Impact
USAID and RTI through their activity Progresa con Educación are partnering with the Ministry of Education, schools, teachers, students, families, and other community stakeholders to create shared solutions to improve education outcomes.
Objective
Address complex, foundational, and societal issues in the public education system by introducing new governance practices, supporting safer learning environments, and improving student participation and outcomes in learning opportunities relevant to their needs.
Approach
System-level change will promote positive behavior change at the institutional, societal, individual, and community levels. Community leaders and stakeholders will have input at all stages, and Progresa con Educación will build the capacity of local partners and actors to deliver day-to-day activities.
Impact
A supportive and safe learning environment for over 300,000 students, in grades 6–9, will result in higher attendance and improvement to the quality of education, thereby laying the foundation for secure employment and steady incomes, and mitigating primary drivers of irregular migration.
Education and Youth in Crisis
Numerous societal, environmental, and economic conditions have led to an erosion of the education system in Honduras.
Attendance in public schools has not bounced back after COVID-19 and hurricane- related closures, along with threats of violence to teachers and school administrators from local gangs, and the lure of gang participation for schoolchildren in the absence of other opportunities. In addition, corruption and institutional power struggles, low capacity and budget for supporting and retaining teachers, and the perception among parents that schooling does not have a high return on investment, have contributed to a decline in education outcomes.
Finding Solutions with Broad Community Involvement
To improve learning and education pathways and increase school safety, RTI is partnering with the Ministry of Education (MOE), USAID, key local and international partners, communities, youth, and other local stakeholders to achieve comprehensive system reform, driven by social change and accelerated by digital transformation.
Activities will:
- Address the interconnected drivers of low learning, insecurity, and migration holistically, by identifying social and behavioral patterns that underpin these complex phenomena in Progresa con Educación communities and to enact local solutions.
- Empower teachers, coaches, and administrators by promoting their relatedness, competence, and autonomy to deliver evidence-based instruction to meet the individual learning and social-emotional needs of students.
- Promote digital transformation by extending satellite-supported internet access to schools and communities, creating new open-source content, tools, and solutions, and increasing access to and use of data for decision making.
- Increase private sector engagement by co-identifying aligned interests and fostering broad-based movement for change based on shared value.
Building Local Capacity in Honduras
A core focus of Progresa con Educación is to build the capacity of local stakeholders within the education system—school officials, administrators, teachers, local government officials, and civil society actors—so that they take over leadership and delivery of project support.
The MOE, across multiple levels of governance, and other Honduran partners will play a leading role in designing locally appropriate activities that they will sustainably manage. As such they will be co-creators and co-implementers of project approaches and products, which will build their capacity to enact education system improvements beyond this project. Progresa con Educación’s capacity building activities will support these efforts in areas such as strengthening education data systems, using digital solutions, expanding early warning systems, strengthening referral pathways, and increasing system collaboration with civil society and private sector actors.
Learn more about our work in international education and in Honduras.
