antelope park, 17 20 september...2012/04/10 · introduction to dvv international1 dvv...

IMPACTING POLICY OF YOUTH AND ADULT LEARNING AND

EDUCATION (YALE) IN AFRICA

Report of the processes, outputs and outcomes of a

regional workshop organised by dvv international

Antelope Park,

Gweru, Zimbabwe

17 – 20 September

2012

YALE Policy in Africa Regional Workshop Report/Gweru, Zimbabwe/Sept2012

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Contents Section 1: Laying foundations for the workshop ..................................................................................... 4

Introduction to dvv international ............................................................................................................. 4

dvv international involvement in Africa................................................................................................ 4

Rationale for the workshop ..................................................................................................................... 4

Aims and assumptions of the workshop................................................................................................... 5

Background documents ........................................................................................................................... 5

Introductions and ‘breaking the ice’ ........................................................................................................ 6

Welcome address .................................................................................................................................... 7

Official opening ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Workshop programme ............................................................................................................................ 9

Section 2: Stocktaking YALE in Africa - where we are and what we have ............................................. 10

YALE in Southern Africa five-nation study .............................................................................................. 10

Reflections on the study .................................................................................................................... 13

The policy situation and trends concerning YALE in Zimbabwe .............................................................. 14

Reflections on the presentation from Zimbabwe ............................................................................... 16

Introducing the worker’s practically acquired skills (PAS) logbook from Uganda .................................... 17

Reflections on the Ugandan worker’s PAS project .............................................................................. 20

The PROFASA project from Mozambique ............................................................................................... 20

Reflections on the PROFASA project in Mozambique ......................................................................... 22

The popular education programme (PEP) in South Africa ....................................................................... 22

Reflections on the PEP in South Africa ............................................................................................... 23

Pamoja West Africa Network ................................................................................................................. 24

Reflections on the network ................................................................................................................ 25

Spotlight on Pamoja Guinea national network ....................................................................................... 26

Reflections on the work of Pamoja Guinea ........................................................................................ 27

Inspiring cooperation with Ethiopian, Dutch and German resources ...................................................... 27

Reflections on the cooperation in Ethiopia ........................................................................................ 30

Emerging YALE inspirations and key concerns ........................................................................................ 31

Vision and working principles of dvv international ................................................................................. 33

Reflections on dvv international’s approach ...................................................................................... 35


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Section 3: Imagining and dreaming – what and how for changed realities ........................................... 36

Recapping common YALE policy concerns .............................................................................................. 36

Towards ideal YALE policy – simulation activity...................................................................................... 36

Ideal YALE policy presentations ............................................................................................................. 38

Ideal YALE policy design critical reflections (‘judgment’) ........................................................................ 42

Harvesting and agreeing the main YALE principles/values to take forward ............................................. 43

Spotlight on dvv international strengths and areas for development ..................................................... 44

Section 4: Action planning for YALE in Africa – what we will advance .................................................. 47

Review of outstanding issues ................................................................................................................. 47

Using existing knowledge for action planning ........................................................................................ 47

Recommendations and action agenda of the YALE in Southern Africa study .......................................... 47

Gweru statement of YALE in Africa recommendations ........................................................................... 49

Lessons from Ethiopia of how to engage with Government ................................................................... 52

Identifying responses to key interventions – GWERU action agenda ...................................................... 53

Concluding comments ........................................................................................................................... 54

Workshop evaluation ............................................................................................................................ 55

Vote of thanks ....................................................................................................................................... 55

Closing remarks ..................................................................................................................................... 55

Photo gallery ......................................................................................................................................... 56

Appendix A: Participant list ................................................................................................................... 57

Appendix B: Workshop programme ...................................................................................................... 59

Appendix C: Pre-workshop country report assignment .......................................................................... 62

Appendix D: Workshop evaluation – voices of YALE actors in Africa ...................................................... 63


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IMPACTING POLICY OF YOUTH AND ADULT LEARNING AND EDUCATION (YALE) IN AFRICA

REPORT OF A REGIONAL WORKSHOP ORGANISED BY DVV INTERNATIONAL

04 October 2012

Report written by and design layout: Louise Knight, Rights2Change, [email protected]

Photographs: John Aitchison, David Harrington and Louise Knight

Permissions: You are free to share this report with anyone you like. To do this you can make as

many copies as you want of all or parts of this report, as long as you do not do this in order to make

money. If you do make copies, please acknowledge that it comes from this report, and say that

people can share it, if they do not do this in order to make money.

