School report: Education for Life

One part of Money for Madagascar’s Education for Life programme has in the last quarter improved the immediate situation and prospects – professional and personal, and including health, education, wellbeing and quality of life – of almost 7,000 children and adults.

The programme’s Phase Four, funded by Adsum and carried out in partnership with Association Voahary Maitso (AVM) worked with seven primary schools in the Analamanga and Itasy regions.

 

In the period April-September 2024, we ran trainings, installed libraries and water supplies, improved school attendance and education standards, and provided meals, seeds, trees, vermiculture, sanitation and hygiene materials, and equipment to 3,338 teachers (56), children (2,213) and parents (1,069). A further 3,620 people benefited from our work without directly receiving our services.

We performed visits to the schools, so we could discover the needs of pupils, teachers and parents of children at each one.

Better education quality

We trained all 49 of the teachers at the seven schools (75.51 per cent women, 24.49 per cent men) in Education and Development of Dignity and Early Childhood Education and Care.

Every one of the teachers who we trained passed their CAP (the Malagasy certificate of teaching at primary school level) following taking our training.

To improve teachers’ ability to prepare lessons and document progress, we provided each school with a tablet, and 135 books across the seven schools.

Better student health

Before the academic year began, we had installed 14 handwashing devices, and seven toilets/latrines in all seven schools, and ensured all seven had functioning clean drinking water sources.

Also in advance of pupils attending school, we trained all seven schools’ principals in handwashing techniques, the use of latrines, and drinking water use, so they would be able to pass this information to staff and pupils alike.

We delivered Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) training to 3,439 people from the seven schools, including in washing hands with soap, and the installation and use of tipitap handwashing points.

We ran one day training sessions on:

• dental hygiene, reaching 2,626 parents, pupils and teachers – 54 per cent women and girls, 46 per cent men and boys. We provided 2,385 pupils with toothbrushes and toothpaste to coincide with this training

• menstrual hygiene theory and practice, reaching 2,396 people – 54 per cent women and girls: we provided all 200 girls in the seven schools’ seventh and eighth grades with washable sanitary pads

• theory and practice on health education, reaching 2,677 people, 60 per cent women and girls

Better student nutrition

At all seven schools, we equipped canteens, and ensured each could supply their canteen with food from their own gardens, using techniques including awareness-raising, strengthened monitoring, urban cultivation and vegetable gardens.

These canteens ensure that meals are provided to all students every day – in some cases the only and in many one of only two meals they will receive that day. The canteens provide a total (across the seven schools) of 2,484 lunches each day; 2,385 children, 57 teachers and 42 parents.

We helped each school install a garden, with an average size of 71m², with each garden planted by pupils, parents and teachers, and maintained by pupils and members of a commission developed to oversee and contribute to the wider Education for Life programme.

And we provided equipment and helped the school set up vermicomposting units – using worms to create fertiliser from natural waste. So far, the schools have installed and are using 50 units, and we have provided 1.5kg of worms to each school.

The schools have created 720kg of compost from the units.

To assist in these processes – food production or school use – we ran training sessions, each of which were also attended by parents who could use them to help develop their own income-generating initiatives.

These sessions were:

• soil and its functioning in relation to agricultural production and the environment. These sessions trained 3,417 people 53 per cent of them women and girls, in the ecosystem and environment, soil and its interaction with the environment, climate change and its impacts, land degradation, its consequences and impacts, and soil restoration, rehabilitation and protection

• These sessions reached 1,089 people (parents and teachers only) 65 per cent women, and trained them in pre-compost preparation for earthworms, earthworm breeding technique and management, fertiliser sorting, and preparation of pre-compost

• vegetable growing for market gardening. These sessions reached 1,089 parents and teachers, 65 per cent women, and trained them in flowerbed design, crop establishment, varieties of vegetables and plot maintenance and protection

We also ran sessions attended by 3,149 girls, boys, men and women (53 per cent women and girls) on food categorisation, local food promotion, nutrition, local food accessibility and availability, fruit tree planting and care.

