Sustaining learner participation and progression through networked schooling: a systemic approach for Mobile Out of School Children

Despite repeated calls for education systems to respond flexibly to enable all children to participate in formal education, limited progress has been made for those we term Mobile Out of School Children (MOOSCs). Livelihood-related mobility often precipitates a process of learner drop out during the year. Retention of such children, and reducing the risk of their relapsing into MOOSC status, requires a re-framing of ‘school’ as a spatially dispersed system, or network, to accommodate learner movement. Networked schooling for children in mobile pastoralist communities in Ethiopia embeds formal education within mobile pastoralists’ resource management practices and orientates service provision accordingly. Although it is resource-intensive, networked schooling enables the requisite flexibility to support retention of pastoralist and other mobile learners. It of significant interest to global effort towards leaving none behind, particularly in the global drylands and other contexts where climate change is making learner mobility increasingly complex, and the need for a systemic response ever more pressing.