USAID AQE: Accelerated Quality Education for Liberian Children Institutional Capacity Strengthening Plan, 2018-2019

The project aims to increase access to education for approximately 48,000 out-of-school children ages 8 to 15 in targeted 6 counties of Liberia. The project's main result areas are the institutionalization of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) framework and the increase of eligibility of ALP learners to transition to formal education. The project's development hypothesis is that if the ALP regulatory framework is institutionalized, then the safety of the ALP centers will improve, teachers' instruction will improve, and more ALP learners will transition to the formal education system. To achieve this, the project will support the Ministry of Education (MoE) to adopt national ALP policies, including accreditation policies for centers, learner eligibility policy, certification policy, and a national curriculum. The project will also train teachers in the ALP curriculum and summative assessment tools, produce and distribute curriculum materials to schools, and rehabilitate and furnish selected ALPs to improve their safety and accessibility. Additionally, the project will mobilize communities to identify out-of-school children for enrollment in ALPs and engage communities in the awareness and compliance with the Teacher and Administrator Code of Conduct and pilot PTA activities related to the prevention, response, and referral of School-Related Gender-Based Violence. The project is implemented in a context where Liberia's first post-war transition to a new government has been peaceful, and there has been more clarity about the direction and structure of the Ministry of Education. The new administration has a focus on quality, which aligns with the project's plans to work with the MoE on a program accreditation policy and guidelines for quality ALP programming. However, the new leadership has put a hold on accreditation until further notice. The project's capacity strengthening strategy for 2018-2019 is built on the roles and functions of the Education Officers (EOs) and their respective offices, the 2017-2018 implementation experience, and the trends from a self-assessment of EO competencies. EOs will increasingly be held accountable for improving the quality of all school-based programs and monitoring and reporting on same. The project will conduct additional orientations to the Activity and its status, and will also provide foundational knowledge and skills for those recently appointed education officers at county and district levels. The project's capacity development strategy also builds on the systems and opportunities that exist within the current structure and practices of the MoE. Liberia is rife with examples of programs and projects establishing parallel systems and/or creating the impression that certain practices are for "projects only" and not for the long-term benefit of students, teachers, and other educators and parents, families, and communities overall. The project seeks to ensure that its interventions and capacity strengthening and systems building activities are embedded in current practices and "owned, operated, and maintained" within the appropriate structures and by the appropriate individuals. The project's capacity strengthening framework considers the key activities/processes to be institutionalized, the competencies, processes, and tools that are needed for the institutionalization, and the current status of the staff and system. The framework presents a framework for capacity strengthening with examples of interventions initiated over the past year and interventions that will be continued and/or started up in the coming year.