IMPACT • CHALLENGE • INTERVENTION • RESOURCES
Can Nudge Messaging Positively Influence School Attendance?
Craft Education and School for Life have been working with caregivers and school leaders in Northern Ghana to test and compare different messaging models to support caregivers in their efforts to encourage their children’s attendance at school. The nudge messages have impacted households and shifted mindsets to increased school attendance.
IMAGE CREDIT: EDTECH HUB
The challenge ➝
Communities in Northern Ghana have made significant steps in providing and expanding educational opportunities for girls. This important work has aimed to encourage returns to school, encourage classroom attendance, and combat early child marriages — a practise still occurring in some communities. Despite progress, in 2021, as schools reopened from Covid-19 closures, it was found that approximately 2,765 girls across 10 districts in the northern region faced barriers that kept them from returning to school.
Looking for evidence on how to best support learning and how to engage parents and communities, EdTech Hub partnered with School for Life and Craft Education. This work aimed to explore if and how nudge messaging may be adapted and optimised to most effectively promote returns to education among marginalised groups in Ghana. And if successful, how could this approach be used to encourage change in attitudes — and in school attendance — in other locations.
The intervention ➝
Our research in Ghana — Optimising Messaging for Returns to School — has been testing and comparing varied messaging models that could support caregivers in their efforts to encourage their children’s school attendance. Working with caregivers in Zarantinga, Fuu and Talensi communities, has facilitated a learning journey about the messaging interventions. Despite varying literacy levels among parents, their enthusiasm and determination to ensure their children attend school and build a better future were evident. Some of the parents who couldn’t read messages would ask other literate parents to read for them so that they could take the required action.
Here are some pivotal takeaways from this work:
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To appropriately target behavioural barriers to participation, interventions should be responsive and sensitive to the context, needs, and profiles of the recipients.
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Tailoring delivery methods to match recipient profiles and the technologies they have access to ensures that content is effective for diverse literacy levels and crafted with an easy-to-understand and tone-sensitive approach.
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It is important to think about different ways to encourage action. Use tried-and-tested methods — understanding the behavioural and contextual barriers, using the most accessible technology and addressing structural challenges — that can make messaging more effective and rewarding.
With these lessons, the research team has kept improving how they are engaging with teachers, caregivers and learners through this journey, and they have realised the impact of this intervention.
The impact ➝
Community awareness efforts have led to an increase in enrolment and a reduction in early marriages and child labour. For parents like Wunni Sabo in the Zarantinga community, this change is deeply personal. In an interview with EdTech Hub, he recalled a time when girls were discouraged from pursuing education, a mindset that was tested when a marriage proposal was brought forward for his daughter, then in Senior High School.
Driven by the nudge messages promoting school attendance that he received on his analogue mobile phone as part of our research study in Ghana, Wunni Sabo made a resolute decision. He declined the marriage proposal, emphasising his daughter’s need to learn and become self-reliant. This bold choice has proven to be immensely beneficial, not only for his daughter but also as an example within his community.
Wunni Sabo believes in his daughter’s potential and encourages her to persist in her educational pursuits. He also supports his daughter’s plans for her future, to attend Nursing Training College, recognising the value of empowering young women in professions that contribute to personal growth and independence.
After witnessing the numerous advantages of education, such as acquiring knowledge and being able to offer financial stability to families, he found inspiration. He firmly believes that education has the power to uplift not only his own children but also to catalyse positive transformation across the entire community.
With a strong belief in the power of education, Wunni has started advocating for it among fellow parents. His vision is of a future community where educated individuals support and care for the elderly, regardless of family ties.
The nudge messages he received, which included reminders about important school events like opening days, parent-teacher meetings, public holidays, and exams, were a constant source of motivation. They kept him focused and served as a great reminder to always put education first. Wunni Sabo’s story epitomises the shifting attitudes and increasing support for girls’ education in Northern Ghana. It serves as a testament to the transformative power of education, aided by EdTech, especially in low-resource settings, and the profound impact that both individuals, like Wunni Sabo, and community-driven decisions, can have on girls, families, and entire communities.
Mr. Sabo’s story is an important reminder of how nudge messaging can help encourage change. While nudge messaging alone is not a silver bullet, it can be a catalyst for transformation, reinforcing positive behaviours and shifting long-held mindsets. His journey highlights how evidence-based interventions, combined with community-driven efforts, can create lasting impact — ensuring that more girls in Northern Ghana have the opportunity to learn, grow, and shape their own futures. Wunni Sabo’s experience stands as an inspiring example of what is possible when parents, communities, and innovation come together in support of education.
Importantly, we’ve observed other similar programmes in Ghana have led to a rise in enrolment. Programs like Accelerated Education Programs (AEPs) have successfully transitioned 664 learners into formal schools, with 69% of them being female. Girls’ Focused Programs (GFPs) in Saboba exceeded their targets, transitioning 88% of enrolled girls into formal education, showing a direct impact on out-of-school rates.
There is still much to explore around nudge messaging. From how to make it more interactive to safeguarding standards and beyond. But what stories like those of Wunni Sabo help show though is the incredible potential for change. Not only in the attendance records or behaviours, but in the futures of communities.
