Strengthening Education and Child Protection Assessment and Preparedness

The unparalleled loss of learning and heightened protection concerns witnessed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of holistically addressing children’s interlinked education and protection needs. However, the pandemic also revealed limited tools and resources available to support practitioners identify, collect and assess robust data to inform inter-sectoral response.

Against this backdrop, the Global Education Cluster (GEC) and Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility (GCPAoR) leveraged generous support from USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs to address this gap by:

Result 1: Scaling up support to countries to strengthen national and local capacities to implement robust Education needs assessment and analysis. 

Result 2: Enhancing integration of Child Protection considerations in Education needs assessments to improve holistic understanding of children's needs in 6 countries; this includes an emphasis on giving children a strong opportunity to voice their needs through child participatory approaches in data collection.

Result 3: Improving emergency Education and Child Protection preparedness tools, resources as well local and national capacities to respond to sudden onset emergencies.

The GEC and GCPAoR will be releasing the results of the 6 country needs assessments:

Niger | Summary Note (EN) | Full Assessment Report (FR)

Detailing findings from 36 schools assessed in the regions of Diffa, Maradi, Tahoua and Tillaberi, as well as corresponding communities, this assessment outlines key findings around children’s education and protection needs, organized around enrolment and drop-out, teachers, infrastructure, risks in and outside schools, and around public health and epidemics.

Burkina Faso | Summary Note (EN) | Full Assessment Report (FR)

Detailing findings from the interviews with 401 key informants and 37 focus groups with children within the regions in Boucle du Mouhoun, Centre-East, East, Centre-North, North, Sahel, Cascades and South-West, this assessment outlines key findings around barriers to children's education and protection needs, organized around attendance and drop-out, teachers and risks in and outside schools. The joint assessment shows that the reception of displaced children in schools remains a major challenge. Building on the key informants’ recommendations, the joint assessment concludes with recommendations to encourage parents to send their children to school and improve the schooling rate of children.

Others forthcoming in Q1 and Q2 2023

Learn more about the GEC’s approach to needs assessments here.