Impact
Experience and results in the field
Since 2008, A.SE.D has worked across the Great Lakes Region. This is the record from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where its Education in Emergencies programme keeps children — and especially girls — in school.
Education in Emergencies
A.SE.D operates in some of the most remote and hard-to-reach areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a lack of basic infrastructure, insecurity from armed conflict, and prevailing socio-cultural practices sharply limit access to education — particularly for girls.
These conditions drive high rates of school dropout, early marriage and poverty, and leave school infrastructure to deteriorate. A.SE.D’s Education in Emergencies and education-development programmes are built to remove the barriers to children reaching, staying in, and completing school.
The approach
Four pillars, addressed together
Rather than treat education in isolation, A.SE.D works on four fronts at once — because a child kept in school is held there by all of them together.
Education
Teacher training, learning materials and catch-up centres that improve the quality of teaching and give children a route back into school.
Child protection
Child rights, peace education, psychosocial support and positive discipline, so that school is a safe place to be.
Household & school economic empowerment
Strengthening the economies of households and schools, so that poverty is not the reason a child is kept at home.
Environmental protection
Care for the environment built into the life of the school and the community around it.
Key results
What the programme has changed
The reach to date, and the change measured in classroom practice over the past seven years.
- 414
- schools supported325 primary and 89 secondary
- 15,000
- children reachedwith school kits
- 4,410
- teachers and school leaders trained2,928 primary and 1,068 secondary teachers, and 414 school administrators
Change in the classroom
- 75%of teachers can prepare their lessons correctly.
- 80%have improved their understanding and use of the new National Curriculum.
- 80%practise positive discipline, and have agreed classroom rules of conduct with their pupils that are displayed on the walls.
- 75%better understand children’s rights and how to respect and promote them, at school and in the community.
- 80%can assess their pupils’ competencies more effectively.
- 85%are better able to choose and use teaching and learning materials appropriately.
- 85%keep their required pedagogical records maintained and up to date.
On the ground
What the work involves
- Training teachers and school leaders
- Providing schools with teaching and learning materials
- Distributing school kits to pupils
- Community awareness and sensitisation
- Establishing catch-up learning centres
- Constructing and rehabilitating school infrastructure
Training, with the Inspectorate
Teachers and school heads are trained together, then equipped: at the end of each session participants receive the teaching and learning materials to turn the training into better classroom practice. The curriculum covers —
- Child-centred pedagogy
- Children’s rights
- Peace education
- Psychosocial support
- Gender-responsive pedagogy
- Positive discipline
- School management
Every targeted school has received a complete set of textbooks and teaching materials, all aligned with the National Curriculum so lessons can be prepared and adapted to national requirements. School kits — distributed with A.SE.D’s financial partners and following the Education Cluster Minimum Package — included uniforms, school bags, exercise books, pens, rulers, coloured pencils and mathematical sets.
Planning education work in the Great Lakes Region?
Tell us the schools, the districts and what needs to change. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it.