Evaluation of the project that promotes inclusive education for street connected children and/or children with disabilities in Kenya

Title NICE – Need for Inclusive Children Education
Location Sotto-contee di Dagoretti e Kibra (Contea di Nairobi); Sotto-contea di Kajiado North (Contea di Kajiado)
Duration 1 gennaio 2023 – 31 agosto 2026
Project leader AMANI Onlus
Partners  Cittadinanza Onlus, EducAID, Koinonia Community
Funding Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo -AICS

Context
In Kenya, the number of school-age children outside the education system is estimated at 1.4 million. However, according to UNICEF estimates, the lack of data on children with disabilities underestimates this number; when they are included, the number is expected to rise to approximately 3 million children outside the education system.
Street-connected children face extremely vulnerable conditions, including the absence of adult role models and stigmatisation from the community. The situation is even more problematic for children with disabilities, as there is a lack of reliable data on their actual numbers and information on their educational paths, as well as a shortage of adequate rehabilitation and assistance services, psychological support and/or financial support for their families.

Unfortunately, the education system does not offer effective solutions to meet their needs, due to both structural deficiencies and a lack of inclusive teaching methodologies.
School facilities often present architectural barriers, teachers lack methodological knowledge of inclusive teaching and must cope with overcrowded classrooms. Furthermore, coordination between rehabilitation and educational services is weak, and in many cases, children who are not considered self-sufficient in terms of hygiene and self-care are often denied enrolment in school.
In this complex scenario, the NICE – Need for Inclusive Children Education project aims to promote inclusive education in the peri-urban neighbourhoods of Nairobi, ensuring greater access to education for the most vulnerable children in the areas of intervention. The project operates in the counties of Nairobi and Kajiado and is structured around three main areas of action: 1) street-connected children and their families; 2) children with disabilities and their families; 3) schools and teachers.

General Objective
The M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit has been involved to carry out the mid-term and final project evaluations in order to understand the results triggered by the project compared to the initial planning, verify the RBM approach of the entire intervention, and define the degree of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the initiative through the collection of primary data.

Our contribution
For the mid-term and final evaluations, ARCO’s research team developed a methodological framework that adopts a participatory approach, based on the Result-Based Management (RBM) system applied during the design of NICE, on the Capability Approach and on a gender- and disability-sensitive approach.
The RBM approach allows to verify the relevance and level of achievement of the expected results indicators, as well as to examine the causal logic – inputs used > activities carried out > outputs produced > results achieved > impact – for each area of intervention: (i) street-connected children and their families, (ii) children with disabilities and their families, and (iii) schools and teaching staff.

The Capability Approach, developed by Amartya Sen, focuses on the expansion of individual opportunities, regarded as a crucial aspect in measuring the impact of an intervention, and it is based on the concepts of capabilities and functionings. Capabilities are the abilities, that is, the opportunities a person has to achieve the functionings they consider important. Functionings are what the person actually achieves. Within this framework, 18 capabilities were identified and grouped into seven macro-dimensions of well-being. For each of them, the level of access for each capability was analysed, distinguishing between before and after the NICE intervention implemented by the participants.
Furthermore, the evaluation applies a disability-sensitive approach: grounded in respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, it recognises diversity as an integral part of the human condition. This perspective emphasizes that, before disability, there is the human being as such, with their own dreams, desires, expectations and preferences.