Americas impact

Last year, Plan spent US $103 million on child-centred community projects across the region.

Below are some of the outputs in the region:

• 1,844 training courses were run for community health workers;
• 21 health centres were constructed;
• 4,480 patients received medical treatment;
• Immunisation activities were carried out in 345 communities;
• 17,452 girls and 16,602 boys received primary school scholarships;
• 5,653 home latrines were constructed and upgraded;
• 1,152 women received vocational training.

Case studies

Bolivia has been implementing successful educational reforms since 1994. However too many children, in particular those living in rural indigenous communities, drop out or complete school without achieving good results. Plan, in collaboration with communities in the Altiplano, Sucre, Tarija and Santa Cruz started a 5-year quality learning programme in 2004.

The project is geared towards the improvement of quality education – which is measured by School Quality Index (SQI), an instrument designed to measure the different elements that influence school performance such as infrastructure, the learning process, learning outputs and the school’s relationship with parents, communities and the Ministry of Education. The programme targets 346 schools, benefiting 12,796 girls and 12,577 boys.

Last year, Plan carried out a mid-term evaluation, looking at the project relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the results generated so far and the report showed:

• 44% of intervention schools (school part of the project) have reached the category of ‘high quality’ in relation to their SQI – compared to only 25% of the school not part of the project. SQI is the sum of the different aspects related to school performance and intervention. Intervention schools obtained higher scores in those aspects related to the availability of good school equipment, materials, the presence and performance of school councils and committees composed by children, the presence of trained teachers, the participation of parents and communities, and the occurrence of community meetings to discuss and analyse school performance;
• 90% of the intervention schools developed their project in a participatory manner, with the collaboration of local municipalities and the Ministry of Education;
• Everyone involved recognises the importance and value of the programme;
• The programme has been effective in creating a better-equipped learning environment and in building good relationships between children, parents, teachers and school directors through the creation of school committees;
• The evaluation also reveals that the project has been successful in embedding new ways of teaching and learning at school;
• Gender and child rights elements are incorporated into the activities and implemented at school level – attention is given to equal participation of girls and boys in school councils and committees and the inclusion of gender and child rights aspects in teacher training; but it also shows that more work needed to be done on behavioural change of parents with regards to the willingness to keep their daughters in school.

Involving parents and children in the education system

‘With the quality school project, since last year I have seen principals, teachers and parents associations getting organised…there are even students’ committees and councils. Their attitude is different now, not like in other schools,’ says Alejandro Mamni, Major in the Municipality of Pucarani.

One of the main concerns in Pucarani was the quality of teaching and learning experiences for the children and teachers. In collaboration with the community Plan started a quality learning programme and some of the activities carried out included the election of students’ councils, training of school reporters, formation of educational information committees, the promotion of healthy school environment, school orchards, resource centres, building new classrooms, latrines and teachers’ training. In addition, the community project administration committee was formed and made up of local community members responsible for the on-going running of the project.

‘Before this project, the school was very dirty; when we started the project we brought in rubbish bins, new furniture and other things. Since then, everything has been clean – there hasn’t been one piece of rubbish anywhere and they have given us tables, chairs, and books to study,’ says Elena, 10.

Within the project, the management team – made up of community members and teachers – leads the drafting of an action plan which establishes the steps towards quality programme, and lists how municipal authorities, education and local authorities, as well as school principals, teachers and students would take an active part in the process.

‘Since the quality school project has been implemented, our learning has improved. With these changes, the children have lost their shyness, and they are participate more in all activities,’ says Rumaldo Moya, management team member and parent.

The project also promotes active participation from children, adolescents and parents in every process.

‘Now boys and girls can speak their mind, and this gives them more opportunities to participate and speak out. We parents want this type of activity for our children, so that they learn well. What’s more, now there is much closer coordination with parents. Before, only the teacher talked at parents association and teacher-parent meetings; the children did not participate. Now the children come to the meetings and even participate and all of this is great,’ says Rumaldo Moya.

‘First we learned to respect our cultures, learned about participation. We learned that teachers will accept a project if it is feasible, but if it isn’t they reject it,’ says Giullermo, 13.

Sonia, a teacher at the school, says, ‘education has to have an aim, in this case quality, for the good of our children, for the good of education and this community. And we won’t stop here, but will spread the word to other people about our experience. I know that we have made mistakes, not listened to students, parents, but we will learn from them. What we have to improve as teachers is our ability to innovate, saving what is good and improving on what we couldn’t before this project.’