality, especially where it interacts with other forms of disadvantage such aspoverty, ethnicity, disability and living in rural areas is a decisive factor in reducing educational access andachievement.

Large numbers of children are out of school in a relatively small group of countries. More than 20% of the67 million children missing out on education live in Nigeria, Pakistan and India. And there are largenumbers of children in countries for which there is little or no reliable data, for example Afghanistan, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.12

While aid for basic education doubled to US$4.7 billion from 2002-2012, aid levels still fall far short of theUS$16 billion required annually to close the external financing gap in low-income countries.13 There is acontinuing challenge to ensure that all countries increase their budgets for education and deliver financingeffectively, especially for the poor and marginalised.

Raising the quality of education for all

Every day, families make enormous sacrifices to send their children to school. But all too often, thesesacrifices are rewarded with low levels of learning. Enabling children to enter and stay in school requiresattention to the quality of teaching and learning at all levels of education. There are wide disparities inlearning achievements and outcomes, across and within both developed and developing countries. Studentsfrom rural areas, conflict-affected states and from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are the mostvulnerable and the least likely to learn.

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The increase in enrolment has been achieved at the cost of a decline in education quality in manydeveloping countries. Children are often taught in large classes, and have limited access to books and otherlearning materials, and there is a chronic shortage of trained teachers in all low-income countries.

The nature of this crisis is essentially one of learning: too many children in school are not learning basicskills, such as reading, maths and critical thinking, which in turn leads to high drop-out rates and low ratesof transition to secondary school.

The learning crisis

• In 2007 in Malawi and Zambia, more than one third of grade 6 students had

failed to master basic literacy skills.14

• A 2008 survey from India found that fewer than half of standard 3 children

could read standard 1 level texts.15

• In Uganda, more than one quarter of children in grade 7 could not read and

understand a simple story at the grade 2 level of difficulty.

• In Peru, only 20% of 15-year-olds were able to identify one piece of information

in a text. Learning outcomes for girls in conflict-affected countries are some of

the worst in the world.16

Credit: Mats Lignell/Save the Children


Ensuring the provision of education in emergencies

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011 estimates that more than 28 million children are out ofschool in countries affected by conflict. Approximately 66.5 million children are affected each year bynatural disasters.

Children’s lives are often severely disrupted as they try to cope during conflicts or after a natural disaster.As a result, many children often miss out on weeks, months or even years of education. Education duringand after emergencies can provide protection from exploitation and harm by providing children a safe andsecure place to go to, as well as increasing their protection against trafficking and recruitment into armedforces. Education can impart critical, life-saving information on the dangers of landmines and unexplodeddevices as well as simple hygiene practices and health risks that are often exacerbated by emergencies.Additionally, structured educational activities in a protective environment help children to recover fromtrauma and promote hope for the future.

The funding for education in emergencies has more than doubled since 2006. However, it continues to beone of the least funded sectors in humanitarian response. During 2010, education received only 2.1% of allhumanitarian funding and failed to cover even basic emergency needs.

As well as supporting education in emergency situations, there is a need to be proactive in reducing therisks of disasters killing and injuring children and destroying schools. This disaster risk reduction (DRR)includes ensuring that children have access to, and actively participate in, school-based plans and activitiesto reduce harm, as well as ensuring that school structures are safe and resilient and systems are in placewithin national ministries of education to respond to disasters.

Providing early childhood care and development for all children

A growing body of evidence from developing countries demonstrates the benefits of ECCD programmeson improving cognitive development and school achievement. Children who have participated in ECCDprogrammes are more likely to do well in primary school, particularly children from marginalisedpopulations, children living in extreme poverty and/or ethnic minority children. Early interventions lead tomore enrolments in primary school, less repetition of academic years due to poor performance and fewerchildren dropping out of school. ECCD programmes also reduce social inequalities and have positive socialeffects by enabling women to work. Programmes that combine nutrition, healthcare and education havebeen shown to have a particularly positive impact on learning outcomes.

Children from the most disadvantaged households have the most to gain from ECCD programmes, butthey are often the least supported. In developing countries, more than 200 million children will not reachtheir physical and mental development potential due to poor health, malnutrition, deficient care and lack ofopportunities for early learning and stimulation. Malnutrition alone affects one in three children under five,causing irreparable damage to their cognitive development and their long-term educational prospects.

Early learning experiences, including child rearing activities and pre-primary education is an important partof the ECCD package but global progress is limited and uneven. Children living in poverty are the leastlikely to attend early learning programmes. Gross enrolment rates in pre-primary education in alldeveloping countries in 2008 were estimated to be around 38% on average, but this figure was only 12% inSub-Saharan Africa and ECCD is generally only available to the wealthiest sections of the populations.17

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Education for youth empowerment

While ECCD and basic schooling provide important foundations, they are insufficient in themselves toprovide the competencies needed for youth to be actively engaged in the development of their families andlocal communities as well as those necessary for present and future employment.

In 2012 there are 1.5 billion people aged 12-24, 87% of whom live in developing countries.18 On currenttrends, it is projected that more than 100 million young people will lack basic literacy skills in 2015, letalone the more advanced skills and knowledge that secondary, vocational, technical and higher educationcan provide. In conflict-affected countries, enrolment rates in secondary school are a third lower than inother developing countries, and much lower for girls. The denial of access to learning opportunitiesexacerbates poverty, unemployment and accentuates a sense of hopelessness. Finding context-specific,innovative, cost-effective ways of delivering post-primary education will be a major challenge for educationas 2015 approaches.

The youth population bulge offers both an opportunity and a potential risk to developing countries.Economic recession, climate change, armed conflict and growing inequality between rural and urban areasare leading to an explosion in the number of youth migrating to large cities in the hope of a better life.Across these diverse social, cultural, economic and political contexts, young people are being denied thechance to become empowered citizens with control over their own lives due to lack of education, skillsand limited job opportunities. This severely constrains their potential to build the personal confidence andskills needed to pursue a career. Against this background, vulnerable youth in both rural and urban areaslive in extreme poverty, heavily exposed to exploitation in hazardous or illegal work. In the search of alivelihood they find it impossible to prevent violations of dignity, respect, cultural identity and abuse.

