Education

Education

Building strong & inclusive education systems that deliver quality lifelong education

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Contents The Importance of Quality Education for All

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Our Global Experience

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Teaching and Learning

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Policy, Planning and Monitoring & Evaluation

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Governance and Accountability

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Access

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Low Cost Private Sector

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Skills Development

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Principles of Effective Delivery

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Education

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The Importance of Quality Education for All Increasing access to quality education is the most effective way to reduce poverty and deliver sustainable growth.

Education offers children the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives and achieve their potential. Not only does education offer immense benefit to the individual, but a well-educated population also provides the building blocks for a secure, free and economically prosperous society. As such, it forms the most likely way of moving individuals and their families out of poverty, disproportionately benefiting the poorest and most marginalised.

There has been remarkable progress increasing access to basic education in the last decade. This has been accomplished in a range of ways; from enshrining the right to basic education in law to improving school facilities and supporting the most marginalised through stipends or vouchers.

Despite these successes, quality education still needs to be made fully inclusive. Access, inclusion and quality must be delivered together. This will ensure that all students in all countries have access to a basic education, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or disability. It also ensures that children in schools are actually learning; too many students leave education without the skills and qualifications that they need to join the workforce or contribute to society.

Adam Smith International works at the forefront of building strong and inclusive education systems that deliver quality lifelong education. We specialise in leading root-and-branch systemic education reform and innovation that has a direct impact on student learning and preparedness for life beyond education.

As well as comprehensive technical support in the field of education reform, Adam Smith International offers a unique breadth and depth of experience across the building blocks of systemic public and private sector change. Our technical assistance allows governments to build their own strong, accountable systems, increases capacity in country and fosters long-term sustainable change.

We implement some of the largest, most complex donorfunded reform programmes in the world. With a record of success spanning over 20 years, particularly in challenging and conflict-affected environments, we are experts in delivering radical interventions that improve the lives of all students.

With a team of in-house experts and a global network of specialists, our expertise encompasses the following areas: Teaching and Learning Policy, Planning and Monitoring & Evaluation Governance and Accountability Access Low Cost Private Sector Skills Development

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Our Global Experience We have worked across the world with many clients and governments on an award-winning portfolio of projects, building strong and inclusive education systems that deliver quality lifelong education. Throughout this brochure, you will find examples of our work – you can see a small selection here. For further information on our wider portfolio, visit www.adamsmithinternational.com/exploreourwork.

Libya: Devising a plan for education sector reform Recommending new approaches to education delivery, including devolving responsibility to schools and utilising the private sector.

Syria: Delivering education through community capacity development Working with Syrian communities to provide an open, transparent process to deliver essential education services in the context of ongoing conflict.

Tanzania: Supporting sector-wide education reform Supporting public financial management reforms and working alongside government to focus on results and performance.

Nigeria: Increasing economic opportunities for marginalised youth Building skills for young, marginalised groups in an area of high underemployment in northern Nigeria.

Rwanda: Conducting a functional review Conducting a strategic functional review of the Ministry of Education to provide recommendations on its fitness for purpose.

Rwanda: End term review of education sector programme Reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of a large-scale, multi-year education sector programme.

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Tunisia: Establishing long-term education strategy Recommending reforms to improve curriculum, governance and accountability structures.

Lao PDR: Learning through portfolio-level evaluative studies Supporting the Development Learning Facility by conducting evaluative studies and portfolio-level monitoring.

Pakistan: Reforming the education sector in Punjab province Implementing a provincial reform including redesigning curricula and textbooks, increasing access to girls’ education, providing voucher schemes and enhancing teacher training.

Pakistan: Reforming the education sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Implementing a provincial reform including governance structures, establishing public-private partnerships to increase access and institutionalising monitoring.

Vietnam: Enhancing human resource development Advancing skills in higher education, formal technical and vocational education and the workplace.

Afghanistan: Enhancing financial management processes Supporting the restructuring of the finance department in the Ministry of Education.

Kenya: Improving access and quality for the most marginalised Developing evidence-based solutions to improve educational access, quality and equity.

Kenya: Developing skills in Mombasa Creating employment opportunities for young people in Mombasa through an integrated training and apprenticeship programme.

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Teaching and Learning Student learning is the goal of any ambitious education system. Teachers must be equipped with the skills and resources to be more effective classroom practitioners.

