MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER EDUCATION, HONOURABLE DOUGLAS SIAKALIMA ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF 1500 BICYCLES PROCURED UNDER THE KEEPING GIRLS IN SCHOOL FOR CASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM – 20TH JANUARY, 2023

Republic of Zambia
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER EDUCATION, HONOURABLE DOUGLAS SIAKALIMA ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF 1500 BICYCLES PROCURED UNDER THE KEEPING GIRLS IN SCHOOL FOR CASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM – 20TH JANUARY, 2023.

For Immediate Release
The Ministry of Education, through the Keeping Girls in School (KGS) Initiative is distributing 1500 bicycles for the implementation of the Case Management System in KGS districts across the Republic of Zambia.
The 1500 bicycles were procured at a total cost of Zambian Kwacha 4 million Seven Hundred Eighty-Five Thousand (K4, 785,000.00).
The bicycles are aimed at enhancing outreach activities for the KGS Case Management System (CMS) and will ease mobility of Guidance & Counselling Teachers as well as community volunteers as they reach out to girls at risk of dropping out of school and those that may have dropped out.
The initiative demonstrates the New Dawn Government’s commitment to advancing inclusive education and increasing access and participation of vulnerable girls in the country’s education system by keeping them in school until they complete their Grade 12 and progress to tertiary education.
The Keeping Girls in School (KGS) component of the GEWEL Project has developed a number of systems to support its implementation process. Key among the systems developed is the Case Management (CMS).
The CMS is core to the KGS project objective of increasing access, participation and progression of vulnerable adolescent girls in secondary education.
The CMS interventions target three categories of girls, namely; girls at-risk of missing school days or dropping out, girls who have dropped out of school already and the eligible but out of school girls who may require extra support to enroll.
CMS is both a preventive and responsive system which seeks to detect, prevent and deter risks that KGS beneficiaries may potentially face that are likely to hinder their access and progression in secondary education.
The CMS links the girls at-risk to appropriate support services and alternative forms of education to mitigate the identified risks and ensure their continued participation in education.
In order to enhance outreach activities for CMS and ease the mobility of Guidance & Counselling Teachers as well as community volunteers, the Project provided funds under the 2022 budget to procure 1,500 Bicycles.
It is envisioned that, the Bicycles will enhance follow-up activities for in-school girls at risk of dropping out and the out-of-school girls that require individualized interventions for them to return to school or enroll into the programme.
The first consignment will cover all KGS implementing schools in Eastern, Western, Southern, Copperbelt, Northwestern, Muchinga, and Luapula Provinces. In addition, implementing districts in Central Province will be issued with bicycles in 2023 after procurement of the additional 1,500 bicycles.
The selection of districts to receive bicycles is informed by the recently concluded pilot of the Case Management System which was conducted in the three provinces of Eastern, Copperbelt and Western Provinces.
Priority has also been given to Southern, Northwestern and Northern provinces because of the upcoming scale up of the Case Management System and Impact Evaluation Study.
I therefore wish to urge beneficiary schools and communities to use the bicycles for the intended purpose.

Issued by:

Kunda Mando
Head – Communications
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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