action for childre n ’ s rights in education end of project … · smc: school management...

Action for Childre n ’s Rights in Education

End of Project Evaluation Report

Cover imagesTop row from left:� Exercise books containing PRS Charter

distributed to children� Right to free and compulsory education� Right to participate� Girls club in session at Nyerezee Primary

Second row from left:� Right to know your rights� Right 1 Charter� Using PRA to analyse their issues at a girls’

club meeting, Ghana� Right to a safe and non-violent environment

Inside cover Background image:� Community sensitization meeting on ACRE

All images © ActionAid

This report was produced by Asmara Figue, an independent consultant contracted to conduct the End of Project Evaluation of the Action for Children’s Rights in Education project.

© ActionAid August 2013

Acknowledgements 4Acronyms 4

Section 1Executive summary 6Project description 10Methodology overview 12

Section 2Evaluation results 13

1 Relevance: did we do the right thing in the right way? 141.1 What value and for whom did this project add,

in the context of other education initiatives?

1.2 Did this project answer real needs in the

intervention areas?

1.3 Has this project taken adequate steps to redress

imbalances in women’s rights/gender inequality?

1.4 Are the project objectives still relevant given

achievements so far?

Relevance: highlights 17

2 Impact: did the project achieve the planned results? 18Objective 1 18

Objective 2 20

Objective 3 25

Objective 4 27

Impact: highlights 29

3 Partnerships 303.1 Local Implementation Partners 30

3.2 Strategic National Partners 30

3.3 International Partnerships 31

Partnerships: highlights 32

4 Achieving value for money: economy, efficiency and effectiveness 334.1 Economy: what is the value-added of a multi-

country project vs. its transaction and other costs

and to what extent have the resources allocated

enabled the project to achieve results? 33

4.2 Efficiency: what measures were taken to ensure

effective financial implementation, monitoring

and reporting? 35

4.3 Economy: what measures were taken to ensure

cost-effectiveness in procurement and

implementation? 35

4.4 Efficiency: to what extent did grant management

requirements support the delivery of results? 36

4.5 Efficiency: To what extent did the management,

decision-making and relationships structures of

the project support the successful implementation

of the project? 36

4.6 Efficiency: how well did the project predict and

react to risks? 36

4.7 Effectiveness: How has our approach to monitoring,

data collection, and learning affected the overall

impact of the project? 36

4.8 Effectiveness: how did the project ensure

accountability to beneficiaries?

Value for money: highlights 37

5 Sustainability: ensuring ownership and lasting change 385.1 To what extent will activities be sustained by

local beneficiaries/partners after the funding

comes to an end? 38

5.2 Did the project result in any policy reforms at

local or national level? 38

5.3 Which elements of the project could be

replicated/scaled up elsewhere? 39

Sustainability: highlights 39

Conclusions, lessons learned andrecommendations 40

Conclusions 40

Lessons learned 40

Recommendations 42

Section 3Management response 45

Section 4Annexes 49

Annex 1 Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions 50

Annex 2 Terms of Reference for the Evaluation 51

Annex 3 Example Key Informant Interview Sheet 54

Annex 4 Example Focus Group Discussion Guide 56

Annex 5 School Feeding Charter 57

References Inside back cover

3

Table of contents

4

AcknowledgementsSincere thanks go to all those colleagues at internationaland national level who supported the work involved inconducting this evaluation. Particular mention goes tothe following people for their time, patience, advice,inputs and logistical support: Tanvir Muntasim,Victorine Kemonou Djitrinou, Juliana Adu-Gyamfiand Abass Abdul-Karim, Bailey Gray, Sylvain Aubry at ActionAid International, Agnes Mensah, Seth Dsane, Dorothy Konadu, Alhassan Suleymana,Habibu Abdulai, Dama Salifu, Sumani Mohamed Awal,Ahmed Abdul-Hanan and Karimu Fuseini in Ghana,Rebecca Kukundakwe, Richard Olong, Peter SSenyanja,Eddie Nam, Vicky Emmanuel, Brenda Abunia, Paul Ojuman, Yuda Rwakogo, Harriet Gimbo and Jane Mbabazi in Uganda as well as Kadijatou Baldeh,Mulenga Kalolo, Julie Juma and Sekou Beysolow fromthe Gambia, Zambia, Malawi and Liberia respectively.

AcronymsACRE: Action for Children’s Rights

in Education

CALID: Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development

CSO: Civil Society Organisation

GNECC: Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition

FENU: Forum for Education NGOs in Uganda

HRBA: Human Rights Based Approach

KADEFO: Kalangala District Education Forum

LRP: Local Rights Programme

PRS: Promoting Rights in Schools

PTA: Parent Teacher Association

RTE: Right to Education Project

SMC: School Management Committee

UNATU: Uganda National Teachers’ Union

Girl demonstrates a type of school punishment, Liberia

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Some girls from Kudang Lower Basic School, Gambia

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5

Executivesummary

Projectdescription

Methodologyoverview

Section 1K

ate Holt/S

hoot the Earth/A

ctionAid

The overall purpose of this evaluation was toassess the extent to which the Action forChildren’s Rights in Education (ACRE) project hasstarted bringing about anticipated changes, toexamine which factors have proved critical inhelping or hindering change and draw lessons forfuture programming. The main objectives of theevaluation were to:

1 Evaluate the output /outcomes and impact of theACRE pilot project against its four objectives.

2 Assess the core project structures,methodologies and capacity development.

3 Appraise the project partnership approach(including management structures,communications and relationships) to communityimplementation, research and advocacy inrelation to the project’s achievements.

4 Assess the project’s financial management andvalue for money.

5 Draw lessons for future programming.

In order to respond to the above assessmentquestions, five separate yet interlinked areas ofreview were identified and key findings under eachare summarised below:

A. Relevance: did we do the right thing in theright way?The main area of enquiry under this sectionfocussed on the relevance and applicability ofthe Promoting Rights in Schools’ basic premisesand approach in practice. Overall, 100% ofrespondents felt that one of the main areas ofvalue that this approach added as compared toother education initiatives was its emphasis onchildren’s rights to and in education and itscapacity to mobilise stakeholders for children’srights throughout the process. The uniquenessof the approach and its capacity to support theapplication of ActionAid’s Human Rights BasedApproach in practice within the organisation’sbroader programme of work was also highlighted.

In general, respondents felt that although theproject’s objectives were pre-determined theywere relevant to the context and should theproject continue, then it would be preferable to

deepen the focus on the issues addressed duringthe first phase rather than broaden out to includeothers. In addition it was widely recognised that,given the indivisible nature of rights, by focussingon three or four, more would also be addressed.

B. Impact: did the project achieve the plannedresults?Although this project was only implemented overone year, the evaluation finds that to a largeextent, what was planned was achieved, andwhilst it has been difficult to measure results dueto the lack of a comprehensive M&E system, themajority of activities were implemented in all sixparticipating countries. A summary overview ofprogress towards each objective follows below:

Objective 1: Increase awareness ofrights to and in education by collectingdata using the PRS framework withmulti-stakeholder groups of children,parents, teachers, community leaders,local education groups, researchers, andteachers’ unions

An analysis of project narrative and financialreports shows that a high proportion of targetshave been reached under this objective and100% of planned activities were delivered inGhana and Uganda as well as a relatively highproportion in all four Small Grant Countries.

Overall the project has successfully managed toincrease awareness of children’s rights to and ineducation. The participatory approach tobaseline research, which engaged children,parents, teachers, education authorities amongstothers, was universally felt to be one of the keysuccess factors in the project as it supportedwider buy-in and engagement at all levels as wellas a better understanding of some of the keyproblems affecting the delivery of free, quality,public education and how to address them.

However, whilst awareness of children’s rightsmay have increased, it is also accompanied bythe view that children’s rights constitute a threatto adult authority in the home and at school. In

Section 1 6

Executive summary

addition, children’s own knowledge andunderstanding of their rights will need to bedeepened to maximise their potential forinformed and empowered action.

Unfortunately, given the late finalisation of theresearch and challenges with the complexity ofthe analysis, there was limited time to respond toand integrate findings into the current projectcycle or use them as part of a coherentadvocacy strategy with links between the localand national level.

Objective 2: Promote safe and non-violent schools by advocating foradequate and appropriate learningenvironments including implementationof a Teachers’ Code of Conduct andpolicy provisions

An analysis of the level of completion of activitiesshows that Ghana and Uganda completed 100%of the planned activities. Of the four Small GrantCountries only the Gambia worked directlytowards this objective and completed around67% of activities.

Some of the most effective measures takenunder this objective included the disseminationof information about current education policiesthrough training and awareness-raising sessionsfor teachers and parents. All schools visited nowhave visible copies of the Teachers’ Code ofConduct and the majority of adult respondentswere aware of the existence and content of thedocument. Associated to this has been theestablishment or strengthening of internaldisciplinary procedures to ensure cases ofviolence against children are appropriatelyreferred through official channels andperpetrators sanctioned.

Work to address corporal punishment was alsoinitiated in Ghana and Uganda, however despitea level of awareness amongst children andparents that the practice should be banned,adults have not been sufficiently equipped withthe skills they need to use appropriate alternativesand children continue to be subjected tophysical and humiliating punishment.

One area of intervention that was considered aninteresting new departure was the focus on the

inclusion of children with disabilities in thelearning environment. Whilst training for teachersto identify, assess and support children with mildforms of disability was widely appreciated, moreneeds to be done to successfully address theroot causes of discrimination and exclusion.

Finally, there were some areas of overlap betweenthe right to safe, non-violent environments and theright to adequate infrastructure. Although this waschallenging for project teams because ‘doinghuman rights’ means moving away from servicedelivery, the teams in Ghana, Malawi and theGambia were successfully able to mobilise publicresources to bring about targeted improvementsto some of the project schools, which constitutesencouraging evidence that the approach worksin practice.

Objective 3: Increase transparency andaccountability of school managementprocesses by enhancing community andchildren’s participation in decision-making and monitoring educationresources

In Ghana 100% of planned activities under thisobjective were completed and in Uganda 89%.The majority of expected outputs were alsodelivered in both countries and in Ghana justover 50% of expected outcomes were achieved,however in Uganda, due to lack of data, it wasonly possible to assess achievement ofoutcomes at 7%. None of the Small GrantCountries worked directly on this objective.

Although no specific data was collected tomeasure changes against this objective,anecdotal evidence suggests the existence offunctional SMCs and PTAs and increasedengagement and involvement of parents in thelife of the school. Children in both countries alsocommented on the fact that knowing their parentsare interested in and supportive of their educationmotivates and encourages them to do better.

Efforts to encourage meaningful childparticipation in school decision-makingstructures have not been without challenges,especially in Ghana. However Uganda, Liberiaand Zambia have made headway with children’svoices increasingly listened to, especially inUganda where the head boy and head girl are

7 Section 1

Executive summary

invited to attend meetings and contribute to themonitoring of the schools’ financial resources.

Objective 4: Increase the confidence levels,learning abilities and outcomes of girlsand children with disabilities

Ghana, Uganda and the Gambia worked towardsthis objective, successfully implementing 100%of planned activities and meeting the majority oftargets. In Uganda this was particularly pronounceddue to the higher than expected number ofchildren reached through training for clubmembers. Again, it is not possible to accuratelyrepresent results achieved due to lack of data.

Overall, whilst no specific measures were taken todocument change in a comprehensive way, themajority of respondents, children and adults alikefelt that girls’ confidence had increased thanks toactivities such as awareness-raising, workshopsand conferences and support from senior womenteachers and club matrons. Unfortunately it wasnot possible to assess whether any changes hadcome about for children with disabilities and ingeneral it was noted that the majority of childrenwith disability are not in school.

Although the wording of this objective suggestswork to increase learning abilities and outcomes,no specific activities were undertaken and nochanges were measured.

C. Partnerships: working better togetherWhilst work in the four Small Grant Countries wasundertaken directly by ActionAid, in Ghana andUganda funds were disbursed to three partnerorganisations that took on the responsibility ofimplementing all project activities with ActionAidstaff playing a coordinating role. Given that theseorganisations were already long-standingActionAid partners, the project benefited fromtheir knowledge and understanding of the issuesand the context and to a large extent partnersfulfilled their contractual obligations and ensuredthe majority of targets were achieved.

Little was done however to engage at nationallevel with Teachers’ Unions, Coalitions or otherINGOs working on similar areas, which limitedthe project’s potential to achieve advocacyobjectives and promote wide-scale buy-in for thePRS approach during the first phase.

In addition, it was observed that therelationship between the ACRE project and theRight to Education Project (RTE) could havebeen deepened and strengthened to maximisethe Human Rights dimension of the PRSapproach and facilitate increased learning,dialogue and international advocacy

D. Value for money: economy, efficiency andeffectivenessFor ActionAid, value for money encompasses arange of factors including the extent to which theorganisation is able to deliver on its promises torights-holders whilst simultaneously ensuringeffective management of costs, guaranteeingefficiency in delivery and using the rightapproaches. Although broader value for moneyquestions can be addressed by many of theissues raised in the sections on relevance,impact and sustainability, this section sought tofocus primarily on those related to economy,efficiency and effectiveness.

In general, as with many multi-country projectsthe level of support, management andadministrative costs associated with the ACREproject were relatively high (30-70), andalthough 100% of respondents highlighted thelearning and sharing to be gained from multi-country initiatives as an advantage of thisapproach, concrete examples of learning beingput into practice were few. In order to maximiselearning and sharing and justify the highproportion of support costs it would make moresense to spread the project over a number ofyears to increase capacity to achieve impact.

In addition, whilst the two main countriesreceived identical-sized grants, Ghanafocussed on implementing activities in sixschools whereas Uganda was able to stretchthe same financial resources to 30 schoolsachieving a slightly higher overall percentage ofactivity implementation and thus, from a purelyquantitative perspective represents greatervalue for money.

Finally, as highlighted in a recent BOND paperon value for money: “unless an NGO can monitorcosts and measure outcomes it will struggle toengage meaningfully with Value for Money”(BOND 2012). Although the project did a goodjob of monitoring expenditure, little was done to

Section 1 8

Executive summary

effectively measure outcomes, and so this reportcannot fully do justice to the degree of actualimpact achieved over the 12-month period.

E. Sustainability: ensuring ownership andlasting changeThere is some evidence already that the PRSapproach adopted by the ACRE project waspotentially conducive to longer-termsustainability due to the high-levels of buy-inand engagement it encourages from the outset,particularly in terms of its capacity to mobilisecivil society and other key educationstakeholders in the collection and analysis ofdata on the implementation of children’s rightsto and in education.

To sustain this momentum, it will be crucial tocontinue encouraging buy-in and also focus ondeveloping capacity, skills and understandingof different stakeholders to continue using PRSmethods and approaches once funding comesto an end.

Finally, by strengthening links between localand national advocacy work, ideally inassociation with a strong advocacy partner andby making best use of the available researchand policy information consolidated in thebaseline reports, fact sheets and policy briefsthe project will stand a greater chance ofpushing for specific changes to the legal andpolicy framework to ensure longer term impact.

9 Section 1

Children's club advocating for protection of children withdisability at Kinyamira primary school, Uganda

ActionA

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Kate H

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Executive summary

The Action for Children’s Rights in Education(ACRE) project was a one-year initiative,implemented simultaneously in six countriesbetween February 2012 and February 2013. Theproject was funded by an anonymous donor with agrant of US$640 000 (£404 453). The main volumeof work took place in Ghana and Uganda, howeversmaller grants were allocated to The Gambia,Liberia, Malawi and Zambia.

The overall goal of the project was to ensure thatgirls and children with disabilities gain access to free, quality public education and enablestakeholders to understand the legal implicationsof and are supported in demanding the fulfilmentthe right to education. The project had four specificobjectives:

1 Increase awareness of rights to and in educationby collecting data using the PRS framework withmulti-stakeholder groups of children, parents,teachers, community leaders, local educationgroups, researchers, and teachers’ unions.

2 Promote safe and non-violent schools byadvocating for adequate and appropriatelearning environments including implementationof a Teachers’ Code of Conduct and policyprovisions.

3 Increase transparency and accountability ofschool management processes by enhancingcommunity and children’s participation indecision-making and monitoring educationresources.

