Because school success is tied directly to home and community involvement, we have designed a new participatory school development program. Local educators have been trained to facilitate community meetings on education quality to gather input from parents, teachers, students, and school leaders.
Starting with four local schools in the Lwala area, we have been conducting these stakeholder focus groups in order to understand and support the community’s own ideas of successful schools as well as goals for the future. Though it is slower to formulate programs this way, the process is essential as we aim to support good education as the community defines it rather than relying solely on our own ideas. Some of the ideas that have bubbled up directly from the community are water access, sanitation infrastructure, school uniforms, menstrual pads, and support for secondary and higher education school fees.