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Credit: Save the Children

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First grade assistant teacher, Ange, leads an exercise atthe blackboard, Insitute Abelard, Leogane, Haiti. Thisschool was built using innovative yet simple techniquesthat make it more hurricane and earthquake-resistant

Credit: Susan Warner/Save the Children

3. The Role of the EducationGlobal Initiative

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The Education Global Initiative is one of six global initiatives established by the Save the

Children International Board in 2009 to provide a framework for all members to work

together more effectively as one Save the Children.19

The other global initiatives are:

• Child protection.

• Child rights governance.

• HIV/AIDS.

• Humanitarian.

• EVERYONE.

The global initiatives add value to our work by providing a framework for innovation and collaborationbetween all members. The global initiatives use a networked organisation model with a small core staff atthe centre, supported by additional staff dedicated to the global initiatives in members’ headquarters,country and regional offices. They are a mechanism for members to increase the impact of their financialresources and technical expertise by working together to achieve our objectives. The global initiatives arealso responsible for coordinating reviews of annual country plans and monitoring progress towards ouragreed targets.

The key objectives of the Education Global Initiative are:

• To provide a strategic framework for the education work across all members and country programmes.

• To support a professional network of Save the Children education experts.

• To support the development of a knowledge management system for learning and promoting innovation.

• To monitor progress against agreed targets.

• To support members’ fundraising efforts where required.

In order to achieve its objectives, the Education Global Initiative will:

• Provide timely internal and external communications to ensure that key strategic messages are well known and understood throughout Save the Children and among our partners and external stakeholders. We will also provide regular updates on progress, celebrate success and achievements, and provide clear and powerful messages to support our advocacy. We will use a range of communications tools to encourage communications between our education experts, members and our country programmes. We will measure the success of our communications activities to ensure that we are reaching all parts of the organisation and responding to feedback from our members, country and regional programmes.


• Focus on knowledge management as a key to success for a 21st century organisation. Effective knowledge management will be vital in the Education Global Initiative promoting innovation across the organisation. We have a wealth of experience and know-how within members and country programmes on ways to deliver better education for children and young people. Working together with the other global initiatives and Save the Children International wewill develop a range of tools that will help us to collect, share and develop this knowledge in readily accessible and easy-to-use formats that will be useful to staff based in our country, regional and member head offices. This knowledge will help to improve the quality, and increase the impact, of our programmes as well as ensuring that we produce high-quality project proposals and make the best use of lessons from our monitoring and evaluations.

• Build the capacity and increase the effectiveness of our education technical staff by supporting the development of professional communities of practice, providing opportunities to share experiences and knowledge through the education network and supporting career development and training activities.

The Education Global Initiative has strong links to the other global initiatives and works across thematicareas to increase the impact of our interventions.

• The Child Protection Global Initiative to ensure that: schools are safe places for children; schools are protected from attack in conflict situations; schools supported by Save the Children apply best practice policies on the development of the child and the avoidance of corporal punishment. We are also working together to prevent exploitative child labour and ensure that working children are also able to have an education.

• The Child Rights Governance Global Initiative to promote the involvement of children and youth in policy discussions and decisions which affect them through programmes such as student governing bodies and youth parliaments.

• The HIV/AIDS Global Initiative to protect children from the harmful effects of HIV/AIDS and support those whose lives are affected by it. Many aspects of our education programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa prioritise orphans and vulnerable children and children living with HIV/AIDS.

• EVERYONE (our global campaign on maternal and child health) to help reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health care through targeted ECCD interventions and better school healtheducation.

• Humanitarian to secure an increase in the share of humanitarian aid which goes to education and to build Save the Children’s response capacity to deliver education programmes in rapid-onset emergencies.

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4. Education Global Initiative –Strategic Objectives

Our values and principles

Save the Children’s work is based upon the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which

defines universal principles for the status of children. Our vision is a world in which every

child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. A child rights

situational analysis is the basis for all our programming and advocacy work at country level.

Save the Children challenges all forms of discrimination, especially when based on sex, age, social class,disability, HIV status, sexual preference, religion, race or ethnicity. We recognise that gender equality is acritical component of our overall commitment to diversity and we work to promote gender equality insocieties at all levels. This means ensuring that all human beings – women, men, girls and boys – areconsidered equally and treated equally in terms of their rights, obligations and opportunities.

Discrimination in society is reflected in schools and in education systems, resulting in the exclusion andunequal treatment of some children. Save the Children defines inclusive education as “a process of enablingall children, including those belonging to previously excluded groups, to learn and participate effectivelywithin mainstream school education systems”. Inclusive education challenges exclusionary cultures, policiesand practices, removing barriers to children’s access to, and participation in, learning and acknowledgingindividual children’s needs and potential.

Inclusive education is essential to achieving quality education for all. If education systems are able to meetthe needs of the hardest-to-reach groups, they are likely to benefit all children. Save the Children willpursue its commitment to realising children’s right to education through support and advocacy for inclusiveeducation. We will work with schools to build capacity for developing inclusive approaches, and withnational and local governments to advocate for the introduction of necessary legislation, policies andresources. We will work with children, parents and communities to enable their experiences and prioritiesfor inclusion to be heard by duty bearers – and will develop the capacities of local communities forimproving the education rights of all children.


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How we work

Save the Children’s Theory of Change is founded on working in partnership with others to developinnovative programmes, provide a voice for children and use evidence to persuade governments and otheragencies to implement at scale. We have shown that this approach can work even in the most difficultcircumstances, and that we can successfully advocate for the scaling up of programmes to improve the livesof millions of children.

Be the voice: We are committed to increasing the opportunities for the voices of children and youngpeople to speak for themselves on the policies and actions which most affect them. Integration of advocacyactivities, communications and programmes is the most effective way to protect the rights, and improve thewell-being, of children over the long term. We will draw on the knowledge and experience gained fromdirect project implementation, research and analysis to influence attitudes and perceptions, practices andour behaviour, policy and economic and political decisions.

Build partnerships: Save the Children works in partnership to promote the rights of every child to agood education and an adequate standard of living. Partnerships and collaboration with governments, civilsociety, children’s organisations, networks and coalitions and similar groups are key to achieving effectiveprogrammes and sustainable impact. We are committed to building the capacity of local civil society toadvocate for change in their own countries and at a global level.

