[{"bbox": [93, 152, 1162, 469], "category": "Text", "text": "Scholarships for the most vulnerable adolescent girls - including those affected by COVID-19 - can boost and enhance their access and re-entry to school. However, scholarship per se may not result in enhancing retention and transition. Following the whole-school approach, new models of support are required for addressing the financial barriers to primary and secondary school for adolescent girls - with additional set of activities focused on making schools safe and the provision of extracurricular life-skills education to build competencies of adolescents' girls. Cash transfer programmes for education need to take into account not only the out-of-pocket expenses that are a barrier for accessing education but also opportunity costs of education faced by girls and families which relate to the lost time spent on domestic work, caregiving or agricultural labour. Cash transfer programmes that additionally target households with financial assistance are often used to counter this. Opportunity costs may also extend to socially determined expectations of girls' reproductive value or the forgone financial benefits to families of early/child marriage. There is positive experience of combining cash transfers for education with holistic programming to address social and gender norms factors that are barriers to education."}, {"bbox": [93, 497, 1162, 816], "category": "Text", "text": "UNICEF's experience of implementation of Accelerated Education Programming (AEP) in 14 centres in refugee hosting districts in Uganda show that AEP is an effective approach in bringing over-aged adolescents back to school. It is in line with a national guideline on AEP adopted by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and is also included as recent in the adopted National Inclusive Education Policy. In the COVID-19 Education response plan, AEP was acknowledged as a proven alternative learning pathway that allows bringing Out-of-School Children (OOSC) back to school. Small number of AEP learners transitioned to formal secondary education in the UNICEF targeted centres. The evidence shows that addressing restrictive social norms increases the probability of girls returning to education. Experience of alternative skilling pathways with focus on transferable skills (soft skills), including digital skills, shows high relevance to the over-aged adolescent girls that have low probability of coming back to school. UNICEF implemented successfully such skills training programmes in a number of countries within the non-formal education, coming to the education system through a side door, and has sufficient evidence on their positive effect on successful transition of girls to work life."}, {"bbox": [93, 842, 1162, 1214], "category": "Text", "text": "When it comes to teaching and learning, experience has shown that increasing access and lifting barriers is vital to participation and retention but not systematically leads to improvements in learning achievement; going to school does not equal learning. In addition to improved access, proper attention must be given to the teacher's competencies and professional development as well as access to learning materials, and effective acquisition of basic and life skills. It is also observed that externally induced change programmes do not necessarily lead to the desired results if local actors and beneficiaries are not part of the intervention cycle. Co-creation, or design with the users, is a time-intensive investment but is equally rewarding as they contribute significantly to behavioural change and sustainability. When working at local or school levels for improved service delivery it is important to look into the governance aspects of the school system. Primary schools are predominantly managed at local and district level, while for secondary schools the central level takes a larger share in decision-making, resulting in different strategies and decision-making. Institutional anchorage within the central ministry might facilitate project implementation but does not guarantee institutionalisation nor scaling up of the innovations. Early involvement, participation from all levels, sustained support, routine monitoring (rather than periodical assessment) and tackling misconceptions are vital to influence policy making and large scale impact."}, {"bbox": [93, 1239, 1162, 1637], "category": "Text", "text": "Several lessons learnt can be drawn from the ongoing EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in Uganda. The initiative has shown the importance of a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society approach and that impact increases through delivery of an integrated package addressing health, education, justice, social-economic/livelihood and psychological needs of women and girls. The role of CSOs, including grassroots organisations, in shaping norms and in service delivery and their ability to reach out to the beneficiaries is also important and schools have proved to be a relevant platform for integrated SRHR services and prevention of SGBV. The Action will build on the current Spotlight programme. The success of the MoGLSD's expansion of the SafePal App to 70 districts, and its integration with the national GBV database system and the SAUTI helpline, provide a basis for more streamlined data generation. The experience of the 35 domestic violence action coalition members that were supported and successfully lobbied for the promulgation of the Succession Amendment Bill, the Employment Bill, and the Sexual Offences Bill (SOB) provided lessons that shall inform the strategy for re-engagement on the SOB. Special GBV court sessions proved to be effective in facilitating the speedy disposal of cases and reducing case backlog, enhancing perpetrator accountability, and contributing to ending impunity. The Action will build on the 86% increase in case disposal by monitoring the continued application of the skills learnt in the current programme and increasing the provision of decentralised legal assistance. The work with religious and cultural institutions yielded a high dividend, and the Action will build on their commitments with"}, {"bbox": [1028, 1682, 1143, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 14 of 32"}]