Strengthening the Education System
The goal of Save the Children's education programme is to ensure that children in Zimbabwe access inclusive quality learning in early and basic education. We focus on foundational and basic education We seek to help children develop foundational learning skills in the years leading up to school and basic education with the aim of increasing primary school completion rates and transition to secondary school by improving learning outcomes. The Quality Learning Framework (QLF) describes Save the Children’s best understanding of what makes a quality basic education. It guides all our education programmes. QLF describes five foundations that support the wellbeing and learning of all children, and should be found at all schools:
Emotional and Psychosocial Protection: Teachers and children are positive and respectful to one another. Children develop social and emotional skills, and learn how to make responsible decisions.
Physical Protection: Learning environments are safe and accessible to all children. Plans are in place to reduce and prevent any risks. There are clean latrines and handwashing facilities. Children are supported to be healthy and well-nourished.
Teaching and Learning: Teachers use active, child-centred teaching practices in languages children understand. They use appropriate learning materials, and monitor each child’s progress individually.
Parents and Community: Children, parents and communities participate in decisions about their school. They support children’s learning outside of school.
School Leadership and Management: School leaders lead learning and manage the school resources well. Inclusive and protective policies are in place to promote the safety and wellbeing of children and teachers.
The ‘Literacy Boost’ Common Approach helps primary school children learn to read and write by training teachers, parents and community members to support them, both in and out of the classroom. It promotes six core skills: alphabet, vocabulary, phonological awareness, writing, fluency, and comprehension. The ‘Numeracy Boost’ Common Approach supports students, teachers, parents and communities to help primary school children to develop numeracy skills, both inside and outside the classroom. The approach steers teachers away from teaching through memorisation, repetition and workbooks. Instead, it emphasises learning through interactive activities and games, so students can understand and explain their reasoning. The ‘Ready to Learn’ Common Approach helps 3-6 year-olds develop the foundational literacy and math skills they need to learn. Without this, many fail at school. We provide training, guidance and understanding of how to develop emergent literacy and math skills through play. This includes using common objects found in homes and communities for counting and sorting, and a toolkit with play-oriented activity cards. The ‘Enabling teachers’ seeks to develop teachers’ competencies and ensure that they have the enabling environment required for their motivation and success so that children from a quality education. The approach draws on internal and global evidence of best practice for teacher motivation and development to address the global teacher crisis. The approach is applicable in both humanitarian and development contexts and includes two main components: 1) the professional development course, which aims to improve teacher competencies. The course is designed to respond to teachers’ individual learning needs and context, using competencies aligned to a recognized framework; 2) the enabling environment, which ensures that teachers are supported to be able to succeed in their roles. The ‘Safe Schools’ Common Approach simultaneously works with policies, systems, school management, infrastructure, teachers, children, parents and communities. It combines three interventions that address different threats for children into a single approach that will keep children safe in and around schools:
Schools as Zones of Peace (SZOP) supports children facing disruptions in education due to attacks on schools, arrests, forced recruitment, or the use of classrooms for military purposes.
Violence Free Schools supports schools to prevent and respond to physical, psychological or sexual violence involving teachers and students.
Comprehensive School Safety (CSS) provides an approach to reduce risks from all hazards to the education sector, including disasters, climate change, conflict and other risks.
OUR WORK
Our recent work in education has been under three NORAD Framework Agreements (2010 to 2021). During this period, Save the Children implemented various activities under education, disaster risk reduction (DRR), child protection (CP) and child rights governance (CRG) sectors. The implementation of activities was done through partnership with strategic and implementing partners (IPs). One of the goals of the programme was to contribute to the strengthening of local civil society organizations (CSOs) including children’s/child-led groups. The last framework covered 2019 to 2021 which mainly focused on project transitioning activities such as strengthening the capacity of stakeholders as well as handing over of activities for sustainability. By 2021, the school attendance in Save the Children Supported schools stood at 97%, surpassing its set target of 94% across all the 8 districts. As at endline, the enrolment of students rose to 80142 an increase of 12%, surpassing the set target of 78858: The chief reasons for the increased enrolment was attributed to the increased awareness on the importance of education in all the 8 districts. The advocacy initiatives led to the adoption of positive discipline as a contemporary disciplinary measure within the school and community settings through school and community engagements and sensitizations. Resultantly, as at endline stage, 23.3% of parents, against 28.03% at baseline (2019) believed that children punishment was acceptable. This greatly shows massive progress towards positive discipline in everyday teaching and parenting at impact schools and communities respectively.
As co-lead of the Education in Emergencies Cluster and one of the main education actors in Zimbabwe, Save the Children works with partners and community-based organizations to ensure learners have access to inclusive and quality education through improved infrastructure, provision of teaching and learning materials, as well as teacher professional development. In response to the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai, Save the Children rehabilitated 139 schools that included classroom blocks, teachers accommodation as well as gender-sensitive and inclusive WASH facilities. Save the Children reached over 21,000 community members through Cyclone Idai response and Covid-19 back-to-school campaigns.
Save the Children is an implementing partner for UNICEF’s Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Systems Capacity and Systems Transformation Grants. Under the Systems Capacity grant, Save the Children worked with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in producing a training manual, guide and tools to train teachers on positive discipline. This was to address the gap left by the abolishment of corporal punishment as enshrined in the Amended Education Act (2020), by offering alternative non humiliating discipline approaches. Under the Systems Transformation Grant, Save the Children has been supporting the Ministry in fulfilling its mandate on its 2024 Foundational Learning Policy. This is being done through the procurement of Teaching, Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills (THRASS) kits, story books for early graders and purchase of and distribution of tablets to be used under the Smart tablets for Early Learning Assessments. Teachers have been trained on the utilization of the gadgets. Story books were printed for distribution across all the ministry’s 72 districts. Parents and caregivers are being mobilised to ensure their children enrol in foundational learning and how as parents and caregivers they can participate in their children’s education.
Currently, Save the Children together with two local partners, Simukai Child Protection and Bantwana Zimbabwe is implementing the Acting Together for Responsive and Integrated Systems for Children’s Access to Education in Emergencies (ARISE) project whose principal objective is having girls’ and boys’ access safe, protective, inclusive and uninterrupted learning that supports their holistic needs during crises. It is an integrated Education in emergencies, Child Protection in Humanitarian Affairs and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support .The project is being implemented in Chipinge, Mangwe and it also has a national focus. The target reach is 40 300 children and 7 860 adults.