Achieve results at scale: The goal of achieving scale is to achieve greater impact. While size alone is nota guarantee of programme success or positive impact, programme scale is frequently correlated withachieving sustainable social change. Working at scale provides an opportunity to achieve cost-effectiveness,secure funding sources and gain public attention to create the conditions for greater impact. We aim tomaximise the positive impact on children in cost-effective ways that can be sustained. Scaling-up will beachieved by geographic coverage, partnerships, policy and legislative innovation (for example: new modelsof collaboration, new technologies, new funding relationships).

We will...

Save the Children’s Theory of Change


Be the innovator: To achieve our mission to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats childrenand to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives we will develop and prove evidence-based,replicable breakthrough solutions to problems facing children. In line with our values we are open to newideas, we embrace change and we take disciplined risks to develop sustainable solutions for and withchildren. We will seek to use knowledge management to stimulate innovation.

Dual mandate: Save the Children is committed to being a ‘dual mandate’ organisation that delivers forchildren in both development and emergency contexts. We aim to become a world-leading humanitarianresponse agency and the response agency for children. To support this aim, we will give equal emphasis toeducation in situations of humanitarian crises as to education in development contexts. We will also helpcountries to prepare for possible disasters and put plans in place to reduce the risks to children. This willmean working closely with the humanitarian teams and emergencies departments of our members.

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Credit: Teri Pengilley


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Strategic objective 1:

Save the Children supports countries to improve the quality of their basic education through a

wide range of initiatives, which are adapted to suit the local context and focus on the needs of

the poorest and most marginalised communities. We use evidence from these programmes to

support our policy and advocacy efforts to ensure that national and local governments fulfil their

responsibilities to deliver a good quality basic education to all children.

Our school health and nutrition programmes are implemented through schools and target

primary school-age children (approximately 5-12 years) to improve their health and nutritional

status, behaviours and skills and ensure they are able to participate in and complete their

education. We deploy cost-effective interventions so that children are able to stay in school and

have a quality learning experience.

All children have access to a good quality basiceducation – especially those who are excludedand marginalised or living in conflict-affectedfragile states.

Outcome: Save the Children’s basic education programmes will promote

the right of all children to a good quality learning environment; improve

learning and children’s literacy; and increase access to basic education for

excluded and marginalised children and those living in countries affected

by conflict.

EGI Final Manual paginated 23/3/12 10:33 Page 29


Result 1: Schools and informal learning situations supported by Save the Children are Quality Learning Environments (QLEs).

Activities:

• Support effective in-service teacher training programmes for community-based teachers, with a particular focus on female teachers.

• Support alternative approaches to basic education that increase access to, and improve the quality of, learning environments for the poorest and most marginalised communities.

• At the global level, support the roll out of the QLE tool and contribute to reporting on results at the global level.

• Advocate for changes in government policies to improve the quality of learning environments.

Result 2: Children enrolled in basic education learn literacy, numeracy, life skills and their rights.

Activities:

• Increase awareness and capacity across Save the Children on improving and measuring learning outcomes.

• Lead the development of programming models for improved literacy and numeracy.

• Support capacity building and sharing of lessons learned from programming, focusing on prerequisites for learning such as professional teachers, teaching and learning materials, school health and nutrition, and children’s participation.

• Lead the development of tools to assess learning in literacy and numeracy and support their implementation.

• Support the development of tools to ensure and measure learning improvements in life skills and knowledge of rights.

• Develop and disseminate advocacy messages and goals on the right to learn.

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Result 3: There is increased access for excluded and marginalised children to inclusive basic education of good quality

Activities:

• Document and promote effective strategies for increasing access to inclusive education of good quality for excluded and marginalised populations, including children living in conflict-affected countries and children with disabilities.

• Support the development of tools to monitor access to education for excluded populations and their implementation.

• Document best practice results and support fundraising to expand education programming for excluded populations.

• Adopt innovative approaches to financing education that will allow the poorest families to keep their children in school.

• Support advocacy work at local, national and international levels to promote inclusive education policies and access to basic education for all.

• Work with the Education in Emergencies group to ensure that Save the Children’s dual mandate in education is mainstreamed across the organisation.


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Credit: Save the Children


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As a dual mandate organisation, Save the Children works in humanitarian contexts to ensure

that the basic needs and rights of children are met. Education in emergencies is a fundamental

and integral part of all humanitarian responses. In emergency situations quality education

provides physical, psychosocial and cognitive protection, which can be life sustaining and life-

saving. Education in emergencies programming helps to restore normality, stability, structure and

hope for the future. Ensuring children are able to continue their education during times of crisis

promotes children staying in school and their ability to progress through the education cycle.

Save the Children works with government authorities, including ministries of education,

communities, parents, students and teachers to ensure that education is both relevant and

accessible. This includes ensuring that learning spaces are established or restored, teaching and

learning materials are provided, relevant teacher training is delivered and teachers receive

continued support, parent teacher associations are established or reactivated and supported and

that psychosocial support is available to children, thereby ensuring all children are able to

continue their education.

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Children and youth at risk of, or affected by,emergencies have access to quality educationas a fundamental part of all humanitarianresponses.

Outcome: Children in Save the Children’s emergency responses are

ensured continued access to quality education and efforts are made to

reduce future risks.


Result 1: Rapid scale-up of support to education in emergencies benefiting at least 25% of the children affected by emergencies each year.

Activities:

• Provide seed funding and technical support for assessment and response and education in emergency strategies and proposals.

• Build the capacity of government and community counterparts, and provide joint support to transition from crisis to development.

Result 2: Significant increases in technical capacity for EiE and DRR in education within Save the Children members and at an inter-agency level.

Activities:

• Create and maintain standard operating procedures and tools for education programming – from early childhood through to youth.

• Increase the number of deployable staff (drawing from under-represented regions and promoting the development of regional expertise and approach).

• Develop a trainee scheme for both international and national staff and partners.

• Conduct capacity-building efforts with other relevant stakeholders (including ministries of education) to expand EiE and DRR in education.

