Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Plan International, a local NGO, has set rolling an initiative that will see thousands of school dropouts from disadvantaged backgrounds getting assistance to get education again.
Called Second Chance, the initiative is at a planning stage and will involve mainly children from the peri-urban area of Epworth where many dropouts have gone on into unhealthy practices that include prostitution and drug abuse.
According to Plan Zimbabwe second chance is an accelerated learning model that helps out of school children ‘catch up’ in school by providing them an integrated package of academic skills, and case management support.
“They are currently hundreds of such children who may be orphaned, HIV positive, or disabled as well as those who come from poor families, child-headed households, or who live on the streets and cannot afford to go to school”.
“Second Chance places emphasis on girls and prioritises child protection, gender, HIV and AIDS, and disability issues”.
Recent statistics indicate that approximately 30% of Zimbabwean children do not complete primary school education, and only 68% graduate to secondary school.
In response, in 2009, World Education developed and piloted a Second Chance Education programme for out of school children in Zimbabwe to receive primary education and reintegrate into formal school.
In 2012, building on the results of the pilot, and in support of the Government of Zimbabwe’s goal of Education for All, Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) in partnership with UNICEF, USAID, the Education Development Fund also initiated an in-school Zimbabwe accelerated learning programme (ZALP).
To date the program is being implemented in very few centres due to financial challenges.
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