Girls Secondary Education Initiative

  • F Funding Initiative/Portfolio

I Inactive

Key Information

In Malawi, less than 15% of women have any years of secondary school education, with 42% of girls married before the age of 18. Given the magnitude of this challenge, Firelight believes that community-based organizations can play a significant role in rethinking and redesigning local approaches to secondary school and helping parents make the investment in secondary education for their girls. We support two community-based organizations and two local non-governmental organizations in improving the transition, persistence, and exam pass rates for girls in Malawi’s Community Day Secondary Schools. With tailored capacity building in organizational development, human-centered design, and social accountability, Firelight supports these four organizations to work with communities, students, teachers, local leaders, and government officials to develop and adapt innovative approaches to their unique community contexts.


Lead Implementing Organization(s)

Location(s)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Malawi

Government Affiliation

Non-governmental program

Years

2015 - 2019

Partner(s)

Girls Empowerment Network (GENET- Malawi), Foundation for Community Livelihood and Development (FOCOLD- Malawi), Advancing Girls Education Africa (AGE-Africa - Malawi), Namwera AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACC- Malawi)

Ministry Affiliation

Unknown

COVID-19 Response

Unknown

Geographic Scope

National

Meets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES  

Unknown

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Attainment

  • Primary to secondary transition
  • Secondary completion

Other skills

  • Financial literacy
  • Rights/empowerment education
  • Social and emotional learning
  • Vocational training

Quality

  • School facilities
  • School quality
  • Teacher training

Skills

  • Other academic performance-related

Cross-cutting areas

  • Adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Community sensitization
  • Early/child marriage
  • Economic/livelihoods (including savings/financial inclusion, etc.)
  • Empowerment
  • Mentorship
  • Other aspects of sexual and reproductive health

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Girls in school, Youth

Age

Not applicable or unknown

School Enrolment Status

Not applicable or unknown

School Level

  • Lower secondary
  • Upper secondary

Other populations reached

Not applicable or unknown

Participants include

Not applicable or unknown

Program Approaches Back to Top

Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

Not applicable or unknown

Cross-cutting goals

Not applicable or unknown