Global Life Skill Education Evaluation for UNICEF

Overview

The Global Life Skills Education Evaluation intends to assess the added-value of UNICEF investments in life skills education programmes in terms of the relevance of programmes, their coverage, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. Find out more about UNICEF life skills here.

UNICEF-supported Life Skills Education programmes are currently being implemented in approximately 70 countries, but there has as yet been little investment in monitoring and evaluation of structured, long-term and sustained interventions, or whether learning outcomes are achieved as a result of these efforts.

EfC are leading the global evaluation which aims to contribute to filling this gap. The evaluation aims to examine where countries are with respect to accepted knowledge about components of successful life skills education programmes at formal and non-formal levels and what the results are for children.  This process includes an examination of policy pronouncements on life skills education, curriculum and programme analyses, and whether life skills learning outcomes have been incorporated in assessment and examination systems. The evaluation also examines whether life skills education programmes are implemented from a rights-based perspective, and make additional effort to include the most at risk and/or vulnerable young people.

Progress

Desk review

The desk review was conducted by EfC’s team of experts, following a request to 70 of UNICEF’s country offices for documents on Life Skills.  A brief summary of the review was produced for each of the countries for which documents were received, feeding into the phase 1 report.

Case studies

Full and partial case studies were carried out in seven countries.  Full case studies comprised of a series of national level interviews with relevant government and development partner staff, and focus group discussions, interviews and Most Significant Change story gathering with district education officials, school staff, children, community members and local CSOs and NGOs during visits to schools and non-formal centres in three regions of each country. Each case study was managed by a team of one international expert and two to four national consultants. Partial case studies were limited to national level interviews and document reviews. 

Final reporting

Drawing on the individual country case study reports and the desk review, a final report is currently being prepared by the EfC team. The country summaries from the desk review phase are also being developed into an interactive internal website to act as a useful reference resource for UNICEF staff.