Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises (ENGINE)

The ENGINE project supported 21,162 girls and was implemented by Mercy Corps Nigeria in Nigeria.

The project targeted girls that were marginalised due to barriers such as a lack of access to quality education due to their location or insecurity and their social and/or economic status. The project found that poverty was the main driver of marginalisation from education. Other barriers to learning were poor teaching quality, a lack of school governance and community support for education and poor school facilities such as no drinking water and poor sanitation facilities.

The project worked with communities and the public and private sectors. It worked with government schools to improve the quality of teaching and to provide additional literacy and numeracy support to girls. Out-of-school girls were given educational opportunities through flexible learning with tailored modules in government centres or ENGINE learning spaces. ENGINE also worked with government centres to provide better access to childcare. Girls were equipped with life skills, asset-building skills and income-generation skills. They were supported to set up their own micro-businesses, through help to obtain government ID registration and bank accounts, enabling access to capital.

Main activities

• Establishing 522 learning centres used for training and academic support.
• Providing business, skills training and employment preparation for older out-of-school girls which included vocational training and support to set up their own businesses as micro-retailers.
• Training Master Trainers and Community Centre Facilitators in subject-specific and learning-centred methodologies.
• Building institutional capacity to strengthen education provision in government schools and centres.
• Securing the adoption of child and vulnerable adult (CVAP) protection policies at the state, community and school level.
• Contributing to the adoption of a Code of Conduct that provides guidelines for the behaviour of teachers and students. This Code has been adopted for use in schools in the FCT, Kaduna and Kano. A code of conduct for use in non-formal education centres has been adopted at the federal level.

The project in numbers

Lessons learned

Teacher learning circles work better in small groups with teachers from nearby schools. Initially the project implemented large cluster meetings of teachers but switched to smaller groups. These were preferred by teachers as they were able to exchange ideas more freely, and it allowed for individual challenges to be discussed and acted on more easily.

The most marginalised girls will often prioritise income generation over learning. Many girls needed to earn an income and look after their families. In several cases girls prioritised skills for income generation, and when the learning component was first, girls sometimes got demotivated. Therefore, it was more effective to run both components (the learning and the skills components) concomitantly.

Having a clear and accessible pathway for skills training is important. At the design stage, it was important that realistic pathways were mapped out for girls and that linkages were made with Vocational training Institutes (VTIs) or master tradespeople from the outset. It was also important that any other barriers to accessing VTIs or skills training were mapped out, mitigated and sufficiently resourced.

Teacher professional development with a strong focus on a learner-centred pedagogy, combined with subject matter competency should be provided. Low levels of subject matter competency amongst teachers is an issue in many Nigerian schools. An analysis of teachers’ subject knowledge and knowledge of subject-specific methodologies allows for tailored teacher professional development.

Mercy Corps: https://www.mercycorps.org.uk/