2013 International Day of the Girl Child
Stories from the field
Getting those Out of School, Back Into School
The obligation to provide quality education for all girls cannot be achieved without targeted efforts
to enroll or re-enroll girls who are currently out of school. UNICEF and its partners are coming up with
innovative solutions to safeguard out-of-school girls’ right to quality education.
Rooting out school drop-outs in Madagascar To address the issue of out-of-school girls, UNICEF
Madagascar is tackling the root-causes of drop-outs and non-enrollment. As part of the Let Us Learn
initiative, UNICEF Madagascar has launched an innovative secondary girls’ education program that goes
beyond traditional scholarship programs. This approach addresses every aspect of what keeps girls out of
secondary school – which includes lack of transportation, housing and cultural stigma in addition to
poverty.
“Reintegration grants” promote the re-insertion of girls who have dropped out of junior secondary
school due to financial, pregnancy or cultural reasons. Selected female mentors from the
community handle the girls’ cash transfers and monthly expenses,
in addition to providing counseling and psychosocial support to girls.
In a country where many girls drop out because of long-distances
from schools, the program also offers facilitation of transportation &
boarding houses to girls who live between five and seven kilometers
from junior secondary school.
“I am very happy to continue school, and I hope to be a doctor one
day,” says Genevieve, a young orphan from the Analanjirofo region
of Madagascar determined to continue her post-primary education.
UNICEF helped to provide Genevieve with a bicycle to cut her travel
time down to 20 minutes, allowing her to go back to school,
otherwise she would have to walk one and a half hours every day to
reach her school.
Giving out-of-school girls a second chance in Nepal and
Turkey UNICEF supports innovative activities across regions that
afford out-of-school girls a second chance to attend school with their
peers. In Nepal, UNICEF and its partners launched the Girls’
Access to Education (GATE) initiative, a ten-month non-formal education program that targets
adolescent out-of-school girls.
The curriculum focuses on life-skills for adolescents in addition to basic literacy and
numeracy. After completing the curriculum, partner NGOs assist graduates who want to enroll in
a formal school to take an exam at a community school to enter into grade three or four.
Older adolescents have the option to participate in the Self-Employment and Economic
Education Programme (SEEP), whose participants are provided training on financial literacy,
entrepreneurship, and self-employment skills. Nine graduates of SEEP were supported to take a
six month interest-free loans from local government funds and have already started small
businesses such as a tea shop, a retail shop, and a goat raising business. These businesses are
still running today.
In Turkey, UNICEF partnered with the national government to launch the “Catch-Up Education”
(CEP) initiative, whose goal is to prepare out-of school girls and boys aged 10-14 to reenter
formal schooling with necessary credentials.
“I couldn’t come to school all the time. We go to different cities for work. I look after my nieces.
We went for a whole month and I couldn’t go to school,” one girl reported. Enrolling in CEP gave
her the chance to go back to school. “We will be going again soon. I take my books with me
when we go. I’m always studying.”
A condensed curriculum is developed and CEP classes are opened in schools. These classes
allow students to learn alongside peers who are also catching up, instead of being in class with
children younger children. Among beneficiaries of the program are girls previously unable to
attend school because of household commitments.
Related Links: 
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http://www.unicef.org/education/bege_70396.html
http://www.unicef.org/madagascar/
http://www.unicef.org/nepal/
http://www.unicef.org.tr/en
http://www.ungei.org