Early Childhood Development in Mozambique

CONCEPT NOTE

IMPACT EVALUATION

OF

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT IN MOZAMBIQUE

Prepared by:

Sebastian Martinez

Barbara Bruns

Sophie Naudeau

Vitor Pereira

1- Summary

Objective: This impact evaluation aims to measure the effect of Early Childhood Development (ECD) on the cognitive and physical development, education and welfare of beneficiary children and their families. By evaluating the Save the Children ECD program in Mozambique, the evaluation seeks to accomplish a number of objectives, including (1) measure the impact of the program on key outcomes (children’s health, nutrition, cognitive development, social development and subsequent primary school performance) (2) identify ways to improve the program’s design and effectiveness over time (3) increase the evidence base for ECD in the region, and inform policy makers and development practitioners on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of such interventions, and (4) build capacity for the use of impact evaluation for managing by results through collaboration of the World Bank, Save the Children, Government of Mozambique and Donor partners.

Impact Evaluation Strategy: The impact evaluation will use random assignment of the intervention to treatment and comparison communities to test the effectiveness of the ECD model. Save the Children will expand its ECD operations in Gaza Province to include an additional 30 ECD community based centers (Escolinhas) into the program. With hundreds of eligible communities in the province, assignment of treatment through a lottery system provides a clear and transparent mechanism for selecting treatment areas. In addition to the 30 treatment communities, data will be collected on a sample of 46 comparison communities, for a total of 76 communities in the sample. The evaluation will collect data on a cohort of children aged 36 to 59 months at baseline, to be followed over the life of the evaluation to determine the long-term effects of participation in the ECD program. In addition, a cross section of 1st graders in treatment and comparison communities may be collected to assess performance and cohort effects, amongst others.

Implementation and Timing: The impact evaluation will be implemented as a partnership between Save the Children and the World Bank. The World Bank will provide technical and financial resources for the design of the evaluation and baseline data collection. Save the Children will manage the program operations. Baseline data collection will take place in early 2008, with the program beginning in treatment areas shortly thereafter. A projected start date for the ECD centers is April 21, 2008. A follow-up survey would be planned within approximately one year of commencement of program operations, with initial program impact results available by late 2009.

2-Background

More than half a million children in Mozambique have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The epidemic and its effects are a serious threat to children’s development in their early years and can prevent them from reaching their full potential in life. The Mozambique Early Childhood Development project provides community mobilization and resources for the construction of “Escolinhas,” or ECD centers that target orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in selected communities. The Escolinhas are led by a team of community volunteers, including two “animadores” per classroom who are trained through experiential learning techniques to facilitate children’s learning at the centers, with a curriculum focused on cognitive stimulation through games, art and music, as well as elementary math and reading (including introducing children to Portuguese, in preparation for elementary school).

In addition, ECD centers encourage access to critical health care and psychological support. The intervention is currently run as a pilot program by Save the Children in 12 communities in five districts of the Gaza province in Mozambique, and has a target of scaling up to approximately 5,000 3-6 year old children in 42 rural communities over the next year, with the primary objective of improving the likelihood that orphans and vulnerable children in the community are able to reach their full learning potential and have a successful transition to primary school. This innovative model of ECD in the African context provides an important opportunity for learning the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ECD centers in improving the cognitive development, health and welfare of beneficiary children and their families.

3-Intervention summary-Program description

Skilled and engaged communities

The great first step into the implementation of the program is the initial contact with the community. Only the 30 communities selected to receive the program were visited. After some initial contacts with the leaders and the communities, all the 30 selected communities agreed to establish the partnership with Save the Children.

Following the initial contacts, a series of meetings between Save’s representatives, community leaders, caregivers and other community members have been taken, at an attempt to present the program to the community ; learn about the culture and idiosyncrasies of each community; and discuss the best format of the program. At this phase, the communities committed to arrange a space to the construct the escolinhas, to mobilize parents and caregivers to enroll their children, and to form a committee that will be responsible for managing and supervising the escolinhas.

The committee is composed by 8-12 members appointed by the community. Each committee must have at least one member specifically responsible for education and another one responsible for the health of children. Other tasks include managing contributions and materials of the escolinhas, as well as mobilizing local laborers to construct the escolinhas classes.

After the beginning of the class, meetings with the community are held every month. The goal of those meetings is to dialog with parents and caregivers about positive and stimulating parenting practices, thus mobilizing and effectively engaging the community with the activities of the escolinhas.

Parenting program

Parents and caregivers are those who spent most of the time with children, and are the main responsible for providing love, care, nutrition, and a healthy home environment in which children can fully reach their potential in life. Caregivers play a fundamental role in transmitting social values and building the morale and self esteem of children.

