Project profile — Education Access and Quality Learning in Lebanon

• Lebanon (33.33%)

• Developing countries, unspecified (66.67%)

• Education policy and administrative management:
Education policy and administrative management (11110) (11.00%)
Teacher training (11130) (11.00%)
• Basic Education: Primary education (11220) (11.33%)
• Unallocated/ Unspecified: Sectors not specified (99810) (66.67%)

• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Disability (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)

This project aims to improve access to quality and gender-responsive education opportunities for children between the ages of 3 and 18 in Lebanon. The project prioritizes scaling up educational opportunities and retention in the formal public system, helps address gender-based barriers to quality learning opportunities, helps improve inclusiveness in teaching and learning environments, and helps strengthen the national education system, policies and monitoring in education. The project focuses on addressing the barriers that prevent vulnerable children from Syria and Lebanon from accessing educational opportunities. The project supports the Lebanese national education system and works with Lebanon’s Ministry of Education to strengthen policies and systems and improve its ability to ensure better education services and sustain increased and equitable access to quality education. The project aligns with the Government of Lebanon's Crisis Response Plan, particularly in terms of priority interventions for education and the education objective identified in the Lebanon Compact to scale up access to education and strengthen the formal education system. This project, the Education Access and Quality Learning in Lebanon initiative, is part of the national strategy of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) of Lebanon “Reaching All Children with Education for 2017-2021 (RACE II)”.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased demand and reduced cultural, financial, and gender-barriers for enrollment and retention into formal and non-formal education and early development opportunities for children; (2) enhanced delivery of quality of educational services and learning environments for girls and boys that ensure relevant, equitable learning outcomes; and (3) strengthened governance and technical capacity of the Minister of Education and Higher Education in Lebanon in delivering gender-responsive quality education to girls and boys.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2022) include: (1) provided technical experts to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Education to develop frameworks, policies and standards. This would facilitate improved teaching quality and the learning environment for children; (2) developed and operationalized; a Teacher Training Curriculum Model (TTCM)based on a child-centred approach to teaching. It includes particular attention to gender, inclusion, child protection, and gender-based violence. Also got 17,839 teachers trained on TTCM, and 75% of them indicated an improvement in learning and a positive impact on teaching practices and behaviour in the classroom. Through the project, they developed a teacher training module on gender and created a pool of six master trainers to train teachers in the future; (3) developed and rolled out a child protection policy for the education sector in 485 schools. The project facilitated the training of 2,960 counsellors and education personnel to build a child-friendly learning environment and respond to child protection and gender-based violence cases. As a result, they followed up on all reported violence involving students; (4) piloted an inclusive education programme in 30 public schools, providing special educators, equipment, and services to help integrate children with disabilities into formal education. The project facilitated the development of a comprehensive approach to include children with disabilities in non-formal education and trained implementing partners to identify and support children with disabilities. This enabled them to organize 132 community awareness initiatives and online campaigns, reaching 250,000 people. It also referred 73% of the identified children with disabilities to appropriate services and provided 8,705 children with disabilities to access education opportunities; and (5) informed policy design and decision-making in the education sector from thematic assessments. This includes a legal analysis of the rights of people with disabilities and a case study of the Inclusive Education Pilot to inform the design of an Inclusive Education Policy.

• Proactive disclosure