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NEF's gender-sensitive educational reform in remote Berber villages in the High Atlas Mountains greatly expanded with funding from the U.S. State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and made remarkable breakthroughs, particularly in such a short time. There are now about 2,000 students—more than half of them girls—in the 17 primary schools participating in the NEF program.
When NEF started two years ago, the majority of schools had no girls at all--typical of a country where less than half of the 2.5 million girls of primary school age attend, and when they do, the drop-out rate between grades one and six is 80 percent. In some villages, school enrollment leaped from zero to nearly half of all children. There has been a 30 percent increase in primary school graduations and a 40 percent increase in secondary school completions. Plus, there are 1,316 more adults—a 50 percent
increase—participating in NEF-organized Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs).
In addition to PTAs, NEF's wide-ranging strategy employs:
- Community education advisory committees supporting primary education;
- Adult education classes;
- Renovation of school facilities, including access to latrines and potable water;
- Increased community support for education in a wide range of ways, particularly the active involvement of women;
- Expanding the role of rural education, improving teaching/school administration;
- Comprehensive extra-curricular and summer school activities encouraging year-round learning;
- Collaboration with PTAs on income-generating projects capable of sustaining local support for primary education;
- Promotion of fuel-efficient cook stoves and baking ovens significantly decreasing time-consuming, laborious wood gathering by girls and women.
Very importantly, an evaluation conducted by the regional office of the Moroccan Ministry of Education determined that NEF's new approaches to teaching, administration, and educational supervision will be applied throughout the south of the country—in eight provinces where over five million people live. The CD of the evaluation was posted on their regional office website and sent to the highest level of the education ministry.
In yet another area of the country and an urban setting, NEF
is working on a local governance project southeast of Casablanca funded by USAID under an RTI subcontract. Given our expertise in urban development and participatory community programming, NEF is supporting slum upgrading, providing technical assistance, funding, and capacity-building for local community-based organizations and the Moroccan government.
CLICK HERE FOR A DETAILED PROGRAM OVERVIEW OF MOROCCO (ANNUAL REPORT 2005)
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