October 2017

Terms of reference - Evaluation services forthe ‘Expanding inclusive education strategies for girls with disabilities in Kenya’ project being implemented by Leonard Cheshire Disability

Background

Leonard Cheshire Disability’s is a UK-based charity with over 65 years’ experience and is one of the world’s largest Charities wholly dedicated to supporting persons with disabilities. Leonard Cheshire believes that children and adults with disabilities should have the rights, freedom and opportunities to access education, contribute economically and to participate fully and equitably in society.

The international department of Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) implements projects mostly around our inclusive education and inclusive livelihoods models and in partnership with our Global Alliance partner organisations, which are an extensive network of over 200 members in 54 countries. We have five regional offices in Africa and Asia and currently support projects in Bangladesh, China, India, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia.

In Kenya, LCD is implementing a 5 year DFID funded Girls Education Challenge Transition (GEC-T) project. The vision is to further and deepen the educational and vocational opportunities of girls with disabilities in the five sub-districts ofMbita, Migori, Kisumu East, Kuria East and Siaya in the Lakes region of Kenya. The project started 1 April 2017 and continues until 31 March 2022. It follows on from our DFD funded Girls Education Challenge project which was successfully completed in March 2017.

This new project – entitled “Expanding inclusive education strategies for girls with disabilities in Kenya” – isbeing, implemented by LCD as the Prime Partner, and Cheshire Disability Services Kenya, Social Impact Institute and Ability Africa Foundation as three Key Partner Organizations. The project is seeking to procure the services of an independent External Evaluator to conduct a mixed-method, gender-sensitive evaluation of the project over the next 5 years. The evaluation will assess the delivery, effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, appropriateness, compliance,VfM and impact of the project, and will report the findings and lessons learnt throughout the process.

  1. GEC ProgrammeBackground

• The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s work to end extreme poverty. DFID is tackling the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. DFID’s work is building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK too.

• DFID is working to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Progress on girls’ education is critical to the achievement of these targets. SDGs 4 and 5 specifically relate to education and achieving gender parity. SDG 4 specifically notes ‘inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning’.

• Globally 31 million primary age girls, have never been to school. And the majority of these girls come from the poorest and most marginalised communities in the most disadvantaged locations, ethnic groups etc. Over the last 20 years primary enrolments for girls have improved along with boys but completion rates are equally low for both sexes. At the secondary level the differences between boys and girls participation rates really start to show. Significant disparities exist within countries, with the poorest girls from rural areas most severely subject to educational disadvantage - even at the primary level.

• The Girls' Education Challenge (GEC) is helping the world’s poorest girls improve their lives through education and supporting better ways of getting girls in school and ensuring they receive a quality of education to transform their future.

• PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and alliance partners have been contracted as the dedicated Fund Manager (FM) and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the GEC. This includes establishing the recipient tendering process, supporting bidders, sifting and scoring proposals, monitoring Value for Money (VfM) and making project funding recommendations for DFID approval. The FM also manages the relationships with the selected projects and oversees their Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning operations.

• Through the GEC, DFID provided £355m between 2012 and 2017 to the FM to disburse to 37 individual projects across 18 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to help girl’s education. In 2016 the GEC Transition (GEC-T) window has been set up with additional DFID funding to support the original GEC beneficiaries continue their journey through stages of education and further improve their learning

Background of LCD’s ‘Expanding inclusive education strategies for girls with disabilities in Kenya’projectLCD’s project ‘Expanding inclusive education strategies for girls with disabilities in Kenya’ is designed to run in five sub counties within lake region of Kenya over five years (from 2017-2022). The project will reach 2,500 beneficiaries, (2250 girls with disabilities and 250 boys with disabilities) and will work in 83 institutions (50 Primary, 25 Secondary Schools and 8 vocational institutes). The project is a continuation and a further expansion of LCD’s 4 year programme ‘Piloting inclusive education strategies for girls with disabilities in Kenya’ which worked in 50 primary schools in the same geographic area. The project will primarily work with girls with disabilities, with other key beneficiaries including parents, teachers, local authorities and national bodies.

