Making Ghanaian Girls Great! (MGCubed) Background

Making Ghanaian Girls Great! (MGCubed) is Ghana’s first interactive distance-learning project. The Project has impacted over 10, 000 marginalized girls and boys in 72 schools, within two regions in Ghana (Volta and Greater Accra) by providing them with an enhanced quality of education to improve their lives and transform their future. MGCubed aims at addressing the challenges of teacher quality, teacher absenteeism, and poor student learning by equipping two classrooms in every school with solar-powered computers and projectors through which real-time two-way interactive distance lessons occur. The project is been funded by the Department for International Development (DFID)’s Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC).

In School Classes

Over a three -year period, 1 hour of basic Maths and 1 hour of basic English Language curriculum is taught during the school day, broadcast live to multiple classrooms by master teachers from two teaching studios in Accra. A total of over 10, 000 girls and boys have been taught basic numeracy and literacy over the project.

After School Wonder Women and Boys Boys Sessions

In addition to the in-school classes, the project delivers for an hour per day an after-school girls’ club called Wonder Women to up to 50 marginalised girls, per school including some out-of-school girls. The Project introduced boys after school sessions known as Boys Boys as an offshoot of the Wonder Women sessions. The after school sessions for the girls and boys cover topics such as early pregnancy, early marriage, reproductive health, personal hygiene, child rights, and financial literacy, leadership and problem solving, community projects as well as introducing them to different adult female and male role models. The goal has been to empower them, raise their self-esteem, increase their aspirations to enable them stay in school.

Community and stakeholder engagement is a critical part of MGCubed’s delivery strategy. In order to achieve self-governing local committees, MGCubed works with volunteers in deprived communities and Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs). The Project works in collaboration with the Girls Education Unit and the District Directorates of Ghana Education Service.

Project Impact

• The Project’s independent external evaluation at Midline and Endline through a Randomized Control Trail (RCT) using the Early-Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early-Grade Maths Assessment (EGMA) test showed the following results:
  • Large and significant positive impact on numeracy skills with a treatment effect equivalent to 0.39 standard deviations in test scores at Midline. Positive effects found across all components of the mathematics test and for all students, but effect even stronger for girls and students in earlier grades.
  • The treatment effect on an index created from the various English test tasks between Midline and Endline was 0.275 standard deviations, with a treatment effect on words-per-minute of 0.11 standard deviations.
  • MGCubed influenced girls’ beliefs regarding gender norms, with girls in Project schools more likely to disagree with a standardized index of statements reflecting patriarchal norms.
  • 80% of facilitators (school based teachers) teach other non-MGCubed standard classes, a valuable positive unintended consequence is the spillover impact of improvements in teaching quality on students outside MGCubed classes.
• 55 out of the 246 (22%) out of school girls have successfully returned to mainstream schooling
• Improvement in the confidence of the girls observed in their readiness to take up leadership positions in school, public speaking, and boldness to report abuse cases, operating classroom technology equipment and managing classrooms on behalf of teachers.

Download the brochure for more information here.