4 Increase the confidence levels, learning abilitiesand outcomes of girls and children withdisabilities.

The ACRE project aimed to pilot the implementationof ActionAid International’s Promoting Rights inSchools (PRS) framework. The PRS framework isbased on 10 simply articulated rights derived fromnational legal instruments, international humanrights conventions and uses a rights-basedapproach which aims to secure free, compulsory,quality public education for all by strengthening thepublic education system. The 10 rights are asfollows:

1 Right to free and compulsory education2 Right to non-discrimination3 Right to adequate infrastructure4 Right to quality trained teachers5 Right to a safe and non-violent environment6 Right to relevant education7 Right to know your rights8 Right to participate9 Right to transparent and accountable schools10 Right to quality learning

The participatory nature of the PRS approach helpsto empower citizens to hold the core duty bearer,the State, responsible for respecting, protecting andfulfilling education rights and to explore the roleeach stakeholder can play in ensuring schools offergood quality education. During its implementationperiod the ACRE project focused mainly on thepromotion of three of these 10 rights, notably: ■ The right to non-discrimination■ The right to a safe and non-violent environment■ The right to participate.

To ensure stakeholder involvement in the projectActionAid country programmes engaged stakeholdersat different levels to collect evidence using the PRSframework in order to determine the extent to whichthe ten rights are being fulfilled in schools. Using aparticipatory methodology and Reflection Actionapproach to adult learning and social change,stakeholders were brought together and empoweredto participate in diagnosing the problem of children’srights in local communities and proposing localsolutions by being part of the baseline data collection.

Section 1 10

Project description

ImagesTop row left: Right to free and compulsory educationTop row right: Right 1 Charter Second row left: Right to quality trained teachersSecond row right:Right to transparent and accountable schoolsThird row left: Right to participateThird row right: Right to know your rightsFourth row left: Right to a safe and non-violent environmentFourth row right: Right to quality trained teachersBottom row left: Right to relevant educationBottom row right:Right to adequate infrastructure

All images © ActionAid

Section 1 12

This evaluation was conducted between 21st Marchand 29th April 2013 and included a desk-baseddocument review, key informant interviews andfocus group discussions in both Ghana and Ugandaas well as Skype interviews with key staff from eachof the four Small Grant Countries, ActionAidInternational and ActionAid USA. Further detail onhow these methodologies were implementedfollows below:

1 Desk Review: a document map, linking keydocuments to the main areas of review for theevaluation was drafted and information obtainedfrom documents was mapped against the areasof review/evaluation questions and key dataextracted to inform analysis.

2 Key Informant Interviews: in total, 36 keyrespondents (21M/15F) were interviewed inGhana, the Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Senegal,South Africa, UK, USA and Zambia.Respondents included ActionAid staff atInternational and national level, nationalimplementing partner staff as well as RTE staffand Ministry of Education personnel atdecentralised level. The table in Annex 1 showsthe breakdown of respondents per organisation.

3 Focus Group Discussions: a series 16 offocus group discussions were carried out in theproject intervention areas in Ghana and Ugandato gather information to complement the desk-review and key informant interviews. In total,over 200 people including 74 girls, 15 boys, 33 teachers and 86 parents/School ManagementCommittee/Parent-Teacher AssociationMembers were interviewed. See Annex 1 formore information.

LimitationsAlthough all efforts were made to meet with and talkto as many relevant respondents as possible duringthe course of this evaluation, a number of logisticaland practical factors prevented this from beingentirely successful. Some of the limitations of thisevaluation include:

■ Due to time constraints, in one school in Ghanaand another in Uganda it was not possible tohold Focus Group Discussions with boys asplanned.

■ As a result of external events such as marketdays and funerals, fewer women than men wereavailable to participate in focus groups in Ghanaand Uganda.

■ In Uganda the long distance to travel to reachthe project schools limited available time and soa decision was made to merge parents withParent Teacher Association (PTA)/SchoolManagement Committee (SMC) members duringFocus Group Discussions. This decision wastaken after observing that PTA/SMC memberstook part in both discussions in Ghana.

■ Not possible to visit both implementation sites inUganda.

■ Although there was no time to visit bothimplementation sites in Uganda, a meeting wasorganised with KADEFO representatives inKampala, however this was then cancelled dueto internal miscommunication and follow up wasdone via email using the questionnaire form.

Methodology overview

Evaluationresults

Section 2A

ctionAid

13

Some of the girls that were consulted at Matamanda primary school

1 Relevance: did we do the rightthing in the right way?

1.1 What value and for whom did thisproject add, in the context ofother education initiatives?

The basic premises of the project is that byoperationalizing the Promoting Rights in Schoolsmethodology through a research to action approachthat promotes citizen engagement and evidence-based advocacy, the quality of public education willbe improved. The Promoting Rights in Schools(PRS) manual states that:

“We believe the process is as important as the outcome. It is only through engaging allstakeholders, from children to parents, fromcommunity leaders to NGOs and teachers’ unions inthe entire effort, from developing the charter tocollecting and analysing the data and debating the findings, that we will promotegreater awareness of what needs to change and how. The information collected can then be consolidated into local, district and national‘citizens reports’ that can be used as a basis forfuture action including mobilisation, advocacy and campaigning.” (PRS manual p.1)

Discussions with respondents suggest that the mainvalue added by the project was its capacity to raiseawareness of children’s rights to and in educationboth at community level (amongst parents, teachersand children) as well as amongst a broad range ofstakeholders at decentralised level. Indeed around45% of respondents highlighted this as being one ofthe key areas of difference between the PRSapproach and other education work they had beeninvolved in to date. To a large extent this wasguaranteed by the participatory approach of thebaseline study in which engaged educationauthorities, community members, teachers, parentsand children in the collection and analysis of the data.

Rather than simply seeking to highlight the value ofeducation, the PRS approach provides stakeholdersand beneficiaries with the capacity to understandeducation as being a fundamental right of allchildren, to monitor its implementation at all levels

and demand accountability from duty-bearers. Some respondents also highlighted the uniquenessof this model’s capacity to combine Human Rightslaw and community mobilisation to promote citizenaction and engagement:

“It is using human rights law and collecting evidencefrom community based models to demonstrate ifduty-bearers are following through on theircommitments (…) PRS and ACRE have served as anexperimentation as to how this approach works withthe education sector. It’s exciting to see how thisworks in education and I am not aware of otherinitiatives quite like it (…) there are a multiplicity ofapproaches but this could bring it all together.”

(Right To Education project staff)

In addition around 50% of respondents emphasisedtheir appreciation for this project’s focus onchildren’s rights noting that previous work failed toengage children directly but that this approachcontributed to empowering and enabling childrenthemselves to challenge traditional perceptions oftheir capacity and role within society:

“It is an empowering framework. Now we havechildren (…) asking teachers ‘why are you notteaching?’ We had a meeting for parents and SMCs and the agenda was charged. Children had a report and they presented it. I believe this projectempowered the children so they can participate.SMCs now know their roles and responsibilities (…) before the project, children didn’t know theyhad rights.” (NGO forum staff, Uganda)

This increased awareness was also verified at fieldlevel during discussions with children, teachers andparents and explored in greater detail under thesection on impact on page 18.

Section 2 14

Evaluation results

“It helps children and otherstakeholders know their rights and Government is also awarethat they know their rights andcan claim them.”

(ActionAid staff, Ghana)

In addition, whereas previous work may havefocussed on ensuring access to education, the PRSapproach takes a holistic perspective and focuseson what actually goes on inside schools. For around20% of respondents, the emphasis on issuesrelated to non-discrimination was also a new andexciting area, which had not so far featuredprominently in their work and would merit beingexplored further.

“We have worked with ActionAid for 11-12 yearsand done so much in education. This is the onlyproject that directly focuses on children withdisabilities. In the past parents knew that there is aneed to send all children to school but tended todownplay children with disabilities and fosterchildren and prefer boys. This project let us look atchildren and non-discrimination against particular children.” (CALID staff, Ghana)

The project’s capacity to engage with a broad rangeof education stakeholders, including civil societyorganisations and education authorities was to alarge extent is attributable to the collaborativeapproach. This was particularly highlighted in theGambia where the ACRE project provided anopportunity to bring together key Civil SocietyOrganisations (CSOs) focusing on education towork together on issues affecting the achievementof quality public education for all children.

However evidence also shows that the approach isnot without challenges and whilst the baselineresearch adds value to the project both in terms ofthe process, as well as the depth of qualitative andquantitative information it provides, country teamsexperienced difficulties in implementation. Theseincluded: lack of expertise in data collection andanalysis; needing to bring in external consultants tosupport with the process (and deal with associatedadditional costs) and struggling with low quality ofsome of the reports.

Nevertheless, it was felt that overall the project’sapproach and methodologies contributed toconsolidating staff capacity to better understandhow to implement Human Rights Based Approach(HRBA) in practice with some staff noting that evenfurther advantages could be gained if the approachwere seen to be applicable beyond the educationsector alone:

“The added value of the PRS approach is thecollection of evidence and the use of HumanRights concretely rather than just rhetoric. Also interms of raising awareness about rights, not just thevalue of education, if only amongst ActionAid staff,it brought the start of a new culture in ActionAid interms of awareness of rights.”

(Right To Education project staff)

In terms of the project’s capacity to put ActionAid’sTheory of Change in practice it is clear that duringthe first year progress was made towardsempowerment and rights awareness, however moreneeds to be done to mobilise different stakeholdersfor effective advocacy and campaigning in solidaritywith national-level networks and coalitions.

1.2 Did this project answer realneeds in the intervention areas?

The challenge of achieving quality basic educationremains a reality in all six countries taking part in the project and whilst top level figures may showsignificant overall progress towards theachievement of Education for All goals over the past 10 years findings from the baseline studiesconducted as part of the ACRE project’s activitiesreveal some of the inequities and gaps in provisionat school level including: exclusion; violence;discrimination; lack of children’s participation; lowparental engagement and poor infrastructure.

Because the baseline study was implemented as oneof the key activities of the project itself, rather than asa preliminary step in the process and because theproposal was developed at international level, ratherthan being based on priorities identified by the targetcommunities there was a clear feeling that the projectwas prescriptive as the main areas of focus hadalready been identified in advance.

15 Section 2

ActionAid’s Theory of Change includesthree core components:

1 Empowerment: working with rights holders

to promote awareness of rights,

consciousness building, mobilisation and

addressing immediate needs.

2 Campaigning: targeted at duty bearers this

includes advocacy and mobilisation for

changes in policy and practice.

3 Solidarity: working through networks,

coalitions and alliances to strengthen the

voice and power of the poorest.

Evaluation re s u l t s

Nevertheless respondents felt that the issues theproject sought to address were coherent with needson the ground and that the collaborative nature ofthe baseline survey allowed community membersand other stakeholders to gain a clear view of theextent to which some of children’s most basiceducation rights are failing to be met at school level.

This promoted local buy in to the project’s areas offocus and garnered support from the school-levelupwards to mobilise around the issues. It is alsoimportant to note however, that had the projectundertaken an initial needs-assessment atcommunity level it is likely that infrastructure andresources would have emerged as the most pressingpriorities identified by children and adults alike.

During focus group discussions, when asked what asecond phase of the project should focus on, allparticipants in Ghana and Uganda cited thefollowing issues in order of priority: latrines (75%);classrooms (37.5%); books (37.5%); potable water(37.5%) and teachers’ quarters (31%). With schoolbuildings nearing collapse, a lack of adequatesanitation facilities, insufficient teachers, over-crowded classrooms and a lack of teaching andlearning materials it is hard for project beneficiariesto appreciate an initiative that aims to promote lesstangible, more ‘abstract’ issues such as rights:

“When we were talking to communities we werefocussing on the three rights (participation, non-discrimination and safe non violent environment butwhen we looked at safe environment we found thatcommunities were talking about infrastructure,which was not the focus of the project.”

(ActionAid staff, Small Grant Country)

The right to adequate infrastructure is one of the 10key rights in the PRS model, and without this it isunderstandably hard to ensure quality education forchildren in a safe, protective learning environment.However as ActionAid moves away from servicedelivery model to an approach that seeks to

increase the capacity of rights-holders to claim theirentitlements from duty-bearers, it is important toconsider how to ensure all 10 rights are met withoutengaging in massive school construction initiatives.By strengthening advocacy for adequate allocationand use of public funds for education and usingsuccessful, costed models as examples, the projectcan contribute to tackling both infrastructural issuesas well as ‘softer’ components associated with theright to quality education.

1.3 Has this project taken adequatesteps to redress imbalances inwomen’s rights/genderinequality?

Women’s Rights and gender equality are at theheart of ActionAid’s HRBA approach and the ACREproject specifically sought to focus on girls’ rights toeducation. Around 95% of respondents felt that theinitiative had successfully begun to bring aboutimprovements in this area through awareness-raising and other activities such as the girls’ clubs,which aimed to increase girls’ confidence in theirown abilities.

This perception was corroborated through discussionsin Ghana and Uganda with girls themselves citing theirincreased confidence to talk in front of others, beserious about studies and take on leadership rolesas a result of the project. Apart from the training workfor Senior Women Teachers in Uganda, projectactivities were not specifically targeted at women,but sought to engage with them as part of broaderactivities aimed at teachers, parents and SMC/PTAmembers. Nevertheless, in Ghana, some parentsdirectly attributed changes in interactions betweenmen and women to the work of the project:

“We found it difficult to imagine that a woman couldsit with her husband and take decisions togetherabout the family. As a result of this project thewomen are seated here (in the meeting place)otherwise they would be outside and the men wouldtake the decisions and inform them later. Now withthis project we feel safe to sit with men and discuss.” (Mother, Ghana)

However, whilst this point was reiterated by severalother women during discussions it must also benoted that ActionAid and CALID have been workingin these communities for a number of years soalthough the project took women’s rights andgender equality into account during implementation,

Section 2 16

“There was a baseline study andtalking to women, youth, SMC,PTA, teachers, parents andchildren we really saw that theissues were relevant to thecommunity. We saw the need.”

(Ghana Education Service staff, Ghana)


such significant changes in behaviour and attitudeare unlikely to be attributable to this project alone.

1.4 Are the project objectives stillrelevant given achievements so far?

Changes to knowledge are relatively easier toachieve than changes to attitudes, practice andpolicy and whilst the ACRE project has succeededin raising awareness of education rights and thePRS approach both within ActionAid and amongstother stakeholders, much remains to be done.Overall, key respondents felt that should the projectcontinue it would do well to continue working on thesame issues, with 30% of respondents arguing for adeeper focus rather than a wider scope of workduring a potential second phase.

“We should continue working on these issues. It wasjust one year so some issues have just beenuncovered. I feel strongly that those issues are keyto the local context so it would be better to continuefor a reasonable period and see the impact.”

(ActionAid staff, Ghana)

The first year has allowed the project to raiseawareness and begin identifying potentiallysuccessful strategies for addressing issues ofdiscrimination, lack of participation and violence in thelearning environment and there is a need to begin todig deeper into the issues in order to see real results.

17 Section 2

Relevance: highlights

Although the core aims and objectives of the project

had been determined prior to the completion of the

baseline study, the issues it sought to address were

largely considered to be relevant by all those involved

including ActionAid and partner staff as well as rights-

holders at the community level. The project’s main

areas of added value were broadly seen to be its focus

on children’s rights to education and its capacity to

involve a wide range of stakeholders in the analysis of

the situation on the ground from the outset. Despite

challenges involved in putting theory into practice the

project managed to successfully raise awareness of

education as a right demonstrating the validity of the

core premises of the PRS approach in practice and

contributing to improved understanding about the

operationalization of a Human Rights-based approach

to development work.

Evaluation results

Using PRA to analyse their issues at a girls’ club meeting, Ghana

ActionA

id

2 Impact: did the project achievethe planned results?

The sections below seek to assess progress madeagainst each of the project’s four key objectives.The emphasis is placed on achievements in Ghanaand Uganda, however mention is also made ofcontributions made by the four Small GrantCountries: The Gambia; Liberia; Malawi and Zambia.

Objective 1: I n c rease awareness of rights toand in education by collecting data usingthe PRS framework with multi-stakeholdergroups of children, parents, teachers,community leaders, local educationg roups, re s e a rchers, and teachers’ unions.

To a large extent the project has been successful inincreasing awareness of children’s rights to and ineducation. An analysis of project narrative andfinancial reports shows that a high proportion oftargets have been reached under this objective and,as illustrated by the diagram below, 100% ofplanned activities were delivered in Ghana andUganda as well as a relatively high proportion in allfour Small Grant Countries.

The indicators selected for this objective are largelyoutput rather than outcome indicators andtherefore, since most activities were carried out, themajority of outputs were also realized (Ghana 98%,Uganda 71%). A small number of outcome

indicators were also established in the M&E frameworkand available data suggests that 100% of these wereachieved in Ghana and 40% in Uganda. Data onoutputs and outcomes achieved was not availablefrom any of the Small Grant Countries except forMalawi where PRS has been fully integrated into thecountry programme’s education work.

Process As noted on p 10, one of the key areas where thisproject managed to add value as compared to othereducation initiatives and make the most lasting changeduring its relatively short implementation period, hasbeen in its capacity to increase awareness ofchildren’s rights to and in education. This was largelyattributable to the use of an inclusive methodology forthe baseline study and the creation of advisorycommittees at various levels to advise and guide theproject’s progress and mobilise communities aroundthe issue of children’s rights to and in education.