The project has three main objectives:

  • Support girls with disabilities to transition to secondary, vocational institutes and support their progression within mainstream primary school
  • Ensure that girls with disabilities are learning, particularly in key areas such as literacy and numeracy
  • To support the Government of Kenya, Local authorities and structures to take forward inclusive education practice to ensure the sustainability of the intervention

The project will achieve these objectives by achieving intermediate outcomes focusing in the following areas: attendance, improved quality and access to school, improved voice and agency, working with families and improving the policy environment.

The project design and delivery has been influenced by a number of key factors in the local context in Kenya and informed by our experience from GEC-1.

Political context – The current political context is conducive to building a national commitment to inclusive education for girls and boys with disabilities. The Kenyan Constitution outlines the right for every child to go to school, and this is further ratified by the Persons with Disabilities Act in 2003 which emphasizes the rights of people with disabilities to take part in every aspect of mainstream life – free from discrimination. Additionally, the Kenyan government has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2008. Furthermore, the National Education Sector Plan (NESP) for Kenya outlines steps the government will take in order to implement inclusive education e.g. reforming the curriculum to account for learners with disabilities. Nevertheless, the country lacks a coherent IE policy which hampers implementation alongside other factors such as budget availability.

Economic environment - One of the key challenges facing the Lake Region is the high levels of poverty. The economy is based in small scale industry such as fishing and farming. Parents struggle to afford the basic needs of the households, including education costs and assistive devices. Many parents identified in our baseline and midline reports for GEC-1 also had limited education themselves, which further impacted on their ability to earn a livelihood. The area has weak transport infrastructure and scant health services especially in the rural areas.

Social environment - Negative attitudes towards girls and boys with disabilities are present in all of the five counties the project will work in. The negative attitudes range from, example seeing disability as a curse, resulting in children with disabilities being hidden at home or a belief that children with disabilities have to be taught in a special school and there is no option for them to attend mainstream schools. These views are not only present in households and in the wider community, but can be held by teachers and education officials also. Girls with disabilities face double discrimination due to their gender, as female education is not rated as highly as boys. As males are often the heads of household, there is also a need to sensitize men to the importance of educating girls with disabilities. Negative attitudes around the ability of girls with disabilities to learn were also indicated in our baseline study within GEC-1, where only 16% of respondents indicated that girls with disabilities could learn at the same rate of non-disabled students girls.

School environment - Girls are also at risk of Female Genital Mutilation in Kuria East Sub-County, and early and transactional sex is present in Mbita and Kisumu counties. The Lake Region has also one of highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Kenya, so it is essential to provide targeted support to both girls and boys with disabilities to educate them about how to protect themselves. Violence against children is a significant problem throughout Kenya - a report on violence against Children (UNICEF, 2010) found that 32% of females and 18% of males had experienced sexual violence before the aged of 18. However, less than 10% of those affected received any kind of professional help. There is an urgent need to strengthen child protection mechanisms from the household all the way to national structures to ensure children are protected. This will improve the life chances of children with disabilities, and also support their attendance, wellbeing and learning within schools. Other factors within the school environment were also considered as barriers to girls’ enrolment and attendance. This includes inaccessible infrastructures, especially lack of accessible toilets for girls and lack of school materials adapted for children with disabilities. Lack of teacher capacity in supporting children with a disability was also identified as key factor preventing learning and transition.

To address these factors, a number of activities were designed and grouped under five outputs focusing on the following areas: providing resources and tools to enable attendance, making the environment welcoming to girls with disabilities, increasing the girls’ attainment of life skills, raising awareness among family members and communities and increasing the knowledge of key stakeholders. Outputs will be achieved through delivering a number of key activities such as paying school fees, training teachers in IE practice, holding life skills workshops, holding community sensitization events and holding workshops with government officials. The links between the activities, outputs, intermediate outcomes and overall outcomes were conceptualized using a theory of change approach.

Primarily, the project recognizes the importance of education in increasing the life chances of girls. Primary, secondary and vocational education increases the chances that the girls will be able to lead full and independent lives. The project recognizes that in order to achieve learning and transition for the cohort they must be enabled to attend school. Furthermore, in order to stimulate learning the environment must be conducive and adapted to the needs of girls with disabilities.