Result 3: Partnerships, including the Global Education Cluster, are leveraged to ensure a more coordinated response and systematic documentation of innovative approaches and learning.

Activities:

• Support the Global Education Cluster. Work with the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE).

• Build links and collaborations with other relevant sectors (DRR, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection, shelter and health).

• Document and share lessons learned/impact of innovative approaches.

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Result 4: Awareness and commitment to education in emergencies and DRR in education is strengthened, both within Save theChildren and the wider humanitarian community.

Activities:

• Prepare communications materials, advocacy materials and strategies.

• Make targeted approaches to donors to secure additional commitments.


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An increased number of young children haveaccess to quality early childhood care anddevelopment programmes that ensure theirrights to survival, health and education.

Outcome: More children survive, have improved health and realise their

developmental potential.


Save the Children’s support for ECCD comprises all the essential help a young child needs to

survive and thrive in life, as well as support for the family and community to promote children’s

healthy development and growth. Our early childhood programmes are based on a holistic

understanding of the child, combining physical, socio-emotional, linguistic and cognitive

developmental needs. ECCD programmes prepare children for school, and reduce the effects of

poverty and the disadvantage of having uneducated parents by ensuring an equal start for

children and improving learning outcomes in the long run. Regardless of the strong evidence

base of the importance of ECCD, early childhood policies in many developing countries continue

to suffer from insufficient funding, fragmented planning and inequality.

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Result 1: There is increased access to ECCD interventions for marginalised, vulnerable and hard-to-reach children.

Activities:

• Develop new, and enhance existing, ECCD programmes with a focus on innovation and scaling-up.

• Implement and adapt Save the Children’s common approach to programming ECCD.

• Carry out global and national-level advocacy and policy activities to elevate the importance of investment in the early years.

• Link ECCD programmes to other initiatives, particularly the EVERY ONE campaign, to increase the number of children exposed to simple, early developmental stimulation messages and actions.

Result 2: Early learning environments for young children are high quality and incorporate holistic understanding of children’s needs and community participation.

Activities:

• Global initiative, country staff and implementing partners develop and sustain quality ECCD programming for group programmes (e.g. pre-school classrooms) and at household level (e.g. caregiver strategies).

• Adapt and implement the common approach to ECCD programming and the Quality Learning Environment tool.

Result 3: We have developed innovative, relevant and holistic ECCD approaches.

Activities:

• Identify and share material on successful, innovative programmes with positive results for children. Build links to other sectors such as nutrition, maternal and child health, parents’ education and HIV/AIDS, with a focus on scaling up.

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Result 4: There is an increased commitment to ECCD withinSave the Children in target countries and on the wider international development agenda.

Activities:

• Maintain an up-to-date overview of Save the Children’s ECCD programmes globally.

• Develop, adapt and implement the global-level ECCD advocacy strategy.

• Lead and take part in global-level advocacy and policy activities.


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Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Save The Children


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Save the Children’s youth education programming aims to empower young people socially,

politically and economically by supporting them to develop the competencies they need to build

a better future for themselves. We will invest in and test initiatives that will empower young

people and that have the potential to bring best practices to scale.

Save the Children’s initial EYE programming is providing youth with hard and soft skills. Hard, or

‘employability’, skills interventions include non-formal basic education, financial and market

literacy, vocational training and access to livelihoods. Soft, or ‘social’, interventions include youth

clubs and networks as an opportunity for vulnerable youth to build their confidence and

leadership skills and learn advocacy, communication, negotiation, teamwork and life skills.

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To empower vulnerable youth in rural andurban areas through education and trainingto become active economic, social and politicalcitizens.

Outcome: Save the Children has reached out to an increasing number of

youths through EYE initiatives that makes it possible for young people to

become active economic, social and political citizens.


Result 1: There is increased access for vulnerable youth to effective EYE activities.

Activities:

• Promote and document effective EYE initiatives for vulnerable youth by mapping existing EYE activities.

• Use this knowledge to establish a foundation for increased EYE activities and approaches that can be translated into hands-on Save the Children programme activities at country level.

Result 2: We are empowering children and youth by building workable links to Save the Children’s basic education and literacy programmes and activities.

Activities:

• Establish links to Save the Children literacy and basic education work.

Result 3: Save the Children has increased expertise on EYE activities and is able to provide timely and effective interventions for vulnerable youth.

Activities:

• Map Save the Children’s EYE activities and document best practices.

• Identify and learn from any none-Save the Children approach that has a strong or promising track record in building expertise and data on EYE programmes, activities and tools.

• Use this knowledge to build Save the Children capacity through training, technical assistance or advocacy and research activities.

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EGI Final Manual paginated 2/5/12 10:37 Page 42

Result 4: Save the Children has indicators to measure our impact in youth learning activities.

Activities:

• Develop key indicators for successful EYE activities.

• Provide guidance on the establishment of monitoring and evaluation plans.


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Credit: Frederic Courbet/Panos for Save the Children


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Save the Children’s Theory of Change relies on our ability to persuade governments and other

partners to implement strategies and innovations that demonstrably work for children. Our

advocacy at the country and global level is based on evidence and we will ensure that we get

children’s views on the best solutions. We will also work with local partners to build their

capacity to hold governments to account for their commitments under international agreements.

By working with local partners and civil society organisations, we will increase the impact of our

advocacy work and ensure we create lasting results in national and global policies and

frameworks.

This requires us to link closely with processes related to the global financing of education, the

human right to education, child rights governance and the international and national frameworks

that mark progress towards education. From 2012-2015, the Education Global Initiative will

coordinate advocacy that is linked at the country, regional, member and global levels. Through

this more cohesive framework, Save the Children will secure better results for children and

their right to education.

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To secure global and national policy change sothat all children benefit from their right to agood quality education.

Outcomes: The rights of all children and youth to a good quality

education remain high on the global policy agenda. Special attention and

additional support will be given to the two breakthrough areas: securing

education for the most marginalised and hardest-to-reach children living in

conflict-affected fragile states and in emergency situations; and building

support for the right to learn.


Result 1: Save the Children shapes the future of education goals in post-2015 global frameworks.

