Educate Girls Audacious Project: Enrolment, Retention and Learning

Over the next 5 years, this investment will scale-up the approach that we tested during the Educate Girl’s Development Impact model, to enroll and retain out-of-school girls (OOSGs) into government schools, going from 13,000 villages to 35,000 and expanding to 4 of India’s biggest and most populated states. This will enroll 1.6 million OOSGs into school, aiming to reduce the gender gap in Indian education by 40%. They will create a sustainable pathway for girls’ education through a shift in societal and behavioural norms to break the inter-generational cycle of uneducated women not sending their girls to school. It will directly: Enroll 1.6 million girls aged 6-14 into primary (Grades 1-8) and pilot in secondary school (Grades 9-10; ages 15-16); Retain over 1.4 million girls, or 90% of enrolled girls; Improve learning outcomes for over 1 million children (550,000 girls & 450,000 boys) in primary (Grades 1-8; ages 6-14) at a scale and pilot in secondary school (Grades 9-10; ages 15-16); Develop life-skills for more than 100,000 adolescent girls; Improve school governance and infrastructure in over 40,000 government schools that serve over 15 million girls and boys. EG’s model is a comprehensive, community-driven model. It cost-effectively targets areas with the highest concentration of OOSGs. The key components of the model include finding the hot spots of out-of-school girls through predictive analytics (Machine Learning), improving enrollment, retention and learning outcomes for all OOSGs in intervention villages where they work by changing communities’ social norms and behaviour and reforming school systems to ensure provision of quality education for all children.