The overall theory of change has been designed to improve the life chances of marginalized girls through its focus on learning, sustainability and transition. In this project we are focusing on educational transition, but furthermore it is recognized that successful progression to adult life is also premised on the girls acquiring key life skills. The theory of change also recognized the need to work on the policy level, to address gaps in areas of child protection and inclusive education practice to ensure the sustainability of the intervention. Learning is assured through the focus primarily on education achievement and acquiring practical skills. The project design was underpinned by a number of high level assumptions, such as the intervention area will remain peaceful and the policy environment will continue to be conducive to inclusive education practice.

Learning and Transition in focus

In GEC1 negative attitudes among teachers, parents, peers and community members resulted into low access of children with disability to schools. This has a ripple effect on transition and learning. There is need to for sensitization and awareness creation at the community (parents and stakeholders) and school (teachers and peers). The lack of awareness of children rights, particularly at school level and community level also prevents learning and transition. Lack of capacity of duty bearers (MoE, Children department, county government) also result into inadequate support for children with disability. This is especially in the areas of supervision, child protection, financial support from devolved funds and social protection funds. This has a direct link to learning and transition of children with disability. Lack of learning materials and assistive devices prevents children with disability to learn and transit. Provision of the same will ensure that the children are able to participate in learning which will in turn increase their chances for transition. Inaccessible physical environment for children with disability affects their learning and transition as they cannot be able to attend school and participate in the daily learning activities with their peers. Distance to school has also a bearing on access and attendance to school by children with disability. Where schools are further located from homesteads predisposes the children to risks of abuse and it lowers attendance. The project is piloting bus transport to address this.

Project Design and Theory of Change

The project has envisioned achieving 5 main intermediate outcomes and specific results listed below:

1. Girls with disabilities have increased attendance in primary and secondary mainstream schools and vocational institutions

Under the first outcome, we aim to achieve 80% attendance at primary, secondary and TVET education. The related activities should result in families being more able and more willing to support their children with disabilities to attend school.

One of the key reasons for girls dropping out of school, indicated by our midline report in GEC-1, was due to health concerns related to disability, and the inability of parents to manage and pay for disability related health interventions. The economic context informed the project design with inclusion of initiatives geared towards supporting households to lift themselves out of poverty, equipping Education Assessment Resource Centres (EARCs), providing transport provision, supporting referrals for further health support and supporting girls and boys with disabilities to attend to TVETs to develop skills for work. We are also expanding our work in terms of income generation for parent groups as the costs of transitioning to secondary or TVET is higher than transition just within primary school.

2. Improved quality and access to mainstream schools and vocational institutes for girls with disabilities

Under the second outcome, we expect teachers to feel more confident in teaching children with disabilities, and girls to be able to increasingly access schools and materials, and feel supported to learn. Target schools will also become accessible in accordance with international standards and schools Board of Management (BoM) will be better able to support the implementation of inclusive education. In secondary schools this will be implemented for the first time, while in primary intervention schools from GEC-1 these should be strengthened and further embedded. We also aim to achieve higher standards of literacy and numeracy than in GEC-1, as a result of targeted interventions in these key areas.

3. Girls with disabilities demonstrate increased voice and agency in relation to education, wellbeing and future opportunities

Under the third outcome, we will achieve results in empowering our cohort of girls to actively participate in the classroom and in social activities, have better knowledge of health and hygiene, and feel more confident to report instances of abuse. As a result of our work in life skills and confidence building, girls will also have higher expectations of future success.

These aims are different to those in GEC-1, as our learning has demonstrated a need for a renewed focus and measurement on the acquisition of life skills, in addition to literacy and numeracy.

4. Families, communities and peers proactively support girls with disabilities to go to school

As a result of outcome four, we will achieve a further improvement in the way girls perceive community attitudes towards their education and a decrease in instances of discrimination and abuse. There will also be an increase in parents reporting help from other families or peers to enable the girls with disabilities to go school. Parents will also report increased confidence in child protection systems.