Simon Pickering
GEI supports girls, and a limited number of boys, who have little hope of completing their secondary education and/or vocational and professional training, mainly due to financial reasons, through its scholarship programming. GEI is currently financed through Terres des Hommes and The OakTree Foundation.
GEI works closely with the Commune Education For All Committees (CEFACs) who are responsible for mobilizing the community to improve the quality of education to meet EFA goals. Six CEFACs are supported in three districts
The project has built the capacity of CEFAC members in skills such as facilitating training on basic livelihoods programming (chicken and fish raising, vegetable growing and mushroom farming) to the parents of very poor scholarship students. This helps families to learn simple ways to increase their family income and enable them to keep their children in school. CEFACs also conducted social awareness training on issues such as the importance of education, safe migration, human trafficking, child labour and drug use.
The Beacon School initiative (BSI) is an innovative project which aims to transform three selected state schools into new generation schools, demonstrating high learning standards, strong governance and continual professional development of teachers. BSI aims to bring private school standards to state schools.
BSI, is assisted by the Provincial Office of Education (POE) and the Provincial Teacher Training Center (PTTC), in the selection of teachers. It has a board helping to implement new governance structures and ensure more effective school management and student, parent and community involvement.
Innovative classrooms, computers and science labs were created for better learning and opportunities by the new generation students. The project has been supported by Oak Tree since January 2011, with additional support for building renovations, computer labs and life skills manuals being provided by our IBEC project.
BSI has made substantial renovations to three target secondary schools using new and innovative approaches in school design to better utilize land and space, lighted classrooms, theme tables, and improved landscaping. The classrooms have been upgraded and have been made into subject classrooms. New IT labs, science labs, model farms and upgraded libraries have been established including with new furniture.
The project has organized a number of workshops which includes new and innovative learning environments, cooperative learning, curriculum enhancement, learning pyramids and more specific topics that geared towards the use of the library and science labs for the students to learn. The oversight board regularly monitors the schools and supports the project to ensure that the highest standards will be achieved.