“The way we did the baseline to bring allstakeholders on board by creating advisorycommittees and multi-stakeholder groups helpedgenerate buy-in. We shared the questions andcontextualized them with the communities. Thissupported increased awareness of SMCs and PTAs.Now parents, especially mothers are aware of therole they can play in supporting their children’s education.” (ActionAid International staff)

Section 2 18

Objective

1


Through engagement in the baseline research over140 people including teachers, SMC members andchildren were trained on the principles of PRSacross all six countries, however whilst the aim wasto engage community-members directly in the entireprocess, data analysis was considered challenging.Indeed, four out of the six country programme teamsopted to recruit external consultants to support withdata analysis and report writing and in Liberia aconsultant was hired for the entire process limitingcommunity members’ role to that of observers.Naturally, this approach came with added costimplications and although Ghana was able to obtainthe support of researchers at the University ofDevelopment Studies in Tamale virtually free ofcharge due to their involvement on the multi-stakeholder advisory committee and the team inZambia benefited from support provided by Peoplefor Change volunteers, this was not the case inother countries where consultancy fees consumed alarge part of the available project budget.

Given the project’s intention to produce a series ofnational reports to be used for advocacy andcampaigning work and also to consolidate fin d i n g sinto an international report this approach is to anextent understandable that teams felt the need tobring in external expertise, however in the long-run it isunlikely that this approach can be sustained withouts p e c i fic funding allocations. Moreover, if there is anexpectation of wider buy-in to the PRS approach,community data collection and analysis of the right toeducation should not be seen as something that canonly be done by a professional researcher but rather aroutine stage in any project M&E cycle. CountryManagement Team members in Uganda noted that allprojects in ActionAid are currently required to dobaseline analyses however, interviews with staffsuggest that the practice of undertaking such detailed,participatory baseline studies engaging such a widerange of stakeholders was relatively new:

“The most important activity was the baseline datacollection because we included indicators we hadnever researched before. Getting that much detailedinformation on schools was very, very important andour future campaigning work will be based on thatdocument, so that was a significant achievement.”

(ActionAid staff, Small Grant Country)

ActionAid staff recognized the value of the practice,which allows for a more comprehensive collectionof detailed quantitative data than the usual PRRP

process, which tends to collect more qualitativeinformation and as such is hoped that this marksthe start of a more rigorous programming practicewithin the organisation.

ResultsDiscussions with stakeholders and communitymembers alike in Ghana and Uganda revealed anappreciable level of awareness of children’s rightsto education, however it is also important to notethat concepts of children’s rights are perceived togo against the grain in socio-cultural contexts wherechildren are expected to behave in a submissivemanner towards adults with very little scope tovoice their opinions. This issue was raised duringfocus group discussions in both countries:

“Some of these rights give children a headache…forexample, it is making children difficult. They actuallymisbehave and refuse to do what their parents tellthem at home and at school…”

(Male teacher, Uganda)

The need to consider how to discuss issues ofchildren’s rights in such contexts requiresconsiderable thought in order for community-members to see the advantages that knowledgeabout their children’s rights and entitlements toeducation can bring to their children as well as thewider community, rather than a threat to authority.Collaboration and discussion between teachers,parents and others shows that there is alreadyevidence of some adults with a strong grasp of theempowering potential of this knowledge:

“Rights are universal but tradition is not, so inhouseholds girls and boys experience differenttreatment and get assigned different responsibilities.Rights have no gender but we have to think abouthow we marry issues of rights and tradition and howyou convince a boy that sweeping will not make hima girl or that a girl can be a prefect (…). The ACREproject gave us ideas on how to get parents onboard so that the home setting also respects children’s rights.” (Male teacher, Ghana)

“People see (children’s rights) as something foreignrather than being part of their every day lives. Wehave discussions where we share and debate issuesand we have been able to break some of the mythshere and help people understand that rights arenothing but part of our every day lives.”

(ActionAid staff Small Grant Country)

19 Section 2


One of the key PRS rights is the Right to Know YourRights and whilst adults, regardless of their view onthe matter, demonstrated some level of awarenessabout children’s rights, the same cannot be said ofthe children interviewed for this evaluation. Althoughboth girls and boys in Uganda were able tocomfortably identify a range of rights and schoolshad visibly displayed examples of the PRS charter aswell as other awareness raising materials created bythe schools, in Ghana such materials were not visiblein schools visited and children were not familiar withthe language of rights, necessarily limiting theircapacity to understand and take empowered action.

As noted above, one of the key purposes of thebaseline data was to inform advocacy workhowever around 10% of key informants interviewedfor this evaluation noted that this had not been theproject’s strongest point. Little was done to createsolid links between district level work and nationallevel advocacy. In part this may have been due tothe relatively short implementation timeframehowever there was also a lack of effectivestakeholder analysis and engagement with keypartners at national level including Education for Allcoalitions, Teachers’ Unions and other INGOsworking on children’s rights to education, protectionand participation.

Nevertheless, strong district-level engagement withEducation Authorities contributed to awareness,buy-in and action and, potentially, onwardsustainability and their involvement from the outsetled to a range of immediate and concrete results

including: construction of school blocks in Ghanaand Malawi; provision of training for teachers inGhana and Uganda; placement of female teachersin rural schools in Uganda, monitoring of teachers’conduct in schools in Liberia and the adoption ofmore rigorous school-level data collection and record-keeping in Malawi. These successes can definitelypave the way for stronger advocacy work and manyof the steps already taken to begin initiating changein policy and practice can be followed up on andstrengthened in the next phase of the project.

Finally, although four out of the six baseline reportswere drafted by external consultants, not all are ofhigh enough quality to be published without furtherreview. In addition, the fact that some of the reportsare significantly limited in terms of the size of samplesused limits their statistical relevance and credibility foruse in future advocacy work all of which raisesquestions regarding value for money. The importanceof baseline studies for the project implementationprocess as a whole needs to be given greaterrecognition by ActionAid and partner staff alike toensure effective programming and impact.

Objective 2: Promote safe and non-violentschools by advocating for adequate andappropriate learning environmentsincluding implementation of a Teachers’Code of Conduct and policy provisions.

By using information consolidated in the baselinereports as well as the country fact-sheets produced

Section 2 20

Objective

2


by the RTE project, the project aimed to take arange of measures to improve the safety andprotectiveness of the learning environment for boysand girls including the differently-abled. An analysisof the level of completion of activities shows thatGhana and Uganda completed 100% of theplanned activities. Of the four Small Grant Countriesonly the Gambia worked directly towards thisobjective and was able to complete around 67% ofplanned activities.

Indicators established under this objective were acombination of output and outcome indicators,however, whilst it is possible to see that the majorityof outputs were achieved, lack of systematic datameans it is difficult to measure impact.

Evidence gathered during the baseline studiesdemonstrate that factors such as corporalpunishment, violence and discrimination constitutevery real problems in schools in all six of the projectcountries. Despite the existence of a range ofpolicies aimed at encouraging education for all,promoting inclusive education, limiting the use ofcorporal punishment and prohibiting sexualharassment and abuse of pupils in schools policiesare in many cases not implemented. As onerespondent stated:

“Most of the problems this project is seeking toaddress are centred around non-adherence topolicies. So if teachers can be trained and updatedon current policies then that will help address someof the gaps. It is unfortunate that NGOs have to dothis, but the MOE has no resources…”

(ActionAid Ghana staff)

A more in-depth analysis of the activities,particularly in Ghana and Uganda reveal thatdespite the short time frame the project alreadystarted to make a difference to the safety of schoolenvironments both in terms of policy and practiceboth of which are crucial to longer term change andsustainability.

By prioritizing work with teachers and parents theACRE project has been able to change teachers’knowledge, awareness and (in some cases)practices within the classroom to increase safetyand reduce violence against children at school.Whilst the project was not successful in collectingspecific, measurable data against many of the setindicators, anecdotal evidence collected during

focus group discussions, key informant interviewsand observations reveal that change in the followingareas:

School-based policiesIn Ghana and Uganda and the Gambia 215 teacherswere trained on the Teachers’ Code of Conduct andexamples were available to see in the schoolsvisited for this evaluation. Teachers interviewed inGhana and Uganda, were conversant with thecontents of the code as were some SMC membersand parents.

“One rule is that some teachers chase school girlsand some female teachers want to ‘befriend’ schoolboys – this is an offence. And one other thing: someteachers may ask children to help them withhousehold chores; that should not be done,especially if a girl is going to work for a male teacher.” (Male SMC member, Ghana)

In Liberia it was noted that there is currently nonational-level Code of Conduct but thanks to issuesraised during the baseline study, the project hasalready begun to generate awareness about theneed for such a document and the DistrictEducation Officer in Gbarpolu has established ateam to monitor teachers’ conduct in schools aninitiative which the team hope will lead to thecreation of a Code of Conduct further down the line.

Whilst for the most part, children interviewed werenot aware either of the existence of the Code ofConduct or its contents many (especially in Uganda)were aware of the School Rules. It is worth notingthat whereas School Rules exist in primary schoolsin Uganda as a norm, this was not the case inGhana. These were created by ACRE project staff incollaboration with children and teachers in the sixtarget schools with the expectation that buy-in fromthe Ghana Education Service will potentially lead toreview, adoption and generalized roll-out across amuch wider number of schools in the future.

In Uganda, both boys and girls were able to citeschool rules and these were visibly pasted in theHead Teachers’ offices in the schools visited. InGhana, perhaps due to their relative novelty, mostchildren interviewed had not heard of them, thoughone group of girls did say that they knew theyincluded issues such as: no stealing; no fighting andno playing during lessons.

21 Section 2


Corporal PunishmentCorporal punishment remains widely used in schoolsacross all six countries an issue that was highlightedin the baseline reports. This is largely due to reasonsincluding: lack of awareness of clear laws and policiesprohibiting the practice; lack of training for teachers inalternative forms of classroom management and theprinciples of positive discipline; absence of clear;transparent disciplinary procedures and referral andreporting mechanisms at school level.

The project attempted to tackle this issue by rollingout training workshops for teachers in Uganda,reaching a total of 120 teachers. Focus GroupDiscussions in Ghana and Uganda show that there isa general level of awareness amongst teachers andparents that corporal punishment should be avoided:

“In terms of discipline what we do now is to counseland advise, and then if a child repeats then we givethe child a task like weeding or sweeping. Thenrarely and sparingly we use the cane.”

(Male teacher Ghana)

Whilst the responses of children and adults in bothcountries suggested that some alternatives tocaning and other forms of physical and humiliatingpunishment are in use in schools, many of thesesuch as sweeping or slashing the compound anddigging the garden are not constructive and takechildren out of the school environment, a fact notlost on one parent:

“Corporal punishment is best. At least that way theyget caned and it’s over with and then they can goback to class. If they are set to digging and weedingand sweeping they will miss out on what is beingtaught whilst others are in class.” (Father, Ghana)

In both countries, it was clear that there was anawareness of the need to move away from corporalpunishment, with some parents supportive ofalternative methods of discipline, however it wasalso clear from discussions with children that itcontinues to be used in schools:

“Sometimes they cane us or make us pull on ourears. Sometimes we have to kneel down.”

(Girl, Ghana)

As the quote below suggests, it will take more thanawareness-raising to change deeply rooted beliefsand practices about discipline.

“Actually (…) even me I still cane them. If youcounsel a child and there is no change, you becomeannoyed. It is wrong, you should not cane, but whenyou cane a child only twice it is not corporal punishment.” (Male teacher, Uganda)

Further work is needed to ensure effective classroommanagement and positive discipline techniques areincorporated into teachers’ practice and that there is asolid understanding of children’s rights to protectionfrom all forms of violence and abuse. This shouldinclude ongoing capacity development in collaborationwith Ministry staff as well as collaborative advocacyfor changes in policy at national level.

Referral and Reporting mechanismsAmongst other planned outcome under thisobjective the project aimed to ensure that allschools had disciplinary procedures in place toencourage more effective reporting of cases ofviolence and abuse against children in schools. Oneof the most common problems with such cases,particularly those perpetrated by teachers is thefailure to report or follow them up through formalchannels. As noted by a member of the GhanaEducation Service:

Official disciplinary actions exist, but communitiesdon’t even report such things. If they do report, GEShas its rules, which are in the Code of Conduct, butthe communities don’t make it known. Sometimesthey come in and you sympathise with this fellow,you don’t want him to lose his job, but you areforgetting about the life of the girl child… We haveto follow disciplinary procedures through. Dismissalis the severest penalty at the GES level. The criminalaspect is followed up by the police.

(Ghana Education Service staff, Ghana)

Whilst indicators were established in the project’sM&E framework, no specific data was collected to

Section 2 22

“For me as a parent, I reallyappreciate the issue of children’srights. When I was growing upthese things did not exist. Wecould be beaten and treated likeslaves and no-one seemed to care,but now children are aware and itis preventing parents beating their children.” (Father, Uganda)


measure changes in awareness or practice,however, hard copies of Teachers’ Codes ofConduct were available in all schools visited for thisevaluation and teachers, parents and SMC/PTAmembers were largely aware of both the existenceand the contents of the documents. Moreover, whenasked about disciplinary procedures that would beapplied at the school level most respondents wereable to outline some form of process:

“We agreed that if a teacher runs after a girl pupil,the teacher should be referred to the EducationAuthorities who will then refer to the Code ofConduct to see what sanctions should be prescribed.” (SMC member Ghana)

However this was not coherent throughout andseemed to vary from school to school with varyingdegrees of use of the formal procedures:

“It should first be reported to the PTA chairman,then to the chief’s palace, no, I mean first it shouldgo to the Head Teacher, then the PTA chairman,then the chief’s palace. If it goes beyond the chiefthen at last it should be taken to the police.”

(Father, Ghana)

It is crucial that the procedures are clearlyunderstood and known by all: teachers; parents andchildren alike, and that in cases of abuse, disciplinaryas well as criminal proceedings are followed through.

Children with Disabilities

Baseline data identified children with disabilityamongst others as being discriminated against withregards to education as a result of multiple factorsincluding negative beliefs, attitudes and practices,lack of facilities and trained teachers all of whichresult in children with disability being kept at home,denied their right to education and, in extremecases, being killed.

A series of activities were planned to address thisincluding training and sensitization for teachers on

the detection and support for differently-abledchildren in the learning environment andsensitization for community members (e.g. throughReflect circles) on the rights of children withdisabilities. Although the project did notsystematically collect data on this in all countries,during the course of the evaluation it was clear thata number of children with different forms ofdisability at the project schools and several parentsattested to this, openly admitting that theythemselves had children with physical or learningdisabilities who attended school and there was ageneralized acknowledgement that education couldbe advantageous even to children with disabilities:

“It is important that children with disabilities (…) goto school. Once I saw a dumb boy who was workingas a shoe-shine and I asked him, ‘how do you tellsomeone how much he has to pay you?’ The boywrote it down. Then I said, ‘what if the personcheats you, what do you do?’ and he wrote, ‘I leaveit up to God he will resolve the matter’. So, if thatboy had not gone to school, how could he have toldme all of this?” (Father, Ghana)

In Ghana the training aimed at improving teachers’capacity to identify and support children withdisabilities in schools was widely considered to be asuccess by both ActionAid and partner staff as wellas teachers, resulting in changes in teachingpractice that were recognized by parents andchildren alike:

“I have one (child with hearing impairment) in myclass. I brought him to the front to make sure heunderstands and go through the lesson to help himunderstand and help him be somewhere where hewill not be disturbed by the others and prevent themfrom bullying him.” (Male teacher, Ghana)

“After teaching, the teacher sits by the boy andrepeats what he has said. We also have a way toassist them by helping them with exercise books and pens.” (Girl, Ghana)

Despite these successes all respondents stated thatthere are far more children with disability who arenot attending school and much more remained tobe done to address the root causes ofdiscrimination against children with disability,including further awareness raising as well asadvocacy for increased allocation of resources.

23 Section 2

“Children with disabilities shouldgo to school. It is better becauseeven such a child can become animportant person in the futureregardless of the disability.”

(Boy, Ghana)


“Some are still at home. Sometimes I make homevisits to encourage parents, but they fear…they fearthat their children cannot do anything or they fearthat the children will be bullied. We have beenlobbying for a wheelchair so that the disabled onecan come to school. Even one teacher here has awheelchair. The education department providescanes for the blind and wheelchairs for cripples.”(Male teacher in charge of special needs, Uganda)

Although the Disability Act in Ghana and ministerialdirectives in Uganda exist to ensure public buildingsare accessible, and despite the existence ofinclusive education policies, some of the schoolsvisited were barely standing and had no latrines,much less accessible facilities or special equipment.Moreover, teachers already struggling to manageclasses of 80 pupils simply do not have the skills,resources or time required to cater for children withmore severe disabilities. As a result this goesbeyond simply ensuring schools have ramps forwheelchairs, and the situation for individual childrenis unlikely to improve if attitudes to disability are notchanged, if their parents cannot afford the mobilityequipment they need, or if teachers are notadequately trained and supported with appropriateteaching and learning resources and materials tosuit different abilities and needs.

