Scaling a youth-led social support and mentorship program to improve education quality for marginalized girls in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

The primary objective of this research was to understand government perspectives on how they can adopt and sustainably scale up relevant elements of the Learner Guide Programme in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This would have the potential to enable greater access to quality education for marginalised girls in underserved communities in these countries. This overview presents the design and methodology of the research. It then provides a synthesis of why the Learner Guide Programme is viewed by government officials as relevant to Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This synthesis draws on the country briefs for each country, which present country-specific findings in more detail. The overview offers key findings relevant for the scaling up process of the Learner Guide Programme across all three countries.

This policy brief is based on our research that set out to identify the following: 1) The perspectives of the Tanzanian government towards the potential for scaling up the Learner Guide Programme, 2) The key elements considered to be most feasible and appropriate to adapt and adopt, and 3) How scaling up might be achieved. The analysis presented in this policy brief is based on fifteen interviews with Tanzanian government officials who were SAC members, three observations of in-country meeting discussions amongst SAC members, and three visits to schools implementing the Learner Guide Programme by SAC members to observe CAMFED’s Learner Guide Programme in action. All data has been fully anonymised and the authors have not included the job role or gender of the speakers to ensure anonymity is protected.

Operating in Zambia since 2001, CAMFED’s Learner Guide Programme launched in 2018 with the aim of supporting girls in secondary school to strengthen self-development and foundational learning skills, thus encouraging them to stay in school and improve their learning outcomes. This policy brief is based on our research that set out to identify the following: 1) The perspectives of the Zambian government towards the potential for scaling up the Learner Guide Programme, 2) The key elements considered to be most feasible and appropriate to adapt and adopt, and 3) How scaling up might be achieved.