Accelerating Change for Children's and Youths' Education through Systems Strengthening (ACCESS)

Accelerating Change for Children’s and Youths’ Education for Systems Strengthening (ACCESS) is a 4-year research partnership between the University of Auckland, the Accelerated Education Working Group (AEWG) , and Dubai Cares٫

From March 2021 to March 2022, a team of six ACCESS researchers explored the gaps and opportunities for Accelerated Education Programmes (AEP) to meet the needs of overage out-ofschool children and youth (OOSCY) in five countries—Colombia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Uganda.

They spoke with key government officials, donors, implementing partners, UN agencies, civil society organisations, and others to understand:

• The need and demand for AEPs and/or other nonformal education [NFE] options
• What programmes currently exist to meet those needs
• How/by whom are AEPs funded, regulated, and implemented
• The degree to which AEPs meet learners’ and community needs in terms of availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability
• Opportunities and challenges for AEPs to be better institutionalised4 and offered at scale within national education systems

This think piece aims to synthesise some of the key findings from across the five countries thematically. In doing so, we use it as an opportunity to explore some of the working assumptions and hypotheses about both what quality accelerated education (AE) provision is, and how this might be best achieved. What is presented here does not represent the views of the AEWG or its constituent members, but rather that of the research team from the University of Auckland. The intention of this think piece is to promote discussion, dialogue and debate about how best to achieve systemic change for the tens of millions of overage and OOSCY globally—be it through AEPs or other NFE pathways.