Additional policiesIn addition to what has already been mentioned it isworth noting that by virtue of its focus on a widerange of education rights and its capacity to identifygaps, contradictions and opportunities for pressure,the project served to support the implementation ofa broader range of existing laws and policies ineach country. In Uganda for example, specificmeasures were being taken up at district level tosupport the implementation of the national UniversalPrimary Education Policy. This included worktowards the passing of a local by-law to holdparents accountable for ensuring all children ofschool-going age are attending school. Also inUganda, the baseline revealed a lack of womenteachers in the majority of schools outside thedistrict administrative centres, so measures werebeing taken to transfer them. This of course has notbeen very well-received by the women in questionas conditions are lacking in the remote, ruralschools to which they are being sent. Advocacy toensure teachers can work with appropriateconditions and support should accompany suchinitiatives.

Appropriate learning environments: whilst theACRE project sought to focus primarily on the rightto a safe, non-violent environment there was someoverlap with the right to adequate infrastructure. Thed i f ficulty of concentrating primarily on ‘software’ wasnot lost on the teams involved:

“In one of the communities when we wereexplaining the right to safe environment one of thechildren called me and showed me the classroomand showed me the huge cracks and said if we wantto talk about safe environment we need to solve thisproblem first. So when you are explaining safeenvironment they use that. They don’t want to hearanything else. But there is no support for infrastructure.” (CALID staff, Ghana)

Although project did not have specific funds forlarge-scale infrastructure work in target schoolsstrategies in Ghana and Uganda were developed toencourage the use of decentralized funds to bringabout a range of improvements. As a result thefollowing achievements were reported:

Separate changing facilities for girls: inUganda separate changing rooms for girls havebeen identified in 24 out of 30 schools and separatewash rooms installed in all 30 schools as well asseparate offices for senior female teachers and 40 female teachers were trained how to producesanitary pads from local materials. Both theseactivities made a significant difference to girls,particularly during their menstrual period and whilstno data was gathered to demonstrate changes inattendance rates, respondents claimed that girlswere now more regular in school thanks to thesechanges and girls themselves attested to thedifference it had made in their lives:

“I used to fear even touching sanitary pads, but nowI can even train other people on how to use themand I can talk about them in front of boys.”

(Girl, Uganda)

Infrastructure: in Malawi the District Councilallocated local development funds towardsconstruction of school blocks in two districts andone school is being upgraded to a full primaryschool. In Ghana, one school out of the six has builtadditional washrooms and the Tamale MunicipalAssembly has committed to construct separatesanitary facilities for girls and make public schoolsdisability friendly in future. In the Gambia, three

Section 2 24


project schools built perimeter fences to protectchildren from intruders.

Such achievements mark a success for the projectand efforts to step up advocacy for appropriate useof state funds for education in improving educationalinfrastructure needs to be continued. However it isimportant to bear in mind that it will remain difficult toengage constructively with communities will bed i f ficult if such needs are not addressed:

“We are talking about rights and the aim is to get theAssembly to intervene (on infrastructureimprovements) but this is a bit slow as a result ofdemands and lack of resources and nothingmaterialises. Communities try and nothing happens,they feel that if you can’t provide and the Assemblycan’t provide they don’t know where to go.”

(CALID staff, Ghana)

Objective 3: Increase transparency andaccountability of school managementprocesses by enhancing community andchildren’s participation in decision-making and monitoring educationresources.

Around 20% of respondents felt that one of theareas where the project had made most progresswas in terms of its emphasis on child participationat the school level and around 14% felt that someof the most significant changes brought about bythe project during its relatively brief implementation

period were in terms of its capacity to engageparents in their children’s education and the life ofthe school.

The project sought to improve transparency andaccountability of school management processesthrough a variety of different activities includingtraining for SMC/PTA members, parents moregenerally (e.g. through Reflect circles) and childrento understand children’s rights to education as wellas their own roles and responsibilities in ensuringthese are met whilst simultaneously taking steps toimprove school governance and managementprocesses.

In Ghana 100% of planned activities werecompleted and in Uganda 89%. The majority ofexpected outputs were also delivered in bothcountries and in Ghana just over 50% of resultswere achieved, however in Uganda, due to lack ofdata, it was only possible to assess achievement ofresults at 7%. None of the Small Grant Countriesworked directly on this objective.

Community EngagementA total of 360 SMC and PTA members took part intraining workshops that aimed to support improvedschool management, increased parental awarenessof the Code of Conduct and their role in itsimplementation as well as increased participation ofparents in monitoring their children’s learning andperformance. Whilst no specific M&E data wascollected to attest as to whether this was actuallyhappening, informal discussions in the field indicate

25 Section 2

Objective

3


that SMC and PTA structures are functional at theschool level:

“Parents visit the school regularly and are evenaware when exams are coming up. The other dayafter exams a parent came to look at the questionsthat had been set and said that they were relevant.They also helped us to repair the desks and willoften just come and sit to chat with us.”

(Male teacher, Ghana)

Parents also noted a change in their own attitudeand approach to their children’s education:

“Personally I’ve gained a lot from the experience.I’ve come to learn that children need time to do theirhomework…before the project, when the childrencame home I used to take them to work with me onthe farm so they had no time to do their homework,now I don’t do that any more (…) I am also able totell if my children are in school or not because I go and check.” (Father, Ghana)

“We used to make our own children go to schooland leave foster children at home, now we bring thefoster children to school too.” (Mother, Ghana)

Whilst this is an encouraging sign, given the economicrealities and the dependence of families on children ingeneral (but in particular on fostered girls) for labourthe project should develop some way of monitoringwhether these children are indeed attending school.

Children were also universally appreciative of parents’involvement and interest in their education with allof those interviewed stating that it makes them feelencouraged and supported when their mothers orfathers come to school to check on their progress. In Uganda, the project incorporated school-feeding

activities into its work as a strategy to promoteincreased community engagement. This wassomewhat of a challenge in Nebbi, where only nine out of the 20 project schools benefited from theseactivities, and of those some struggled to sustainactivities beyond the initial period due to factorsincluding lack of parental capacity to provide food andthe choice of slow-yielding crops for school gardens.

As a result in one school visited for this evaluation,cooking pots lay unused in the Head-Teachers’ office.

In Kalangala district however the school feedingprojects were credited with having motivatedparents to take a greater interest in their children’seducation and initiatives such as the poultry projectand school gardens helped support some of themost vulnerable pupils with scholastic materials.

Overall however, the ACRE project’s approach toschool feeding emphasised parents’ responsibilityfor providing school meals for children, howevergiven the disparity of results it is unclear whetherthis can be sustained in the long-term or what theimpact will be on the poorest and mostmarginalized children’s rights to education. Infuture, the position of ActionAid International andActionAid country programmes on school feedingshould be harmonised to ensure coherence ofcampaigning and advocacy messages. Moreover,further research into the actual capacity of familiesto provide school meals for their children as well asimpact of this policy on children’s attendance,retention and learning outcomes should beundertaken in Uganda to assess whether it isrealistic to demand that the onus of school feedingbe placed on parents or whether the State needs tostep up its responsibility. The full text of the SchoolFeeding Charter can be found in Annex 5.

Section 2 26

“Our parents come and checkon us at school and we feelhappy when they do. At timeswhen they come to monitorhow we do, my father sees howwell I answer questions in classand then I feel excited that hecan see me performing well.”

(Boy, Ghana)

Children of Ngarun primary with the external evaluator, Ghana

ActionA

id

Evaluation results

Children’s participationThe ACRE project, particularly in Ghana andUganda but also in some of the smaller grantcountries such as Zambia and Liberia had aimed tostrengthen children’s participation in schoolmanagement and decision-making processes,primarily through ensuring their inclusion on SMCsor PTAs. In Ghana this proved challenging as therewas resistance from teachers and parents:

“Initially our thinking was to get children fitting intothe PTA/SMCs, however this did not go very well.The plan was to have some children be part of thePTA at meetings on the executive, but it did notwork because parents and teachers resisted. Butchildren can ‘package’ and share their issues inadvance of meetings, this has been more successfuland the school prefect passes them on to the teacher.” (CALID staff, Ghana)

In Uganda however attempts were more successfuland discussions with teachers, parents and childrenin Uganda show that there was an agreement toallow children to be represented and consultedduring SMC meetings:

“One of the things I have been doing is to attendmeetings and follow how the money is spent atschool and then report back to the other pupils.”

(Head Girl, Uganda)

Some of the Small Grant Countries alsoexperienced a degree of success with this initiativeand in Zambia two schools agreed to includechildren on the SMC and in Liberia one school has

begun to consult children. The formalisation ofchildren’s participation on SMC executivecommittees is not unheard of and the ACRE projectmay be interested to learn from the example of Côted’Ivoire where the text governing SMCs clearlystipulates that executive committee must includetwo children indicating that this goal can realisticallybe achieved as long as adequate support isprovided to ensure real participation rather thansimple tokenistic representation.

Monitoring Education ResourcesThis work appeared to be a particular focus ofproject in Uganda where the implementing partnerNebbi NGO Forum already had a track record ofcarrying out initiatives aimed at encouragingcommunity engagement in monitoring educationresources. Details of funds allocated to schoolsunder the Government’s Universal PrimaryEducation policy were visibly displayed in allschools visited and as mentioned above, childrenthemselves were involved in tracking usage thoughto what extent these activities can be attributed tothe ACRE project or to previous work is unclear.Moreover, no specific M&E data was collected toenable an assessment of impact as a result of theseactivities.

Objective 4: Increase the confidence levels,learning abilities and outcomes of girlsand children with disabilities.

In order to achieve this objective a series ofstrategies were adopted including provision of

27 Section 2

Objective

4


training for children’s clubs members reaching atotal of 750 girls in 30 clubs in Uganda, 300 girls ineight clubs in Ghana and 25 girls from six clubs inLiberia.

Ghana, Uganda and the Gambia worked towardsthis objective and all three implemented 100% ofplanned activities and meeting the majority oftargets In Uganda this was particularly pronounceddue to the higher than expected number of childrenreached through training for club members. Again, itis not possible to accurately represent resultsachieved due to lack of data.

Girls’ Confidence and Leadership abilities

Over 20% of respondents felt that one of the mainareas where the project had made a difference wasin terms of girls’ confidence, largely as a result ofthe establishment, training and support to school-based clubs. Discussions with boys and girlsprovided a sense of some of the issues the clubsdiscuss with support from their mentors, whichincluded drama, songs as well as advice on healthand behaviour, which it was felt, have led to positivechanges in behaviour and attitude:

“When I am in my room, I hear the girls outsidediscussing a lot after their club meetings and whatthey have learned. If we are serious about thesegirls’ clubs, we will have our girls climbing higher.”

(Father, Ghana)

Adults and children mentioned the changes thattraining workshops, exposure visits and otheractivities had brought about in the girls:

“Before joining the club we were so shy and didn’tanswer questions. Now we are able to contribute todiscussions and we have done away with shyness atschool and at home.” (Girl, Ghana)

“One big change with the girls is that they used toplay around and now you hardly see them doingthat. What I have observed is that after theirmeetings they discuss amongst themselves andthen go and share with their friends.” (Boy, Ghana)

The project also sought to encourage girls andchildren with disabilities to take on leadership rolesin their school and whilst schools in Ugandaroutinely have a head boy and a head girl, this is notthe case in Ghana, where the election of a girl to asthe role of senior prefect in one of the projectschools was considered to be a considerableachievement:

“I am a former pupil from this school and from thenuntil the ACRE project, no female pupil was madeschool prefect. Now a girl is a senior prefect of thisschool. It is really important and marks a change inthe way we do things. I really wanted to raise this.”

(Male SMC member, Ghana)

Respondents mentioned initiatives taken by clubmembers to encourage their peers to return toschool and whilst, again, no systematic evidencewas tracked to attest to this, a number of anecdotalincidents were referred to:

“There were girls in P4 and P6 who were going tobe sent to be head-porters, but this club hasreduced that. It has given girls more confidence; weeven have a girl who is senior prefect. She is a role model.” (Male teacher, Ghana)

In one of the schools visited in Ghana thecommitment of the teacher appointed to supportthe girls’ club was evident from both the girls’testimonies as well as those of other teachers:

“I would like to make special mention of the girls’club matron and how she has supported the girls,even coming here on weekends sometimes. Nowyou can see a real change in the girls, even in the way they dress.” (Father, Ghana)

Whilst in Ghana the clubs are for girls only, inUganda the decision was taken to involve boys too,an approach, which appeared to have contributedto improve relations between girls and boys asattested to by girls and boys alike duringdiscussions. This marks a productive step and onethat if supported by good training and support forgirls and boys on sexual and reproductive health aswell as negotiation, communication and conflict-resolution skills can help ensure better, healthierrelationships for adolescents as opposed to themore simplistic and counter-productive ‘stay awayfrom boys’ messages that girls in Ghana stated theywere learning in their clubs.

Section 2 28

“I think it is a good idea to have agirl leading us. We used to haveboys as senior prefects. She isdoing well; we are fine with it. We elected her.” (Boy, Ghana)


Confidence of children with disabilitiesAs observed on page 7 around 15% of respondentsfelt that one of the areas in which the project hadmade most progress was in terms of its capacity tohighlight the issue of disability, an area that formany marked a new departure and the section onpage 23 discusses some of the achievements interms of awareness amongst adults and children ofthe rights of children with disability in greater detail.Although this objective also sought to improve theconfidence of children with disabilities there was noevidence that this had been achieved and nochildren with disability were noted to have taken onany leadership roles during the projectimplementation period.

Learning abilities and outcomesThe overall premises of the PRS approach is that byensuring all rights are respected, children will beable to access free, quality public education. Thefourth objective of the ACRE project includes aspecific aim to improve learning abilities andoutcomes for girls and children with disabilities,however activities related to this were notundertaken and therefore it has not been possibleto assess whether learning abilities and outcomesof girls and children with disabilities have changedas a result of the project.

29 Section 2

Impact: highlights

Despite the relatively short time frame the project

teams managed to implement close to 100% of

activities under all four objectives. Although there

was little systematic tracking of data to measure

progress towards outcomes the project has

contributed to raising awareness about children’s

rights to and in education and support their

implementation through increased parental

engagement, knowledge of key school-level

policies, improvements in the inclusion of girls and

children with disability, district-level advocacy for

infrastructural improvements and higher levels of

confidence amongst girls.

Some of the activities considered to have been most

successful in bringing about changes included: the

provision of training for teachers on how to identify,

assess and support children with disabilities in class;

the establishment and support for school-based

girls’ clubs and training for teachers on the

production of sanitary pads using local materials.

On the other hand, work with Teachers’ Unions

(especially at national level) and children’s

effective engagement on the executive committees

of the SMC/PTA (especially in Ghana) were

considered to have been less effective during the

period in question. In Uganda, school-feeding

initiatives to promote community engagement met

with mixed results, and whilst in Kalangala they

were credited with mobilising

parents around children’s education and

supporting vulnerable children to stay in school, in

Nebbi they somewhat struggled to take off. In

addition, and crucially, it is vital that ActionAid

Uganda revise its advocacy standpoint on school

feeding so that it harmonises with the wider

organisation position, which clearly stipulates that

school feeding should be the responsibility of the

Government.

Overall, respondents felt that the project had

made slower than anticipated progress in terms

of its advocacy, a factor which can largely be

attributed to late completion and under-use of

information in the baseline studies, fact sheets

and policy briefs, failure to undertake a

comprehensive stakeholder analysis and the

failure to establish partnerships with strong

national-level advocacy organisations to link

district-level work to national level advocacy in

collaboration with other actors. Finally, in Ghana

it was felt that more could have been done to

tackle the cultural barriers to issues such as

children’s rights, child participation, girls’

education and the education of children with

disabilities and foster children. Given that this is

an area of work that takes considerable time, it

will be important to build on existing successes

to identify workable strategies and appropriate

measures for tracking progress towards change

in these areas during the second phase.


3 Partnerships: working bettertogether

A range of partnerships at international, nationaland local level were planned as part of the originalACRE proposal document and a summary of thedifferent working relationships, successes andchallenges is outlined below.

