The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Somalia launched its five-year Alternative Basic Education (ABE) program in 2015. This program provided a combination of flexible, basic educational approaches to respond to the needs of pastoralist, agro-pastoralist, urban, and other out-of-school children 6 to 14 years old in south and central Somalia. The targeted areas for these interventions were Jubaland and the South West State of Somalia: Bay, Bakool, and Gedo.
The main feature of ABE is its condensed curriculum which accelerates eight grades of formal primary school learning into four levels of alternative basic education over a five-year period. With this approach, the program has proven effective in supporting over 20,000 children across 96 communities in obtaining basic education. In addition to the specialized, condensed curriculum under non-formal education (NFE), ABE has a range of other interventions, which include the delivery of the curriculum through flexible approaches such as: temporary learning spaces along migration paths, mobile libraries, flexible timetables, and the provision of teaching and learning materials.
ABE structures its activities under three purposes: (1) access to quality alternative basic education, (2) quality and reading, and (3) system strengthening. In late 2019, Integrity Global Inc. conducted an endline (end of project) performance evaluation across the three targeted regions. The evaluation included a desk review complemented by qualitative data collection focusing on four key evaluation questions:
1. How did ABE contribute to its intended intermediate and ultimate outcomes as prescribed in the initial Scope of Work and modifications?
2. How did the ABE program theory of change adapt (or fail to adapt) to internal programmatic shifts and modifications, such as the expanding communities in Gedo, transitioning from pilot to program, amending the teacher instruction strategy, and extending the age range of ABE learners?
3. What aspects of ABE?s design, delivery, and operations helped or hindered progress and/or the ability of the program to adapt in timely ways to challenging external conditions?
4. What internal or external conditions appear to be most
influential to the sustained functionality of the ABE
interventions, such as the education hubs, teacher quality, community education committees, child-to-child groups, teaching and learning materials, and institutional strengthening after USAID funding ends?
The main recommendations from the evaluation team are summarized as follows:
? Develop risk planning and sustainability planning in the design and implementation of the program;
? Improve system strengthening through the position of a NFE technical advisor embedded within the ministry of education; and
? Develop an effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning system to disaggregate data, measure progress, aid in decision-making for strategic shifts, and provide lessons learned.
