Education is Power Project Recommendations
FGD and KIIs confirm that students feel that their academic achievement, and motivation and interest to learn will be sustained. Students rated which elements of the EIP project they felt were most likely to be sustained.
Figure
13: EIP Program Impact Sustainability
Overall, while students reported being skeptical about outside family and / or community support may or may not last, they felt their grades and motivation to learn would remain. Very few students thought their academic confidence, self-esteem, time management and study habits would remain. This indicates that these factors that we would consider internal, are potentially linked to external factors, for example, what they receive from The Sonder Project; while the knowledge they gain is something they perceive as internal. Looking at these results in tandem with the students’ ratings of the top three most important types of support they receive( financial, school attire, and stationery), and knowledge of how important school uniform and supplies are in Malawian schools and with peers, there appears to be a connection between school-related self-esteem and access to school fees, attire, and materials.
Parents seemed positive about some benefits from the EIP project being sustained if it ended, with one parent saying“ Without Sonder, some may drop. But others might be inspired to continue.” Another parent compared the EIP project with other projects they’ d seen in the past, saying,“ This one is more sustainable because it focuses on long-term development through education. Other projects may come and go, but education is something that sticks with the children for a lifetime.”
While there this evaluation articulates the hugely positive impacts of the EIP project, there remain a few recommendations for improvement going forward:
1. Develop handbooks and hold quarterly parental check-ins to make clear to parents / guardians exactly what they can expect from the EIP program( especially the requirements for their students to remain in the program), what they should not expect of the program / The Sonder Project( that Sonder supports students academically, but does not bear the entire burden of supporting a student’ s education), and specifically what their role will be( including financially) during their students’ tenure in the program.
2. Incentivize male and female students differently. The Sonder Project can leverage the fact that motivating factors that lead to improved academic performance can be very different between male and female students, and can tailor programming to be more attuned to those differences.
32