Miske Witt and Associates Inc.

Fourteen-year-old Sekelaga from Tanzania is the third of four children in a very rural area. She says that she lacked confidence and attended school just to please her parents.  After participating in PTLA and ITSPLEY activities, she reported, "Now I can speak loudly and confidently, and I can talk with the government leaders who visit us."  Sekelaga became leader of the local youth parliament; she now aspires to be the leader of the national parliament.

 

In December 2011, Miske Witt & Associates completed an eight-country evaluation of two innovative, USAID-funded girls' education and leadership initiatives. The comprehensive evaluation, which took place over four months in 2011, examined the impact of two three-year initiatives launched by CARE USA: The Power to Lead Alliance (PTLA) and Innovation through Sport: Promoting Leaders, Empowering Youth (ITSPLEY). Sekelaga's story is just one of the many success stories the evaluators heard during the six weeks of data collection.

 

According to findings from the Miske Witt & Associates evaluation, the PTLA program has helped almost 40,000 girls in Egypt, Honduras, India, Malawi, Tanzania, and Yemen. Girls learn to express their opinions and take leadership roles in their communities. Families and communities are more supportive of girls. And importantly for sustainability, local policies and structures are being changed in ways that show greater acceptance of girls' rights.

 

The evaluation also showed that the ITSPLEY program, which began a year later in 2009, has touched the lives of over 100,000 children and youth leaders in Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, and Tanzania. Through ITSPLEY, boys and girls developed and practiced leadership skills through sport-based activities. They also learned life skills, developed social networks, participated in public events, and engaged in peer-to-peer learning. Additionally, institutional capacity was built through the 'Marketplace Model,' an innovative knowledge exchange network that enabled organizations within countries to share experiences and help each other leverage resources.

 

Miske Witt & Associates presented their findings to USAID in early 2012. Using a utilization-focused evaluation approach, Miske Witt & Associates successfully highlighted key programming opportunities and challenges. Among the overall findings:

 

• Both PTLA and ITSPLEY help girls assume leadership roles and work toward previously unattainable dreams and goals.
• The empowerment of girls leads to more inclusive and healthier communities.
• Boys also benefit from an expansion of this type of programming.

 

The evaluation, which involved seven country coordinators heading five-member teams, also was designed to answer CARE USA's questions around the usefulness of their Gender Empowerment Framework. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data involving random site visits, Miske Witt & Associates found CARE USA's Gender Empowerment Framework to be a powerful tool for program design, implementation, and evaluation.

 

Through providing evaluation expertise and other activities, Miske Witt & Associates appreciates the opportunity to partner with organizations such as CARE USA to show programs such as PTLA and ITSPLEY hold important promise for the world's youth. Too many girls - and boys - still face uncertain futures despite increased enrollment in education. Activities such as CARE and its local NGO partners carried out give youth the skills and competencies they need to function in a global economy and to build peaceful, opportunity-rich communities and nations.

Partnering with UNICEF's Education Office in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Consultants Nancy Clair, Ed.D., and Kate McCleary, M.Ed. conducted a three-day workshop on the five dimensions* of Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) and setting CFS standards and indicators.  For the past five years Turkmenistan has been piloting the CFS program in twenty-six schools throughout the velayats (regions) of the country.  Twenty-eight participants from across the country gathered in Ashgabat October 20-22, 2011 to partake in the workshop.  Representatives from the Ministry of Education, National Institute of Education, regional representatives, and school directors all discussed the important next steps in setting CFS standards and indicators for the country.

Over the course of the three days participants deepened their knowledge of the CFS dimensions, and broadened the scope of how to write standards and indicators for evaluation and assessment of their CFS pilot schools.  At the conclusion of the workshop, Ministry of Education Officials and other key participants put into place an action plan that will have a rough draft of their standards and indicators completed by November 2011,  a validation and feedback process to do from February-March 2012, a revised draft by May 2012, and a completed draft of standards and indicators relating to the five dimensions of Child-Friendly Schools by August 2012.  This ambitious plan is indicative of the hard work and dedication of Turkmenistan's education specialist and practitioners.  Clair and McCleary feel honored to have worked with such great teams of people within UNICEF's Education Office and Turkmenistan's Ministry of Education and National Institute of Education.

*The five dimensions of Child-Friendly Schools include: Inclusiveness, Democratic Participation, Teaching and Learning Effectiveness, Health and Safety, and Gender Responsiveness.

MWAI consultant Chris Johnstone recently traveled to Turkmenistan in a preliminary visit to setting Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) standards. The purpose of the visit was to observe classrooms, meet with school leaders, and confer with Ministry of Education officials on the feasibility and contextualized nature of CFS standards in Turkmenistan. The visit was sponsored by UNICEF Turkmenistan. Activities included school meetings in Ashgabat and school visits in Magtymguly and Balkanabad.

From October 4 to 8, 2011, two Miske Witt consultants, Anne Katz and Katherine Ramage, conducted a workshop in Pristina, Kosovo on developing Child-Friendly Schools dimensions and standards for improving educational quality in Kosovo. The 30 educators who participated in the workshop under the auspices of the UNICEF Kosovo Country Office represented a range of sectors, including the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; the Pedagogical Institute in charge of teacher training and development; teachers; municipal inspectors; and school directors from several regions.