Schooling is not synonymous with education. Despite significant improvements in enrolment and the numbers of students attending schools across the developing world, many children learn very little (through no fault of their own).

Poor teaching is, too often, a barrier to quality education.

Many teachers are poorly trained, badly paid and inadequately supervised. Teacher performance can be hampered by overcrowded classrooms and inadequate facilities, teaching resources and curricula.

Adam Smith International believes that improving the quality of classroom practice is the most likely intervention to have a profound impact on pupil achievement.

Recruiting the right teachers and sustaining a motivated workforce with a deep pedagogical understanding underpins the basis of all good education systems. Preservice teacher training begins to equip teachers with the skills they need to plan and deliver engaging lessons.

School-based mentoring and continuous professional development are also required to plug skills gaps; help teachers to adapt to challenging circumstances; and to keep up-to-date with innovative thinking on what works in the classroom.

Teachers can only perform with a clear, age-appropriate curriculum, benchmarked against international standards but relevant to the local context. A coherent curriculum communicates both minimum standards and challenging expectations that lead to improved teaching and learning.

High quality textbooks bring the curriculum to life and root it in accessible and relevant real-life scenarios.

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The effective use of formative and summative assessments is another pre-requisite of a high-performing education system. Teachers, educational leaders and donors must all be aware of performance to determine progress and plan effectively. Using sample-based assessment and benchmarking against national and international standards help to determine the success of reforms and future resource allocation.

Adam Smith International provides expertise to improve learning outcomes in a number of ways: Teachers: pre-service teacher training programme design, in-school mentoring, continuous professional development, teacher transfers, use of innovative technology in teacher practice, district support of education delivery.

Literacy and numeracy interventions: design and implementation of accelerated learning programmes, impact research, monitoring and evaluation of effective interventions.

Textbook and curriculum reform: curriculum design and evaluation, implementation of curriculum reform, model textbook development, textbook distribution, sequencing of topics, adjustment of textbook language complexity.

Assessment: assessment design, administration of examinations, analysis of student assessments at national and local level, linking curricula to examinations, examination reform.

“The improvements in reading skills can only be termed as a miracle. We have now asked our teachers to coach others in the school. We hope this will translate to a bigger change.”

Mr. Nelson Simiyu, Headmaster, Kimingichi AIC Primary, Kenya

Improving teacher and student performance in Punjab Although attendance rates are still below international standards, access to education has increased markedly in Pakistan, with 77% of children enrolling in the first year of primary school. In Punjab, the focus of reform has shifted to improving student learning outcomes. We are implementing a number of interventions to create stronger links between teachers, learning tools and children.

Adam Smith International is assisting the Government of Punjab to improve the content of teacher training and to provide in-service training through schoolbased mentoring. This is delivered by dedicated District Teacher Educators who are each assigned ten schools to assess, monitor and support teacher performance within the classroom. This approach produces tailored in-school mentoring for every teacher twice a month. New bi-annual assessments in literacy and numeracy will also provide a regular, accurate measure of pupil performance that can support further improvements in training design.

Improving quality in Pakistan’s most populous province

Pakistan

Delivering a step change in learning outcomes in Kenya The Kenyan Government remain concerned that children are still making little progress in literacy and numeracy. We supported the pilot and expansion of an innovative maths and reading initiative for over 96,000 primary school children to learn more, at a faster rate.

The programme assessed the success and cost effectiveness of various support packages for teaching mathematics and English. Using different treatment groups, we evaluated the impact of providing different combinations of lesson plan training, textbooks, teacher guides, and mother tongue resources. The greatest impact on learning outcomes, with students in treatment schools two or three times more likely to meet the government’s benchmarks, were achieved by delivering the full programme, and the Government has begun to scale up the programme with donor support.

Testing different approaches to improve learning outcomes

Kenya

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Policy, Planning and Monitoring & Evaluation Supporting national and local governments from sector planning through to evaluation of reform.

Long-term educational success requires a clear strategy, effective policy, ambitious targets and realistic planning.

Education sector plans can chart reform development, but can also encounter barriers to effective implementation.

Plans often do not fully acknowledge the local context and political economy. Likewise, too little importance is given to sophisticated monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to inform decision-making.

