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Girls' Education in Developing Countries Grant Guidelines

Understand guideline and funding cycles

MacArthur publishes program guidelines to help applicants determine whether their idea for a grant fits within a particular grantmaking strategy. 

As a general rule, applicants should base this decision on three related criteria that appear in program guidelines: the topical focus addressed by the grantmaking strategy; the geographic area covered by the grantmaking strategy; and, finally, the type of funding (i.e., general operating support, research, program support, etc.) that supports the grantmaking strategy.

Like most strategic grantmaking foundations, the MacArthur Foundation considers funding only those applications that closely match the topical, geographic, and funding criteria for a specific grantmaking strategy.

Overview

The Foundation supports efforts to improve girls’ access to quality, relevant secondary education in three countries: Uganda, Nigeria, and India where support complements other MacArthur investments in the areas of maternal and reproductive health, human rights, and conservation. MacArthur also supports projects at the international level through the Global Compact on Learning, an agenda for education in developing countries, and related efforts.

 

What MacArthur Funds

Our primary funding mechanism is a Call for Proposals with donor partners to strengthen innovation and practice in secondary education. 

In addition to funding currently awarded through the Call for Proposals, a very small number of grants are made independently of this process. Such grants respond to opportunities to leverage financial or in-kind support from donors, governments, and other actors. Organizations may apply for support for projects in Uganda, Nigeria, or India or related activities at the international level. The latter include efforts to improve policy and practice in secondary education and collaboration among stakeholders or to build the evidence base and generate momentum to provide quality, relevant learning opportunities for girls.

All girls’ secondary education grants align with the Foundation’s objectives of improving access to and the provision of quality, relevant secondary education opportunities for marginalized girls and the refinement of our strategic foci in this field. We fund three types of projects:

  • Research – including descriptive studies of the nature of problems and rigorous evaluations of promising programs that help build research capacity and an evidence base that informs programming, experimentation and policy planning.
     
  • Pilot projects testing innovations that positively affect girls’ learning and access to education through considering fresh and innovative solutions and re-thinking the content, instructional methods, delivery systems and partnerships common in secondary education.
  • Evidenced-based advocacy to strengthen national and sub-national secondary education policy development and implementation.

Organizations may apply for support for activities addressing a subset of critical areas, including:

Supporting transition to and retention in secondary education

  • Building community engagement and accountability for schooling
  • Emerging public-private  and public-faith based models for the delivery of education
  • Expanding access, retention and re-entry in formal and non-formal education for adolescent and pregnant teens
  • Building the knowledge base on the factors that drive the demand for secondary education

Innovative approaches to secondary education that seek to provide girls inside and outside the formal schooling system with real, measurable 21st Century skills that are relevant to life and labor markets. 

  • Integrating 21st Century skills into school curricula
  • Integrating sexual and reproductive health education into school curricula
  • Private sector provision and associated regulatory frameworks to improve access and relevance of learning
Use of education technologies and open educational resources that improve access and quality of learning in the face of growing demand for education and limited funds. 
  • Initiatives to address the cost-effectiveness of education delivery
  • Flexible, learner-centered models that address youth living in remote areas, working youth or adolescent mothers and pregnant teens
  • Strengthening information technology skills of teachers
Reforms to teaching in the formal classroom and non-formal equivalents that respond to high pupil teacher ratios, reduce teacher absenteeism, address gender and other gaps in the teaching force at secondary level and teachers’ influence on access, completion and overall achievement levels.  
  • Initiatives that encourage training and hiring of locally based teachers
  • Integrating active learning, critical thinking and problem solving in the classroom
  • Increasing content knowledge and specialization of secondary teachers in 21st Century skill areas

Geographic Focus Areas

Applicants may submit projects for consideration pursuant to the above outlined thematic areas of interest in:
  • Uganda (particularly the following regions: northern, northwestern, eastern—Mayuge District, and western—Kasese and Bundibugyo Districts)
  • Nigeria (particularly the states of Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa, Lagos and Rivers)
  • India (particularly the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra)

In each of these places, the Education for All and Millennium Development Goals campaigns have contributed to significant increases in enrolment levels in primary education and reduced gender inequality.  Despite these gains too few young people are completing primary school and transitioning to secondary school. Many students graduate without having mastered required levels of literacy and numeracy.   Girls are particularly disadvantaged in terms of education access, completion and learning.

Uganda

In Uganda, high cost of schooling contributes to drop out by both boys and girls, as do pregnancy, sexual harassment and early marriages specifically for girls. Government data indicate that one quarter of Uganda’s girls become pregnant before the age of 19. Projects of particular interest include those involving approaches at lower and upper secondary school level that expand access, retention, and reentry in formal and non-formal education for adolescent mothers and pregnant teens, and those integrating sexuality and reproductive health education into school curricula.

Nigeria

In Nigeria millions of children remain outside of the formal education system. Projects are encouraged that support efforts to improve girls’ access to junior secondary schooling (JSS), comprising the last three years of the Universal Basic Education Program, and quality of JSS learning. We have special interest in proposals addressing the integration of a formal academic curriculum into religious education, teacher assessment and management, or the delivery of JSS level education to out of school girls, including those who are pregnant, married or with children.

India

While projects that address the needs of disadvantaged rural, tribal and marginalized populations from throughout India will be considered, those based in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra are of particular interest. In these places and more widely in India, there is a shortage of qualified secondary school teachers, particularly women.  Projects addressing this gap and efforts that build upon synergies among population, reproductive health, and education or that support the Government of India’s plan on Secondary Education are also of interest.

Operational Guidelines

While knowledge is limited about best practices in secondary education in developing countries, particular approaches may hold promise. We encourage applicants to consider the following in project design:

  • Promoting increased local accountability for schooling through community mobilization and engagement with schools and the education process.
  •  Planning and implementing interventions in consort with local actors and educational authorities, such as local education ministries, professional associations, and civil society groups.
  • Inclusion in project design explicit monitoring designed to promote and document learning during and at the conclusion of project implementation.
  • Identification of specific pathways, actors and steps necessary for achieving desired outcomes and for scaling up educational interventions in a future project phase.
  • For non-formal education models, providing a bridge to formal schooling and/or accreditation of learning.
  • (Research projects) Research agenda closely tracks government educational policy goals, raises awareness of specific education system deficiencies, and/or provides feedback to policymakers and government budgetary cycles.
  • (Research projects) Leverages existing capacity in local universities and research centers to strengthen ongoing monitoring and evaluation of secondary education delivery.