One Voice for Inclusive and Quality Education in Cape Verde
Cape Verde has undertaken reforms to progressively improve the functioning of the education system and the quality of services provided to children, youths and adults. The share of the state budget for education has varied between 23% and 27% and the level of public expenditure represents 5.4% of the GDP. The average length of schooling is 13.2 years.
However, major challenges remain for the future, especially in terms of the quality and relevance of education, which has notorious weaknesses in the performance of students at all levels of education, in terms of their performance and the acquisition of skills required for the sustainable development of the country.
The RNCEPT-CV will continue to advocate and demand from the government the assumed and desired goals in the education sector, in alignment with the sustainable development goals, particularly SDG4 "ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" Agenda 2030.
The project aims to have a common voice among civil society, organizational members, national and supranational partners in order to "Strengthen advocacy actions to influence quality education, resilience and sustainability".
With the pandemic of COVID-19, 1.6 billion learners in over 190 countries have been left out of classrooms, with almost half without any learning opportunities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to research conducted by UNESCO in April 2020. As a civil society, it is noted that for the most vulnerable Groups: children, people with physical disabilities or mental suffering, street population, young people, women, children of immigrants, were the most affected.
In this context, the organisation will work on the problems:
- Participation of civil society, in the fulfilment and optimisation of the education investment programme. Influencing the reduction of the school drop-out rate for the most vulnerable groups through concerted and assertive measures.
- Mobilising civil society for the full assumption of free and compulsory pre-primary education.
- Contribution to the construction of inclusive cities and/or localities, through the elaboration of a Programme Proposal for the elimination of architectural barriers, with the participation of different socio-educational actors.
The organisation intends to work on monitoring, evaluating and optimising the state education budget, carrying out case studies and research on school attendance and drop-out rates, access and accessibility of schools in tourist, historic or resilient towns, cities or islands most affected by the Covid 19 SARS pandemic.
Inclusion of all, with more assertive funding, access and accessibility and the elimination of architectural barriers are the expected impacts.
The first phase of the project was implemented in 2020-2021 with support from Education Out Loud of 128.429 USD.