We support the design of long-term policy and planning, developing or working within education sector plans to give them immediacy and a focus on deliverables. Adam Smith International advises on key areas to prioritise, develops high-level implementation plans, addresses sustainability issues and directs the allocation of limited resources.

We have experience in delivering comprehensive education sector analyses to determine the strengths and weaknesses of systems and priority areas for intervention. Our approach is always to address the root causes of underperformance and utilise the capacity that exists in the system to lead and catalyse major reform.

Our M&E begins at programme inception, going beyond reviewing outcomes at the end of the cycle. Integrating monitoring, reporting and learning into institutions or programmes ensures greater accountability for outcomes and generates evidence for mid-course changes in direction. This requires the development of data and

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evidence gathering skills and sustaining challenging performance targets. Ultimately, we use strong evaluation to generate clear, actionable lessons to define future direction for local partners and donors.

We provide policy, planning and M&E expertise in the following areas: Sector analysis: analysis of the education sector (including state and non-state provision at primary, secondary and tertiary levels), political economy analysis.

Policy: capacity building for evidence-based policy formulation within ministries, policy option concept notes, guidance on global best practice.

Long-term planning: development of education sector plans, donor coordination, sector wide approaches.

Sector costing: costing of large scale multi-year reforms, donor coordination.

M&E: development of rigorous monitoring frameworks, programme impact evaluations, logframe design, tracking of progress and deliverables, development of data collection processes, education management information systems, capacity building for evidencebased decision making.

“Technical assistance is playing a vital role in achieving our reform agenda. It has helped get thousands of girls into school in some of the most remote areas of the province.”

Mr. Muhammad Atif, Minister for Education, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Rebuilding the Afghan education system In an effort to rebuild its education system, the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan made an application for funding from the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), now the Global Partnership for Education, the first ever application from a country experiencing conflict. With funding from a consortium of donors, the Ministry contracted Adam Smith International to conduct an analysis of the education sector and an assessment of the National Education Sector Plan II in support of this application.

The review was an exhaustive analysis of the education sector as a whole, including state, non-state, religious and community education provision. We found that while the education sector was relatively small, it was expanding quickly, including in the private sector, with the Ministry of Education actively encouraging the establishment of private teacher training institutions. In response to our review, the Ministry has begun to implement complementary models of education to ensure greater inclusion. Afghanistan’s FTI application was subsequently successful and US$56m was provided in funding.

Greater inclusion through analysis of education providers

Afghanistan

Data monitoring and evaluation to drive system performance In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, a conflict-affected province where many districts are inaccessibly remote and mountainous, monitoring and evaluation of the education sector has historically been severely hampered by unreliable and out-of-date data. Inaccurate data on key education indicators has led to imprecise provincial planning and budgeting, and an inability to hold officials at all levels to account.

Adam Smith International helped the provincial government to establish an Independent Monitoring Unit to collect timely, accurate educational data and provide a viable means of tracking the implementation of education sector reforms. On a monthly basis, a team of 525 monitors use a GPS-linked mobile application to collect data on each of the 28,000 schools in the province. This information is automatically uploaded on to the provincial ‘dashboard’, providing a clear visual representation for education officials to track progress of schools, sub-districts, districts or the entire province. We are supporting the government to use this information effectively by tracking performance month-by-month, and institutionalising a culture of using evidence in decisionmaking.

Evidence-based decision making in Pakistan

Pakistan

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Governance and Accountability Effective, transparent and accountable education institutions are essential for sustainable and lasting reforms.

Education service delivery is critically impacted by poor management, unclear structures or mismanagement of the public purse. With rapidly expanding systems to match increased enrolment and the rise of alternative providers, the opportunities for mismanagement increase. If education institutions cannot respond quickly and competently the credibility of the education sector is undermined, leading to reduced educational demand from communities.

Adam Smith International believes that improving governance and accountability is at the core of building better education systems. Sustainable reform is possible when it is underpinned by effective, transparent and accountable institutions from the school to the ministerial level.

We support governments to design and implement major reforms such as organisational restructuring, decentralisation and financial management. Implemented effectively, these systems can increase the quality of service delivery and build greater accountability in the system. We have experience building capacity at different levels, as well as defining roles and responsibilities for working within decentralised systems.