3.1 Local Implementation PartnersIn Ghana and Uganda, partner organisations werelargely responsible for project implementation andMoUs were established with local NGOs whoalready had long-standing relationships withActionAid and who had been working on the deliveryof ActionAid’s programme of education work in theimplementation districts for a number of years.Funds were disbursed to these organisations andActionAid played an oversight and coordination role.

Center for Active Learning and IntegratedDevelopment (CALID): CALID has beenworking with ActionAid Ghana for around 12 yearsand thanks to an in-depth knowledge of theintervention area, was able to pick up the projectvery quickly despite the late start. As a result, allplanned activities were implemented. In additionthey were able to make use of contacts andnetworks to implement some activities moreeffectively and at reduced cost. Examples of thisincluded bringing in research department of theuniversity to support the data collection andanalysis, collaborating with Ghana Education Staff on training for teachers and making use of strategic opportunities to lobby for infrastructuralimprovements to target schools. Communitymembers also appreciated CALID’s dynamism and constant present on the ground:

“I would like to commend CALID for their hard workhere with the community and their commitment toworking with us to find solutions for our problems.”

(Male PTA member Ghana)

Nebbi NGO Forum: formed in 2001 and with amembership of 146 CBOs and NGOs, the NGOForum has worked with ActionAid Uganda for anumber of years. As with CALID (above) the partneralso had a good knowledge of the interventionareas and key district level stakeholders, howeverthis project marked a different working approach for

them in many respects with many new elements toincorporate. Whilst there was a feeling of generalsatisfaction with the work delivered by the partner, theythemselves considered they could have done better:

“No we can’t say we have fulfilled 100%. At leastmaybe 70% because we didn’t work with Reflect asexpected (…) also there were some gaps in the workwith the SMC members where some members weretrained and some were not and then we also had theproblem that SMC tenures came to an end so thepeople we trained were replaced.”

(Nebbi NGO forum staff, Uganda)

Nevertheless they managed to successfully engagewith District Level Education Authorities andmobilise communities around the issues the projectwas tackling, a factor that was appreciated:

“We owe it all to them because without theirimplementation and mobilisation skills it would nothave been possible for us to achieve what we did.”

(ActionAid staff, Uganda)

Kalangala District Education Forum( K A D E F O ): as an education-focussed organisation,KADEFO has been working in partnership withActionAid for several years and have successfullyi n fluenced the government to pay hardship allowancesfor teachers working in difficult circumstances and toprovide boarding facilities for children. KADEFO hasalso been monitoring teachers’ performance, andtransparency and accountability in public primaryschools. The partners’ performance as part of theACRE project was largely considered to be satisfactoryand they made the most of their experience andexpertise to successfully deliver on planned activities.

3.2 Strategic National Partners The project proposal suggested that a range ofother partnerships would also be engaged in at thenational level, e.g. with the national educationcoalitions and Teachers’ Unions however in practicethis did not take place.

Education for All CoalitionsGhana National Education CampaignCoalition (GNECC): although the proposal

Section 2 30


clearly stated that ActionAid Ghana would work withGNECC, in practice this engagement did not gobeyond the organisation’s support for the national-level launch of the PRS framework. This wasrecognised as a weakness by ActionAid staff atinternational and national level and GNECC alike:

“I would say that there should be both national andlocal level partnerships. The impact has not beenfelt much at national level whilst policies areinfluenced at national level. In future, local levelpartners can inform national level partners tofacilitate national level work more effectively.”

(GNECC staff, Ghana)

Forum for Education NGOs in Uganda(FENU): again, as with Ghana, the projectproposal stated that ActionAid Uganda would beworking in collaboration with FENU on strategicadvocacy issues, however information from theProject Manager reveals that in fact there was noengagement with FENU at national level.

Teachers’ Unions – Ghana NationalAssociation of Teachers (GNAT): the originalproposal also indicated that ActionAid Ghana wouldbe collaborating with GNAT and it had been hopedthat this work would include collaboration on the reviewof the Teachers’ Code of Conduct and its disseminationhowever this did not work out as planned:

“The review of the Code of Conduct got stalled. Wetried to revive the discussion but we couldn’t get itmoving. We even offered to help them bringeveryone together, but even then one cannot tellwhat the problem is that stalled them. So we areusing the old version.” (ActionAid staff, Ghana)

In the event, the project implementation team endedup collaborating with the GNAT representatives atdistrict level to roll out training for teachers usingthe unrevised version of the Code of Conduct, aninitiative that went well given the availability andlevel of awareness of the code in project schools.

Uganda National Teachers Union: althoughActionAid Uganda has been working with UNATUfor six years, there was no significant engagementwith them during the course of this project,particularly at national level. Staff in Nebbi notedthat there had been some engagement with UNATUmembers at district level but that this was, as inGhana, limited to training delivery.

3.3 International PartnershipsAt International level the ACRE project also had aworking relationship with the Right to Educationproject that benefited from funding under the sameoverall grant.

Right to Education Project (RT E ): the RTEProject has been undertaking internationaladvocacy, information sharing and capacity buildingof local partners since 2000. The original proposalsuggested a working relationship between the twoinitiatives with RTE project staff playing a role onACRE’s international advisory committee to designthe project, participating in international workshopsand national level meetings and supporting countrieson particular areas of work as identified includingcapacity development on human rights to educationand production of policy briefs and other informationto support country teams’ advocacy work.

However, both RTE and ActionAid staff felt that morecould have been done to promote a closercollaboration that would benefit both initiatives.Challenges highlighted included the relatively ‘lighttouch’ support offered by RTE due to staff andresource limitations (e.g. limited face-to-facecontact), limited communication and information-sharing, late delivery of capacity development (e.g.training was provided at the project review workshopin November) initial difficulties for country programmeteams to fully understand and incorporate the humanrights law component into their work, and failure ofACRE project staff to use the fact sheets to their fullpotential in advocacy work.

If these issues are not addressed there is the riskthat the ACRE project could lose its Human Rightsfocus and becoming another ‘communitydevelopment’ initiative. Moreover, it is alsoimportant that ACRE project staff at national levelappreciate the extent to which they areexperimenting with an innovative model that canhave much broader implications and affect the workof other stakeholders by building bridges betweenthe Human Rights sector and the Developmentsector, encouraging learning on both sides andadding new perspectives to the current discourseon quality basic education.

ChallengesDiscussions with different stakeholders sought toanalyse challenges and lessons learned related to

31 Section 2


work in partnership as part of this project and it wasfound that these were, to a large extent, commonacross both Ghana and Uganda.

1 Pre-existing commitments: because bothlocal partners were already working withActionAid on the implementation of theorganisation’s broader education programmingwork, at times this distracted them from theproject. This was largely addressed throughplanning meetings and reminders of the need toprioritise the project given its short time-frameand key deliverables.

2 Planning and reporting: timeliness of reportingand to some extent, capacity for strategizing andplanning specific activities, especially wherethese marked a new area of focus for partners,such as the school-feeding initiative in Ugandaalso presented challenges that were dealt withthrough ongoing support from ProjectManagement Teams.

3 Lack of engagement in proposaldevelopment: both ActionAid and implementingpartner staff acknowledged the difficultiespartners’ faced with having to pick up,understand and implement a proposal that wascentrally drafted and which they had not reallycontributed to, however in general and as can beseen by the overall % of implementationachieved this challenge was largely overcome.

Section 2 32

Partnerships: highlights

Overall there appears to be a high level of

satisfaction with the work delivered by the

partners on the ground and despite the late start

of the project, the majority of planned activities

were implemented in a satisfactory manner.

Wherever possible, implementing partners’

should be supported to develop their knowledge

and capacity on Reflect, children’s rights, child

protection, child participation and positive

discipline to enable them to roll out project

activities as effectively as possible. More needs

to be done during the second phase of the

project to promote effective links with key

national-level stakeholders including the

Education for All coalitions, Teachers’ Unions

and other organisations working on Human and

Children’s Rights to increase the potential for

achieving objectives through concerted

advocacy work.

Evaluation results

Celebration of the International Day of the African Child, Ghana

ActionA

id

4 Achieving value for money:economy, efficiency andeffectiveness

For ActionAid, measuring cost effectiveness was approved in September 2010 as part of thenew Global M&E System Requirements and wasto become a core component of monitoring of all programmes from 2013. Being able todemonstrate cost effectiveness in a way thatupholds the organisation’s mission and valuesshould help make the case that ActionAidprogrammes represent value for money. ForActionAid the term ‘value’ is viewed in terms ofwhat stakeholders, most notably rights-holders,value in terms of what the organisation haspromised to deliver and covers a range of issuessuch as: how to manage costs; improve efficiency and demonstrate that the right thing is being done in the right way. Whilst broadervalue for money questions can be addressed bymany of the points highlighted in the sections onrelevance, impact and sustainability, the sectionbelow seeks to focus primarily on those related to economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

4.1 Economy: what is the value-added of a multi-country projectvs. it’s transaction and othercosts and to what extent have the resources allocated enabledthe project to achieve results?

The total grant received from the donor was £404453 (US$640,168) and the figure top right shows the way these funds were allocated to ActionAidInternational, ActionAid Ghana, ActionAid Ugandaand the Small Grant Countries as well as the Rightto Education Project. In addition 10% of the totalgrant was set aside to cover ActionAid USA’s grantmanagement fees.

33 Section 2

This evaluation does not take into account ananalysis of the RTE’s broader performance as theproject operated independently of the ACRE initiativeand as such the information above is provided simplyto ensure a full overview of the grant. The remainderof the analysis will concentrate primarily oninformation from ActionAid International, ActionAidGhana and ActionAid Uganda. The diagrams belowshow the ratio of programme to management costallocation in Ghana, Uganda and at International level(N.B. the small grants are included in the pot of fundsallocated to ActionAid International):

Ghana Uganda

International Overall


A broad analysis of the budget shows that around30% of the total amount was allocated to support,and 70% to programme activities. AlthoughActionAid and partner staff felt that this allocationwas justified due to the potential for learning andsharing associated with multi-country projects, itwould be more justifiable if the project was spreadover a longer period. Indeed, whilst 100% of keyrespondents cited shared learning as the main valueadded of multi-country projects, in reality concreteexamples were limited and there were no specificshared learning activities, outputs or outcomeswritten into the project proposal to encourage this.

Another interesting factor to note is that despitehaving identical sized grants, the split betweenprogramme and support costs differs widelybetween Ghana and Uganda. In Ghana, the ratio of

programme vs. management costs was roughly70% to 30% whereas in Uganda only 12% of thetotal grant was spent on management and supportcosts, leaving 88% for direct implementation.

A closer analysis of the situation in Uganda revealsthat the allocation of such a significant proportion offunds to programming was possible because thegrant did not contribute significantly to operationalcosts either at Local Rights Programme (LRP) levelor to the partner organisation. In additionmanagement support from LRP staff was also notfactored in thus constituting ‘free’ assistance to theproject thus allowing the team to use the majority ofthe grant funds for direct programme interventions.

Although the project did not come up with a single,standardised unit-cost that could be used to

Section 2 34

Ghana

Uganda


compare value for money across the differentcountries (especially Ghana and Uganda) one keyquestion that arises is the fact that for the samegrant amount of £97 927 the programme team inGhana covered six schools in one district reachingaround 3000 beneficiaries whereas in Uganda thefunds were stretched to activities in 30 schoolsacross two different districts reaching over 6350people. Moreover, the general ‘package’ ofactivities delivered in schools in Ghana and Ugandawas not so different and comprised of initiativessuch as training for teachers and SMC members,establishment and training for girls’/children’s clubsand (in the case of Uganda) support to schoolfeeding programmes.

As highlighted in the section on ‘Impact’, evaluatingthe extent to which the project was able to transformavailable resources into results is challenged by thelack of comprehensive M&E data. Nevertheless asimple analysis of the two main grant countries’capacity to transform the available budget intoactivities is captured in the charts below. Thisreveals that both Ghana and Uganda were able tosuccessfully implement all planned activities underObjectives 1 & 2 although whilst Ghana slightlyoverspent in the process, Uganda managed to do soat roughly 80% of available budget. With Objective 3,Ghana implemented around 100% of activities at justover 55% of budget whereas Uganda achieved90% implementation using only 25% of theavailable funds. Finally, under Objective 4, whereGhana implemented 100% of planned activitiesusing a third of the funds available whereas Ugandawas achieved the same level of implementation100% using 90% of the budgeted amount.

What this suggests is that, from a purelyquantitative perspective, given the level ofachievement, the scope and reach of the projectand the cost-savings made and the relatively highratio of programme vs. management fundsallocation, Uganda offered better value for moneyduring the first year.

4.2 Efficiency: what measures were taken to ensure effectivefinancial implementation,monitoring and reporting?

The majority of respondents both within ActionAidand partners highlighted the delay toimplementation associated with this project and the

fact that this meant that catch-up plans and wererequired as well as a two-month no-cost extensionat the end of the project to ensure the work plancould be implemented to its fullest, but even thennot all activities were fully realised in all of thecountries.

“There were delays. The money came in April. We started activities late and we were not able to catch up and did not fin i s h.”

(NGO forum staff, Uganda)

The complexities and lack of efficiency ofActionAid’s internal financial transfer procedureswere highlighted by some respondents as beingpartly to blame for the time it took to get funds tocountry programme level as well as the fact thatcountry programme teams themselves did notrealise that in some cases funds were actuallywaiting in their bank accounts. Other challengesincluded the late submission of financial reports andlow levels of grant utilisation.

Support from the International Education Team’sfinance staff in the form of reporting templates andguidance was largely appreciated as was ad-hocadvice and capacity development provided byActionAid to partner finance staff during reportingperiods. Although no specific training or capacitydevelopment was provided to partners as part ofthis project, the organisations received annualcapacity development as well as ad-hoc supportfrom ActionAid finance staff at national level.

4.3 Economy: what measures weretaken to ensure cost-effectiveness in procurement andimplementation?

The project teams in Ghana and Uganda made arange of efforts to ensure cost-effectiveness duringthe project’s implementation and highlighted thefact that ActionAid’s financial and procurementpolicies and procedures were used by partners aswell to ensure value for money in procurement ofequipment. Cost-saving measures taken duringrecruitment included decisions by ActionAid andimplementing partners to second existing staff tocover the project rather than going through lengthyand expensive recruitment processes and to useexisting materials and equipment. In addition,partners’ contacts and networks on the groundallowed them to maximise the use of funds to

35 Section 2


increase outputs for the same amount of money.Finally, given that CALID and NGO Forum wereboth implementing other work for ActionAid,combining field trips and monitoring visits to sitesalso allowed them to make cost savings/rationalisefuel costs.

4.4 Efficiency: to what extent didgrant management requirementssupport the delivery of results?

The project’s grant management requirements werenot especially complex or demanding and werelargely based on ActionAid’s own internalrequirements. This was largely due to the fact thatthe donor had no specific requirements other thanan end of project report.

4.5 Efficiency: to what extent did themanagement, decision-makingand relationships structures ofthe project support thesuccessful implementation of theproject?

A range of management and decision-makingstructures were established at international andnational levels to support successfulimplementation of the project.

This included, the International Project AccountabilityTeam at international level that served as an advisorybody with oversight of the grant implementation. Atnational level, there were a series of other structures,including; in Ghana a Project Management Team andAdvisory Committee at District Level that broughttogether different external stakeholders as well asActionAid and CALID staff; in Uganda a ProjectManagement Committee was formed ofrepresentatives of ActionAid Uganda and partnerstaff and board chair of Nebbi NGO forum; in Ghanathe Advisory Committees were useful but the caveatwas that there was an expectation of remunerationfrom committee members. The International ProjectAccountability Team met quarterly and wasconsidered very supportive, however although theInternational Project Coordinator tried to set upregular Skype calls with all six countries, this wasnot feasible in practice due to conflicting schedulesand poor lines of communication.

4.6 Efficiency: how well did theproject predict and react to risks?

A risk matrix was developed for the project,however not all staff were aware of its existence.Most of the major external risks predicted but didnot occur (e.g. civil unrest during elections inGhana).The major factors that ended up impactingon the project’s progress were internal andconcerned the effect of staff turnover on themanagement of activities. In Uganda for example,the departure of the Project Manager partwaythough the project period had implications for thework and increased the pressure on LRP staff tostep up the coordination and management andalthough there were enough funds available fromthe exchange gains to cater for staff salary duringthe no-cost extension period, these were not used.Staff turnover also affected the implementation ofwork in Zambia.

4.7 Effectiveness: how has ourapproach to monitoring, datacollection, and learning affectedthe overall impact of the project?

A Monitoring & Evaluation framework wasdeveloped for the project however this documentprimarily captured specific outputs and outcomesthat were relevant to the International Managementteam and Ghana and Uganda. Indicators related toexpected contributions of the RTE project were notincluded in this framework and although SmallGrant Countries’ targets were required to refer tothe framework, they had not established ormeasured progress against specific targets makingit difficult to get an overall sense of achievementsboth in terms of outputs and outcomes.