While Kosovo already has a set of standards and curriculum frameworks, education stakeholders view the drafting of Child-Friendly Schools standards as a means of focusing on the needs of Kosovar children as well as integrating and unifying existing educational documents.

By the end of the workshop, a working group of 16 from among workshop participants had written an action plan for developing CFS standards and had begun work on drafting CFS standards for Kosovo. By the end of 2011, the group intends to produce the first draft of the standards and plans to complete a review and revision process by May 2012.  The group will then engage in a validation and feedback process to ensure the standards are representative and inclusive of all girls and boys in Kosovo.

 MWAI associates Dr. Christopher Johnstone and Dr. Sheryl Lazarus are completing a study of costs associated with Inclusive Education for UNICEF Serbia.  The two researchers visited Serbia May 9 - 13, 2011 to conduct site visits and to participate in a series of education costing discussions with UNICEF and with local and international consultants.  Currently Johnstone and Lazarus are analyzing the Serbian data to calculate costs for municipalities.  The report will be completed in September and presented in Moscow at a UNICEF-sponsored conference on Inclusive Education.

MISSION

MWAI works to chart a path to improve quality and enhance gender equity in education internationally.  Our commitment is to work collaboratively with teachers and education stakeholders to create the best education possible for every girl and every boy.

VISION

Through our work in education internationally, to realize a world where girls and boys, women and men  learn through education to treat one another fairly and with respect.

VALUES

Integrity

Excellence

Collaboration and Empowerment

Learning

Research and Evaluation

Transparency and Accountability

Social Justice

Through the continued partnership between Miske Witt and Associates Inc. (MWAI), the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), and CARE International, impressive gains are being made to improve the lives of the most marginalized girls in eight countries around the world.  These partners are working in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Malawi, Mali, and Tanzania to identify specific barriers to girls' education, and have been working tirelessly to design research questions and measure their interventions.  After uniting in Minnesota in November, 2009 for a six-day workshop, staff from each CARE office identified both short- and long-term outcomes for their country-specific interventions.  In addition, three common themes emerged across the eight countries as areas to focus on to improve girls' education:

1. Child-centered pedagogy
2. Girls' workload/completion
3. Girls' self-esteem or self-confidence

Currently, CARE staff from each of the PCTFI countries are being trained to measure these three themes using standardized, high quality research tools.  Mark Lynd Ed.D., of MWAI, Project Co-PI Chris Johnstone, and Research Fellow Nancy Pellowski Wiger traveled to Bamako, Mali in May to lead a 5-day workshop on the CARE common quantitative and qualitative items.  Twenty country office staff from both CARE Mali and CARE Tanzania attended the workshop.  The CARE team in Mali has been working for the past five years to improve access and quality of non-formal education programs that provide youth with both academic and vocational skills.  The CED schools include a four-year economic opportunity program that focuses on teaching skills such as fabric dying, paper making, and tailoring.  The SSA is a one-year "second chance" program to help students improve their academic skills, thus enabling them to return to formal schooling.

MWAI consultants have been very busy in the Central Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States region over the last few months, continuing the Quality Basic Education/Child-Friendly Schools (QBE/CFS) Standards Development project in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.  In March of 2010, a "Field Guide Manual", highlighting the country-level protocols for interviews, meetings, school visits, and materials collection, was shared with staff from each country office.  In addition, MWAI consultants Nils Kauffman, Anne Katz, Nancy Clair, and Shirley Miske conducted country-level field visits from March 15 - May 1, 2010.  During these visits, MWAI consultants worked with country office staff to develop an understanding of QBE/CFS standards, ways to monitor progress towards these standards, and opportunities to integrate the QBE/CFS principles into national standards.  Subsequently, Deepa Patel (MPP Berkeley, CA) and Senior Consultant Nancy Clair drafted a conceptual framework for standards development for the region.  Currently, the MWAI team is developing a roadmap of possible pathways and national strategies for furthering the development of QBE/CFS standards in each country.

In an effort to strengthen the educational system capacity for child-friendly schools in Macedonia, MWAI is continuing its partnership with UNICEF to enhance the teaching of literacy and mathematics.  In 2009, MWAI experts (using mathematics and literacy training materials) conducted workshops with Grade 1-3 teachers and advisors from the Bureau for the Development of Education (see entries on March 5, 2009 and June 15, 2009).  Upon completion of two MWAI trainings, these participants began training teachers in their own schools in the use of child-friendly strategies.   MWAI consultants Judy Rohde, Marium Toure, and Mary Ellen Knappmiller returned to Macedonia for a three-day mathematics workshop (May 25 - May 28, 2010) to provide additional support and strengthen the skills of the original participants.  During this workshop, participant trainers learned to use the Fidelity Tool instrument and are now equipped to support their own instruction and lesson development and to conduct peer observations with other teachers.  In addition, participants had the opportunity to share their successes and challenges in using the new strategies, to receive feedback and learn from other professionals in the field.  The MWAI literacy training in Macedonia is scheduled for August of 2010.

MWAI President Shirley Miske addressed the 2010 graduating class of Concordia University-St. Paul, MN Friday evening, May 14, 2010.  She addressed graduates of the Colleges of Arts & Sciences, Education, and Vocation & Ministry.  Click the link to read the text of Dr. Miske's speech, "Making a Difference".