El Salvador faces significant challenges in terms of quality, access, and inclusion in education. The school dropout rates are high, and recent years have seen a decrease in learning and development of fundamental skills for children. Marginalised groups, hereunder children living in extreme poverty, children with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and female children and adolescents, face specific barriers to accessing quality education.

To overcome the issues and barriers in the access to education, Red Salvadoreña por el Derecho a la Educación (RESALDE), hosted by Fundacion Educacion y Cooperacion, is implementing this project. Through both capacity building, knowledge sharing, communication and awareness raising, RESALDE will work to achieve the human right to education. The project aims to promote innovative educational practices through the pedagogy of play and enhance teacher training and capacity building, particularly in rural areas.

Moreover, civil society organisations (CSOs) in El Salvador operate in a challenging context with restrictions to their activities. Therefore, the project aims to strengthen the capacities of RESALDE's member organisations to navigate in this environment, engage in strategic advocacy, and build alliances with duty bearers and other stakeholders.

More specifically, the main objectives of this project will be to:

• Develop actions to strengthen the knowledge and capacities of RESALDE's member organisations, to improve their advocacy efforts and influence on educational policies,
• Generate knowledge through studies and analysis of learning and the pedagogy of play to promote the creation of playful, innovative and inclusive learning models,
• Develop and implement a communication and advocacy strategy for the promotion of the human right to education, through a participatory approach involving the education community and CSOs,
• Participate in and strengthen RESALDE’s position in strategic advocacy spaces such as in the regional platforms of the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education (CLADE) and the Global Campaign for Education (GCE),
• Enable experience exchange between RESALDE's youth committee and other organisations to address the challenges of SDG 4.

RESALDE is furthermore committed to establishing alliances, strategic collaboration and dialogue between civil society and duty bearers, such as stakeholders from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The coalition believes this an important path to secure the right to inclusive quality education for children and adolescents 

Altogether, the project shall strengthen the participation of civil society in the development, implementation and monitoring of inclusive and sustainable education policies in El Salvador, and help achieve the ultimate goal of inclusive, quality education for all. 

An earlier phase of the project was carried out between April 2022 and December 2023. The current project is part of the EOL extension phase of 2024-2026. Read more about the first phase of the project here.