Effective government education institutions play a critical role in managing the teacher workforce and allocating resources. To build and sustain a skilful and motivated teacher workforce, we support institutions through strong human resource management, teacher development pathways, transparent pay and grading and timely remuneration.

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Civil society plays an important role in monitoring education service provision and building a more accountable system.

We support civil society, from parent teacher associations to nationwide civil society organisations, to hold service providers and administrators to account for the provision of services.

Adam Smith International has over 20 years’ experience in supporting governments to reform their public administration systems. We also have substantial experience building civil society engagement to create more effective, motivated, accountable systems. We provide expertise in the following areas: Organisational and institutional reviews: functional reviews, structural and staffing reviews, capacity needs assessments.

Human resource management: education sector legal framework, policies and procedures, pay and grading, performance-based contracts, change management (including training).

Public Financial Management: budget formulation, budget execution, output-based budgeting, internal and external audit, procurement processes, fiduciary risk assessments, public expenditure tracking surveys.

Decentralisation: defining roles and responsibilities between central and local delivery, capacity building and training, change management.

Community Engagement: parent teacher association support, civil society organisation capacity building, community-based monitoring of service delivery.

Supporting the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan While Afghanistan remains a troubled and conflict-affected country, improvements in the quality and reach of education, as well as the remarkable increase in attendance by girls since 2001, have been some of the country’s greatest achievements. Adam Smith International provided assistance to the Ministry of Education to improve planning, management and monitoring of budgets at the sector level.

Our team supported the restructuring of the Finance Department to align with the Ministry’s new core functions, and the introduction of new processes to appoint staff on a merit-basis. We provided training and on-the-job coaching to effectively implement programme budgeting. Our team also developed an initial teacher training framework for basic education, accompanied by guidelines on the subject knowledge requirement for teachers trained within this framework. Our assistance helped Afghanistan to increase primary school enrolment to 7 million children by 2010, and increase the proportion of girls from virtually zero to 37% of students.

Supporting education delivery in conflict-affected states

Afghanistan

Functional Review of the Ministry of Education in Rwanda Over the last 20 years the Government of Rwanda has undertaken significant reform across the public sector which has resulted in a transformation of the delivery of education. In 2014, the Minister of Education requested a functional review to identify areas of overlap and duplication and to critically examine the functions and performance of each body.

Adam Smith International worked closely with the Minister and his staff through a process of interviews and focus groups with staff, tertiary education providers, NGOs and the private sector. Our team was able to provide recommendations on how the Ministry could achieve its strategic aims more effectively. Subsequently we were invited back to conduct an in-depth analysis of the functions, structure, processes, human resources and budget of the Ministry and provide a range of options for a proposed restructure. The Ministry opted for the radical reform option and the proposal is awaiting final Cabinet approval to proceed.

Supporting radical education reform in Rwanda

Rwanda

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Access Addressing the barriers keeping students out of school and extending programmes to increase enrolment for girls and other marginalised groups.

Many children still struggle to attend school and, of those that do attend, too high a number receive an education inappropriate to their needs. The social and economic arguments for striving for further access gains are clear; education is a right and improving educational access allows chilldren to fulfil their potential and creates more prosperous families and communities.

Reaching universal enrolment in basic education is still a challenge with those out-of-school requiring specifically targeted initiatives, often aimed at remote populations or under-represented minorities. Governments also struggle to minimise the disruption caused by ongoing conflict.

Adam Smith International has experience in implementing innovative and culturally sensitive programmes to increase access. We address cultural barriers to girls’ education and the inadequate provision for Special Educational Needs students. We also support ministries of education which struggle to educate students in remote or hard-to-reach places where the costs associated with provision of education are significantly higher than elsewhere.

Conditional transfers or stipend schemes provide incentives for marginalised groups to attend school. Our experience ensures that beneficiaries are identified correctly, administrative challenges do not reduce impact, and evaluation is used to improve future programme design.

Suitable facilities can also trigger large improvements in access. In many communities, establishing separate

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schools or recruiting female teachers helps to build community support for girls’ education. Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) facilities can also make school a more attractive prospect.

Advocacy campaigns can build the public demand for school access, address practices such as early marriage that affect educational opportunity, and change the perceptions of education in areas where it may be controversial.

We have experience in the following areas: Stipends and conditional transfers: monthly stipends to pupils to pay fees, conditional transfers to families to enrol their children, action research into innovative enrolment techniques.

