3.1.2 Child friendliness of the schools It is known that a child friendly school makes sure that every child has an environment that is physically safe, emotionally secure and psychologically enabling. Therefore a child friendly school aims to develop a learning environment in which children are motivated and able to learn. When we say that a school is child friendly or has conducive learning environment, we consider that the school compound is safe, there is no child abuse, teachers treat children well and encourage them to participate in all classroom and school activities, and classroom provisions and sitting arrangements are suitable for student engagement. It is against most of these criteria that the impact of the projects on child friendliness of the schools was reviewed. In order to get information on the impacts from this perspective, the views of children was taken as the main source of information while that of PTA members, teachers, cluster supervisors, principals were also taken into account. The evaluation team was able to find out that overall, the project schools have gradually evolved into child friendly schools with the increasing awareness raising efforts of the NGOs, the training of teachers in active learning, the mobilization of resources by the community and WEOs to supply materials for the schools and construction of additional classrooms, etc. During an FGD with them, students of different grades at Biten Kubi Project School in Siraro Woreda stated the following: • When they started learning their NFBE Center had latrine, later it owned latrine but not separate. Now it has a separate latrine for boys and girls. • Each classroom has sufficient combined desks. • They participate in classroom and in different clubs. • There are enough playing grounds and balls for both boys and girls • The school compound had no fence. Now the compound is fenced. They further stated that they like their school so much that they often want to be in the school than elsewhere. Nearly all the children that participated in FGDs in all the four schools of SNNPR where LIA-E was the implementer, confirmed that their schools are very friendly in both providing education, and opportunities for playing and involving in various clubs. The following views of student Tsehaynesh Selamu, a grade 4 student in Danmera Primary School, Gombora Woreda of SNNPR, summarizes most responses on child friendliness of the schools. 16
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