Faced with the risk of dropping out of school, Aide et Action and its partner Plan International Benin are proposing the implementation of innovative and adapted monitoring tools to practice an inclusive educational strategy.
Supported in a consortium by Aide et Action and its partner Plan International in Benin, the AGIR project is developed in the Atacora and Atlantic departments with the objective of increasing and strengthening the access and maintenance of children at school. For this, monitoring tools based on appropriate and adapted methods are implemented.
Correspondence book, absence tracking sheets, violence monitoring sheets in schools, observation grid, etc., these innovative tools aim to help teachers to better monitor children and to practice an inclusive educational strategy in their class with a view to promote inclusion and give students confidence. All teachers involved in the project are of course trained on the objectives and use of the tools.
A correspondence book suitable for illiterate parents
The correspondence book is a basic document that serves as an exchange between parents of students and school officials. However, in the villages, this is not always understood since not all parents can read or write. To communicate effectively with them, the notebook is therefore adapted and contains illustrative colors (the green color confirms a good performance and the yellow color means that the performance is not good) to allow everyone – literate or illiterate – to follow their children’s performance level without difficulty. Based on the color identified by the teacher, the parent understands the level of skill acquisition of their child. If this is not satisfactory, then he is in a position to seek solutions to remedy it.
An absence tracking sheet to guarantee attendance
The absence tracking sheet is a tool that allows teachers to understand the causes of children’s absences in order to allow all school stakeholders to ensure their attendance. It is filled in every Friday on the basis of the call register. This allows, at the end of each week, to count how many times and how many students have been absent and whether their absences were justified or not. In both cases, the teacher is obliged to alert the parents’ office, to summon the parent and, depending on the case (chronic illnesses, vulnerabilities of all kinds), to seize Aide et Action.
School violence monitoring sheet to denounce abuses
Cases of violence are unfortunately still numerous in schools in Benin. The main cause of this observation is that there is no anonymous mechanism for denouncing cases of violence at school, where the teacher is all-powerful and often feared by the students. The establishment of suggestion boxes allows children to denounce abuses by teachers and also those committed between students. A committee made up of the school administration, parents of students and student representatives will periodically review the contents of the boxes and make decisions on the next step in the investigation and sanctioning process.