Activities:

• Establish partnerships with key actors to influence post-MDG and EFA frameworks and devise a joint strategy (for example, with other sectors such as health) to advocate on key issues in the run up to 2015.

• Support consultations at the country level to influence the post-2015 agenda, with the meaningful participation of children and youth.

Result 2: Save the Children champions the right to education in emergency situations, particularly ensuring educationis seen to be part of both donor and government emergency strategy and response, that education obtains necessary funding and that education is protected from attack.

Activities:

• Engage in high-level activities and coordinate advocacy with key donors and governments to follow up on UN General Assembly Resolution (A/64/L.58) on the right to education in emergency situations.

• Define common advocacy goals and messages on the protection of education, and support the implementation of advocacy goals on the right to education in emergencies.

Result 3: Save the Children promotes the right to learn and highlights the importance of improving children’s literacy and learning outcomes.

Activities:

• Build the evidence base for advocacy on literacy and develop an advocacy strategy.

• Develop targeted advocacy messages and goals that incorporate a child rights and child-focused approach to literacy and learning outcomes.

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Result 4: Save the Children is a leading voice in international and national discussions on the financing of education, in particular focusing on the Global Partnership for Education and key multilateral institutions, bilateral donors and the efficient use of national resources in developing countries.

Activities:

• Commission a baseline report on current financing trends, with a particular focus on conflict-affected fragile states.

• Produce country-focused evidence and messages on the increase in, and use of, national resources for education – including through child participation.

• Establish key partnerships and empower civil society organisations to be included in education financing processes at country level, such as the Global Partnership for Education Local Education Group.

Result 5: Save the Children strengthens the advocacy links between ECCD and children’s right to survival and development.

Activities:

• Implement an advocacy strategy on ECCD at international, regional and national levels.

• Explore the production of joint objectives, messages and activities with the EVERYONE campaign, drawing closer links with child survival priorities at international and national levels.



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Students learn in Somali, English and Arabic at ShabelleSchool at Gardo IDP Camp, Puntland State andenergetically sing songs in all three languages

Credit: Katie Drew/Save the Children


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5. Education Breakthroughs

Save the Children has a long history of providing leadership that completely changes what is

accepted as the norm for children. Examples of global breakthroughs that we have inspired

include the concept of playschools, the importance of school meals and of family tracing for

children separated from their families in emergencies – all now considered the norm globally,

even if not always experienced by every child.

Our vision of a good quality education for every child around the world won’t be achieved with a businessas usual approach.

We have identified two areas in education where we believe the need for changes in policy and practiceare particularly critical and where we believe we can make an important contribution to leading thosechanges.

Breakthrough 1: Education in emergencies

In emergencies children, their families and communities tell Save the Children that what they most want –alongside medicines, food and shelter – is to get back to school. This is true whether they are recoveringfrom a devastating natural disaster, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti,whether they have been displaced by internal or border conflicts, or if they are living in a chronicemergency caused by on-going conflict, such as in Gaza and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Our Rewrite the Future campaign helped to achieve a major breakthrough in securing a global policycommitment to make education a part of all humanitarian responses. Children in conflict situations ornatural disasters should no longer be denied their right to education.

What children need in terms of their education, and what can be provided, depends on the type ofemergency and its impact on the local population. But when schools – and all that they represent within acommunity – are destroyed or damaged, they need to be re-established as quickly as possible.

Humanitarian aid is intended to save lives, meet basic needs and to restore human dignity. In order to fulfilthese roles, it should provide an educational lifeline to children. When this doesn’t happen, the result isthat communities struggling against the odds to maintain opportunities for education get little support.Children and young people from displaced populations also face grave difficulties in continuing theireducation.

There is a growing recognition of the importance of education in emergencies. The INEE MinimumStandards are now widely used in more than 80 countries, and more than 4,000 people have been trainedto apply the standards for refugees and internally displaced persons in conflict, disaster and recoverysituations around the world.


In its 2007 report, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that educationis a key priority for those receiving aid. This official recognition is significant, given that accountability tobeneficiaries is a core principle of humanitarian work – outlined explicitly in the Code of Conduct inDisaster Response Programmes and the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee Global Education Cluster was formed in 2006, and is co-led byUNICEF and Save the Children in order to strengthen humanitarian responses through ensuring highstandards of predictability, accountability and partnership in education in emergencies.

We plan to build on the success of Rewrite the Future and the Education Cluster by focusing our effortsduring 2012-2015 to achieve breakthroughs in two key areas:

Direct change for children

By 2015, we will have:

• Increased the number of children we reach to 25% of all children affected by emergencies.

• Ensured greater provision of timely, appropriate, quality education programmes based on best practices and strong evidence and research.

• Provided ECCD support to children through our humanitarian response programmes and ensured closer linkages between ECCD and basic education in emergency situations.

• Strengthened our education response capacity across the sector, ensuring technical assistance through trained education in emergency response staff in every country where we work and a pool of regional and global experts available for rapid deployment to emergencies.

• Successfully led the Education Cluster in 20 countries.

Influencing decision-makers

We will lead advocacy with governments, donors, policymakers and other key stakeholders to ensure anincrease in support to education in emergencies including by securing commitments to:

• Double education’s share of humanitarian aid from all sources.

• Ensure that education is recognised by all donor and multilateral agencies as an essential part of humanitarian responses.

• Recognise the role of education and DRR in reducing the impact of disasters and reducing the future risks to children by helping children to prepare for the effects of climate change.

• Ensure the Global Education Cluster has the resources and recognition to expand its reach as an effective leader and coordinator.

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Breakthrough 2: Improving literacy for all children and young people

There is an urgent need to reverse the crisis in learning by ensuring that children acquire basic literacy skills.

The ability to read, write and do mathematics is fundamental for all future learning. They are also theminimum skills that families expect their children to learn when they are sent to school. It is crucial to startearly as there is a relationship between failure to learn to read and falling further behind each year ordropping out of school altogether.

This link is particularly important for girls from low-income families and children and young people inconflict-affected countries, as these groups remain the most educationally marginalised.

