Education and Adolescent Development

UNICEF supports the Government's priorities in the education sector so that the nearly 12 million children and adolescents in school, particularly the most vulnerable, have better opportunities to learn and develop skills that help them to engage in socio-economic and civic life. This is a key element in achieving goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.
Much of UNICEF's technical assistance to the Government focuses on innovation, which has become even more critical following the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 crisis. While the pandemic has compromised education goals, it has provided an opportunity to develop innovative approaches and interventions that reduce disparities. This is also in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), which guides the UN's development activities.

What we need to do achieve better outcomes for children

1.    Strengthen capacities to allow equitable and inclusive access to education for the most vulnerable children and adolescents, in particular, those at risk of dropping out of school.   UNICEF provides technical support to the Government to put into practice government policy to prevent and address the high adolescent dropout rate. This includes supporting programmes that identify adolescents at risk, putting in place remedial and psychosocial support, and establishing a distance-learning system for adolescents in rural and remote areas. In addition, UNICEF supports the Ministry of Vocational Training with a training of trainers for the ministry staff on teaching life skills. The focus is on integrating soft skills, such as communication skills, critical thinking, decision-making, creativity and problem-solving into technical vocational curricula. There is special attention on adolescent girls as they tend to lose out more than their male peers on job opportunities.

2.    Provide children and adolescents with quality learning and opportunities to develop their life skills and participation.  Building a solid foundation in education is important for a child’s success in the future. Therefore, at the start of the current country programme, UNICEF supported the Ministry of National Education (MNE), in collaboration with the World Bank, to develop the country’s first preschool module based on international standards. Preschool inspectors have been trained on the module which includes videos showing best teaching practices. Also, UNICEF, in partnership with MNE, supports the training of teachers in primary and secondary school psycho-pedagogical and innovative classroom practices as well as life-skills integration, including those in special education. In addition, learning from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF supports training of trainers' courses for primary school inspectors in digital learning and assists with the development of distance education to prepare for times of crisis.

Climate change too has been integrated into the education programme. Water scarcity and forest fires have been identified as one of the main climate change challenges in Algeria. With UNICEF assistance, the World’s Largest Lesson on Climate Change has been embedded in the curriculum in primary and lower and upper secondary levels. UNICEF is also supporting the Climate Landscape Analysis for Children (CLAC) and the development of action plans based on CLAC recommendations.

3.    Reinforce the education system to coordinate and manage results, in learning and school retention. UNICEF's role in capacity building at the national level focuses on the establishment of an education management information system (EMIS) that will allow the regular production, availability, dissemination, and effective use of reliable, relevant and disaggregated data right down to community level. Also, UNICEF assists with the analysis of data, such as MICS 6 and administrative data, and performance for planning and monitoring-evaluation at central and decentralized levels in line with SDG 4.  In addition, UNICEF assists with the development and implementation of national policies, strategies and guidelines that define the norms and standards of interventions in quality inclusive education.