Expanding Opportunities for Learning Additional Financing (GPE)

active

The project aims to address the following key sectoral challenges: (a) Early childhood education (ECE) provision is limited and, where available, at a nascent stage of development. It is constrained by a lack of classroom space and dedicated or qualified preschool teachers. Therefore, the project proposes to support the regulatory and quality aspects of ECE provision, teacher professional development and materials provision and establishment of dedicated pre-school classrooms (through construction or repurposing of existing spaces); (b) access and retention: the shortage of infrastructure in urban areas results in the curtailing of enrollments at the beginning of each school year, large class sizes and double shifting. Out-of-school rates are much higher in rural areas than in Djibouti-ville due in part to insufficient numbers of schools. Distance from school, poverty, and opportunity costs deter young children from attending, especially for girls wanting to attend lower secondary education. As a result, the project proposes to construct new or expand existing schools in strategic locations and explore innovative ways to provide educational services to rural areas, with a particular focus on girls’ access to education opportunities; (c) learning and assessing: The quality of education is a central concern as shortages of key quality inputs (learning materials, teacher guides, and development opportunities) impede education quality and teachers need to develop more appropriate pedagogical practices but also receive sufficient professional in-school support. Also, the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the classroom requires guidance. Another challenge is the lack of data especially related to student performance and teacher pedagogical and content knowledge skills that would allow providing targeted corrective measures. The project aims to improve teacher professional development and build on the government’s current system of centralized training to a decentralized and continued support/mentoring approach. It will also explore ways to strengthen the existing assessments (year 2 and 5 national exams – OTI) and provide capacity building for ministry staff from central to school levels to be able to interpret data and act on it.