Recent evidence identifies actions that can improve literacy in the lower grades of primary school.20 Save theChildren has developed a signature programme that has been shown to make a difference – Literacy Boost.Taking lessons from reviews of children’s reading skills in nearly 50 developing countries worldwide. LiteracyBoost helps schools to assess children’s reading levels, trains teachers to teach reading (a skill we have foundthat even qualified teachers in developing countries often lack) and works with communities to increase theavailability of reading materials and develop a culture of reading.

Literacy Boost has been enormously successful and is a proven method for securing significant improvementsin children’s ability to read and write. It has helped to increase children’s literacy levels dramatically in someof the poorest communities in countries such as Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal and Pakistan.

This approach gives Save the Children the ability to tackle the crisis in learning and achieve a breakthroughin policy and practice, which secures measurable learning outcomes for children. We plan to continue toscale-up Literacy Boost and develop our approach to literacy teaching to achieve breakthroughs in two keyareas.

Direct change for children

During 2012-2015, Save the Children will:

• Design and test literacy programmes that measurably improve children’s learning outcomes and implement them in at least 20 countries, reaching 600,000 children with literacy programming.

• Assess the reading skills of 100,000 children.

Influencing decision-makers

Our advocacy messages will include specific suggestions for policy changes to take the literacy debate beyondthe narrow focus on Early Grade Reading Assessment. Our approach will reflect the multiple and complexsocial dimensions of literacy acquisition especially for children from non-literate communities, including:

• Learning to read needs to encompass reading with comprehension.

• Reading with comprehension cannot be achieved in 90 days.

• Quality reading instruction in the classroom needs to be supported by community activities in order for the children to become literate.

We will secure commitments from the world’s leading donors to fund evidence-based programmes that

demonstrably support the acquisition of literacy skills. We will secure commitments from developing country

governments to implement evidence-based programmes that support the acquisition of literacy skills. And

we will measure our success using the core process indicators and measurements from existing programmes

such as Literacy Boost. 51


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Chotti, six, counts on an abacus, at the ‘Rang BirangeSitare’ (colourful stars) Street to School centre – aneducation and activity centre in Nehru Place, New Delhi.

Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Save The Children


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6. Measuring Our Impact

Save the Children is committed to being accountable and monitoring progress against our

objectives. We must clearly articulate, demonstrate and document the results we achieve to

save and improve children’s lives, those of the hardest-to-reach, and to help them thrive and

become empowered citizens. To that end, we will use the global indicators to track progress

and achievements of our education programmes at global and regional levels. We will also

commission independent evaluations to generate lessons and global knowledge from our

programmes and experiences.

In 2011, Save the Children’s global indicators were rolled out to country offices in Asia. All Save theChildren country offices will begin monitoring the global indicators in 2012. This is an important transitionpoint for our data management and reporting systems across thematic areas. We need to ensure that: datacollection instruments continue to be relevant and usable; data are gathered using robust techniques; anddata are used to inform our programming and advocacy work at all levels (country, regional and global). Itis expected that the global initiatives will be responsible for analysing and reporting trends at regional andglobal levels. The Education Global Initiative is committed to annual reporting of results in an accessibleway that helps to inform decision-making for key stakeholders at all levels.

The core process indicators for education cover will provide data on access to education, literacy levelsand the quality of learning environments. During 2012-2015 we will develop indicators on enrolment ineducation and education in emergencies, and we will pilot indicators for our youth and ECCD programmes.Key definitions and potential uses of indicator data are below.

Access

Save the Children will monitor the increase in children’s access to the formal and non-formal educationinstitutions we support. Children’s access to education opportunities reflects the extent to which theirrights to education are upheld, as well as the availability of education services within a country. In 2010,Save the Children set a target of providing 2 million more children living in conflict-affected fragile states(CAFS) with access to basic education opportunities (both formal and non-formal) by 2015. This figurebuilds on a target first set during the Rewrite the Future global campaign. Continuing to monitor children’saccess to education until the end of 2015 will ensure Save the Children meets its Rewrite the Futurecampaign commitments.

In addition, the Education Global Initiative will expand Save the Children’s efforts to monitor access incountries that did not participate in Rewrite the Future. In 2012-2015, we will also commission a desk reviewand pilot test of alternative approaches (e.g. net enrolment rate) to determine the most robust andresource-efficient approach to monitoring access on a global scale.


Improving learning outcomes and focusing on literacy

Monitoring children’s learning outcomes will tell us if Save the Children programmes are effective and fulfilchildren’s needs and their right to learn. The Education Global Initiative broadly defines learning to includeliteracy, numeracy, life skills and children’s awareness of their rights. Monitoring assessments for each ofthese key outcomes will be developed in 2012-2015.

We will measure our commitment through a combination of the indicators in existing programmes, such asLiteracy Boost and the Education Global Initiative literacy tool. In 2011, the Education Global Initiativedeveloped and pilot tested a monitoring tool for literacy that provides a snapshot of children’s oral fluencyand reading comprehension. This pilot test was conducted in Nepal and the Philippines. In 2012, theEducation Global Initiative, with financial and technical support from members, will continue to test thisreading assessment in 1-2 additional countries representing the Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean,and the Middle East regions. This will allow us to test our assessment methodology and guidance package,in addition to determining the resources required for training and capacity building of our education andmonitoring and evaluation teams, across all regions.

Monitoring literacy, and indeed learning outcomes more broadly, will be linked with data gathered frommonitoring the quality of Save the Children-supported learning environments. The evidence on how far ourlearning environments enhance children’s learning experience will be invaluable for our national andinternational policy and advocacy work and in demonstrating our impact to donors.

Quality learning environment A central aim of Save the Children’s education programmes is to ensure that children are accessing highquality education environments that enhance their learning and development.

Four principles will guide Save the Children-supported education programmes. We will:

1. Meet the emotional and psychological needs of learners.

2. Protect children’s physical well-being.

3. Encourage and support active engagement for learners, child-centered teaching and improved

learning outcomes for all learners.

4. Involve parents and local communities in planning, decision-making and action to improve

education.

From 2012 onwards, monitoring the quality of the basic education and ECCD learning environments thatSave the Children supports will be mandatory for all country offices involved in education. Globalmonitoring efforts will focus on the progress of country programmes towards each of these four aspects ofa quality learning environment. Data gathered through this process will enable us to reflect on the qualityof existing ECCD and basic school education interventions, and determine best practices for the scale upand design of future programming that is effective, high quality and relevant to beneficiaries.