The schools have planted 355 trees, of 11 species, including fruit and ornamental trees, an average of 50 feet of trees per school. Every pupil at the school helps with maintenance, drawing on the training they have received.

Another result of this training, installation assistance and equipment, is the seven schools’ gardens producing 319kg of vegetables, including peppers, courgette, aubergine, tomatoes and green beans. As a result, the school canteens have produced on average four meals containing school produce each month.

Raising household incomes

Children and young people depend on more than school to reach their full potential, however. Almost 80 (79.9) per cent of Malagasy people live on or below the global poverty baseline of £1.73 per day, and such poverty can lead to inability to attend school, hunger, disease and smaller but significant challenges such as lack of electricity.

One way in which Money for Madagascar works to combat this, including in Education for Life, is by helping Malagasy people improve their livelihoods.

We provided people including parents at all seven schools with a technical training on agroecology, as well as – as mentioned above – in vermicomposting. Both have helped parents of pupils at the school increase their produce and incomes.

We also supplied 207 parents with seeds adapted to their areas’ conditions, including upland rice, maize, bean, and green bean seed, which have also contributed to increased production.

In some cases, we provided parents with equipment including sewing machines, while in others parents have benefitted from the schools’ vermicomposting activities: 103 parents received 18kg of earthworms from the seven schools’ units, and 207 parents in total have received worms from schools or from the wider vermicomposting project and are using them to produce fertiliser.

Two hundred and ten parents have received 565 fruit trees for income generation.

Another – vital – component of this element of the programme was literacy and access to books.

We provided very school with a library, and 25 per cent of the books within it were targeted towards parents. During this quarter, 468 out of 845 parents used at least one book, and of 140 parents registered illiterate when we began, 118 have now gained certification confirming they can read and write.

Of the 468 parents who have used the library so far, 70 have practiced the knowledge acquired from the books they read to have create, develop or improve their income, including by poultry, pig, or fish-farming, cooking, or vegetable treatment.

Better access to education

One vital part of our efforts to help children attend school is our Back to School project, under which we cover the cost of students’ school fees to support parents having difficulty paying them and covering other costs.

The AVM team has provided and facilitated distribution of supplies to students and support for vulnerable parents including with school fees and participation in FRAM (pupils’ parents associations which take an active role in schools’ activities and achievements, in some cases paying wages to some teachers).

Our technical training and other activities related to income-generation have also led to parents bringing their children to school so they can gain the same benefits as other parents.

Better academic performance

All four of our other targets contribute to this: better quality of education assists pupils to achieve more for obvious reasons, better health and nutrition means that youngsters can attend school more regularly and often, and can concentrate when they are there, and is made possible in part by better incomes for parents, and both help – though are not enough on their own and in the short-term – to improve school attendance

Our efforts to directly improve pupils’ performance included providing school kits, providing tablets for children to use as part of the schools’ digital libraries – for which we provided all equipment – and improve their knowledge, reading level and vocabulary.

We set up and equipped libraries in all seven schools, containing 754 books, and provided 27 posters, and 55 educational games. All 2,385 pupils at the schools used at least one book each week, and at least one educational game per month.

In two schools – EPP Ambohibary and EPP Ambosarikely – we provided solar and digital equipment, which was used on average 20 times per month, and helped pupils with reading, vocabulary and pronunciation.

The schools, our partners, and our monitoring shows that these initiatives are doing well. One measure is pupils’ performance in the CEPE – the exam which pupils take to progress from primary to lower secondary school.

This year, the pass rate across the seven schools reached 72.86 per cent, up from 70 per cent the previous year. At EPP Amboasarikely, the increase was from 77 per cent to 83.76 per cent, while one pupil at EPP Fonenana achieved the highest result of any student in their region in the CEPE 2023-2024 exam.

Improvements to schools, and especially to the lives and prospects of children, are jobs which must always be considered ‘works in progress’.

With funds from Adsum, and alongside our partner AVM, we are happy to say that we can show progress is being made – we have helped improved standards of education, access to food, environmental protection and awareness, access to and awareness of water, sanitation and hygiene products, and improved incomes for parents.

Read the full report.