Girl’s Education South Sudan(GESS)
Girl’s Education South Sudan is a government initiated project aimed at transforming life chances of a generation of children in South Sudan specially girls through education and the outcomes are improved girls’ enrolment, retention and learning at primary and secondary. The programme is implemented by State Anchors (SAs) across 10 states and it undertakes 3 main activities/Outputs to realize its objectives, namely:
1. Enhanced household and community awareness and support for girls’ education
(a) Social and behaviour change communication targeting households, communities and girls through radio programme in 9 languages
(b) Social and behavior change communication through community outreach activities (e.g. community listening clubs/discussion groups, community dialogues, interactive drama) targeting parents, community/religious leaders.
2. Effective partnerships with GRSS and local organizations to deliver a community based School improvement programme through:
(a) Cash Transfers to girls/families to support direct/indirect costs of their education-conditional on enrolment and adequate attendance.
(b) Capitation Grants to schools based on enrolment of both boys and girls, to improve the quality of learning environment and incentives to (volunteer) teachers.
(c) Practical support to education managers and teachers to improve quality of education through school leadership training, peer support, mentoring, supplementary materials to enhance literacy skills, improved inspection and monitoring procedures, and collaboration with School Management Committees/ Board of Governors(SMCs/BoGs).
3. Increased knowledge and evidence of what works to promote girls’ education in South Sudan
(a) Establishment of information/data base for what works in supporting girls’ education in South Sudan.
ACHIEVEMENTS REALIZED AFTER IMPLEMENTING GESS PROGRAMME
• Social barriers to girls` education have been reduced through community mobilization and Radio programmings as communities are sending more girls to enroll in schools.
• Economic barriers to girls` education have been reduced through cash transfers.
• Learning environment has been improved through capitation grants and quality education is taking place.
• Partnership with the government has been improved through daily interaction with education managers and school teachers.
• Sustainability and institutionalization have been ascertained through the training of SMCs and BOGs at the school level as well PESs are taking lead in supporting schools.
• The gap between girls’ and boys’ enrollment has been narrowed.
• High enrollment rates, continuation and completion and transfer to high institutions of education among girls is realized.
IMPACT
IMPACT is a government project initiated in 2017 with funds from EU and implemented by CGA and Mott MacDonald. It entails to increase the quality education through provision of financial support to 30,000 payroll teachers, volunteer or full time in government own schools, religious-based schools, community schools and low cost private schools in 3,000 schools across the country.
ACHIEVEMENTS
• 2,354 teachers from 241 schools received 8 rounds of payment across the state.
• More 2,600 teachers enrolled in Human Resources Information System (HRIS) web page.-There is stability in teaching across the state.