Children spent 3 hours per day at the escolinhas. All the remaining time is spent at home. The quality and amount of care and stimulation provided at home can influence on how well children benefit from their schooling. Rearing sef-confident, persistent, healthy and happy children is a task that can only be fully accomplished if caregivers have the correct knowledge and capacity to do so.

Save the Children facilitates meetings in which positive parenting practices are discussed between parents and caregivers of participating children. Parents are motivated to participate in monthly meetings, creating an opportunity for them to discuss childrearing and to learn from one another.

The meetings are facilitated by the animadores, the community development agents and a parent of the day, who is chosen by the community. Some of the topics discussed at parent meetings include breastfeeding, de worming, nutrition, child development, literacy, playing with children, attendance and demand driven components to be defined by the community. Topics are discussed using an appreciative inquiry approach in which knowledge is built from existing positive parenting practices and harmful practices are brought to light with strategies to change those practices (such as the use of positive deviants to lead discussions and model new behaviors).

Parents must also commit to arrange for bringing children to school and taking them home and contribute with water and in-kind counterpart for animadores.

Qualified Community Teachers

Well trained and qualified pre-school teachers are a key component of Save the Children’s ECD program in Gaza. Each class counts with a team of two animadores (as pre-school teachers are known in Mozambique), resulting in a pupil-teacher ratio of around 15 pupils per teacher. The animadores are selected by the community with the community development agents’ help, and they are required to have completed at least the primary school, 5 years of education. Each animador receives 10 USD per month from Save the Children and each community is motivated to provide in-kind counterparts as feasible.

Animadores are prepared to have a positive and warm interaction with children, creating a welcome environment for learning. The first long term training and coaching of the animadores was held in May 2008. Another long term training is planned for 2009.

The animadores training is facilitated by two education specialists and the CDA’s. The foundational training takes one week and is designed using experiential learning methodologies where new knowledge is introduced, modeled, practiced, and reflected upon. In this training, animadores learn about children’s holistic development and activities to support children’s development. A daily routine is introduced, modeled, and practiced mimicking to the extent possible an escolinhas environment.

After the foundational training, animadores receive support on the escolinha’s opening day and mentoring visits by the CDA at least once a month. Based on observations and monitoring tools, the CDA gives constant feedback to the animadores on how to improve their practices. Animadores participate in learning circles initially facilitated by the CDA to consolidate foundational skills and also learn additional activities to promote children’s development. Study circles will have an emphasis on strengthening the instruction of math, reasoning and literacy activities, plus reflection on practice.

Learning Program and Materials

The classes take 3-4 hours per day, but specific time of operation is left up to community. Usually classes are taken by the morning. Each class has up to 35 children. Children are not clustered by age; instead assignment to classes is made at random.

The 30 new escolinhas don’t provide food to children. It’s been realized from the experience in the previous 12 escolinhas that food supplementation may cause parents to view the program as a feeding service rather than learning program.

The daily routine and the classroom structure are prepared to support positive social and emotional development. Classes are taken in the local language, Changana, but children are introduced to Portuguese in order to make a successful transition to primary school.

Children begin class by greeting each other, showing his/her attendance, washing hands and singing a song. During class, they are continuously stimulated to listen to and discuss stories, tell about personal experiences, draw pictures, play games with alphabet letters, label, align and group objects, among other activities.

The physical development is enhanced by outdoor play and activities to develop hands and fingers muscles. When playing outside, children can dance, walk, hop or jump, thus enhancing gross motor, social and emotional skills.

Thinking skills are the foundation upon which children learn to make decisions, regulate their own behavior, meet complex challenges and take responsibility for their actions. Thinking is developed in the escolinhas by planning and reflecting about news or, at closing, about what they did learn during the class.

Activities like story telling, news sharing and alphabet learning are also practiced. Those activities are powerful tools to develop not only language and communicating skills, but also the capacity of thinking and reasoning.

Hand washing with soap, safe drinking water and access to latrines are absolute and non-negotiable components of the program.

Toys are adapted to the communities’ environments using local materials. The toys are preferentially made at the communities. At the parents meetings the CDA’s will also advice parents how to make simple toys at home with cheap materials. They can also show parents some games that can stimulate their children cognitive skills, like putting together pieces of wood and asking their children to reorder them from the smallest to the bigger one.

Children are daily exposed to math through everyday play activities. They have materials to count, sort, compare, match, put together and take apart. Rhythm and sequence games, calendar activities, and measuring sand and water with cups also provide informal exposure to math concepts.

The next three pages contain, as a illustration, a series of math activities that are played with children to enhance their capacity of logical thinking. After the description of math activities, the following page presents the daily routine of a typical Save the Children escolinha in Gaza.

Save the Children-American Idol

Early Childhood Development Project in Mozambique

Sixteen Preschool Math Lessons-Month 1 Time: 20 minutes