Five civil society organisations and their consortium partners have been selected for grants from Education Out Loud to support civil society’s role in promoting the transparency and accountability of national education sector policy and implementation.

These organisations and their partners have been awarded a total of $US 5,1 million in grants to strengthen civil society’s capacity to push for more accountable, participatory, and transparent national education sector policy and implementation. Funded projects will be implemented from 2021 to 2023.

The five consortia were amongst ten shortlisted consortia that underwent the Year Zero process where a small number of applicants are awarded support to develop a full project proposal. After undergoing the six-month process of developing their shortlisted concept notes into full project proposals, the five consortia were selected to receive full implementation grants by an independent panel of technical experts with backgrounds in gender, human rights, program management, research, advocacy, and capacity building.

Education Out Loud received an impressive 461 applications from organisations based in 53 different countries for the open call for applications under Operational Component 2. Under this component, grants are provided to organisations working to improve policy dialogue, increase the availability of information sources, and mobilize citizens as rights holders to play an active role in monitoring implementation of education policies and financing.

We warmly welcome the five consortia and look forward to working with them.

Read more about the consortia and their projects below.

Educate HER: Promoting Gender Equity and Equality in Education

Country: Liberia

Implementing organisations: Helping Our People Excel (HOPE) (lead organisation), CareFound-Liberia, and Paramount Young Women Initiative (PAYOWI).

The project: The Educate HER project, funded under Education Out Loud, aims to promote gender equity and equality in education in Liberia. Despite the National Policy on Girls’ Education in Liberia, implementation of the policy is lagging behind. With the project, the alliance works to ensure the effective implementation of the National Policy on Girls’ Education in all 15 counties of Liberia by 2023. Specifically, the project focuses on addressing the key barriers to girls’ attendance, retention, and completion in secondary schools. The goal is to ensure girls’ rights and access to secondary school education in Liberia, and advocate to address barriers for girls’ education.

The consortium: HOPE, CareFound-Liberia and PAYOWI are all national-level, women-led organisations with experience in advocacy, education, policy development, and gender mainstreaming. HOPE’s vision is to ensure empowerment of women and children in Liberia and especially works with sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls as well as education and leadership development opportunities for children and youth. CareFound-Liberia was established to advance the rights of women and adolescent girls through holistic education, health, gender, and economic empowerment programs. Paramount Young Women Initiative (PAYOWI) is dedicated to advancing the rights of adolescent girls and young women with a mission to uplift adolescent girls and young women by providing financial aid and scholarships, advocating for their rights, as well as provide trainings and promote awareness.

Intra/inter-culturality, Multilingualism, and de-patriarchialisation of education policies

Country: Bolivia

Implementing organisations: Fundación Privada de Fieles CENTRO DE MULTISERVICIOUS EDUCATIVOS (CEMSE) (lead organisation) and Fundación Acción Cultural Loyola (ACLO).

The project: The project, funded by Education Out Loud, focuses on advancing interculturality, intraculturality, multilingualism and de-patriarchialisation of educational policies in the regular education subsystem in three regions in Bolivia in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although Bolivia has recently made efforts to eliminate social stigmitisation based on ethnicity, culture, and gender in the education system, further efforts are needed to ensure the implementation of the new policies. The aim of this project is to expand capacities and ensure the participation of social organisations and key actors in planning, monitoring, and evidence gathering so that intracultural, intercultural, plurilingual, and depatricharchialisation education policies can be successfully implemented in Bolivia.

The consortium: CEMSE works to improve the quality of education and has experience working in close collaboration with educational communities in the public system. The organisation has a special focus on working with poor communities and promotes human development amongst Bolivia’s most vulnerable populations. ACLO has experience working on education and capacity building with farming communities and indigenous peoples and works for sustainable social change in the Bolivian context – especially in the field of education.