Because the project’s objectives were not SMART,measuring change becomes difficult and whilst amultitude of indicators were developed andincluded in the framework, and the more indicators,the harder tracking becomes. In addition given theabsence of specific tools to enable teams to collectand analyse information and assess progress at theend of the project period this was not done anyway.These challenges were noted by project staff:

“There was an M&E framework but there was littleattempt to develop data collection tools tooperationalize it which rendered it redundant. Thislimited our ability to assess impact and much of the

Section 2 36


achievements we are talking about are based onobservations, not evidence.”

(ActionAid staff, Uganda)

Baseline data is key for tracking progress and itwould have been good to take advantage of theavailability of such information to create specificdata collection tools and measure progress againstinitial figures at the end of the project period. Inaddition, comprehensive information from eachschool including key disaggregated educationindicators should be collected to ensure changesare tracked successfully throughout the lifetime ofthe project.

4.8 Effectiveness: how did theproject ensure accountability tobeneficiaries?

Beneficiaries were involved in the project from theoutset, as part of the baseline research and werealso involved in community-level stakeholdercommittees. Information about the project ingeneral as well as ongoing progress and keyresearch findings were shared with beneficiarygroups at regular intervals.

37 Section 2

The only permanent school block at Matamanda, Malawi

ActionA

id

Office at Chitundu primary school being worked on as a result ofan action point

ActionA

id

Teachers’ houses at Chitunda primary school in Ngokwe

ActionA

id

School committee being consulted during PRS at Matamanda

ActionA

id

Value for money: highlights

The foundation of any approach to value for

money are systems for organisational and

programme management, and unless an NGO can

monitor costs and measure outcomes it will

struggle to engage meaningfully with value for

money. Whilst the project established a range of

effective project management systems at

international and national level and financial

monitoring was generally effective, the main

weakness was its failure to establish a functional

M&E system to allow for the measurement of

outcomes. In addition, little account seems to

have been taken of the fact that with the same

size grant Uganda was able to reach 30 schools

and invest 88% of the grant into programme

activities, whilst in Ghana the funds only stretched

to six schools with a ratio of 70% of the budget to

programmes and 30% to support costs. Finally,

the failure to build specific cross-country learning

deliverables into the project proposal also raises

questions about the value added of multi-country

projects given the relatively high level of

administrative costs these entail.

Evaluation results

5 Sustainability: ensuringownership and lasting change

5.1 To what extent will activities be sustained by localbeneficiaries/partners after thefunding comes to an end?

“If you as an organisation are taking up somethingand you don’t involve other people, sustainabilitybecomes a problem, buy-in becomes a problem.But once you get other people to be involved fromthe outset, they can make the issue their own. Wehad a lot to learn from working with others (…) ifthey take your message for you then you have awhole host of people on board and they can singthe anthem for you where you are not. That is thebeauty of working together.”

(ActionAid Staff Small Grant Country)

There is some evidence already that the PRSapproach adopted by the ACRE project waspotentially conducive to longer-term sustainabilitydue to the high-levels of buy-in and engagement itencourages from the outset, particularly in terms ofits capacity to mobilise civil society and other keyeducation stakeholders in the collection andanalysis of data. The Gambia’s experience wasespecially successful in this regard as they wereable to form a ‘PRS team’ composed of ActionAid,FAWE Gambia, the Child Protection Alliance andthe Teachers’ Union all of whom have committed toworking together in future and integrating PRS intotheir work. This was also considered to be crucial inensuring longer-term sustainability once fundingcomes to an end. Discussions with ActionAid andpartner staff also demonstrated that there was agrowing understanding of the need to integrate PRSinto their broader programme of work:

“We are beginning to absorb it into our normal work,even when the project ends there is so much to doon PRS. Given the 10 rights, you realise that if youaddress even half a lot would have been changed interms of attitudes, knowledge and practice.”

(CALID staff, Ghana)

This enthusiasm also stretched to EducationAuthorities in several countries:

The Primary Education Advisers already think it isbrilliant and will use the PRS indicators in their workand stakeholders will also continue to monitor theindicators even if funds run out.

(ActionAid staff, Malawi)

“We are very grateful for the collaboration with GES,it has been immeasurable. This project has allowedus to do the things that we are responsible for butwe cannot do for lack of funds. It as allowed us toperform our roles even better. We pray for moreopportunities to do this kind of work.”

(GES staff, Ghana)

In order to sustain this though, 40% of respondentsfelt that it was crucial to continue encouraging buy-in and focus on developing capacity, skills andunderstanding of different stakeholders to continueusing PRS methods and approaches once fundingcomes to and end. In Ghana, Education Authoritiessuggested the need to build-in specific activitiestargeted at senior staff in order to enhancecollaboration and longer-term sustainability.

5.2 Did the project result in anypolicy reforms at local or nationallevel?

Although national-level was considered a weakness ofthis project due to a lack of engagement with nationalcoalitions and other key stakeholders, at district andeven school level considerable progress was madeand can potentially be built on and further developedduring a second phase. In Ghana for example, theinitial work on the development of School Rulescould potentially lead to the revision and widerimplementation contributing to greater transparencyabout school discipline and in Uganda, theformulation of local by-laws will support the roll-out ofthe Universal Education Policy at decentralised level.

Overall though, during the first year, the mainsuccesses in this area have been the project’scontribution to raising awareness about existinglaws and policies and contributing to their

Section 2 38


implementation at school-level thanks to training forteachers, parents and children. By making strategicuse of baseline data, country fact sheets and policybriefs the country teams should be able to developtargeted advocacy strategies to tackle specific gapsand contradictions in existing frameworks.

5.3 Which elements of the projectcould be replicated/scaled upelsewhere?

Interviews with respondents showed that the project’sapproach was widely applicable and that there wasa potential for wide learning across/betweencountries. The flexibility and adaptability of the PRSframework was recognised, as was the fact thatgiven the interconnected nature of rights, even byjust focussing on a limited number, the scope fortouching on several issues was considerable.

39 Section 2

ActionA

id

Sustainability: highlightsBy successfully mobilising a range of education

stakeholders at district and local level, the ACRE

project has managed to lay the basis for

potential sustainability and buy-in to the PRS

model amongst a range of education actors.

This has been demonstrated by initial

enthusiasm and uptake of specific elements of

the model by implementing partners, education

authorities and other civil society organisations.

More work remains to be done however in order

to ensure this potential is built on during a

second phase. Strategic advocacy using

evidence from the baseline research and other

resources can help sustain work towards policy

change if done in collaboration with others.

Evaluation results

Girls reading anti-VAG statement to stakeholder audience,Liberia

ActionA

id

Conclusions

The 12-month ACRE project served as an opportunityto experiment with the operationalization of the PRSframework in six different African countries with a viewto building on lessons learned and promoting a broaderroll-out of the approach in future. On balance, despitethe relatively short implementation period, it is clear thatthe basic premises of the PRS is valid in practice andthat broader stakeholder engagement in participatoryprocess promotes an improved understanding, buy-in and action for children’s rights in education.

Although pre-determined, the focus areas of theproject were largely considered to be relevant at alllevels and progress was made in all six countriestowards the achievement of the project’s fourobjectives. Overall some of the projects main areasof achievements were felt to have been in the areasof awareness raising on children’s rights to and ineducation (including the rights of children withdisability) achieving stakeholder buy-in andbeginning to tackle some of the root causes ofviolence and discrimination against children ineducation by disseminating policy documents suchas the Teachers’ Code of Conduct and trainingteachers on alternatives to corporal punishment. Inaddition anecdotal evidence suggests that school-based clubs have contributed to increasingconfidence levels of girls’ and boys and promotingtheir engagement in school management. Althoughthe project proposal stated its aim to improvelearning outcomes and abilities for girls and childrenwith disabilities no specific activities wereundertaken to promote this and no concrete dataexists to assess whether any changes occurred.

To consolidate gains and promote wider impact andsustainability more remains to be done in areas ofadvocacy, primarily by building on initial successesachieved and linking work being undertaken in theimplementation areas to the national level throughstrong partnerships. Closer collaboration betweenthe ACRE project and the RTE project can supportthis work and also raise the profile of PRS at theinternational level.

For future work it is essential that the project t e a mstrengthen its approach to M&E, using clearoutcome indicators and developing simple tools to collect data (including key education indicators)and track progress towards objectives on aregular basis.

As with most multi-country projects, this projectcomes with a relatively high proportion of supportcosts relative to implementation costs, which maybe more justifiable over a longer period, especiallyif efforts are made to really maximise learning andsharing across countries in practice. In addition,where countries are given identical amounts ofmoney, it will be important to assess the breadthand scope each country can achieve with the sumallocated and understand the reasons for anys i g n i ficant differences. Developing a basic unit costmodel that can be adapted to real costs in eachcontext can support this analysis.

Longer-term sustainability should be promoted bycontinuing to encourage buy-in of key beneficiaries atlocal, national and international level and emphasisingcollaborative advocacy work both internally withother sections of ActionAid as well as externally.

Lessons Learned

The section below aims to provide more detail onsome of the key lessons learned during the courseof the project:

Children’s Awareness of Rights: one of the 10rights outlined in the PRS manual includes theRight to Know Your Rights which highlights theimportance of ensuring children are aware of andare able to claim their rights and that life-skills andhuman rights are taught in a child-friendly way.Although ActionAid Ghana has an internallyproduced manual for supporting training for clubpatrons and members it would seem thatmessages are not reaching children, which hasimplications for their capacity to understand andclaim their rights.

Section 2 40

Conclusions, lessons learnedand recommendations

Corporal Punishment: it is essential to continueworking with teachers and parents to ensure adultsare better equipped to discipline children both athome and at school without the use of violence. Atthe same time, advocacy for revision of existingpolicy directives and the incorporation ofcomprehensive pre- and in-service training forteachers is required to ensure the practice isabolished completely.

M&E and baseline: the PRS process is viewed tobe as important as the outcomes, and constitutes akey factor in delivering the outcomes and ensuringlong-term capacity to bring about quality educationby strengthening CSO and people’s capacity todemand accountability from duty bearers. However,to assess its impact a robust M&E system is neededto allow a realistic set of outcome indicators to bemeasured in a systematic way. This should includeindicators that will measure overall changes in thequality of education including retention, pass ratesand acquisition of key skills, knowledge and values.A small number of outcome indicators linked to thePRS framework and tied to baseline figures need tobe identified and tracked systematically throughoutthe lifetime of the project.

Also whilst the project focussed on learning abilitiesof girls there were no specific activities or indicatorsaimed at improving or measuring changes inlearning abilities. School profile sheets using schoolrecords data (disaggregated) on enrolment,attendance, completion, drop out etc. need to becreated. Moreover, if there is an expectation ofwider buy-in to the PRS approach, community datacollection and analysis of the right to educationshould not be seen as something that can only bedone by a professional researcher but rather aroutine stage in any project M&E cycle.

Multi-Stakeholder engagement: in Ghana inparticular, the establishment of a multi-stakeholderadvisory groups at district level comprised of localeducation authorities, teachers’ unionrepresentatives, district level education coalitionmembers, university staff and youth representativesserved as an advisory board which providedguidance and expertise during the projectimplementation period. The choice of participantsproved strategic in ensuring key support duringspecific activities (e.g. baseline analysis) however,one of the challenges was that representativesexpected remuneration for their time, which had not

been factored into the project’s budgets.

P a r t n e r s h i p s: some of the main lessons learnedabout successful partnerships during this projecti n c l u d e :

1 The need for greater stakeholder analysis andcollaboration, particularly with otherorganisations focusing on similar areas of workas well as Teachers’ Unions and line ministryr e p r e s e n t a t i v e s .

2 Increased emphasis on advocacy and theestablishment of strong links between local,district and national-level advocacy work.

3 In the context of research work, the importanceof identifying quality researchers and allocatings u f ficient funds to cater for the associatedc o s t s .

4 The importance of working with partners whohave a mandate to work on education and astrong level of expertise, knowledge andunderstanding of the issues and context.

5 The value of strong, multi-sectoral projectmanagement and oversight committees tosupport effective planning and input duringi m p l e m e n t a t i o n .

6 Improved collaboration between RTE projectand ACRE project staff guided by a Terms ofReference outlining communicationmechanisms and clear set of deliverables.

7 The appointment of a dedicated staff memberwith a strong grounding in Human Rights tosupport the project and ensure the HumanRights perspective is maintained throughout.

Prioritisation of Education: although Education isan enabling right and has always been thecornerstone of ActionAid’s work, funds foreducation were limited in both Malawi and Zambia.If education work in general and the promotion ofthe PRS approach continues to be a priority forActionAid, strategies need to be developed toidentify increased sources of funding that will allowboth for the continued roll out of the approach inthe field as well as support national andinternational-level advocacy on PRS as amechanism for ensuring quality education in thelead up to 2015 and beyond.

School Feeding: the constitution in Uganda statesthat education is the responsibility of both the Stateand parents and as a result ActionAid Uganda ingeneral and the ACRE project in particular have

41 Section 2

Conclusions, lessons learned and re c o m m e n d a t i o n s

been lobbying parliament to amend the EducationAct, 2008, Act No 13 of 2008 to require parentsand guardians to make a mandatory fin a n c i a lcontribution towards the provision of lunch for all children at school. However this is in directcontradiction with ActionAid’s broader position on school-feeding. Formulated as part of theinternational Hunger Free campaign this statesclearly that School meals must be free for allchildren they are a right and not charity and theyare the responsibility of government.

School Rules: although developed in aparticipatory way, the School Rules piloted by theACRE team in Ghana are not linked to the PRSrights, whereas in another Small Grant Country this was the approach taken. In addition, the Ghana school rules refer to the GES directives,which continue to allow the use of corporalpunishment. It would be interesting to explore how these rules can be more rights based whilstalso linking rights to responsibilities in order totackle misconceptions and demonstrate howawareness of rights should lead to increasedrespect for others rather than indiscipline andabuse of entitlements.

Stakeholder analysis: on issues such aschildren’s rights, child participation and ensuringsafe learning environments, internal and externalstakeholder analysis should be done to ensure that the project is taking maximum advantage ofconnections with others already working on theseissues for learning and impact. There are a range of other organisations working on these issues in all six countries including Save the Children, Planand (in Uganda) Raising Voices. It would also beinteresting to assess where Handicap Internationalor others are active and working on inclusiveeducation and consider collaboration. In order tostrengthen the dialogue between the Human Rights and Development sectors, discussions withorganisations such as Amnesty International couldalso be useful. At local level, it is essential tocontinue working with teachers and parents toensure adults are better equipped to disciplinechildren both at home and at school without theuse of violence and incorporate the principles ofpositive discipline into future training work. At thesame time, advocacy for revision of existing policydirectives and the incorporation of comprehensivepre- and in-service training for teachers is requiredto ensure the practice is abolished completely.

Recommendations

1 Relevance

■ Deepen the focus on issues already identifiedduring the first phase of the ACRE project ratherthan widening the scope.

■ Ensure consultations with rights-holders(including children) inform the focus of projectobjectives and activities.

■ Ensure ActionAid’s Theory of Change is built intothe project rationale/learning hypothesis duringphase 2 and that ActionAid and implementingpartners are fully aware of its significance andimplications for their work.

2 Impact

Advocacy: ■ Undertake a strong stakeholder analysis,

establish partnership agreements with national-level advocacy partners and ensure active linksbetween national and local advocacy work.

■ Strengthen working relations with the RTE andensure Human Rights elements are betterembedded into the delivery of the project.

■ Empower children (girls and boys, including thechildren with disabilities) to engage meaningfullyin advocacy work at all levels and use effectivechild participation work to support this.

■ Promote internal links with otherprogramme/project work and campaigns (e.g.governance and women’s rights) and ensurecoherence of advocacy asks.

■ ActionAid International and ActionAid countryprogrammes should harmonise their positions onschool feeding and ensure that any advocacydemands are informed by research and contributeto fulfilling the right to education of all children,especially the poorest and most marginalized.

■ Draft realistic, feasible advocacy plans that areclearly linked to project objectives and baselinefindings.

■ Ensure use of baseline research, fact sheets andpolicy briefs to inform advocacy and areaccurate regarding human rights standards.

Children’s participation and empowerment : ■ Ensure child-friendly training and materials on

children’s rights is made available for childrenand club mentors and are visible and available

Section 2 42


in schools.■ Draw on existing training manuals and materials

covering issues such as child rights, life-skills,child protection produced by organisationsincluding Save the Children, RTE, Plan, UNICEF,FAWE and others and use these in trainingworkshops for teachers and children.