Contact dvv international:

Headquarters

dvv international

Obere Wilhelmstr. 2

53225 Bonn

Germany

0049228975690

www.dvv-international.de

Regional Office

dvv international Southern Africa

4 Peckham Road

Highlands

Harare

Zimbabwe

002634776218

www.dvv-international.org.zw

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.dvv-international.de/

http://www.dvv-international.org.zw/


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Section 1: Laying foundations for the workshop

Introduction to dvv international1

dvv international is the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education

Association (Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband e.V., DVV) which, in turn, is the federal umbrella

association for the 16 regional associations of Germany's community adult education centres

(Volkshochschulen, VHS). dvv international and its Institute represent the interests of the

association's members, together with those of over 1000 Volkshochschulen, at the national,

European, and international level. The domestic and international work of dvv international is

guided by a commitment to human rights and the Institute's principles on the promotion of women

and gender equality.

dvv international is active on a worldwide basis, cooperating with more than 200 partners in over

30 countries. The Institute sees itself as a professional partner that brings experience and resources

to joint projects and learns, in turn, from its partners. The work of dvv international is financed

mainly with funds from the federal budget and other donors.

dvv international involvement in Africa

The projects of dvv international in Africa are managed by regional and country offices. The regional

office in Bamako, Mali is responsible for the project countries Mali, Guinea and Morocco. In Addis

Ababa, the projects in Ethiopia and Uganda are looked after. For Southern Africa, the regional office

is based in Harare and project countries in this region are Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and

Zimbabwe.

Across all the project countries, the development oriented Adult Education activities are organized

as non-formal basic education. This generally covers the main focus of literacy, including further

relevant issues like environmental protection and resource conservation, health education and HIV

& AIDS education, civic information as well as strengthening the self-help groups of learners. For

this, innovative approaches toward functional literacy, like Reflect, are given preference.

Newer approaches to creating employment-effective Adult Education are linked to the demand for

literacy or are market-oriented, with non-formal and vocational education that builds upon the

small(est) elements that nourish industry.

Rationale for the workshop

From dvv international’s perspective the rationale for the workshop was grounded in the fact that

one can state tacit changes of the policy compound, seemingly giving more importance to the role

of youth and adult learning and education (YALE) in a development oriented policy of the State. It is

dvv international’s interest to understand these phenomena and to disseminate them. This requires

1 Information in this section sourced from www.iiz-dvv.de


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better knowledge of such phenomena and a certain mastery of tools and skills in influencing such

policy development. The overarching concern and objective of the workshop for dvv international

was to stimulate and create such a knowledge and comprehension base through a dialogical

process, and to make use of the workshop outcomes in shaping and designing the future YALE

support programme in Africa of dvv international - in cooperation with partners and the donor

community.

Aims and assumptions of the workshop

The key aims of the workshop were to:

present positive trends for supporting YALE in Africa

surface model practices from different agencies

identify ways of influencing policy in support of YALE

suggest the role of different agencies (and in particular dvv international) for future YALE

programmes.

The following assumptions predefined the workshop:

adult education beyond adult basic education / literacy is poorly understood across the

continent

we are all labouring under similar conditions and constraints

this often translates into a prioritising of skills training / vocational education and training

rather than a broader / more holistic education

despite constraints there are innovative, imaginative initiatives

while there are clear similarities between countries, each needs to tailor-make their own

policy/ practices to suit local conditions.

Background documents

The impacting policy of youth and adult learning and education (YALE) in Africa regional workshop

was partly informed by the following background documentation made available to participants:

‘Statement to Ministers from the Stakeholder’s Forum’ during the 18th Conference of

Commonwealth Education Ministers (18CCEM) held in Mauritius August 28-31 2012;

‘Agenda for Actions by Civil Society – Crossing the Education Bridges in the

Commonwealth’: Special address delivered at the 18th CCEM by Dr. Rajesh Tandon,

President of PRIA and UNESCO Chair on Community-based Research and Social

Responsibility in Higher Education;

Summary reports from countries represented at the workshop (Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali,

Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe) highlighting the existing status of YALE

in terms of: policies, legislation, governance, administrative frameworks, financing,

participation and achievements, qualifications and qualification authorities, quality


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assurance, practitioners and professional development, summary conclusions and

recommendations;

‘Youth and Adult Learning and Education in Southern Africa: Overview of a Five Nation

Study’ by Professor John Aitchison;

dvv international ‘Annual Report 2011’;

‘African Statement on the Power of Youth and Adult Learning and Education for Africa’s

Development’ – outcome statement of the CONFINTEA VI Preparatory Conference in Africa

Nairobi, Kenya, 5 – 7 November 2008;

‘The education we need for the world we want’ - Press release on the Outcome document

of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Education Working Group at Rio+20.

