1 Using quality improvement to improve educational performance of children in Malawi Dr. Taroub Faramand (Founder & President WI-HER LLC) Tiwonge Moyo (USAID ASSIST Project, Resident Advisor, Malawi)

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Malawi: At what scale are we working? 3 USG PEPFAR partners (VMMC) 10 QI Teams(OVC) 13 QI Teams (VMMC) 14 QI Teams (Malaria) 2 out of 28 districts-OVC 7 out of 28 districts-VMMC 2 out of 28 districts-Malaria HIV/AIDS (including OVC) 151 Villages 20 GVHs 7 TAs MOGCDSW- OVC MOH-VMMC MOH-Malaria Mangochi Balaka

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we trying to accomplish? 3 Nkata Improvement Team Members  Village Development Committee representative  Representative of the Community Rights Committee  Four Primary School Headmasters  Forest Officer  Community Child protection worker  Health Surveillance Assistant  CBO Director  Police Office representative  Early Childhood Caregivers  Community volunteers Improve the education performance of vulnerable children in 14 primary schools in two districts

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we trying to accomplish? Multisectoral Community improvement teams conducted CSI assessments on 25% of the registered vulnerable children 4

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Problem analysis using fish bone diagrams 5

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Some changes tested before integrating gender Strengthening linkages between schools and communities Enforcing community by-laws by local leaders to promote education Advocating for additional teachers in schools 6

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Results in the two schools: Percentage of pupils who pass exams in six terms ( ) 7

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Collecting sex disaggregated data by school 8

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Compiling educational performance data by school 9

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Changes tested in school A Primary School A has a total enrolment of 1,093 children (532 boys and 561 girls) Provide emotional healing by encouraging games that encourage team work e.g. football and netball after school Promote respect of children’s rights through quiz sessions, interactive dialogue on sexual violence and role plays on various abuse scenarios 10

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Changes tested Promote self awareness to children through psychosocial support activities such as tree of life and family trees Linked with an international organisation that provided additional soccer and net balls to promote the children’s corner activity Provided counseling through linkages with a community child protection worker of challenges they face in school and in communities Linked the children’s corner to a health centre for access to reproductive health and HIV information from the medical assistant 11

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Percentage of boys and girls who passed at School A 12

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Percentage of pupils who passed exams in School A from Term 1-3 ( ) 13

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Changes tested in school B Primary School B has a total enrolment of 412 children (209 boys and 203 girls) After training of the team, oriented SMC, guardians, teachers on improvement activities in the school The first two changes were strengthening linkages and enforcing by-laws in communities in term 1-3 In term 4-6 introduced mathematics clubs and school competitions from standards 3 to 8 to improve the capability of pupils to like and succeed in mathematics. 14

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Changes tested in school B During the club sessions, children are divided into two groups; the junior classes group (standards 3-4) and the senior classes group (standards 5-8). The mathematics club meets every Friday for two hours. Pupils are engaged in various activities such as mathematics competitions, maths exercises and quizzes for mental calculations. Teachers took turns to facilitate the club sessions and the headmaster ensures that each Friday the maths club sessions are held and pupils in the targeted classes were participating 15

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Percentage of boys and girls who passed at School B 16

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Percentage of pupils that passed end of term exams at School B by class 17

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Percentage of pupils who passed exams in 14 schools in two districts in Malawi 18

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we learning? CSI assessments and root cause analysis helped communities identify real challenges vulnerable children face on their own Motivated teams to address identified problems in resource constrained communities

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we learning? Reviewing primary school performance sex disaggregated data by the teams is assisting stakeholders to be interested o in progress of the schools performance o existing challenges o how they can improve education services in their communities support OVC can receive from teachers QI team primary school data drawn by team members, Photo taken by Tiwonge Moyo

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we learning? Involvement of local leaders and existing government structures in improvement work strengthens the commitment of government extension workers to deliver quality social services 3. Shortage of teachers and infrastructure in schools limits children’s ability to perform Group Village Masuku of TA M’Bwananyambi in Mangochi, Team Leader of Nancholi QI team

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we learning? To register improvements in academic performance, community teams need to intensify discussions and guidance with vulnerable families 5. Limiting the number of improvement aims helps to collect and manage data at community level 6. It is possible to facilitate improvement in low literacy level communities in resource constrained environments

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Lessons from the targeted schools Involving teachers in decision making to improve performance of schools is valuable because teachers have the responsibility of identifying and monitoring performance and progress of poor performing children 23

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems What are we learning from schools not doing well? Large classes are a challenge for teachers to handle and leads to poor performance in a classes of 206:1 pupil-teacher ratios Limited qualified teachers in schools not doing well Infrastructure, teaching and learning materials challenges in schools leading to poor results in performance 24

USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Acknowledgements Ministry of Gender Children Disability and Social Welfare (MOGCDSW) USAID Malawi The end! 25