COMPONENTS TO INCLUDE IN THE LOGIC MODEL OR MODEL OF CHANGE.
Purpose or mission - To increase retention of girls in primary and secondary school in rural Kenya through community support, providing incentives, and policy change.
Context and conditions -
- History: January 2003; free primary education.
- Documented Goals for Kenya: “complete primary education for all children by 2015, reduce adult illiteracy and achieve gender parity at all levels of education by the end of this year(2005), or no later than 2015” (UN).
- “…The absence of female teachers has also been a disincentive for girls and their parents. These factors, combined with high poverty rates, early marriage and the need for household labor on the farm or at home, contribute to higher drop-out rates among older girls.” (UN)
- Cultural/Environmental factors: Gender inequality is still an issue and the cultural norms support it.
- Economic Conditions: Recognized economic benefits to universal primary education (rise in productivity in the long run). However, there are not enough financial means to keep all children, and especially girls, in school.
- Political Factors: Unequal distribution of money and resources due to possible corruption of government leaders.
Inputs - Resources available: No primary school tuition; girls want to learn.
- Constraints/barriers: Lack of community support; lack of funding for a secondary school education including books, meals, uniforms, and transportation; poor infrastructure altogether (which makes traveling to school a challenge); unsafe conditions; cultural norms; poorly trained teachers; too few facilities for too many children.
- Activities/interventions- community support, providing incentives to families, and policy change.
- Outputs- Better-trained teachers, increase in community support, and improvement in transportation to and from school. This would lead to an overall improvement in retention rates of girls by 50% by the year 2015.
- Effects
- Immediate: Retention within the first month after implementation of intervention increases by 30% for girls in both primary and secondary school. -
- Intermediate: Increasing enrollment into secondary school by 50% by the year 2015. Increasing graduation from secondary school by 50% by the year 2019. -
- Long-term: Educated, successful women in influential positions in society.
PICTURE OF THE FRAMEWORK OR MODEL CHANGE.
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MISSION: Increase retention of girls in primary and secondary school in Kenya through community support, providing incentives, and policy changes
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CONTEXT AND CONDITIONS: Our community in Kenya has too many girls who are not able to enroll and remain in primary and secondary schools, thus resulting in the lack of half the community's future leaders.
HOW FRAMEWORK OR LOGIC MODEL WILL BE USED
Orienting those doing and supporting the work: The United Nations would possibly contribute to the initiative by providing grant money and support. They play an important role because money is needed for initiatives such as the community outreach program and incentives given to the families. The Ministry of Education is an important factor for its educational role. It has the final decision on how these initiatives will be implemented within the schools. Local governments will have to be involved to help improve the transportation infrastructure. Teachers will also be trained more effectively in order to give a proper education to young children and also take on extra roles such as walking girls to school in order to encourage them to attend.
Planning: There are different targets and outcomes set forth by the initiatives. One target would be an increase in enrollment for young girls by their families. The effect would be a more influential role of women in society. Other targets are to increase the money used for education and providing a means for young girls to get to school with the outcome being an increase in retention rates among young girls. Improving the student’s grades is another target, and the outcome would be a higher enthusiasm for learning among young girls. The grant proposal provides money to families with young girls in order for them to send their daughters to school. The grant would fluctuate pertaining to the specific family, and would have to fit requirements such as the family’s need for financial aid. Partnerships would have to include the United Nations, local government and the Ministry of Education. They would have to work together in order to fill in the necessary pieces such as funding and implementation. The goal would be to see an increase of girls going to school within half a year, and a significant increase by the end of the year.
Implementation: The resources we do have are the Ministry of Education, Local government, United Nations, teachers, and families who are a big factor in getting children to go to school. The challenge we face is overcoming cultural and traditional norms. What we do know is that giving girls a decent education is an investment in the women and the community. In order for implementation to occur we must persuade the community that this investment will pay off for this generation and for future generations.
Communication and advocacy: The logic model will be used to engage key stakeholders and to explain how investments would be used. Our logic model will communicate our mission, increasing retention of girls in school through community support, incentive programs, and policy changes, which will help attract prospective investors, especially corporations, to fund the incentive programs and support our efforts to badger the government to make it mandatory for all girls to be enrolled and stay in school. The investments will especially be used to provide monetary support for families that do enroll and keep all their girls in school, hire more female teachers in school, and buy school vans/buses to ferry the girls to and from school. The investments would also support sponsorship advertisements and campaigns to promote girl child education.
Evaluation: The outputs and effects portions of the logic model will help us track if our program is effective. One of the direct outputs of our incentives program is that there should be an increase of enrollment and retention (graduation from one grade level to the next) of girls the following school year after the start of the program. Also another direct effect of our program is that there should be more female teachers on staff in the area schools. The logic model will also help us evaluate if we are meeting the behavioral goals. A focus group will be held in the beginning and middle of implementation of the action plan to see if there is a change in the attitudes of the community towards education of girls and also if community support has increased. Girls, teachers, and families will also get a chance to share their thoughts on the initiative by filling out surveys at the end of every school term.
Works Cited
This model of change was adapted from the International Health and Justice group of ABSC 311 Fall 2010.
UNICEF. 1998. Situational Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya.
UNITED NATIONS Millennium Development Goals
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) through the “Fund for Gender Equality”
International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF) through the African Women’s Development Fund