Second Chance Savings Groups

The Luminos Fund is a nongovernmental organization guided by the belief that all children deserve a basic education. With support from government and local partner organizations, Luminos has served approximately 150,000 students since 2016 and has provided training to more than 20,000 teachers in nearly 6,000 classrooms in Ethiopia, Liberia, and Lebanon (Luminos Fund, n.d.c).

The organization’s Second Chance program covers the first three grades of school in only 10 months. This catch-up program targets children aged 8–14 who were previously kept out of school due to poverty, conflict, or discrimination. Second Chance students learn to read, write, and do math through an accelerated learning curriculum centered on activity-based approaches. Class sizes are capped at 30 students, and each school day is seven to eight hours in length (Luminos Fund, n.d.b). Supervisors and coaches from Luminos regularly visit classrooms to provide feedback and resources to teachers (Luminos Fund, n.d.c).

The Second Chance program currently operates in Ethiopia (where it is called Speed School) and Liberia. As of August 2021, it had enabled more than 147,300 children to return to mainstream school (Luminos Fund, n.d.b). In Ethiopia, Luminos is working with the government to adopt Second Chance on a national scale. An external evaluation led by the University of Sussex Centre for International Education in 2018 revealed that Luminos students completed primary school at a rate nearly double that of government students and that they outperformed their peers in English and math, were happier and more confident, and had higher aspirations to continue their education beyond the primary years (Luminos Fund, n.d.a).

Key to the success of the Second Chance program is parent and community engagement and mobilization. Parents and local leaders work with Luminos to identify the most marginalized out-of-school children and to find beneficial places within local communities to host Second Chance classes. Local young adults who understand their community’s needs and challenges are recruited and trained to become Second Chance teachers. Luminos also works closely with the mothers of Second Chance students to build community support for keeping their children in school (Luminos Fund, n.d.b). Mothers can volunteer as class parents in Second Chance schools in Liberia, where they support their child’s education through in-school activities such as preparing the class’s midday meal with ingredients Luminos provides.

In Ethiopia, Luminos organizes a weekly savings group for mothers of students from Second Chance. These groups, comprised of 25-30 mothers each, meet at the school to contribute a small amount to the group savings and learn financial skills and business management (M. Silverman, personal communication, August 13, 2021). Over the course of the school year, mothers develop business plans and are given capital boosts to get them started in their business endeavors. At the end of the year, Luminos connects the mothers to local micro-finance groups so they can expand their businesses and ultimately have the financial ability to cover the costs of future schooling for their children (Luminos Fund, n.d.-c). Luminos reports that savings groups for mothers help to incentivize student attendance and maintain high attendance levels at Second Chance schools. The Ethiopian government is currently laying groundwork to adopt the Second Chance school model nationally. However, savings groups are not included in the government’s adoption plan, providing a unique opportunity in the coming years to compare the success of the Second Chance model without this component of financial support for families (M. Silverman, personal communication, August 13, 2021).

Luminos Fund. (n.d.a). Long-term impact. https://luminosfund.org/long-term-impact/

Luminos Fund. (n.d.b). Second chance. https://luminosfund.org/second-chance/

Luminos Fund. (n.d.c). 2020 annual report. https://luminosfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2020-Annual-Report_The-Luminos-Fund_digital_spreads.pdf