Towards equal opportunities for all: empowering girls through partnerships in education

This document looks at education partnerships as a way of empowering girls and promoting equal opportunities. It discuses seven case studies from East Asia on programmes addressing the educational needs of girls, particularly those who are marginalised for economic, social or cultural reasons.

The report is divided into two sections; overcoming girls’ exploitation, and reaching marginalised girls. In the first section, studies include a programme in Indonesia, the ‘Trafficking In Children in South and South-East Asia’ (TICSA II). In the second section, the document looks at the ‘Alternative Learning Systems’ (ALS) for out-of-school youths and adults in the Philippines.

Lessons learned from the project in Indonesia include:

• the need to dedicate more resources to provide for psychosocial and other support needs of beneficiaries
• the need to provide more supplementary assistance to beneficiaries at upper-primary and lower secondary levels

For the ALS programme in the Philippines, key lessons include:

• the programme could not have been successfully implemented without the active involvement of all education stakeholders in the community
• the rigorous monitoring and supervision is essential to ensure the quality of ALS programmes and their graduates