Facilities: school infrastructure development (including boundary walls and dormitories), WASH facilities, climate resilient schools.

Training: headteacher/teacher training on Special Educational Needs, design of pre-service teacher training for inclusive education, linking training to retention of marginalised groups.

Advocacy: pupil enrolment campaigns, civil society engagement, developing media strategies, website development.

“You have given happiness to the hearts of children.”

Teacher, children’s centre in Syria

Helping girls access education in north west Pakistan In Pakistan’s conflict-affected north western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nearly two million of the more than three million children not enrolled in basic education are girls. We are supporting a wide range of initiatives to increase access for girls in a culturally-sensitive manner.

Our technical assistance supported the establishment of a government institution, the Elementary Education Foundation (EEF), responsible for building educational public private partnerships and increasing access for the most vulnerable. We have helped the EEF to establish over 900 girls’ community schools to promote access to education for girls in areas where public education provision is low. We also supported the design and scale up of a voucher scheme targeting 30,000 out-of-school children. In addition, we have provided advice to the government in the design, implementation and evaluation of a girls’ stipend programme aimed at increasing girls’ enrolment.

Helping establish girls’ schools in Pakistan Pakistan

Delivering education through community capacity development in Syria The ongoing conflict in Syria has led to large-scale destruction of education infrastructure at the same time as unprecedented internal displacement of populations. Adam Smith International is implementing Tamkeen, an award winning programme which works across five sectors including education to build governance capacity within Syria and meet basic education delivery needs.

Tamkeen is a learning-by-doing process helping Syrian people learn how good governance can benefit them. The programme offers block grants to communities and enables them to prioritise their specific education needs. So far, the project has partnered with 18 communities inside Syria, each of which has the choice of their specific priorities: classroom repair; teaching resource resupply; safeguarding teachers’ salaries; psychosocial support; training teachers; informal education and alternative education delivery; education for women and girls; and youth vocational training. The programme has reached an estimated 1.4 million beneficiaries across Syria, including 35,000 in education.

Increasing education access in ungoverned areas

Syria

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Low Cost Private Sector Engaging with alternative models of delivery to improve educational quality.

Where government systems struggle to deliver quality education, increasing numbers of parents have turned to low cost private schooling. Low Cost Private Schools (LCPS) have demonstrated that they can provide a better quality education at a lower cost. The challenge facing governments now is to exploit the complementarity of both public and private systems to ensure better quality outcomes, value for money and increased enrolment.

find that private school options are available locally but are sometimes prohibitively expensive for parents. We provide vouchers to parents to be redeemed at selected private schools or we subsidise school fee payment.

Adam Smith International provides expertise in the private education sector in a number of ways: Establishment of LCPS: engagement with entrepreneurs and philanthropists, incentivising the placement of new schools in targeted areas.

The private sector has much to offer, especially in responding more quickly to specific local needs whilst minimising the financial impact on parents and reducing the burden on government institutions.

Running successful LCPS: guidelines on minimum required standards, quality assurance of student learning outcomes, evaluation of school management structures.

However, this burgeoning new sector cannot be allowed to risk the futures of its students by providing low quality education, disruptive school turnover or poor modes of delivery. Our approach ensures that such schools are also regulated, receive curriculum guidance and maintain minimum levels of teacher competence.

Vouchers and school subsidy programmes: provision of vouchers for education, compensating private schools for taking out-of-school students.

Public-private partnerships: linking state-run and private institutions, sharing lessons learnt on minimising costs, complementary approaches to universal enrolment.

Many parents are willing to move their children from public to private schools in the hope of a higher quality education and will pay a premium to achieve this. As a result many entrepreneurs are interested in the sector and we guide them by suggesting viable areas for investment and, where possible, targeting remote, distant and under-served areas.

In addition, we also work in areas where government is simply unable to provide basic education. In such areas, we

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Regulation of LCPS: guidelines on financial practices of LCPS, school/business registration, verification of teacher qualifications.  

“With SUCSEED we now attend school without fail, and enjoy learning because there is not fear of being sent home for school fees.”

