Scaling up a life skills and mentorship programme led by young women in sub-Saharan Africa

Interviews with government officials suggest that the Learner Guide Programme aligns with their national priorities to improve equity in education, and the movement towards competence-based or learner-centred curricula. As such, they identified the value and contextual relevance of CAMFED’s Learner Guide Programme.

Government officials from all three countries identified three common areas of relevance including supporting:

• Equity within education 
• ‘Life skills’ to support learners after school 
• Guidance and counselling services 

Although the practicalities of scaling up the Learner Guide Programme vary between countries, there were two overarching priorities identified by government officials. The first was the integration of the life-skills component of the My Better World Programme. The second was the integration of the peer-to-peer and mentoring aspects of the Learner Guides into national school systems.  

Government officials identified that there remains a need for further consideration on how to scale up the programme in several areas: 

• Financial support to scale up the Learner Guide Programme
  • In the event that it is viable to run the programme in its current form at scale, then provision of training and support for the Learner Guides needs to be considered so that national education standards are formally met by the Learner Guides. 
  • If it is not financially viable, then the roles of the Learner Guides, teachers, and guidance and counselling teachers would need to be reconsidered for an adapted version of the programme with teachers potentially delivering the My Better World Content, and with guidance and counselling teachers providing the social support aspect. However, it is noted that this version would lose the peer-to-peer aspect provided by the Learner Guides.  
• How to integrate the My Better World programme into the national curricula formally, ensuring that there is no duplication between existing national curricular on life skills topics and how to overcome challenges of formally timetabling My Better World lessons in already overloaded school timetables. 

Government officials also identified additional ways to support the feasibility of scaling up the Learner Guide Programme, including: 

• A need to have continued and strategic advocacy to grow awareness of the Learner Guide Programme to provide opportunities for further engagement to enable scaling up. 
• Addressing the financial viability of the process of scaling up by: 
  • Leveraging relevant ministries beyond the ministry of education
  • Building on community funding models
  • Making use of existing volunteer support mechanisms.