Theatre for a Change’s Tiphunzire Project - Midline Report

“Tiphunzire has successfully designed and implemented an intervention that positively affected the lives of marginalized girls in rural Malawi.”

This is a midline evaluation report of the Tiphunzire! (Let’s learn!) project, an intervention in Malawi that is designed to improve the access, retention, and learning outcomes of marginalised girls in 225 primary schools in rural and peri-urban areas. Launched in 2013, the project is being implemented by Theatre for a Change TfaC) with funding from the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) Girls Education Challenge (GEC). The objective of the midpoint evaluation was to obtain “rigorous evidence to inform a review of its impact, relevance, effectiveness, value-for-money and sustainability.” It also sought to understand the key implementation and contextual barriers to improving the learning of marginalised girls in the intervention schools. The report gives a detailed description of the project, explains the methodology used in the study, describes the main findings, and offers recommendations for the way forward.

As explained in the report, the Tiphunzire! programme involves the training of over 360 female teachers in specialised skills to meet the needs of marginalised girls and to engage others in the school and the wider community in the promotion of girls’ education. These teaches, known as “Agents of Change” (AoCs), organise weekly afternoon Girl Clubs for both in-school and out-of-school girls. Participants engage in interactive group activities to build self-confidence, engage in role-playing games to address real life situations, and participate in exercises to boost literacy and numeracy skills. AoCs also support their fellow staff and school authorities in the adoption of Child Protection Policy (CPP) and age-friendly and gender-sensitive teaching methods. Tiphunzire also organises outreach activities with schools and communities and has developed strategic partnerships with local government and civic society organisations through their intervention model. Tiphunzire operates in 10 of the 28 districts of Malawi.

For the evaluation, data was gathered at baseline in 2013 and at midline in May/June 2015 using the Malawi Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA)(which measures abilities such as syllable reading fluency, familiar word fluency, nonsense word reading fluency, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension, as well as number identification, number discrimination, pattern completion, word problems, addition problems, and subtraction problems) for a cohort of 827 marginalised girls across 72 primary schools. Attendance data was gathered from attendance registries made available to the data collection team at participating schools. The evaluation also relied on the administration of the semi-structured questionnaires, a household survey and ad-hoc questionnaires, key informant interviews and focus group discussions in the appraisal of project outcomes, benchmarks, and recommendations.

The following is a brief outline of some of the key findings from the research (as outlined in the conclusion of the document):

• Findings show that an increase in points in the EGRA test can be attributed to the activities of Tiphunzire. The project, however, did not find visible impact on the numeracy of both in-school and out-of-school girls or attendance of in-school girls.

• The results showed an important impact of the project in encouraging out-of-school girls to re-enrol in school. Sampling from within Tiphunzire’s Girls’ Clubs found that 92% of the out-of-school girls in the sample successfully re-enrolled in school.

• From the study’s data, it is possible to tell that sexual activity and marriage are becoming increasingly unrelated and rates of sexual initiation during early teenage years are high among in-school girls and even higher for out-of-school girls. Although sexual activity does not necessarily result in lower learning scores, it does affect a girl’s school attendance. The same can be said for mothers, married girls, and girls who have been pregnant. “Given that a higher attendance leads to higher learning, the intervention's focus of improving the knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and rights has been legitimized according to multiple analyses.”

• The emphasis of the project on improving the self-esteem and academic self-efficacy was also affirmed, as the relationship between these psychological traits and learning outcomes, attendance, and healthy sexual and reproductive health (SRH) choices was clearly established in the study. The report speculates that, "perhaps as a result, Tiphunzire participants are significantly less sexually active than their control counterparts."

• The results also highlight the barriers to achieving better learning and improving the chances of being in school. As stated in the report, “According to the data, education is still a burden for the poorest households, which affects the chances for a girl to attend school. This is especially true when positive attitudes towards education and the rights of women are not present in parents and caregivers. AoCs manifested that traditional authorities are an especially useful mechanism in encouraging parents to send their daughters to school, as village heads are quick to encourage them to do so. Given that midline results fell short of planned targets in most parental domains, we consider this to be a particularly important finding. TfaC has by now designed implementation strategies to better engage communities in their support of girls' education as this may cause the greatest impact for girls belonging to the poorest households.”