Implementing Girls’ Scholarship Programs: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles to Manage Scholarship Programs represents an overall approach to implementing scholarship programs so as to maximize the learning opportunities to students and families who receive scholarships. The majority of scholarship recipients endure challenges both inside and outside the formal school environment that preclude full participation in the learning process. Scholarships are important but partial solutions.

These guiding principles are practical suggestions based on evidence from a variety of sources: the body of knowledge revealed in the literature on girls’ education; the results of specific projects that include scholarships as an implementation strategy; and the direct experience of practitioners who work directly with scholarship recipients. Users may select one or more of the principles to match the needs of participants. The ultimate hope is that by integrating principles such as these in scholarship programs, opportunities for successful completion of schooling through increased participation and achievement, will occur.

The Guiding Principles reflect the collective experience of many activities that span three decades of commitment by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to increasing access, quality and successful participation of both students and adults domestically and internationally in the educational process.