Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

Africa, including Kenya, is home to eight of the ten fastest-growing economies. To ensure positive economic growth and development that benefits all citizens, Kenya must make big strides in education, including digital literacy. Borne in 2000, the Lewa Education Program (LEP) has been fostering development, individually and collectively, amongst members of neighbouring communities, to ensure young people become socially responsible and productive members of society.  Lewa’s education strategy aligns closely with the Kenyan Government’s Vision 2030; to have a globally competitive quality education, recognising the need for proper infrastructure, teacher support, and digital learning to equip students with 21st-century skills. 

However, schools within Kenya lack the resources, infrastructure, and adequate teacher training to flourish. This problem continues to worsen as a result of climate change and an ever-increasing human population. This issue is particularly prevalent in rural communities in Northern Kenya, such as those surrounding Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, with individuals earning approximately £2 a day on average in these households. Lewa is committed to solving this problem through livelihood programs, including the LEP, ensuring the gap between learners in developed, urban, digitally accessible areas of the world, and less developed, rural areas without digital access does not widen. 

Over the past 22 years, the LEP has worked alongside the community contingent to the Conservancy to empower more than 30,000 students. This includes direct support to 23 schools (19 Primary schools and 4 Secondary schools) through infrastructure and teacher capacity-building training, as well as to students on a personal level through bursaries, mentorship, conservation education, and career development. In 2009, the LEP launched the now award-winning, Digital Literacy Programme (DLP), designed to equip children with vital digital skills, and give marginalised and underinvested rural Kenyan schools access to the latest technology. Together, these programs impact over 8,000 students annually. Owing to the fact that 80% of the LEP schools are Primary schools, the majority (5,415) of these 8,000 students are aged between 2-12 - a vital age for development.

Schools, communities, and individuals within the LEP are Lewa’s greatest partners in conservation and Lewa works with them closely to ensure Lewa’s interventions are as impactful as possible. Each of the currently supported 23 schools within the LEP is given the opportunity to present challenges to Lewa, and the areas where they believe the school will most benefit from support. These suggestions are collected via a school management board alongside the head teacher, and the possible interventions are then suggested to Lewa. As an example, the schools that Lewa works with identify education technology as a key component of learning and a need within their set-up, considering the recognition of ICT in the education component in the national curriculum and the resource challenges facing these schools (most of whom are in marginalised counties of Isiolo and Laikipia). In response to this need, Lewa’s DLP team travels to the schools weekly, to both respond to any queries and train teachers on digital literacy implementation in the classroom. 

The strategy behind the scale-up of the LEP stems from Lewa’s relationship with the local communities. Schools across northern Kenya have reached out to Lewa and requested support. As it stands, they rely heavily on the private sector for support, an issue that Lewa is seeking to address. In particular, they have expressed concern over the gap between what a fully equipped school should look like for optimal learning in the 21st century and their current facilities. Northern Kenya continues to face ongoing challenges, made worse by the impact of climate change. Currently, long periods of drought and famine are challenges children within these communities are facing, which is in turn, impact their ability to receive a quality education. Lewa recognises the need to empower these communities with education, equipping these individuals with skills to overcome these ever-increasing challenges.

1. Activity: Increase support from 8,000 students across 23 schools to 15,000 students across 40 schools through infrastructure improvement and curriculum support to teachers and students.

Outputs: Provide sufficient equipment, resources and teacher capacity to form a conducive learning environment. This will include over 130 Specktron boards, more than 4,000 tablets, infrastructure projects such as classrooms, amongst others.

Short term outcome: Increased enrolment, retention and transition

Medium term outcome - An additional 7,000 students receive quality education

Long term outcome - Improved access to education for approximately 15,000 students annually across northern Kenya. This model can then continue to be expanded across the world resulting in reduced illiteracy rates globally.

2. Activity: Student and mentorship programme at Lewa annually to all 15,000 students and their parents.

Outputs: Increased awareness of the importance of education, measured by questionnaires to teachers and students.

Short term outcome: A reduction target of 30% of cases of female genital mutilation, teenage pregnancies, dropouts and early marriages.

Medium term outcome - An increase of 47% of female students joining high schools and institutions of higher learning 

Long term outcome - A target of 30% increase of females from the community engaging in sustainable income generating activities/jobs to fend for themselves and their families.

3. Activity: 350 students receive scholarships annually and all 40 schools are sufficiently equipped with digital equipment to allow for all students to benefit from digital skills and the DLP

Outputs: 15,000 students have opportunities to advance in education and skills to navigate 21st century

Short term outcome: Increase of approximately 10%, from baseline measured in 2023, in the number of school graduates

Medium term outcome: Increased number of skilled graduates from the local communities by approximately 30%, equipped with all skills needed for the demands of 21st-century roles.  

