Beyond Learning Outcomes:Empowering Out-of-School Adolescents

The Millennium Development Goals showed the world that a narrow focus on getting children to enroll in school does not translate to educational attainment nor does it prepare students to become empowered life-long learners.... [ view full abstract ]

The Millennium Development Goals showed the world that a narrow focus on getting children to enroll in school does not translate to educational attainment nor does it prepare students to become empowered life-long learners. With the MDGs, little focus was paid to out-of-school adolescents. The 2016 UNESCO report estimates that 60 million young adolescents of lower secondary school age (about 12 to 14), and 142 million youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17) were out of school in 2014. The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize on the intersectionality of education with all other sectors of development. SDG4 intentionalizes learning for all, including those who have missed out on education. CARE has conceptualized an adolescent empowerment model that builds upon Naila’s Kabeer’s operationalization of the concept of “empowerment” (1999) and more recently “girls’ empowerment”, to define it as the intersection of agency, structures, and social relations, to promote an enabling environment to sustain the gains at the agency level. The model emphasizes the acquisition of critical skills that move beyond the popular technical and vocational training for this target group, by focusing on triggering logical breakthroughs which in-turn promote adolescent resilience and create opportunities for informed choice, to facilitate the pursuit of individual aspirations for sustainable livelihoods. This paper will focus on the evidence of the impact of integrated education programs that link education to personal and life relevance, to trigger sustainable change at individual and societal levels. Focusing on out-of-school adolescents, our evidence tracks learning trends at multiple levels, identifying not only the acquisition of academic skills through standardized assessments but also the development of leadership skills, gender equitable attitudes, life skills and the evolution of the environment within the broader community, focusing on the enablement for future usage of knowledge and skills.