■ Ensure child-friendly versions of school rules areposted in each classroom.

■ Develop the capacity of ActionAid and partnerstaff as well as teachers and parents tounderstand the principles of children’s rights andchild participation and how to integrate theseinto daily life, utilising RTE as a key resource.

■ Encourage greater dialogue between childrenand parents and work with parents toencourage them to support their children’se d u c a t i o n .

■ Ensure children’s participation in schoolmanagement and decision-making is not limited to tokenistic representation but that real contributions are being made and taken into account.

■ Link to other organisations with an expertise onchildren’s rights and child participation (Plan,Save the Children) to facilitate learning, sharingand capacity development and work moreclosely with RTE to devise strategies for betterincorporating children’s rights.

Children with Disability :■ Explore opportunities to work in partnership

with Handicap International or otherorganisations working on inclusiveeducation/disability issues.

■ Continue to undertake awareness-raising andmobilisation work on the rights of children withdisability to tackle negative attitudes andperceptions and promote their inclusion ins c h o o l .

■ Build on initial success and continue to equipteachers with the skills to assess and includechildren with mild forms of disability in class and support the referral of those whose needscannot be met at school-level.

■ Work with others to advocate for improvedimplementation of inclusive education policiesand increased resource allocation.

Infrastructure : ■ Continue to explore local level advocacy

opportunities for accessing funds forinfrastructure improvement and school

construction ensuring this takes issues relatedto gender and accessibility into account.

■ Link education work to other areas such asActionAid’s campaigning on tax justice toincrease increasing scope of advocacy forincreased allocation of public resources toeducation at national level.

Learning Outcomes :■ Continue to engage parents in their children’s

education through R e fle c t circles, training,awareness-raising and other activities to ensureparents provide children with the time, spaceand support they need to learn effectively.

■ Develop activities aimed specifically atimproving children’s learning outcomes andwork in collaboration with RTE to advocate for arights-based approach to measuring andassessing performance.

■ Collaborate and dialogue with the Ministry ofEducation and other organisations working onLearning Outcomes to promote a rights-basedapproach to assessment and performance.

Safe, non-violent environments :■ Work in collaboration with other organisations

with expertise on tackling corporal punishment(Save the Children, Plan, Raising Voices) todevelop strong training packages for teachersand parents on positive discipline at home andin schools.

■ Ensure that Codes of Conduct for teachers areknown and understood by teachers, childrenand parents alike.

■ Ensure teachers, parents and children are clear on reporting and referral procedures forcases of school-based violence and abuse and work in collaboration with EducationAuthorities/Teachers’ Unions to create simpleposters outlining procedures to be followed.

■ Encourage girls and boys to engage in jointactivities (e.g. through children’s clubs) andbuild on existing good practice on working withboys (e.g. in Ghana) to ensure boys become‘champions’ for girls’ rights.

■ ActionAid is a member of the Global Initiative toEnd Corporal Punishment of Children (whichtakes a human rights approach to tackling theissue), take advantage of this for advocacy andcampaigning purposes and make use of thewealth of research, training resources and dataon their website to inform training andadvocacy work.

43 Section 2


3 Partnerships

� Ensure technical capacity development forpartner organisations to ensure qualityprogramme implementation especially on issuesuch as: children’s rights; child participation;child protection; gender-based violence andpositive discipline.

� Strengthen the links between the ACRE and RTEensuring capacity development and face-to-facemeetings to keep Human Rights are betterintegrated into the delivery of the project andpromote shared learning.

� Seek stronger engagements with Human Rightsorganisations such as Amnesty International andothers working at national level.

� Consolidate partnerships with NationalEducation Coalitions and link to ANCEFA atregional level.

� Engage constructively with Teachers’ Unions atdecentralised and national level to promote buy-in and support for children’s rights to education.

4 Value for money

� Establish a unit cost for the project and use thisto compare value offered by differentapproaches/different countries/overall.

� Ensure key ‘cross-country deliverables’ arewritten into the next phase of the project toensure concrete examples of shared learning areput into practice to maximise value.

� Build baseline analysis into the project cycle as amatter of course to ensure that data is availablefor tracking progress and that stakeholders andbeneficiaries are engaged.

� Create a simple yet effective M&E system for theproject that will allow teams to collect key dataand assess progress towards outcomes on anannual basis.

5 Sustainability

� Ensure ActionAid’s Human Rights BasedApproach and Theory of Change are being fullyimplemented throughout the project to promoteownerships, capacity development andsustainability.

� Target specific activities at senior level educationauthorities at district/national level to promoteawareness and buy-in to the PRS approach.

� Set aside funds for capacity development forimplementing partners and education authoritiesas well as other key stakeholders to encourageup-take once funds come to an end.

� Build on good practice from Ghana’s multi-stakeholder Advisory Committees to ensurestrategic support during the implementationperiod and increase likelihood of onwardsustainability/adoption of PRS approach afterproject closure.

Section 2 44

Conclusions, lessons learned and recommendations

Children demonstrating a sprayer for agriculture sessions atMulabana primary school, Uganda

ActionA

id

Girls during the PRS exercise in Jareng, Gambia

ActionA

id

45

ManagementResponse toProjectEvaluationReport

Section 3A

ctionAidGirls club in session at Nyerezee primary

The ACRE project team agrees that the end ofproject evaluation report captures the progress sofar made and agrees with the majority of thefindings and recommendations. This responseserves to outline the team’s reaction to specificpoints raised in the report and highlightcommitments to undertaking specificrecommendations to improve future PRS projects.

Progress towards outcomesOver all it is encouraging to note that although theproject was only implemented over one year, theevaluation found that to a large extent, what wasplanned was achieved, and whilst it has beendifficult to measure results due to the lack of acomprehensive M&E system, the majority ofactivities were implemented in all six participatingcountries.

The Consultant’s assessment based on analysis ofproject narrative and financial reports shows that ahigh proportion of targets have been reached underObjective 1(increase awareness of rights to and ineducation by collecting data using PRS frameworkwith multi-stakeholder groups of children, parents,teachers, community leaders, local educationgroups, researchers and teachers union)and 100%of planned activities were delivered both in Ghanaand Uganda as well as a relatively high proportion inall the four small Grant Countries. One of the keysuccess factors have been the participatorybaseline processes that encouraged buy-in fromkey stakeholders. Unfortunately, the late finalisationof the research, challenges with the complexity ofthe analysis and the limited time to respond to andintegrate findings into the current project cycleaffected the use of the findings as part of acoherent advocacy strategy with links the local andnational level. It is anticipated that in a possiblesecond phase, the findings would be integrated inthe advocacy activities to ensure local to nationallinkages. It is also agreed that advocacy activitiesmust be implemented with civil society coalitionslike the national education networks in order toincrease the potential of achieving lasting impact.

Even though a lot of awareness on children’s rightshas been created, the team agrees that there stillremains the issue of implementation of children’srights being seen as a threat to adult authority bothat home and at school. The project staff would haveto work hard to ensure that there is attitudinalchange in this respect and the rights of childrenwould be promoted and fulfilled. Subsequentactivities would target the education of parents aswell as children in the communities where we workin within the wider organisation as we integratePRS.

On objective 2, ( Promote safe and non-violentschools by advocating for adequate andappropriate learning environments includingimplementation of a Teachers’ Code of Conductand policy provisions), the project staff worked hardto support the creation of safe environmentincluding the dissemination of Teachers Code ofConduct. Again analysis shows that in both Ghanaand Uganda, 100% of planned activities wereachieved and many schools visited by theconsultant have copies of Teachers code ofconduct. Other activities included training forteachers to identify, assess and support childrenwith mild forms of disability. Although this waswidely appreciated, more needs to be done tosuccessfully address the root causes ofdiscrimination and exclusion.

The project team agrees with the recommendationon addressing the root causes of discrimination andexclusion and recognises that more awarenessshould be created in subsequent implementation ofPRS to address the issue. Under this objective, thecreation of safe environment poses a challenge; thatis implementing human rights based approachwithout getting into service delivery. Much moreneeds to be done under this objective to getgovernment departments to live up to theirresponsibilities as has been done in Ghana, Ugandaand Malawi. The team agrees with this and issomething project staff will work on in future.

The evaluation assessment revealed that it was

Section 3 46

Management Response toProject Evaluation Report

more difficult to achieve all planned activities andoutcomes under Objective 3 (Increase transparencyand accountability of school managementprocesses by enhancing community and children’sparticipation in decision-making and monitoringeducation resources). Making an in-road intochildren’s participation in decision making byparticipating on school management committeesrequires a lot in work in all the countries especiallyGhana as existing policies do not make provisionfor that. However, in places like Uganda, Liberia andZambia, there was some head way in making thevoices of children heard by the managementcommittees. Meaningful child participation ofchildren would be pursued in the implementingcountries in the next phase.

The team agrees to the findings on objective 4,(Increase the confidence levels, learning abilitiesand outcomes of girls and children with disabilities).Although all planned activities were conducted, theteam agrees with the findings that no specificactivities were undertaken on learning abilities andno changes were measured. This objective was tooambitious to achieve within the time frame. As a oneyear project, it was too early to see changes inlearning abilities. In a much longer termimplementation, efforts would be put in place tomeasure medium term changes in learning abilities.Nevertheless, the report serves as a useful reminderto the team to place increased focus onmeasurement of learning abilities as part of ensuringquality education for all.

Way forwardTaking it forward, project teams must work urgentlyto address the problems by collaborating with otherlike-minded organisations especially the educationnetwork to support parents and teachers to usealternative forms of discipline at home and in schooland simultaneously lobbying for changes in law andpolicy and/or their effective implementationwherever they exist already. In case of Ghana forexample it might include closer relations with thenational coalition which is already piloting a positivediscipline pack together with ACTIONAID Ghana.

Although the report commends the significantprogress made against all four project outcomes, ithas also identified that the change achieved is notalways reflected in the data represented. This is dueto a number of challenges both internal and externalto the project.

The first challenge has to do with collection ofaccurate data during the baseline survey using aparticipatory approach recommended in the PRSresource, something which has not be done beforein the six countries. In Liberia and Malawi, aconsultant was hired to do the assessment withlittle involvement of key stakeholders. Trainingstakeholders in the community to undertake datacollection takes time and in most casescumbersome. In future, implementing countriesmust initiate the data collection process earlyenough and provide ample time to train the children,teachers, parents and community leaders for theireffective involvement and ownership of the process.Data collected must be used to produce an actionplan for a strategic advocacy engagement forchange.

Secondly, even though an M&E framework wasdeveloped for both Ghana and Uganda and thesmall grant countries, project teams were notsufficiently conversant with it and thereforeindicators to help track progress against outcomeswere not effectively monitored. Other monitoringprocesses and procedures faced logisticalchallenges in all countries. Accurate data collectionand analysis is key to tracking progress towardsoutcomes. It is also important that data is collectedfrom all schools in project areas, so that it ispossible to obtain a complete picture of what ishappening and the changes that the project ishelping to bring about in lives of children.Consequently, the project team will ensure that thecolleagues and partners are familiar with the M&Eframework and can therefore use it to provideaccurate report that can give a clearer situation ofthe progress in the fields both at programmatic andadvocacy levels.

Thirdly, child participation is key if the rights ofchildren in school will be respected, protected andfulfilled. Children’s participation in schoolcommittees was slightly improved for Uganda, TheGambia and Zambia by getting their voices heard.However, it is important that project staff educatechildren on their rights and responsibilities andinvolve them in activities that concern them so as tochange policies to get them to sit on Schoolmanagement committees to enhance theirparticipation.

In the second phase, the project teams will have tolook seriously at improving collaboration with the

47 Section 3

Management Response to Project Evaluation Report

Right to education project as well as partnershipwith human rights organisations in country toenhance human rights aspects in the programme.The teams will have to train staff and partners onthe human rights standards for a betterunderstanding of all the implications of thegovernments’ commitments in terms of rights toeducation and how to take action.

Work on corporal punishment and alternate forms ofdiscipline, reporting and referral systems on violencehas just begun and must be prioritised and integratedin the program work in order to address in a morestrategic way community and national level advocacywork for both behaviour and policy changes. In thesecond phase, the team will ensure that sustainableaction plan is produced together with key actorssuch as national coalition, teachers unions,community leaders, school managementcommittees, and the children themselves and theglobal initiative to end corporal punishment, to tacklethe root causes. We will ensure that children’s areempowered and their voices are heard through theiractive participation along side with adults to promoteinter generation dialogue and the communityacceptance of the children as rights holders.

The report makes an assertion that the schoolfeeding project as implemented by ACRE in Uganda is not sustainable and also against theorganisation’s stand on Hunger Free campaign,where school meals are seen as a right for thechildren and not charity. The team agrees with thisassertion and will use the existing situation forfuture advocacy to get government to provide alead in ensuring school feeding happens, somethingthat is already one of the key calls being made bythe Quality Public Education working group forwhich ACTIONAID Uganda is part. ActionAid charterfor free school meals will support this advocacyaction aimed at informing ACTIONAID partners aswell as challenging the government.

It is exciting to see that the report highlights somesignificant progress made by the project within theyear as well as highlighting some key challengesthat remain to be addressed. In conclusion, we willendeavour to ensure recommendations are actedupon in future projects in order to ensure theproject’s objectives and outcomes are achieved.

Section 3 48

Management Response to Project Evaluation Report

Children's club at Kinyamira primary school, demonstrating someof their rights in education to teachers and their fellow pupils,Uganda

AnnexesSection 4A

ctionAid

49

KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS

Country/level Organisation Nº

International Right to Education Project 2ActionAid International 3ActionAid USA 1

GHANA ActionAid Ghana 4CALID 4GNECC 1MoE 2

UGANDA ActionAid Uganda 8NGO Forum 4KADEFO 0MoE 2

GAMBIA ActionAid Gambia 1LIBERIA ActionAid Liberia 1MALAWI ActionAid Malawi 1ZAMBIA ActionAid Zambia 1

Total 35

Country Location Respondents Male Female

GHANA Ngarun Teachers 6 3Parents 5 15SMC/PTA 6 0Girls 26Boys 7

Kpene Teachers 8 2Parents 8 8SCM/PTA 6 0Girls 10

Subtotal 46 64UGANDA Pmvuga Teachers 9 2

SMC/PTA/parents 10 3Girls 27

Oruu Teachers 3 0SMC/PTA/Parents 17 8Girls 11Boys 8

Subtotal 47 51Subtotals 93 115

Total 208

Section 4 50

Annex 1

Key informant interviews andfocus group discussions

The overall purpose of this evaluation is to assessthe extent to which the Action for Children’s Rightsin Education (ACRE) project’s activities arebeginning to bring about the anticipated change setout in the project. It also aims to examine whichfactors are proving critical in helping or hinderingchange and draw lessons for future programming.each stakeholder can play in ensuring schools offergood quality education.

During its implementation period the ACRE projectfocused mainly on the promotion of three of these10 rights, notably: the right to non-discrimination;the right to a safe and non-violent environmentand the right to participate.

To ensure stakeholder involvement in the projectActionAid country programmes engagedstakeholders at different levels to collect evidenceusing the PRS framework in order to determine theextent to which the 10 rights are being fulfilled inschools. Using a participatory methodology andReflection Action approach to adult learning andsocial change, stakeholders were brought togetherand empowered to participate in diagnosing theproblem of children’s rights in local communitiesand proposing local solutions by being part of thebaseline data collection.

The ACRE project partnered with Universities andresearch institutes in the countries and thesesupported the project implementation by facilitatingand making inputs into the design and datacollection of local level baseline studies in the LRPs.Baseline survey reports and policy briefs on thethree rights are therefore available for Ghana,Uganda, Gambia, Malawi, Zambia and Liberia. Inaddition a comparative study of all the reports hasalso been completed.

During the implementation, a detailed cross-countryMonitoring and Evaluation Framework wasdesigned with inputs from project staff from Ugandaand Ghana to provide a basis for measurement ofanalysis of the progress, outputs and outcomes ofthe project.

Purpose of the EvaluationAs stated above, the overall purpose of theevaluation is to determine if the ACRE projectactivities are beginning to bring about expectedchanges and assess the factors that are crucial toproducing (or preventing) changes happen anddraw lessons for future programming. Specifically,this evaluation aims to:

1 To evaluate the output /outcomes and impact ofthe ACRE pilot project against its four objectives.

2 To assess the core project structures,methodologies and capacity development.

3 To appraise the project partnership approach(including management structures,communications and relationships) to communityimplementation, research and advocacy inrelation to the project’s achievements.

4 To assess the project’s financial managementand value for money.

5 To draw lessons for future programming.

Areas of Review/Evaluation QuestionsIn order to respond to the above assessmentquestions, five separate yet interlinked areas ofreview have been identified and are outlined below.These have been revised in collaboration with theInternational Project Management team.