SCORE – CSO Citizen Monitoring of Education Transparency and Accountability

Country: Madagascar

Implementing organisations: MSIS-Tatao (lead organisation), Ravintsara, MonEPT, and Dinika sy Rindra ho an'ny Vehivavy (DRV)

The project: The project, funded by Education Out Loud, aims to improve the quality of basic education services provided in public schools through the better use and allocation of resources, as well as the reduction of corruption and misappropriation in the education sector. Madagascar is challenged by a high number of children out of school, and this project aims to address the multiple challenges causing this as well as generally improve transparency and accountability of basic education services in the country. The SCORE project focuses on supporting local CSOs and conducts interventions in 6 regions in Madagascar.

The consortium: MSIS-Tatao has experience managing projects centered around citizen participation and transparency, monitoring of State performance, and inclusive and peaceful governance. Ravintsara is experienced in observation, monitoring, lobbying, and advocacy in the areas of citizen monitoring, corruption in public services, and election observation. MonEPT is a platform that brings together different organisations working on monitoring, and quality and inclusive education in Madagascar. Lastly, DRV is a platform mobilizing NGOs and Associations for the advancement of women in Madagascar specialized in the promotion of gender equality.

MultiplY-Ed: Youth-led, Multi-sectoral and Multi-level approach to monitoring education in the time of COVID19

Country: Philippines

Implementing organisations: The Center for Youth Advocacy and Networking, Inc. (CYAN) (lead organisation) and Government Watch (G-Watch)

The project: The MultiplY-Ed project, funded under Education Out Loud, aims to contribute to making education service delivery at the senior high school level resilient, responsive, and accountable. The project works to ensure responsiveness and resiliency to the changing needs of students and education stakeholders, especially of the most marginalized youth. Additionally, it aims to ensure accountability by establishing a youth-led, multisectoral, and multi-level approach to monitoring the Philippine government’s Learning Continuity Plan. The Covid-19 pandemic has deepened existing inequalities in Philippine education, and this project works to ensure continuous access and quality education for senior high school students in the post-pandemic context.

The consortium: CYAN is a youth-led, youth-serving non-governmental organisation that envisions a community where young people are empowered and able to affect societal change towards a truly just and democratic society. The organisation works to build platforms for young people’s empowerment, meaningful participation, and youth agenda-development. Additionally, it provides capacity building and technical assistance to youth organisations and promotes partnerships and networking to help them inform and influence policies. G-Watch has undertaken several pioneering works on social accountability and citizen monitoring and works to build capacity of citizen-monitors to enable them to check the delivery of public services. Additionally, the organisation uses research to provide an effective intellectual and civic bridge between the local, national, and global arenas in the field of transparency, participation and accountability, promoting multi-directional dialogues to inform theory and practice.

Reframing Education Accountability in Pakistan (REAP)

Country: Pakistan

Implementing organisations: Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS) (lead organisation) and Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP)

The project: The project, funded under Education Out Loud, aims to strengthen the capacities and procedural participation of civil society in promoting contextualized policy solutions and multi-level accountability of education policies, plans, and financing for a robust education system in Pakistan. In Pakistan, there is limited participation of rights holders and civil society organisations to challenge accountability and transparency in the education sector. This project works to use education data to generate insights on key education challenges, build civil society’s capacities, and hence improve procedural accountability and policy influencing. The goal is to achieve enhanced civil society participation for a strengthened, inclusive, and resilient education system in Pakistan.

The consortium: Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS) is a policy research and advocacy institute working across Pakistan. Its mission is to create an effective interface between state, market, civil society, and rights holders for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development. The organisation has experience in providing technical assistance for education reforms, sectoral planning and financing, as well as in procedural policy engagement for institutionalizing contextualized policy solutions to improve education governance. Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP) is a non-governmental research and advocacy organisation working to support citizens and civil society to secure their legally enforceable rights and to improve transparency and accountability by engaging governance and market institutions in a procedural interface. The organisation has experience managing projects and programs focusing on CSO-led demand articulation and advocacy, and participatory local governance.