Vincent Ouma, Shiners School, Kenya

Establishing and regulating LCPS in Punjab Low cost private education in Pakistan is both substantial and expanding, accounting for approximately 30% of student enrolment. The Punjab Education Support Programme aims to drive whole system education reform at multiple levels, including by engaging with the private sector through the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF).

In collaboration with PEF, we developed a long-term public private partnership model that targets cost effective improvements in student learning while engaging with the hardest to reach. The Government of Punjab endorses this partnership and is planning for all new schools built in the province to be achieved through PEF, where average funding per student is significantly lower than that in government schools. In addition, we have initiated a Quality Assurance Test in Punjab’s private schools to ensure that minimum standards of quality are always upheld and to incentivise a focus on quality learning outcomes.

Regulating quality in low cost private schools Pakistan

Supporting Kenya’s poorest children to attend school The informal settlements of Mombasa and Nairobi have some of the lowest enrolment rates and poorest learning outcomes within Kenya. Supporting Complementary Schools for Equitable Education (SUCSEED) targets the partial payment of basic school fees for the most needy children to attend low-cost private schools and provides management training for leadership in recipient schools.

By reducing the financial burden of schools for parents, the programme increases attendance rates among the beneficiaries and contributes to higher retention rates. In addition, fee payment to schools on a monthly basis enhances financial stability, long-term planning and timely teacher remuneration. To complement a more stable and increased monthly income, management training focuses on more effective use of these funds in school budgeting and expenditure. Early indications suggest that this approach increases the attendance rate by 4%, retention rates to over 90% and has significantly strengthened target schools’ financial procedures.

Funding fees for out-of-school children

Kenya

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Skills Development Increasing the proportion of the population in employment by building the right skills and developing employment opportunities.

Many young men and women lack the basic life skills, work preparedness or core business skills necessary for gainful employment. This is a key contributing factor that can lead to high unemployment and have an impact on economic growth and productivity. Impact can extend beyond economic factors; as large numbers of unemployed youths can affect social stability and lead to extremism in fragile environments.

While young people may not have the skills to enter employment, there are often demand side factors that contribute to low rates of youth employment. Poor links between employers and training providers, as well as a lack of clarity in government administration can exacerbate a shortage of skilled labour.

Adam Smith International believes that long-lasting change in the skills development sector is best achieved by addressing demand and supply side issues together.

Although we work in some regions exclusively on the supply side, we aim to adopt a holistic approach, working with both employers and potential employees to create a winwin for both.

We work to improve the quality of design and delivery of skills development programmes to meet the market needs of local formal and informal economies. Employers play a large role in this process; they have the best understanding of the mix of skills that are required to work in their industry.

Using this information and our pedagogical expertise, we design high-quality competency-based learning programmes, certifications and assessments.

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On the demand side, we often support specific industries to identify and address the root causes of underperformance where there is potential for greater employment. This could involve initiatives from piloting new approaches, increasing investment in research and development or improvements to the regulatory framework. Linkage with skills providers is also crucial; we provide technical support to governments, employers, and training providers to create greater collaboration as well as more apprenticeships and job placement opportunities.

Our skills development programmes are designed to be inclusive, often targeting marginalised groups of beneficiaries such as young women or ethnic minorities.

Adam Smith International provides expertise in the skills development sector in a number of ways: Technical and vocational education and training: developing curricula, setting standards for training and qualifications, building institutions capable of delivering high quality courses, training of trainers, creating links with business and communities.

Apprenticeship schemes: designing and supporting the implementation of schemes to improve the skills for particular technical industries.

Market systems development: development of links with training providers, sector specific technical assistance, mentoring - matching entrepreneurs and enterprises with experienced professionals, pairing skills with sustainable markets, development of skills policies. 

“The entrepreneurship course was a real eye opener. I learnt about the importance of having a business plan. I am better positioned for the future.”

Kea Athumani, business trainee, Kenya

Building skills for young, marginalised groups in northern Nigeria 38% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed in northern Nigeria. The high level of unemployment, particularly among marginalised groups and excluded youth, threatens to undermine social stability in northern Nigeria. Implemented by Adam Smith International, the Mafita programme works in the northern regions of Nigeria to empower youths and women to increase their economic opportunities and social inclusion.

Mafita supports the most marginalised in society, working towards creating 43,000 new jobs and increasing the incomes of 85,000 adolescent girls from Islamiyya and Quranic schooling systems, the Almajirai (young boys living with, and learning under, Islamic religious teachers) and women.

