Maintaining Learning Continuity during School Closure: Community Health Volunteer Support for Marginalised Girls in Kenya. Paper 2 of the Learning Renewed Series

The COVID-19 pandemic has been intensely disruptive to education all around the world. With children in many countries continuing to face prolonged absences from the classroom, innovative solutions are needed to maintain education continuity, especially for the most vulnerable students. Such crises require solutions that go beyond the resources of the 'traditional' education workforce, with local communities and inputs from other sectors playing a potentially important role in ensuring continuity of learning. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Education Development Trust has sought to be highly responsive to the changing needs of educators, system leaders and partners around the world. In doing so, Education Development Trust has developed an evidence base from which new thinking has been developed, called 'Learning Renewed', which reimagines what more effective, equitable and resilient education systems might look like, and how they might better withstand future shocks. This report, the second in the Learning Renewed series, explores the solutions adopted by a team in Kenya, where the roles of community health volunteers (CHVs) have been redesigned to support continuity of learning for the vulnerable girls, and identifies key lessons which may prove valuable both during and beyond the current crisis. To do so, Education Development Trust commissioned a research study to explore, in detail, CHV activities during school closure. Data was collected remotely through surveys, diaries written by CHVs and interviews with stakeholders. The research covered CHVs operating in both rural Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) and urban areas. The research highlighted both many positive outcomes for girls and significant challenges. [Foreword is written by Tony McAleavy. For "Learning Renewed: A Safe Way to Reopen Schools in the Global South. Paper 1 of the Learning Renewed Series," see ED614318.]