A. Relevance: did we do the right thing in theright way?

1 What value (and for whom) did the project addrelative to other education initiatives?

2 Did the project respond to real needs in theintervention areas/at national level?

3 Are the project objectives coherent with nationalpolicies and targets?

4 Given progress to date, are the project’sobjectives still relevant?

5 Has this project taken adequate steps to redressimbalances in women’s rights/gender equality?

6 Did the project put ActionAid’s theory of changeinto practice?

51 Section 4

Annex 2

Terms of Reference for the Evaluation

B. Impact: did the project achieve the planned results?

For each project output/ outcome the consultantsshould review how effective project activities havecontributed to achieving the outcomes. This shouldbe undertaken through a desk review of projectperformance from the M&E framework, reports fromall countries, project review reports and field reviewexercises with key stakeholders-parents, girls, boys,teachers and schools in the main grant countries –Ghana and Uganda. Review from the small grantcountries can be assessed through the activity planreview reports. Consultants should advise whether thecurrent set of outcomes for the project are still relevantand appropriate, and whether revisions are necessaryas the project moves forward, bearing in mind theneed for baseline data if this option is recommended. 1 To what extent was progress made against the

four key objectives?2 Are there any areas where progress towards

objectives was slower, and why?3 Which activities have been the most/least

effective in bringing about changes inknowledge, attitudes and practice and why?

4 Have there been any unintended/unexpectedoutcomes?

5 What has been the overall/lasting impact of theproject to date?

C. Partnerships: what lessons can be learnedfor the future?

Review communications and relationships withpartners in relation to community implementation,research and advocacy in relation to the project’sachievements. The consultant should assesseffectiveness of partnerships with leadimplementing NGOs in Ghana and Uganda andmake recommendations to improve our partnershipin future. For example:1 How well has each partner fulfilled its obligations

and contributed to the project’s achievements? 2 How have the different partnerships (advocacy,

community, research) helped or hindered theachievement of project objectives and delivery oflasting change?

3 What have been the key challenges among thepartnerships and limitations among the partners?What approaches have, or could in future, bestmitigate those challenges?

4 What lessons can be learned from thepartnership approach of this project?

5 How effectively has the project developed thecapacities of the different partner organisations?

D. Achieving value for money: economy,efficiency & effectiveness

1 Economy: what is the value added of a multi-country project vs its transaction and othercosts?

2 Economy: what measures were taken to ensurecost-effectiveness in procurement andimplementation?

3 Efficiency: what measures were taken to ensureeffective financial implementation, monitoringand reporting?

4 Efficiency: was financial management capacity ofpartners adequate for accurate budgeting,forecasting and reporting of the project? Wascapacity development provided and to whateffect?

5 Efficiency: to what extent did grant managementrequirements support the delivery of results?

6 Efficiency: how well did the various activitiestransform the available resources into results?

7 Efficiency: to what extent did the management,decision-making and relationships structures ofthe project support the successfulimplementation of the project?

8 Efficiency: efficiency: how well did the projectpredict and react to risks?

9 Effectiveness: to what extent have the resourcesallocated enabled the project to achieve theplanned results (i.e. what did we get for ourmoney)?

10 Effectiveness: to what extent did the projectdeliver the expected results (see section 2)

11 Effectiveness: did the project put ActionAId’stheory of change into practice (see section 1)

12 Effectiveness: was value created by this projectand for whom (see section 1)

13 Effectiveness: to what extent did themethodologies support the achievement ofresults?

14 Effectiveness: how has the project’s approach tomonitoring, data collection, and learning affectedthe overall impact of the project? (for example,to what extent was learning from baselineincorporated into the project’s implementationplan to achieve change?)

15 Effectiveness: how did the project ensureaccountability to beneficiaries?

E. Sustainability1 Which elements of the project could be

replicated/scaled up elsewhere?2 To what extent did the project enable local

participation and ownership of the project’s

Section 4 52

objectives and achievements?3 Did this project result in any policy

changes/reforms at local/national level?4 To what extent will activities be sustained by

local partners/beneficiaries once the fundingcomes to an end?

Key deliverables

The key deliverable expected at the end of theevaluation is a final evaluation report that should notexceed 25 pages (excluding appendices) andshould include:

A. An executive summary (3 pages)B. A project description (1 page)

� Short description of the project – overallobjectives and indicators, expected resultsand budget

� Short description of the planning,implementation and monitoring processes

� Short description of the management structure� Short description of the human resource

allocation and any partner organisations

C. A review methodology overview (0.5 page)� Short summary of the evaluation process,

timeframe, methodology, objectives, teametc.

D. Evaluation results (15 pages)� For each objective outline the indicators and

the results and the analysisE. Conclusions, lessons learnt recommendations.

(5 pages)� Conclusions – insights into the evaluation

findings, reasons for successes and failures,any innovations

� Lessons learnt – suggestions for integrationinto future projects

� Recommendations.

Technical details should be confined to appendices,which should also include a list of informants (withtheir permission) and the evaluation team’s workschedule. Background information should only beincluded when it is directly relevant to the report’sanalysis and conclusions. Case studies, photos,quotes and stories should be provided as much aspossible.

53 Section 4

Pupils participating in the discussion of the survey findings, Malawi

ActionA

id

Location: Date: Time:

Introduction

Hello, my name is Asmara. I am working as a consultant for ActionAid, to support an independent end ofproject evaluation of the Action for Children’s Rights in Education initiative. The purpose of the evaluation is tofind out how well the project has achieved its objectives and what lessons can be learned for the next phase ofthe project. I will be conducting interviews and discussions with various people who have been involved in theproject at national and international level. The findings from these discussions and other sources will be writtenup into a report to be used by ActionAid and the donor. This interview will cover five main areas: relevance;impact; partnerships; value for money and sustainability. Although I will be asking your name, the informationwill be confidential and your name will not be linked to anything you say in the final report. I understand youare probably very busy and I hope this will not take much more than one hour. I really appreciate yourwillingness to answer my questions but please be assured that this is entirely voluntary so if there is anything you don’t want to answer or if you need or want to stop this interview at any time, just let me know.

0.1 Name:0.2 Full Job Title:0.3 Length of time involved in project and role:

Section 4 54

Annex 3

Example key informantinterview sheet

1 Relevance

1 Given your knowledge of other education initiatives,what would you say is the added value of thisparticular project and for whom? Probe: PRS approach

2 In light of the project’s achievements to date, doyou think it would be relevant to continue workingon the same issues?

Yes/No

Why/Why not?

3 Do you think the project managed to enhance therights of women or girls in any way?

Yes/No

If so, can you give any examples?

2 Impact

1 To what extent would you say the project has madeprogress towards the achievement of its four keyobjectives? Do you have any specific examples toillustrate this? Probe: learning outcomes, participation,discrimination, measuring reduction in violence.

2 Are there areas where progress towards the fourobjectives was slower?

Yes/No

Which ones and why?

3 Which activities do you think were most effectivein

bringing about changes to people’s knowledge,attitudes and practice as part of the project andwhy?

4 Do you think there were any activities that were not particularly effective?

Yes/No.

Which ones and Why?

5 Have there been any unexpected or unintendedoutcomes as a result of this project?

Yes/No

Can you give any examples?

6 Although this is only a one-year project, whatwould you think the most lasting change orchanges have been as a result of itsimplementation?

3 Partnerships

1 To what extent would you say the different partners(advocacy, community, research) have fulfilled theirobligations in this project? Probe: did the project work with all the partnersoutlined in the proposal?

2 How has each partner (advocacy, community,research contributed to the achievement of theproject’s objectives?

3 Have there been any challenges working with any of the partners?

Yes/No

If so, what, and how did they impact on projectimplementation?

4 What was done to address those challenges?

5 What would you recommend to mitigate them infuture?

6 Do you think there are any lessons to be learnedfrom this project about successful partnership workeither in general or on advocacy, community,research work specifically?Yes/NoWhat might these be?

4 Achieving value for money

1 What would you say are the advantages or addedvalue of a multi-country project? Are there anyspecific advantages for this project in particular?

2 The management and support costs for this projectwere around 30% of the total. Is this outweighed bythe advantages?

3 What measures were taken (e.g. in procurement,recruitment, implementation etc.) to ensure cost-effectiveness during the implementation of thisproject?

4 What was done to ensure effective financialimplementation, monitoring and reporting duringthis project? (Prompts: reporting templates andguidelines, meetings, monitoring visits, workshops,support etc.)

5 How efficient was the flow of funds (e.g. fromActionAid India to ActionAid Ghana/ActionAidUganda or partners)? Were there any delays toimplementation? If so, why/what effect did thishave?

6 How frequently did the team meet to discussprogress/challenges? Was this effective?

Yes/No.

Why/Why not?

7 What (if any) challenges did partners have withregard to budgeting, forecasting and reporting onthis project?

8 Was any capacity development provided topartners support effective financial implementation,monitoring and reporting of this project?

Yes/No

If yes, how useful was this?

9 What kind of management and decision-makingstructures were put in place to support the projectimplementation and how helpful/supportive werethese structures?

10 To what extent was the project able to react torisks? Can you give an example? Prompt: lookthrough Risk Matrix

11 Do you think the project satisfactorily deliveredwhat it set out to achieve with the funds available?

Yes/No

What makes you say that?

12 Do you think there is any way the same resultscould have been achieved for less?

Yes/No

How?

13 Which of the methods used in this project do youthink were most effective and why?

14 How effective would you say the project’sapproach to M&E data collection and learning andwhat impact has this had on the project’s capacityto achieve its results? Probe: collection of school based data/collectionof data against agreed indicators at end of year?

15 To what extent was learning from baselineincorporated into the project’s implementation planand what, if any changes occurred as a result?

16 What approaches did the project take to ensureaccountability to beneficiaries?

5 Sustainability

1 Do you think the project’s approach would berelevant elsewhere?

Yes/No

Why/Why not?

2 Are there any elements of the project that couldpotentially be scaled up? How? To what level? Canyou forsee any challenges?

3 What did the project do to specifically encouragelocal participation and ownership? To what extentwas this successful?

4 Did the project achieve any changes in terms ofpolicy reforms at local or national level? Whichwere they?

5 Do you think any of the project’s activities will becarried on by local partners/beneficiaries after thefunding comes to and end?

6 What might be needed to support this?

Those are all the questions I have for the moment. If you would like to add anything important that hasnot been raised in the discussion please feel free.

55 Section 4

Country: Location: School: Date: Time:

Number of participants (M/F)

Introduction

Hello, my name is Asmara. I am working as a consultant for ActionAid, to support an independent end ofproject evaluation of the Action for Children’s Rights in Education initiative. The purpose of the evaluation is tofind out how well the project has achieved its objectives and what lessons can be learned for the next phase ofthe project. I will be conducting interviews and discussions with various people who have been involved in theproject at national and international level. The findings from these discussions and other sources will be writtenup into a report to be used by ActionAid and the donor. During our discussion we will be talking mostly aboutyour own experiences of involvement in the project and I am keen to hear about any changes (positive or not)that have happened here in the school over the past few months. Although I will be asking your name, theinformation will be confidential and your name will not be linked to anything you say in the final report. I understand you are probably very busy and I hope this will not take much more than one hour. I reallyappreciate your willingness to answer my questions but please be assured that this is entirely voluntary so if thereis anything you don’t want to answer or if you need or want to stop this interview at any time, just let me know.

Go around the circle and ask participants to introduce themselves, stating their NAME, ROLE and one thingthey LIKE ABOUT THEIR JOB. Recap on ground rules for the focus group and ensure everyone feelscomfortable and is aware everyone has a chance to speak and that there are no right/wrong answers.

Section 4 56

Annex 4

Example focus group discussion guide

1 Relevance

The ACRE project was implemented in Ghana, theGambia, Liberia, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, and inall those countries its aim was to ensure that children’srights to education are respected, especially focussingon the rights of girls and children with disabilities.

■ Who here was actually involved in the projectdirectly?

■ Can you tell me a bit about what you did?

■ How relevant do you think the project’s aims wererelevant here in xxxx?

■ Do you think you have gained or learned anythingas a result of being involved in the project?

2 Impact

Awareness of rights

■ The project focussed a lot on raising awareness ofchildren’s rights to education, especially for girlsand disabilities. What reactions have there been to the issue of children’s rights here in thecommunity/school? What are your views onchildren’s rights?

Safe, non-violent environment

Probes:

■ What about in the classroom? What happens when children misbehave in class? What kind ofdiscipline is administered here in the school?

■ Is there a Code of Conduct here in the school? Can anyone briefly describe what it covers?

■ Are pupils and parents aware of it?

■ What happens when a pupil is hurt or abused herein the school?

■ Have there been any such incidents recently? Can anyone tell me what happened? Probe:disciplinary processes

Girls and children with disabilities

The project aimed to benefit ALL children butespecially girls and children with disabilities.

� Are there any children with disabilities here in theschool? How many?

� What kind of disability (visual, hearing, physical,other)

� Have they been here for long or did they recentlyenrol?

� Has the school taken any specific measures toimprove enrolment and performance of childrenwith disabilities? Can anyone tell me a bit aboutthem?

� What has been the result? Probe: any changes inperformance or confidence

� What about girls? Have any measures been takento improve their enrolment and performance?

� Can anyone tell me a bit about them?

� What has been the result? Probe: any changes inperformance or confidence

� Are there any issues that are still preventing girls orchildren with disabilities from attending schoolhere? What are they?

Safe, non-violent environment

� Would you say this school has enough clean, safetoilets for teacher and pupils?

� Is everyone able to access them? Probe: girls,children with disabilities

57 Section 4

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

ActionAid will get back to you with feedback from

this evaluation.

Transparency and accountability

� Can anyone tell me about the way the SMCfunctions here in the school?

� Who is involved in the SMC?

� How much are parents involved in school affairs?

� Are there any children involved?

Probe: Boys/Girls/CWD?

� Has the SMC taken any actions recently to bringabout improvements in the school? Can anyonegive any examples?

3 Sustainability

� If this project should continue, what kind of thingdo you think it should focus on?

� What kind of support would be needed at schoollevel to ensure children’s rights are respected?

Those are all the questions I have for the moment. If you would like to add anything important that hasnot been raised in the discussion please feel free.

Baseline report validation exercise, Liberia

ActionA

id

ActionAid CHARTER FOR FREE SCHOOL MEALS

This charter is an advocacy and monitoring tool for education activists, parentsassociations, school management committees, teachers, children and other stakeholdersto ensure that states are providing free hot meals in schools and that the standards set inthis charter are being adhered to.

At least one hot meal a day is essential for the development of the child, states thereforehave the obligation to provide hot and nutritious meals to children in schools.

1 School meals must be free for all children – they are a right and not charity – andthey are the responsibility of government.

2 Meals must be nationally or locally sourced/procured with a view to strengthen local livelihood and the local economy – not based on dumping of food aid orprocurement from large contractors.

3 Budgets should be managed by school management committees and their capacitymust be built to manage these transparently.

4 The teachers must not be made into cooks or shoppers and nor should children.

5 The programme must guarantee a proper, nutritious hot meal – culturally adapted to local standards – not biscuits!

6 Budgets must be additional to any existing education spending – must coveradministration and management cost of delivery of FSM and should be closelytracked.

7 Pre-school children (0-6) should be covered by the free school meal programme in age appropriate ways – good nutrition is essential to prevent problems in earlychild development.

8 Gender stereotypes should be challenged in all aspects of free school meals.

9 Discrimination should be challenged – all children should eat together.

10 The programme must be independently monitored to avoid out of date food/corruption in sourcing/problems such as children not being fed at home etc.

Section 4 58

Annex 5

School Feeding Charter

ActionAid, Charter for Free School Meals, ActionAid International, 2008

ActionAid, Promoting Rights in Schools: providing quality public education, ActionAid International, 2010

ActionAid, People’s Action for in Practice: ActionAid’s Human Rights Based Approach, ActionAid International, 2012

BOND, Value for Money: what it means for UK NGOs, BOND, 2012

ReferencesA

ctionAid Community sensitization meeting on ACRE

ActionAid international is a unique partnership of people who arefighting for a better world – a world without poverty

ActionAid International is registered under Section 21A of theCompanies Act 1973

ActionAidPostNet suite #248Private Bag X31Saxonwold 2132JohannesburgSouth Africa

Registration number2004/007117/10

Telephone+27 (0) 11 731 4500

Facsimile+27 (0) 11 880 8082

[email protected]

Websitewww.actionaid.org

International Head OfficeJohannesburg

Asia Region OfficeBangkok

Africa Region OfficeNairobi

Americas Region OfficeRio de Janeiro

ActionAid is a registered charity no. 274467

action for childre n ’ s rights in education end of project … · smc: school management...

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