Mafita is partnering with national certification authorities, public training centres and master crafts persons in order to increase these groups’ access to quality and market-relevant skills provision in both the formal and informal sector. On the demand side, Mafita is facilitating the absorption of those receiving training into sustainable jobs with micro and small enterprises (MSEs). To do this, we support MSEs to hire marginalised youth through improved access to financial and business development services.

Creating economic opportunity for marginalised youth

Nigeria

Creating employment opportunities for young people in Mombasa At 44%, youth unemployment in Mombasa is rampant. Launched in 2014, Kuza is a three-year DFID-funded youth employment project implemented by Adam Smith International that aims to help 8,000 young people to improve their employability and support creation of 5,000 jobs. The project’s intended beneficiaries are un- and underemployed women and men between the ages of 18 and 30, whose incomes are at the lowest end of the scale in the county.

On the supply side of the labour market, Kuza works to improve the skills and employability of young women and men through direct training, supporting better linkages between skills providers, employers and regulators, supporting policy development, and establishing six Labour Market Information and Training Centres. On the demand side, Kuza aims to create long term jobs by working with a range of private and public sector players to address some of the root causes of underperformance in sectors that have high potential for youth employment. The project is currently active in manufacturing, investment promotion, waste management, and micro retail.

Increasing employment opportunities for youth in Kenya Kenya

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Principles of Effective Delivery Where education reform is most required, there are often daunting technical challenges, political complexities, fiduciary risks and cultural barriers.

Addressing large scale underperformance in the education sector requires strong programme management as well as technical expertise. Based on our twenty year record of success, we have established leading project management tools and techniques to help our programmes achieve their objectives. Underpinning these tools, Adam Smith International is guided by the following principles: Local ownership Broadening and deepening of local ownership protects and sustains reforms; we treat this as a core project objective.

We adopt inclusive governance arrangements and undertake participatory activities that build on existing local practices. We select our advisors based on their ability to build strong relationships with counterparts and adapt approaches to local environments. We willingly work with stakeholders across the education spectrum from private and public, national and local, formal and informal sectors to ensure high-levels of policy engagement, accountability and ownership.

Culturally sensitive Adam Smith International has a strong track record of working across the globe on culturally sensitive programmes.

We understand that education can be controversial, for example, access to girls’ education or religious education curricula are contentious in some cultures. Our advisors have extensive experience within their regions, acute understanding of the political economy and are able to adapt to context and culture. We take great care in assessing the cultural dimensions of our work in-country, whether religious or political, contested or united.

Managing risk In the knowledge that almost all actions with the potential for positive change in our target countries carry risk, we take risks but manage them tightly. We ensure that risks,

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whether political, technical or security, are explicit in our planning before initiating activities and are closely monitored and managed throughout implementation. Through costbenefit analyses, we make risks explicit and work closely with in-country counterparts and donors to mitigate such risks.

Sustainability Our projects consider scalability and institutionalisation from conception to closure. Our ultimate goal is to extend reform well beyond the end of our involvement in a particular programme. We work closely with counterparts to build human capacity and strengthen institutions to ensure any reform is mastered and replicable. Maximising opportunity for sustainability also requires developing an understanding of the budgetary implications of scaling up or the capacity requirements of rolling the programme out to further beneficiaries. At project completion, we manage the handover process to guarantee that programme activities continue smoothly and that future roles and responsibilities are clearly defined.

Flexibility Delivering complex programmes, often in challenging environments, requires a commitment to flexibility in programme design, approach and implementation. As contexts can change rapidly, we choose advisers with a breadth of understanding of educational reform so projects can adapt to changes in circumstances to meet their objectives. Our programmes take measured risks, but a flexible approach to programming allows us to scale up, scale down, cancel, adjust, or develop our interventions based on an ongoing evaluation of impact.

 

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Adam Smith International is an award-winning professional services business that delivers real impact, value and lasting change through projects supporting economic growth and government reform internationally.

We specialise in the design, management and delivery of complex projects.

Find out more For an in-depth look at any of these projects and more of our Education Development experience, visit: www.adamsmithinternational.com.

For assistance, please contact: Jalpa Patel Head of Public Sector Governance E: education@adamsmithinternational.com

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