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Education in emergencies

During 2012 we are developing an indicator monitoring the reach of Save the Children’s education inemergencies programmes. It is anticipated that the Education Global Initiative will use the humanitarianoutput mechanism to track the reach of education work in emergency responses in 2012-2015.

Early childhood care and development and youth indicators

The Education Global Initiative will develop indicators and targets for each of these strategic objectives in2012-2015.

Policy and advocacy

We will measure our impact on global and national policy debates in key priority areas. In particular, wewill track our success in changing the global debate on improving learning outcomes so that it reflects thebroader concept of literacy and learning used in our Literacy Boost programmes. We will also track thedelivery of commitments to include education in all emergency responses and will monitor progresstowards our advocacy target of doubling the share of aid for education in humanitarian programmes.We will continue to monitor efforts to strengthen the Global Partnership for Education (formerly theFast Track Initiative) and track donor commitments to increase support for countries in the partnership.Finally, we will track progress at the country level to increase national budget allocations for educationand ensure equitable distribution of education resources.

Knowledge generation: how we will use evaluations

Generating evidence for new and innovative interventions and approaches and the effectiveness of our on-going programmes will be an important focus for the Education Global Initiative. Simply put, we needevidence to know and show that our approaches and interventions work. We need concrete data to: learnlessons from experience on the ground; improve the quality of our programme work; and highlight theimpact of our education work to support our organisation’s credibility.

The Education Global Initiative recently concluded a two-phase longitudinal evaluation of Rewrite the Future.In 2012-2015, our evaluations will centre on our breakthrough areas: improvements in children’s literacyoutcomes and increasing the reach of, and financing for, education in our emergency responses. To gathercredible evidence of our work in these areas, we will prioritise commissioning independent evaluations andwill need additional resources to fund our work in this area.

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Children during a literacy class at a child-friendly-spaceestablished by Save the Children



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7. Fundraising

The Education Global Initiative will make an important contribution to our efforts to reach

the target of raising US$2.4 billion in revenue to support our work for children by 2015. In

2010, education contributed 25% of total income. In order to maintain this share, we will

need to raise at least US$600 million in annual commitments across all members by 2015.

The Education Global Initiative supports the fundraising efforts of members and country offices by bringingtogether expertise and experience from across the organisation. Individual members will continue tomanage the relationship with their ‘home donors’ and the agencies for which they are account managers.We will draw on technical expertise and experience from across Save the Children to ensure that weproduce top class funding proposals on every occasion.

The Education Global Initiative will give priority to requests to support the fundraising efforts of smallermembers with additional communications support and access to materials from other members. In thisway, we will maximise the benefit of working together as one Save the Children.


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Children in the temporary tented classroom take partin Save the Children’s early childhood care anddevelopment (ECCD) activities in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia

Credit: Ingrid Lund/Save the Children


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8. Risks

The table below lists the principal risks that may prevent us from achieving our strategic

objectives in 2012-2015.

Risk Risk level Impact Risk mitigation strategy

Decline in donor funds preventsSave the Children fromcontinuing to expand itseducation programmes

Increase in natural disasters andemergencies has a negativeimpact on our educationprogrammes

Inadequate technical capacity tosupport high-quality educationprogrammes

Increase in conflict and/or declinein quality of governments has anegative impact on children’slearning

Governments and otherstakeholders fail to give adequateattention to the importance ofECCD

Governments and otherstakeholders fail to give adequateattention to the importance ofimproving the quality of education

Decline in member engagementand support for education

Competition between Save theChildren global initiatives forscarce resources

Medium

Medium

Medium

Medium

Low

Low

Low

Low

High

High

Medium

Medium

Medium

Medium

High

Medium

Continue to mobilise resources from avariety of public and private donors.Use evidence from successfulprogrammes to make the case forfunding for Save the Children educationprogrammes across all members

Ensure that Save the Children isprepared to support education inemergency situations as part of ourdual mandate role

Strengthen the professional networkacross all Save the Children members.Ensure the quality of senior levelprofessional appointments

Build the capacity of civil societyorganisations and other partners tosupport education in conflict situations.Advocate for governments to givepriority attention to the provision ofgood quality education

Continue to advocate for theimportance of support for ECCD.Develop evidence on innovativeinterventions that work for ECCD

Continue to advocate for measures toimprove the quality of learningenvironments. Develop evidence on theimpact of improving learning outcomes

Continue to build members’ ownershipof, and support for, the EducationGlobal Initiative

Actively seek opportunities forcollaboration across the globalinitiatives and emphasise the inter-sectoral nature of our interventions


60

INVEST AND TESTTO BUILD POSITION

20% CORE ELEMENTS OF THE STRATEGY 65%

a

d

a

b1

b2

e

g

• Adolescent non-formal education/initiatives

• Child labour• Prevent physical and humiliating punishment

• Disaster risk reduction

• Livelihoods in support of nutrition

• Urban basic education

a

b

d

e

• Secondary education

Education

Health

Nutrition

c

d

e

Child rights governance

Child protection

Humanitarian

a • Basic education for ethnic minorities• Basic education in developing and transition transition countries

d • Children in conflict with the law• Children sexually exploited and abused

e • Non-food items and shelter

f • Care for infected children by HIV/AIDS• Prevention of mother-to-child infection

“CASE BY CASE” OFFERTO BUILD POSITION 5%Depending on needs and opportunities

Basis for significant growth of funding, campaigning adolescence

MAINTAIN AND CAPITALISE ON EXPERTISE10%

• Adolescent health

• Harmful traditional practices• Child trafficking

• Camp management• Housing reconstruction

a

b1

b2

• basic education– in conflict areas– In fragile states and

poorest countries

• Maternal and newborn health• Child health

• Prevent Child Hunger

• Early childhood development

• Newborn and child Nurition

c • Convention on the Rights of the Child monitoring• Strengthening national systems and build awareness and capacity

d

e

f

Protect and preventviolence against:

• General/Relief management• Child protection• Education• Child health & nutrition

• Prevent of HIV/AIDS

• Children without appropriate care

• Children affected by armed conflicts

• Support for affected children (OVC) without adequate care

POTENTIAL %OF GLOBAL

EXPENDITURES

f

g

HIV/AIDS

Livelihoods

Note: Size andnumber of itemsnot related totarget volumeof activity

61


Annexes

Annex 1. Save the Children Overall Global Strategy 2010-2015


62

Annex 2. Responsibilities framework for the member-led globalinitiatives

The following framework was agreed between Save the Children International and the member-led globalinitiatives in 2011.