Long term outcome: An increase in formal employment, and in turn, a decreased dependency on natural resources.

Lewa believes the Lewa Education Programme is at Level 2 of Nesta’s Standards of Evidence. As it stands, Lewa is collecting data via tablets throughout the school year that demonstrates changes in academic scores, retention rates, and digital literacy competency, among others. Lewa also measures success in terms of the number of students who achieve the grades to attend University from the bursary programme, overall academic scores etc. Lewa schools also attract higher numbers of students than the neighbouring schools who do not receive support. This data and anecedtol behaviour shows strong evidence of an effective programme, however, the collection of data does not show causality. Moving forwards, Lewa would like to be able to demonstrate that those receiving the support are benefiting to a greater extent than those who do not receive the support. This may include a control group study, which Lewa has not done to date. Lewa is looking to integrate further evidence within its theory of change model, which will allow for the effective expansion of the programme.

Lewa’s DLP won the Google Impact Award in 2018, securing $250,000USD. Part of this grant was used to train 5 members of the team to evaluate the LEP effectively. So, as of 2019, some baseline data is now taken and collected continuously throughout the year for data analysis. As of 2021, Lewa formally adopted the Kolibri Data Portal, which provides schools with daily reports on usage and learning behaviour, as well as topical digital evaluations, which allow teachers to continuously assess learners after every topic. This allows auto marking of papers, an analysis of how long students spend learning and provides students and teachers with instant feedback on progress. Through this monitoring and evaluation programme, we are able to demonstrate impact and help students reach their potential. Throughout the next two years, Lewa is rolling out a dedicated monitoring and evaluation programme, which will evaluate the impact of the LEP to an extent that has not been explored before. This will be well timed, as the LEP looks to expand. 

Currently, the main indicators include:

• Literacy, comprehension, and fact retention scores within LEP schools;

• Number of graduates that secure a place at University under the bursary programme;

• Successful digital literacy implementation measured by usage time and insights from equipment;

• Exam results comparatively to other government-supported schools across Kenya; and

• Acquisition of digital skills among learners, measured mainly through observation at the moment. On this note, 85% of the DLP team are from the schools supported by Lewa’s DLP - a indicator of the success of the programme.

• Number of schools implementing environmental conservation projects, measured by the LEP team observation.

• Number of teachers adopting digital integration in their curriculum delivery, measured by tablets.

Lewa’s Education Programme hopes to increase its impact by 87.5% - helping 15,000 individuals annually secure a quality education.

Lewa is currently investing in a dedicated monitoring and evaluation programme for all of Lewa’s programmes. This includes a full-time monitoring and evaluation officer, who will work closely with all programme leads, including education. This monitoring and evaluation work could complement the support received by the LEAP Fellows, ensuring solid evidence is integrated into Lewa’s theory of change.

Some of the research questions Lewa is seeking guidance from LEAP Fellows include: 

• Does exposure to digital content lead to improved academic scores for learners? In turn, does this lead to increased job security?

• How can Lewa create a standard baseline, considering this was not consciously measured at the start of the programme in 2000?

• To what extent does the DLP project steer communities toward the conservation discipline?

• Is it possible to scientifically confirm that the programme has an impact on learning outcomes? 

Throughout the LEAP sprint, deliverables that Lewa would try and achieve include:

• Understanding how Lewa can measure the percentage of learners that are attributing their success to access to technology;

• Scientifically measuring ‘attitude of learners and teachers’ towards education technology; and

• How to measure and understand ‘teacher confidence’ in the use of technology in delivering the curriculum, and how to make this more effective.

The success of the LEAP project would help Lewa to achieve the following:

• Measurement of the true impact of the LEP. Reliable data sets are critical for demonstrating and evaluating impact. This impact data is vital not only for funders and partners but also to adjust the programme in a way most beneficial to the local communities. Lewa is hoping to replicate the LEP model further north of Kenya in collaboration with a sister organization, Northern Rangeland Trust. The outcome of this project would enable us scientifically rate the success and identify areas of weakness - a vital step before the expansion of the programme takes place.

• A credible report on the impact of the LEP. The LEP has been in place since 2000. Although Lewa has a lot of data to demonstrate success, a credible report on the true impact of Lewa’s efforts over the years is hugely sought after by the team. This would help with feedback to the team, guiding the next steps, goals and thoughts for the expansion of the programme.