Terms of Reference for End of Project Evaluation of “Emergency Education VI” in South Sudan
Background:
Save the Children Denmark (SCD) has been active with projects in South Sudan for over a decade. SCD has previously been working in partnership with Save the Children UK (SCUK). In November, 2009, the three Save the Children offices in southern Sudan (Sweden, USA, and UK) combined managerial systems to provide a Unified Presence in southern Sudan. This structure is known as Save the Children in South Sudan (SCiSS), and programmes are overall managed by Save the Children UK (SCUK). The integration is Save the Children’s global strategy to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Save the Children programmes thereby magnifying the impact on the lives of children and their caregivers. SCUK provides day to day management of the programme and implementation of the programme.
In May 2010, SCD joined the SCiSS as a Participating Member of the Country Leadership Group and thereby supports the strategic development of Save the Children’s engagement. Furthermore, SCD closely monitor and provide supportive supervision to all stages of project cycle management.
SCiSS is able to build on the long history of the four member organisations which has been in operation since as early as 1993 and is one of the few international organisations in the country which had a presence during the years of conflict.
The situation in South Sudan Years of war have left southern Sudan with many of the worst humanitarian and development indicators in the world.
Over 90% of the population lives on less than $1/day and the entire region is in a cycle of food insecurity. Food insecurity is threatening the sustainable nature of return and is exacerbating inter- and intra-community tensions during this critical year with post independence. This is particularly felt in drought-affected, short-cycle, sorghum-growing areas located in the Western Flood Plains, including Northern Bahr El Ghazal.
Although advances in education have outstripped progress in other key areas, Government of South Sudan (GoSS) figures suggest that only 48% of school-age children are enrolled in Primary School, and that only 12% actually complete Primary School. There remains a severe shortage of teachers and most teachers have themselves not completed primary school. Gender disparity continues to be of a major concern as only 14% of teachers are female, three times more boys than girls attend school and the primary school dropout rates for girls, at 25%, are the highest in the world.
Despite having some of the worst health indicators in the world, there has been virtually no expansion in basic health services since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. The existing health safety net, which covers only 20-25% of the population, is under tremendous pressure as a result of the 2009 economic downturn and shortcomings in funding mechanisms.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths in South Sudan, especially of children, are the direct result of poor water and sanitation. At least one-third of all villagers still rely on rivers for their water and less than seven percent of the south’s entire population has access to improved sanitation. This has inevitably given rise to water borne and hygiene disease outbreaks such as cholera and diarrhea, which is one of the leading causes of childhood deaths.
The situation for children in South Sudan is complex; but it is clear that children face a systemic combination of issues that affect the respect, protection and fulfillment of their rights.
Problems identified re: access to education
Access to education is low across South Sudan: National Primary School enrolment for 2009 was 48% of the school-age population. Of that number only 38% were girls. But enrolment only tells us so much: the completion rate (%age of students who complete Primary School) was just 12% (9% for girls). There are a range of issues which affect access to education in South Sudan:
• Lack of central government investment into education (particularly to pay teachers’ salaries) • Acute lack of qualified teachers (especially female teachers) • Poor infrastructure (school buildings, water and sanitation facilities). • Lack of teaching and learning materials and textbooks • Households unable to afford ‘informal’ and locally defined costs of sending their children to school (registration, uniform, books, pens etc), and more eager for their children to engage in income-generating activities • Cultural attitudes resulting in student drop out, particularly relevant to girl students (for instance, early marriage) • Low level of GoSS and community capacity at national, state, county and payam level to support the quality provision of education. • Child-to-child violence in schools and psycho-social barriers following years of conflict are also common.
Returnees face the same issues when trying to access education as host families, identified above. However, there are some specific additional issues faced by returnee children and families – and some important implications.
• Returnee children have difficulty accessing formal Primary Schools – they often have some formal schooling, but are forced to join at P1, even though they may be over-age • There is lack of suitable alternative education systems which returnee children could join which may be more appropriate to their age and cognitive ability • Returnee families are often more impoverished than host families and so feel the financial barriers to education more acutely. • Returnee children are often forced to devote their time to activities such as house building to provide shelter for their family and cultivation.
But the implications of reduced access to education for returnees are far-reaching.
Families choose whether or not to return to (and then settle in) their regions of origin based on ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. One of the major pull factors is whether or not they will be able to access basic services. Returnee monitoring information from Northern Bahr el Ghazal, collected in mid-2009, determined that ‘education was a topic of great interest and concern for returnees’, and that, ‘frustration was expressed by many returnees who are not able to earn a sustainable income and thus cannot afford school related fees’. Furthermore, returnees need to be confident that the provision of these services is durable and will last to convince them to remain in their regions of origin once they have returned.
Apart from providing an education, school can help with reintegration and mitigate potential tensions between host and returnee communities. Furthermore, returnees and children themselves acknowledge that the provision of education is one means of improving their protection.
As noted above, some 2 million returnees had already returned to their homes in southern Sudan in 2009, and new returnees continued to flow into the region especially during the referendum and the period before independence. 34% of returnees are of school age (5 to 17 years). This high percentage of returnee children being of school going age always puts pressure on an already weak education system.
To compound this, there has been no consolidated effort made at the MoE level to integrate returnee and IDP children in schools or to pay specific attention to the differing needs of this group. This poses a grave threat to this group of children, who are in the majority, are missing out on education and are at risk of being exposed to child labour, sexual abuse and other harmful activities.
If access to education is not facilitated for returnees, then there is a strong likelihood that they will not return to their place of origin and will continue to live a limbo-like existence displaced from their homes.
Regions of Origin Initiative
In line with the objectives of the Danish Government’s Regions of Origin Initiative (ROI), Save the Children is approaching this Emergency Education VI project holistically. Working alongside other organisations that are supporting the same goal, Save the Children aims to increase access to education in Aweil East both to benefit existing communities as well as to encourage the displaced to return to their homes, with the knowledge that the educational needs of their children will be provided for. By facilitating the peaceful and willing reintegration of displaced families back into their original communities, and by focusing on ensuring their protection with durable solutions, Save the Children will thereby help to support the goals of the CPA in southern Sudan.
Save the Children has been implementing education projects under the ROI since 2006. A review of this project was carried out in February 2008 by Danida and an end of project evaluation took place in November 2008. Below is a response to the key conclusions made by these two evaluations.
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