1. The Save the Children International Board is responsible for ensuring progress towards Save the Children’s 2010-2015 strategy as agreed in November 2009. This strategy includes a number of global initiatives where Save the Children could achieve more for children if its work was better led and coordinated.

2. The global initiatives are a mechanism for collective member engagement in support of the thematic key areas within the strategy. The success of each global initiative depends on the broad engagement and commitment of members and member resources.

3. Each global initiative has a lead member and is funded by the members on a voluntary basis. To ensurethat lead members are playing their oversight role properly, the Save the Children International Board has asked the Save the Children International executive to clarify in writing the responsibilities of this lead member role, and to monitor the performance of the lead member in performing this role to the desired level.

4. As is the case envisioned for all such agreements where a member is mandated to lead for the whole of Save the Children, the lead member is selected on the basis of its ability to meet certain criteria in this area:

• To be able to marshal outstanding expertise

• To be able to access the resources needed to lead

• To commit to excellent standards of customer service.

In each case, specific indicators need to be agreed to define and measure performance against thesecriteria.

5. The recently approved Board paper Taking forward our strategy has further clarified that for each global initiative, the lead member will be held accountable, and supported, to provide the following as a globalservice on each:

• A focused strategy covering programme, advocacy and fundraising (the business plan submitted in 2009 is seen as a starting point, but it is hoped that the strategy will become more focused over time)

• A clear route for members/international programmes to access world class technical assistance

• Marketing materials and a developing knowledge management network (to include at a minimum an audio visual presentation, six examples of best practice, and working lists of all the people and countries that need to share knowledge in this area).


6. Save the Children International will provide a mandate with Board-level endorsement for the global initiatives to enable them to carry out the responsibilities in this framework and will communicate thatmandate to members. Save the Children International will also provide support from the centre to enable coordinated communications, advocacy, effective knowledge management and streamlined monitoring and evaluation.

7. International programmes will be responsible for managing the delivery of programmes at the country and regional level and ensuring consistency with the objectives and outcome indicators of the global initiatives as agreed by the Board.

8. The Save the Children International director in charge of knowledge sharing and impact maximisation will be responsible for enabling effective coordination and knowledge sharing across the global initiatives and with international programmes. Annual plans and reports against key performance indicators (global outcome indicators and other indicators relating for example to fundraising) on the global initiatives will be due to the Save the Children International director who will prepare a summary report to the CEO and the Board.

9. Save the Children International will leave it to the lead member to set up and run the appropriate member coordinating/steering mechanism.

10. The voluntary funding mechanism of each of the global initiatives needs to be agreed between members, and does not flow through Save the Children International; this is to avoid complexity and potential additional charges/tax implications for Save the Children International.

63


64

Annex 3. Strategic and Operational Structure of the Education Global Initiative

The Education Global Initiative is guided by a steering group chaired by the CEO of Save the ChildrenNorway and comprising senior representatives from all the members supporting the initiative. TheDirector is an ex officio member of the steering group. The Education Global Initiative is supported bya small core team of the Director, Manager, Communications Officer and a Monitoring and EvaluationAdviser. The achievement of the Strategic Objectives is a collective responsibility shared across allmembers, country and regional offices. There are six work groups to support knowledge sharing andpromote joint working across all members, country and regional offices. The diagram below provides asimplified version of this structure.

Education Global Initiativestrategic and operational structure

STEERING GROUP

Chair (Save the Children Norway)

Members: SC UK, US, Norway, Australia, Denmark

CORE TEAM

Director

Manager

Monitoring and

evaluation

Communications

WORK GROUPSLed by members and including

representatives from head office, regionaland country offices

Basic education

Education in emergencies

Early childhood care and development

Education for youth empowerment

Policy and advocacy

Monitoring and evaluation


65

Endnotes

1. A specific target for the quality learning environment indicator will be set after completion of the data collection methodologies pilot in 2012.

2. Cited in Hanushek, EA and Woessman, L (2007) The Role of Education Quality for Economic GrowthWashington DC, World Bank Human Development Network (Policy Research Working Paper, 4122).

3. See for example the work of the Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) at http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/

4. Mensch, B, Lentzner, H and Preston, S (1986) Socio Economic Differentials in Child Mortality in Developing Counties New York, United Nations.

5. UK Department for International Development (2008) Achieving Universal Access – Evidence for Action.

6. Trends in aid to education, 2002-2009. UNESCO. Global Monitoring Report. (Policy paper,November 2011).

7. Education For All Fast Track Initiative and Brookings Institution (2011). Prospects for bilateral aid to basiceducation put students at risk. Washington DC.

8. EFA goals from The Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments, adopted by the World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April 2000) Paris, UNESCO, 2000, paragraph 7. Millennium Development Goals: United Nations General Assembly, Resolution A/56/326,6 September 2001.

9. Ibid UNESCO (2011).

10. See for example DFID (2010) Learning for All.

11. Figure cited by UNESCO (2011) The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education (Education for AllGlobal Monitoring Report), p15.



14. These data are drawn from the work of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ).

15. Drawn from the Pratham Resource Centre (2008) Annual State of Education Report (Rural)Provisional Mumbai, India.

16. Centre for Universal Education at Brookings (2011) A Global Compact for Learning: Taking Action on Education in the Developing Countries.


18. World Bank (2007) Development and the Next Generation (World Development Report).

19. (See Annex 2 for the global initiatives’ responsibilities framework).

20. See for example: A Global Compact on Learning. Center for Universal Education. Brookings Institute. Washington DC. June 2011.

Published by Save the Children InternationalSt. Vincent House30 Orange StreetLondonWC2H 7HHUKFirst published 2012© Save the Children InternationalRegistered charity number 1076822

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