Iraq News Now

PART ONE: FORMAL & NON- FORMAL EDUCATION

ACCELERATED LEARNING PROGRAMME

Offering an Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) to children affected by the conflict can see children who have missed out on 2 or more years of schooling catching up with their studies. The MoE has already established an Accelerated Learning Programme that is currently being delivered through its public education system. Additionally, the MoE has a fully endorsed ALP curriculum which is at printing stage. Partners implementing EiE activities are encouraged to tap into these resources and support learners to fully engage. Ideally any support to ALP should be directed through the MoE / DoE to avoid creating a parallel system.

Guidance to implement ALP

• Age group: Children to be considered for ALP should ideally be between the ages of 10 years and 18 years. ALP is not suitable for younger children, as it assumes a level of maturity and understanding to be able to accelerate quickly through the condensed curriculum.
• Learning space utilization: In areas of return, partners can use formal schools during an afternoon shift. If the school has more learning spaces available, classes can run concurrently with the normal primary school. In IDP sites, temporary learning spaces and child friendly spaces can also be utilized to deliver the ALP curriculum and arrangements can be made on which time of the day will be suitable to conduct the classes. Remember, this needs to be done collaboratively with DoE who are primarily responsible for implementation.
• Teachers: The MoE has specially trained teachers to deliver the ALP curriculum so it is important for partners to reach out to the DoE to ensure adequate teachers can be deployed to the ALP centres they wish to support.
• Curriculum: There is an Arabic and Kurdish ALP curriculum available. The Arabic ALP curriculum condenses 6 years of primary into 3 years while the Kurdish ALP Curriculum condenses 9 years into a 5 year programme. Additionally, Partners are encouraged to consider looking at the ALP materials developed by other agencies such as NRC and WCUK to supplement the materials provided by the MoE
• Textbooks: It is important to supplement the ALP curriculum with required reading materials. Partners must engage MoE/ DoE to ensure appropriate reading materials are procured/printed for the programme.
• Examinations: At the end of level 3, learners should be able to sit for the Primary 6 School Leaving Exam. At the end of level 1 and level 2 depending on the age of the children, there should be an option to transition back to formal primary if the age allows and partners should engage with MoE/ DoE to identify schools where children can enter and to assess readiness to reintegrate into regular schooling. A similar transition is also envisaged for children using the Kurdish ALP curriculum.
• Funding: As ALP is primarily run by the MoE/ DoE, partners should support the systems already in place. Ideally it would be good for partners to secure funding for longer term (1- 3 years) to support DoEs to implement. However, any funding to strengthen the system will be highly appreciated.