Introductions and ‘breaking the ice’

Mr. Wolfgang Leumer, Director of dvv international Southern Africa, warmly

welcomed participants to Zimbabwe, the workshop and Antelope Park where

the workshop was conducted. He explained that dvv international and this

workshop was welcomed in Zimbabwe by two Ministries, both of which were

represented during the workshop: the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art and

Culture (MOESAC) and the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation

and Empowerment (MYDIE). The workshop brought partners and actors in

youth and adult learning and education (YALE) in Africa together with

colleagues from dvv international’s head office in Bonn, Germany, and dvv

international country and regional Directors in Africa to share YALE concerns

at country and regional levels. Wolfgang then introduced the facilitator for

the three-day workshop, Professor Astrid von Kotze – a retired university lecturer in the field of

Adult Education in South Africa and now based in Cape Town, where she is currently working with

the Popular Education Programme of dvv international South Africa.

Prof. von Kotze moved participants into a fun ice-breaker exercise, which involved using a

worksheet as a guide to ‘find someone who….(e.g. runs to keep fit / grows his/her own vegetables /

loves to sing / thinks human rights education is important for youth…etc)’. Since only one name

could be put against each of the 12 descriptions provided, this activity ensured participants spoke

to everyone in the group and provided them with an opportunity to find out a little about each

other in a relaxed and energising way. During plenary, everyone had an opportunity to learn what

had been discovered about their fellow participants, as well as to speak out in the plenary group for

the first time. Each person was then invited to briefly introduce themselves by sharing their name,

the organisation they work with, their role and country in which they are based (please see

Appendix A for the full participant list).

Mr. Wolfgang Leumer, dvv international Southern Africa Director.


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Welcome address

Dr. Thokozile Chitepo, Principle Director (and currently Acting Permanent

Secretary) of the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and

Empowerment welcomed participants to Zimbabwe, Gweru and the

Antelope Park, which she remarked was her first time to visit, and she

wished participants an enjoyable and comfortable stay amongst the animals

and greenery. Dr. Chitepo reminded participants that the workshop was

held within the theme ‘YALE in Africa’ and that the workshop brought

country representatives and strategic partners and policy makers in YALE

from the three regions of Africa in which dvv international is operating

(West, East and Southern Africa)2. Dr. Chitepo expected the workshop would

be a platform to share trends and experiences in YALE and that she hoped

the workshop would be a “watershed to shape the future direction of YALE

in Africa”. She informed participants that she had looked at the recently

published YALE study by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and dvv

international which investigates the state of the YALE field, and noted that it was excellent to see a

report which distinguishes youth and adult education priorities and which demonstrates that there

is still a need to distinguish between the needs and provisioning for these learner groups3.

Dr. Chitepo then spoke to the policy issues related to YALE in Zimbabwe and highlighted that:

Youth unemployment and underemployment is not only a critical challenge globally, but

particularly in the Zimbabwe context, where this phenomenon has been exacerbated by severe

economic impacts in the country over the past decade. Though a significant amount of money

has been spent, Zimbabwe is still faced with challenges of effectively educating youth and

adults to become meaningfully employed, mainly due to very weak links between education

and training and the employment sector – and this has been a concern within the education

discourse for many years, resulting in an ever-growing and looming burden of social

dysfunctional consequences such as underemployed people, especially youth.

The scale of provision and all other related issues are still far below what should be seen as a

critical priority. YALE policies are not clear and comprehensive enough, and despite policy

commitments of one shape or another, there remains a lack of political support, with poor

coordination within, and limited commitment to, the sector.

It is thus important “to look at the problems and work backwards – practitioners and

researchers are guilty of not being clear enough and ensuring the data is leading decisions on

efforts towards overcoming specific YALE-related issues”. Dr. Chitepo considered that “one of

the single, biggest priorities is to robustly articulate why YALE is critical, how we can effectively

2 dvv international is also more recently operating in North Africa through involvement in YALE work in Morocco.

