Education for Children and Youth Project Quarterly Report Second Quarter – January 1st to March 31, 2019

ECYP is part of USAID's Education Strategy and is implemented by the Foundation for Comprehensive Education of El Salvador (FEDISAL). The project supports the expansion and implementation of the Full-Time Inclusive School approach, aiming to expand access to education among children and youth living in municipalities with high violence and crime rates in El Salvador. The project focuses on developing work plans for the different interventions to be implemented in the 193 schools during the ECYP extension. ECYP will conduct interventions at 190 schools at the upper-primary and lower-secondary levels, with 100 schools already receiving support in previous years and 90 schools located in PESS-focused municipalities being new to the project. Additionally, ECYP will support three technical vocational high schools to facilitate their students' academic continuity and provide students with skills useful in their transition to the labor market. To address Objective 1, ECYP defined five components: Educational quality and management, Active learning classrooms, Early detection of and support for school dropouts, Successful career paths, and Connection to education. Under Component 2, ECYP identified two concrete actions: providing technical assistance to MINEDUCYT in designing and setting up the Reengineering Model of FDSE, and continuing to implement the current intervention program to support out-of-school children and youth. In the second quarter of 2019, ECYP focused on developing the plans for each intervention and developing different modules to be used for teacher training. ECYP also had technical meetings with departmental directors, their technical teams, and school principals to learn about the project interventions to be implemented. Additionally, ECYP made progress in developing two interventions that began in 2018: school educational proposal in 15 schools in Zacatecoluca and mentoring in Soyapango and Zacatecoluca. The homicide rate in El Salvador continues to show a downward trend, with a 24% reduction in the number of homicides in the first three months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. According to MINEDUCYT's transparency portal, the ministry's 2019 budget exceeds $997 million, representing an increase of around $56 million compared to 2018. MINEDUCYT reported three new municipalities as free of illiteracy: Santo Tomas, Santo Domingo, and Soyapango, bringing the total number of municipalities declared free of illiteracy to 136. MINEDUCYT also reported that 43,115 students, including young people and adults, began their secondary educational studies through the FDSE. The Information System for Salvadoran Educational Management had registered more than half a million students enrolled in both the public and private education systems, including early childhood, kindergarten, basic, special, accelerated, and middle education. MINEDUCYT launched the Psychosocial Care Unit, which will conduct psychosocial and social risk prevention within the framework of the National Policy of Coexistence and Peace Culture Promotion. ECYP's implementation status for Objective 1 is as follows: 15 schools in Zacatecoluca have a school educational proposal to address the needs identified in language and mathematics subjects, making it easier for teachers to innovate their pedagogical practice and improve their students' academic achievement. ECYP is also providing technical assistance to MINEDUCYT in designing and setting up the Reengineering Model of FDSE, and continuing to implement the current intervention program to support out-of-school children and youth.