Mid-term Assessment for the Strengthening Children’s Rights II project

Background

Strengthening Children’s Rights project, phase two, has since 2014 worked to improve the situation for dormitory children in Khovd and Bayan-Ulgii provinces. Children’s rights related to protection, participation, leisure time and health are particularly addressed.

Purpose/objective

This Mid-term evaluation aimed to identify achievements made since 2014, to assess the current project status according to its objectives as well as propose recommendations for the last part of the project period with a particular focus on phase-out and sustainability.

Methodology

A combination of qualitative and quantitative evaluation tools was applied.  A needs assessment report from 2012 and a dormitory assessment report from 2013 provided baseline information related to the project indicators. The same questionnaires utilized for the previous assessments were used to discover any changes in the dormitories. Other tools used were an observation checklist, mini surveys among dormitory staff and dormitory children's board members, interviews, and focus group discussions.

Key findings

The project is on track with promising results. Improved knowledge and skills within child rights and child protection have brought positive outcomes, such as less children afraid, less bullying and corporal punishment, and children having less headache and stomach ache.  The physical dormitory conditions have improved in Khovd province. The services from school doctors and cooks are improved in most dormitories. Dormitory children's participation is enhanced through the establishment of development room, dormitory children's boards and organized leisure time activities. Parental involvement is improved as a result of Parent's Day and guest rooms for visiting parents.  Many resources for training, self-assessments and monitoring and evaluation are developed.

As a result of advocacy work, the Dormitory Teachers Journal was approved by the Ministry of Education as a statutory document nationwide in 2016. The Province Education and Culture Department in Khovd shows a good example of productive and effective partnership with strong prospects for sustainability.  The gradual increase of sharing costs by project stakeholders leads to local ownership and efficiency. Steering Committees are well-functioning and ensure the proper and effective use of project funds.

Although there are many achievements to acknowledge, there is room for improvements. Trainings should be continued to cover all people involved with dormitory children.  More attention is needed on six-year-old children. Parents’ cooperation and support of their children in the dormitories should be extended. The cases of child abuse, neglect and corruption in school dormitories should be taken seriously.  Upscaling the project's advocacy work at local and national level is strongly advised for promoting smooth phase-out process and ensure the sustainability of all project activities.

Recommendations

• Develop a self-learning training package for new employees in dormitories and cooperate with the Province Education Department to make this mandatory.
• Develop a guideline for dormitory teachers on supporting Parents’ Councils and maintaining guest rooms for parents.
• Develop best practice case stories and distribute to all targeted dormitories to promote the exchange of knowledge, skills and practices.
• Conduct a small scale research on the reasons why many six-year-old children could not stay in a dormitory for an entire school year to identify the possible solutions to this problem.
• Prepare a proposal to discuss at a steering committee meeting about corrupt financial management practice with external contractors and the cases of violation of code of conduct at the dormitories for urgent solutions. 
• Develop an advocacy strategy on improving the cross organizational collaboration on national level and sign a MoU with the Ministry of Education. Promote a model dormitory for spreading its best practices nationwide; appoint dormitory specialists at all Province Education Departments; align the project initiatives  with a new project on dormitory enhancement in other western provinces with Mongolian funding and piloted by the Ministry of Education; support dormitory teachers and staff to establish their professional association to advocate for their rights and status; and make statutory the project supported documents such as Dormitory Assessment Tool, Child Rights Training packages and Step by Step training module.

Comments from the organisation

In general, the report is very positive and we believe it presents a correct overview of the project. When analyzing some of the diagrams presented in the findings section, however, we see that some of the positive conclusions are too positive, and that the actual situation is more complex and differs more between the two target provinces than highlighted. We fully support the recommendations in the report, which are specific, manageable, and important to further strengthen the long-term impact of the project. NLM will try to make other projects learn from this project’s way of working with advocacy towards the local government, which has been very successful both on local and national levels.