Educate Girls partners with public schools, trains local champions for girls' education, and mobilises communities to create their own action plans to make education more accessible and accountable to girls. The model is designed to strengthen and improve existing resources in government, schools, and communities.

 

"Team Balika" volunteers are change agents at the district and village levels. Over 4,500 community volunteers work as champions for girls' education and catalysts for school reform - both in the schools and in village communities to spread awareness on girl child education. Their quest is to boost enrollment, retention, and learning outcomes for all girls. Team Balika is trained in community mobilisation and outreach, creative learning and teaching (CLT) techniques, leadership, and motivation. [Educate Girls trains one teacher per school in CLT techniques, bringing child-friendly, activity-based learning into the classroom. Tests are conducted before and after training to assess learning levels. Classroom support is provided by Educate Girls' staff and trained Team Balika.] The volunteers are often between the ages of 18-25 and, according to Educate Girls, are among the most educated members of their communities. They work to increase community appreciation of and demand for girls' education and to improve education delivery by recruiting and training educated young adults as community ambassadors, reaching out to village leaders, facilitating town hall discussions, and conducting advertising campaigns. Team Balika volunteers also go door to door to negotiate with parents whose daughters are most at risk. They teach parent committees at each school to diagnose and prioritise problems and to obtain government funds for improvements, particularly those vital to retaining girls (such as girls' toilets and female teachers). They provide toolkits and training to help teachers shift away from rote learning and use activity-based methods.

 

After using government data and door-to-door surveys to identify out-of-school girls in the area, Educate Girls organises village meetings to prepare community-based enrollment plans. Responsibility is distributed between the village leaders, elders, school administration, Team Balika, and Educate Girls' staff to bring girls back to school through, for example, the door-to-door visits mentioned above.

 

At village meetings, a 12-15 member council is elected to form the School Management Committee (SMC). This consists of parents, teachers, and village leaders and is responsible for school governance and administration. Educate Girls trains the committee members and provides them with support to prepare and execute School Improvement Plans (SIPs) and conduct school assessments.

 

Furthermore, "Educate Girls facilitates the election of Bal Sabhas (Girls' Councils) in every upper primary school. This 13-member council gives girls a voice, a leadership position in the school and training in 'life skills' to boost communication, leadership and problem solving skills."

Girls, Education.

Educate Girls believes that if girls in "the most backward gender gap districts are educated now, they will have the potential to enter the formal economy, gain employment, and lift their families out of poverty." According to Educate Girls, there are more girls not in school in India than in any other country in the world. Despite national goals to educate all children, communities in remote and rural areas still do not place a high value on educating their girls, nor do they have resources to do so.

 

According to Educate Girls, in recent years, India has enacted policies and invested in girls' education, resulting in dramatic gains in access to education. However, in many areas, community expectations and accountability for educating girls remain low - a majority of girls do not complete their primary education.

 

Impact:
Since 2007, Educate Girls has grown from a 500-school pilot project into a large-scale effort, reaching 1 million children in 7,500 schools in India's remote areas and 950,000 children in 6 "gender gap" districts in Rajasthan where indicators of girls' education have been the lowest. There are plans to achieve even greater scale over the next few years. Educate Girls has launched a Development Impact Bond to support education, which the organisation hopes will serve as an example for the education system and impact investors.

 

So far, Educate Girls claims that its work has helped to ensure over 90% enrollment and higher attendance as well as improved school infrastructure, quality of education, and learning outcomes for all girls. Click here to read success stories on the Educate Girls website.

 

Educate Girls was one of the 4 recipients of the 2015 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, which distinguishes "transformative leaders who are disrupting the status quo, driving large-scale change, and are poised to make an even greater impact on the world....This year’s four Awardees are social entrepreneurs developing new solutions to help preserve the world’s most precious resources by building sustainable coastal communities; expanding transparency to fight pollution; investing in the promise of girls; and securing a better future for the rural poor."