2,500 bicycles will be delivered to South African students beginning in June 2015 through Qhubeka, World Bicycle Relief‘s programme in South Africa. They will help to cut children’s travel time to school and improve educational achievement.
World Bicycle Relief, together with UBS, the World Economic Forum and research partner SRI International, announced today, 3 June, the details of a major two-year education study commissioned by the UBS Optimus Foundation to determine the benefits of the Davos Challenge programme to advance access to education for children in Africa.
Today’s announcement follows the successful Davos Challenge: Walk for Education held at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2015 in Davos in January. Participants were challenged to walk 6km, the average distance that many children in South Africa have to walk to school. Poor transport infrastructure and long distances to school mean that many of these children spend less time in the classroom learning, or do not attend school at all. This prevents them from getting the best possible education, making it hard to break out of the cycle of poverty that affects many communities.
First Davos Challenge bicycles to be delivered this month
By providing children with bicycles, their travel times to school can be reduced by 75%, which can boost attendance, concentration in the classroom, time for studying, and ultimately educational achievement. The first 600 of 2 500 specially designed bicycles will be delivered by Qhubeka to schoolchildren in the Limpopo province of South Africa later this month.
“The research and data gathered through the study will help assess how the access to a bicycle enables students to get to school on a more consistent and timely basis, prepared to learn and contributes to the educational outcomes of students in rural developing areas,” says FK Day, Founder and President of World Bicycle Relief. “Along with World Bicycle Relief’s previous Educational Report, this new data will be a powerful tool to measure the impact of how a simple, cost-effective solution can help keep children in school and improve their educational outcomes. We are grateful that our partners, UBS and the WEF, are committed to improving the lives of 2 500 South African school children and their families and appreciate their investment in this important educational study.”
Focus on girls’ education
With a goal to improve access to education, World Bicycle Relief’s Bicycle Education Empowerment Programme (BEEP) provides bicycles to students, teachers and school volunteers in countries in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. In recognition of the importance of girls’ education, student bicycles are targeted to girls. Keeping girls in school has shown to have a multiplier effect; educated women tend to be healthier, earn greater incomes, marry later, have fewer children and help lift families and communities out of poverty across generations.
“Giving children access to an education is one of the best investments we can make in the future. Getting children to school more easily can make a critical difference in their attendance, and attainment. By providing the bicycles and launching this two-year study on their impact we and our partners in the World Economic Forum can track improvements in terms of educational outcomes so that these kinds of programs can be successfully scaled up across Africa” said Caroline Anstey, Global Head UBS and Society.
Robert Murphy, Director of Evaluation Research at SRI International, said: “We are currently laying the groundwork to design a rigorous study and establish a baseline from which to judge the program’s future success. This major study into the program’s effectiveness will start in June when the first 600 bikes will be delivered to school children in the Limpopo province and continue through the 2016 school year.”
To date, World Bicycle Relief has distributed more than 225 000 bicycles to students, healthcare workers and entrepreneurs in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. World Bicycle Relief has also trained over 1 000 bicycle mechanics.
The details of the way the study will be run
SRI will partner with a local social science research agency to design and implement a rigorous study of the BEEP program’s impacts during the 2015 and 2016 school year in Limpopo province. The evaluation will focus on both understanding how the program was implemented as well as its impacts on student attendance, education attainment and academic performance. To understand how the programme was implemented, project staff will conduct field visits to schools, interview staff and students, and administer a household survey. To understand the impacts of the program on student outcomes, the project will compare outcomes for students receiving bikes to students who did not, within the same school and across comparable schools. For data on outcomes the study will rely on school-based records, original collections by the project, as well as scores on the national test. The study plans to follow students in the 8th and 9th grade who receive bikes in the 2015 school year and follow them through the 2016 academic year.
About the UBS Optimus Foundation
At the UBS Optimus Foundation we provide UBS clients with a unique philanthropic offering focused on improving children’s lives. Because all our administrative costs are covered by UBS, our donors know that 100 percent of their investment will go directly to the project they wish to support.
Our vision is simple: a world where all children reach their full potential. To make this a reality, we concentrate on high-impact projects that help ensure children are safe, healthy, educated and ready for their future. We break down barriers that prevent children from thriving by funding innovative programs in places where children face adversity. We currently support 128 programmes across four continents reaching 1.8 million children directly.
UBS clients have easy access to the expert advice of our people in Germany, Hong Kong, the UK, the US, and Switzerland. Furthermore, clients’ chosen projects benefit from our ability to leverage their donations through our global networks, including international donors and funding partnerships.
Our grant-making specialists apply a rigorous, evidence-based approach to selecting cost-effective projects that deliver measurable results. So, our donors can rest assured their investment will help achieve the best possible outcomes for vulnerable children.
About SRI Education
SRI Education, a division of SRI International, is tackling the most complex issues in education to help students succeed. We work with federal and state agencies, school districts, major foundations, nonprofit organizations, and international and commercial clients to address risk factors that impede learning, assess learning gains, and use technology for educational innovation. SRI International, a US-based research center headquartered in Menlo Park, California, creates world-changing solutions to make people safer, healthier, and more productive.
