Chevron Alumni

“The video showed me many things for the first time – like the brain,” expressed Friday Stanley, a student from Lagos, Nigeria. “I’d never seen the brain before. Now I’m excited to go to school. I want to learn science to become a doctor – and watching the videos gives me the confidence that I can do that.”

Friday has been inspired and empowered by the new way his teachers are teaching and by the access they now have to educational resources that allow him to experience the world beyond his village. Friday’s enriching experience and new aspirations are the result of the Learning Center initiative, a strategic partnership between Chevron and the nonprofit Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership (DCGEP).

An alliance that began in 2002 in Angola to build educational capacity destroyed by a 27-year-long civil war is today motivating teachers and students and improving educational outcomes in five countries, across two continents. Despite years of focus on education by the international community, many children still lack access to a quality education. Where resources are sparse the problems are most acute, and that is exactly where Chevron and DCGEP focus their efforts.

To date, Chevron and DCGEP have established 65 Learning Centers in underserved schools in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa, Venezuela, and Brazil. Over 2,400 teachers, 104,000 students and 312,000 community members have benefited, and the positive impact continues to grow.

Participating schools report an increase in student enrollment, a decrease in absenteeism, and improved student motivation and academic performance.

The Learning Center initiative is a proven, comprehensive approach to creating sustainable change in schools. Developed by DCGEP and successfully implemented in 12 countries around the world, the project equips schools with a television, a DVD player, and a library of high-quality, locally relevant educational videos, and provides three years of in-depth teacher training and mentoring. Through the intensive training program, teachers learn to use the DCGEP videos to enhance math and science curriculums and to connect students to other lands, cultures, and ideas.

How the Partnership Supports Chevron’s Business Strategy

As Chevron works to meet the world’s energy needs, it is also committed to tapping human energy worldwide and to building productive, sustainable, and beneficial partnerships. Partnering with communities to address basic human needs, as well as education and economic development, is an essential part of Chevron’s business strategy and commitment to corporate responsibility.

Education opens minds, creates opportunities, and provides the skills required to compete in a global economy – making the Learning Center initiative a natural choice for Chevron’s $5.3 million investment.

To ensure the initiative has government support, Chevron and DCGEP work with the National and Provincial Ministries of Education to identify how the Learning Center initiative can best complement national education priorities. Ministry officials are actively engaged in teacher trainings and school and community projects, and provide support once the school has “graduated” from the three-year program.

Evaluation and Impact

The project’s goals include increasing student learning, teacher effectiveness, and the community’s access to information. Success is measured through attitudinal surveys of students and teachers, administered by external evaluators prior to the launch of the project (baseline) and after one year, through the sustainability of the initiative after the three-year training period concludes, and through reporting of project impact by participants. By all three measures, the project is an exciting success.

Survey results reveal a consistent positive shift in attitudes toward learning and teaching. Students are more motivated to learn, and teachers are more effective as a result of new teaching resources and methodologies. Student pass rates, enrollment, and attendance increase. And over 93% of Chevron Learning Centers are self-sustaining after three years.

Chevron and DCGEP build local capacity by hiring trainers from the community and empowering teachers to be agents of change. Parents and community groups lead projects addressing topics like the environment, AIDS, teen pregnancy and malnutrition. During a garbage crisis in Caracas, Venezuela, the community used video programming and the Learning Center to inspire a grassroots movement to get trash successfully collected – and subsequently launched a recycling campaign to increase awareness of environmental issues.

The initiative is changing individual lives. One teacher summed this up when she said: “One of my students was close to quitting school. He found it to be boring and he was not willing to learn. The DCGEP project motivated him to attend classes regularly and improve his reading and writing skills.”

Video Links

Experience the Learning Center initiative by viewing these award-winning videos filmed at partnership schools in Angola, South Africa, Venezuela and Nigeria.

• Chevron Learning Centers

• Chevron Discovery Global