Scaling Up the Adoption Process of the Speed School/APL in Ethiopia's Conflict-Affected Areas

Ethiopia has an estimated 13 million children and youth who are out-of-school. In 2011, Geneva Global piloted the speed school program in Ethiopia. The program provides out-of-school children aged 9 to 14 a “second chance” at formal education equipping them with core knowledge and skills to thrive in primary school and beyond. Following a longitudinal study in 2017 which documented robust transition rates and higher learning outcomes among speed school participants compared to their conventional counterparts, the Ethiopian government along with NGO partners, scaled the program to reach more than 300,000 out-of-school children. The program, which now operates under the name “Accelerated Learning Programs” (ALP), was incorporated into Ethiopia’s national Education Sector Plan. However, a rapid scale-up triggered an overall decrease in the quality of the model’s implementation and its outcomes. 

This project aims to address this issue, identifying complementary roles of education structures in supporting ALP classes across fragile communities. It explores the differences in ALP’s implementation across and within regions to better understand what is working and what is not. The project gathers information on current implementation strategies from key actors and undertakes an action-research program to discover improved strategies and build capacity, leading to a comprehensive framework for using ALP classes as an education model for fragile communities.