Preventing Child Early and Forced Marriage through Open Distance and Technology-based Education

This project builds on Canada’s advocacy and awareness-raising efforts to prevent child early and forced marriage (CEFM) and support already married girls in the selected Commonwealth countries. COL proposes to scale up its work to increase access to secondary education and skills training for girls/women in resource-poor contexts through open distance and technology-based learning (ODL) which helps create enabling conditions for their sustainable livelihoods. The project focuses its work in up to four Commonwealth countries (Bangladesh Mozambique Tanzania and Pakistan) which were selected based on the high percentage of women who were first married before the age of 18. Working with existing partners COL identifies priority communities with a high prevalence of CEFM and the skills needed to equip girls/women with education and skills training to enhance their livelihoods. Training is provided to partner institutions/organizations to strengthen systems identify appropriate technologies build staff capacity and provide quality content such as Open Education Resources (OER) to support the development of appropriate education and training courses. Simultaneously the process of sensitizing the community and recruiting girls/women to be educated or trained is completed. Girls/women enroll in two streams: a medium-term secondary schooling and short-term skills training.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access to safe quality gender sensitive open distance and technology-based learning (ODL) opportunities for girls/women in rural areas in selected countries; (2) increased equitable participation in quality ODL by disadvantaged girls/women in rural areas of selected countries; and (3) enhanced economic leadership and family decision-making for disadvantaged girls/women in rural areas of selected countries.