Working in Nepal since 1979, World Education has developed a toolbox of effective curricula and approaches. These have been implemented in several of World Education’s projects with proven results.
Girls’ Access to Education (GATE) Program
In 1998, World Education began the Girls’ Access to Education (GATE) Program by developing a nine-month literacy curriculum that integrates adolescent health and girls’ empowerment information with literacy training. Girls learn how to read, write, and do basic mathematics while also covering topics in health and sanitation, reproductive health, nutrition, environmental health, adolescent psychology, population and health, and girls’ empowerment. GATE participants receive personal journals at the beginning of the class, which encourages them to use, practice, and maintain their new skills. At the conclusion of the nine-month class, World Education provides each class with a Tin Trunk Library to encourage girls to continue their learning. Out-of-school girls who participate in non-formal education programs like GATE achieve a basic primary education. This is an extraordinary and life-changing accomplishment for a low-status, illiterate girl, and many GATE graduates re-enroll into the formal school system or participate in vocational or practical skills training to continue their education. Recently, the GATE Program has also developed practical vocational training alternatives for girls who graduate from GATE, but who choose not to enroll in school.
Self-employment Economic Education Program (SEEP)
SEEP helps youth combine self-employment and economic education through ‘discovery learning’ that helps them to acquire the knowledge and develop the skills they need to be self-employed. The program is most suited to young people that need to create a job in areas with few employment options. The SEEP program includes business literacy and economic education; training in relevant practical skills; and access to microfinance. In business literacy, youth develop the literacy and numeracy skills needed for managing a business and learn to develop business and marketing plans. They then develop practical skills for a viable business through the guidance of local experts, parents, or NGO partners. Finally, program participants are encouraged to form small solidarity groups and start saving money in addition to the education they receive about savings and managing credit. In this way, they are able to access start-up capital and resources to help them get their businesses started, and later, help them expand. In order to sustain these new businesses, NGO partners and members of the Class Management Committee commit to mentoring youth from the program for six months after graduation. This program is a component of the Human Liberty Initiative, Opportunity Schools, and NBNP programs.
Health Education and Adult Literacy (HEAL)
Drawing on experience from the Swastya Chautary project, the HEAL curriculum aims to improve women’s health knowledge and behavior by simultaneously providing them with literacy skills during a nine-month class. The HEAL curriculum includes three books: Health Literacy; Guiding Light; and Health Education Series. These books are used raise awareness about maternal, child, and infant health; reproductive health and family planning; and basic sanitation and hygiene. HEAL was used in the Nepal Family Health Program (NFHP).
Women’s Economic Empowerment and Literacy (WEEL)
The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Literacy program is designed to integrate literacy education with concepts of savings and credit group formation for women, leading to improvements in women’s livelihoods. This curriculum was developed for the program of the same name, conducted in 1994 with support from the Ford Foundation. Since then, WEEL has been used as a curriculum in a variety ofprojects. WEEL has four phases: basic literacy, post literacy, continuing education, and livelihood training. The program helps women strengthen their literacy, numeracy, and analytic skills and gain knowledge about starting and maintaining savings and credit groups as they progress through the first three phases of the program. In the fourth phase, the program focus is on helping women consider choices that can improve their livelihoods.
Jeevan Shiksha
The Jeevan Shiksha curriculum is designed for youth aged 12-18 and helps to enroll them in school. The whole curriculum is designed in three parts: basic; intermediate; and advanced. The curriculum is divided into 25 modules total, and is best used in a learning center environment with mixed level groups. Learners select the modules they need to learn based on their literacy level. The basic level modules are designed for more illiterate learners; intermediate modules target newly-literate or semi-literate students who can read and write well; and advanced modules are for those who have a higher literacy level, equivalent to grades 4-5. Other topics in the modules address life issues such as the importance of family, adolescence, peer pressure, job skills, self-employment, health, substance abuse, managing money, etc. Now modules are being produced to address subjects requested by learners, including basic and second-level English, Math and using a calculator, and career/life planning. Selected modules from the intermediate and advanced level focusing on Math and self-employment are being used by other vocational programs as well. The skills developed in this curriculum include literacy and numeracy, communication skills, analytical skills, problem solving skills, team work, and information collection.