Brink Foundation

Gender and Learning Evidence Fund / Portfolio /

Girl Child Network

Kenya Turkana and Kajiado counties

  • Gender & Learning
  • Adding a new component
  • TaRL
  • GRP
  • Safe spaces
  • Life skills
girlchildnetwork.org
  • GCN Lead partner
  • KNATCOM Collaborating partner

What we do

Girl Child Network implements Let Children Learn, a gender-responsive learning programme in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands, delivering Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL+) accelerated learning and teacher coaching across public primary schools.

The question we are testing with the Fund

How might we integrate gender clubs with TaRL+ accelerated learning to improve foundational literacy, numeracy, and Grade 6-to-7 transition rates in ASALs?

What's new in this work

This implementation research combines academic acceleration with weekly gender and boys' champions clubs, to test whether integrating social agency with foundational instruction drives greater learning gains for marginalised learners.

In our words

Our hope is

Baraka Masyuko, Girl Child Network

0:000:00
Read the full transcript

Our hope is that girls and boys in Kenya's ASALs* finish Grade 6 and walk into Grade 7 with the skills to learn, the confidence to participate, and the support to stay in school. We know that strengthening learning matters, and we know that gendered barriers can hold children back. What we're yet to understand is what happens when we address the both of them together. By 2028, we hope to have evidence showing what works, for whom, and how we can help more children stay and succeed in school.

*ASALs: arid and semi-arid lands

The partnership

  • Lead partner

    Girl Child Network

    Leads the study and delivers Let Children Learn in public primary schools in Turkana and Kajiado, combining Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL+) accelerated learning and teacher coaching with weekly gender and boys' champions clubs.

  • Collaborating partner

    Ministry of Education (MoE)

    Will facilitate access to schools, learners, and teachers, including the necessary approvals for using school infrastructure. The Ministry will also provide research policy guidance, participate in quality assurance, and review the baseline, midline, and endline tools.

  • Collaborating partner

    Kenya National Commission for UNESCO (KNATCOM)

    Will support quality assurance and adherence to data collection and analysis standards. KNATCOM will also support the setup of the three-arm cluster design, analysis and synthesis of reports, and the review of baseline, midline, and endline tools.

Who we are

  • Mercy Musomi

    Mercy Musomi

    Executive Director, Girl Child Network

  • Dr. Robert Ndengwa

    Dr. Robert Ndengwa

    Policy Expert

    Programme Educationist and Gender Advisor

    Director of Policy, Partnerships and East African Community Affairs, Ministry of Education

  • Dennis Mutiso

    Dennis Mutiso

    Programme Gender Technical Lead

    Deputy Director, Girl Child Network

  • Dr Patrick Kasyula

    Dr Patrick Kasyula

    Technical Expert in Quality Standards and Assurance

    Deputy Director, Research and Consultancy, Kenya National Commission for UNESCO

  • Dr. Felistus Mwikali

    Dr. Felistus Mwikali

    Programme Principal Investigator (PI)

    Programmes Manager, Girl Child Network

  • Baraka Masyuko

    Baraka Masyuko

    Programme Research Analyst

    Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, Girl Child Network

  • Lilian Mugwe

    Lilian Mugwe

    Programme Grant Manager

    Senior Finance Officer, Girl Child Network

The rest of the cohort

See the whole portfolio