School of Education

Long-term and residual impact of Link Community Development’s School Performance Review work in Malawi and Uganda

Link Education International has worked in Malawi since 2006 and in Uganda since 2000, in several districts and with a long-standing relationship with government partners and schools. In some districts, Link implemented projects in the past but no longer has operations. The aim of this work is to investigate the long-term impact of Link’s School Performance Review work in engaged schools and its residual impact in past schools across Malawi and Uganda. This project provides a unique opportunity to better understand how education policy and practice can best support sustainable social and economic development in low- income countries as well as gathering evidence that can support the delivery of Link’s programmes in Uganda and Malawi.

Fieldwork will consist mostly of focus groups and semi-structured conversations with teachers, students, school/community/district leaders and other key informants on the ground, as appropriate. The aim of this approach is to provide a research design that is (a) flexible enough to gather the particular characteristics of schools and interviewees’ profiles and (b) systematic enough to gather in-depth data from all schools around a guiding set of key questions.

This evaluation research is part of STEAR-2, the second phase of School Transformation Through Enriching Accountability and Resilience, a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded project to help strengthen education systems, empower local communities and ensure more children in deprived, rural areas get the education they deserve.