3 More details of the study are presented in section 2 of this report.

Dr. Thokozile Chitepo speaking to YALE policy concerns in Zimbabwe.


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solve the problems related to YALE, who exactly is affected by the problem – e.g. out of school

youth, school drop-outs, mature adults, those unemployed? It is critical to provide policy

makers with accurate, straightforward data and evidence if we are to effectively influence

policy and policy implementation - so that our targeting is accurate, responses are appropriate

and needs are effectively met”.

In order to define the full picture and scale of YALE concerns, Dr. Chitepo suggested that more

clarity is needed on, amongst others:

what we are training our young people for – for example,

is it just for literacy and/or numeracy? Why is literacy

and/or numeracy important?

making clear why we should choose ‘this’ programme

over ‘that’ one?

what it means in real terms to be, for example 90%

literate in a country? What does it mean if so many of our

people are unemployed?

the purpose and value of adult education, continuing

education, lifelong learning (LLL), life-skills, vocational

education and training (VET), entrepreneurship, education

for productivity – stating clearly why, for who, for what

benefit? What difference does it make at a personal,

family, community and national level?

what it means for a person to be mobile – clearly defining what the benefits are of LLL,

second chance education and personal development - by giving clear examples of what this

means in practice, including defining what LLL and second chance education means.

Dr. Chitepo expressed concern about tendencies to become ‘locked up’ in debates in education

rather than ‘get our heads out of the sand of education’ and look at the basics of why education is

important for whom. She stated that this is the information we must be able to give to policy

makers because economists are not able to articulate why we need to invest in YALE and why it is a

priority. Dr. Chitepo warned that economists cannot effectively articulate the important role of

human capacity and this says a lot about what education practitioners are not doing. “We cannot sit

here and be good critics, we must show evidence of what we try to do and strategies we have taken

to make sure that Ministers of finance, social services and industry and so on have the same

knowledge that we have”.

Finally, Dr. Chitepo suggested a way forward from decades of rhetoric to action, and how

converging with policy makers and implementers could be achieved by actors in the education

sector:

It is critical to provide policy

makers with accurate,

straightforward data and

evidence if we are to

effectively influence policy

and policy implementation -

so that our targeting is

accurate, responses are

appropriate and needs are

effectively met.


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It is in the macro level

that YALE needs legal

recognition, thus

improving the chance for

it to become sustainable.

fully understanding business development, and the links between the formal and informal

sector so that we can articulate what we are training people for.

clearly defining the impact our YALE efforts can make in order to define the policy issues and

structural issues at the same time as well as the linkages between, for example, the service

sector and education sector.

showing evidence of where we need to invest most and why this is the best place to invest.

Official opening

Mr. Henner Hildebrand, dvv international Africa Region Team Leader, offered

warm greetings from headquarters and thanked Dr. Chitepo for the welcome

address, noting that Dr. Chitepo spoke to many important YALE concerns

which demand attention. Mr. Hildebrand then pointed out that this was the

first time dvv international had brought stakeholders from all the regions of

Africa together for one workshop, and this was considered important to allow

for common macro-level strategies to be developed for the region. He

explained that regional dvv international offices have partners at micro, meso

and macro levels and that, while dvv international is in the process of

nurturing advocacy efforts at the macro level, the inter and intra-Africa work

must be strengthened. Mr. Hildebrand further noted that dvv international has been instrumental

in ensuring YALE is kept alive in the Africa region, and that dvv international adopts an advocacy

position and chooses partners who want to walk this path.

Mr. Hildebrand explained why the work of dvv international is not

limited to supporting pockets of innovation and why links with policy

dialogue and national provisioning are rather made: This is because

dvv international aims to contribute to the design and provisioning of

YALE that is sustainable at all levels – micro, meso and macro levels. It

is in the macro level that YALE needs legal recognition, thus improving

the chance for it to become sustainable. Whereas previously dvv

international tended to work more on the micro and meso levels, about 4 years ago the decision

was taken to work on all three levels, recognising that the macro level is too critical to be excluded

and that Governments are indispensable in this part of the work.

With this in mind, Mr. Hildebrand invited participants to commence dialogue around the YALE

policy issues faced in the Africa region and, in so doing, the workshop was officially opened.

Workshop programme

Prof. von Kotze pointed participants to the workshop programme (please see Appendix B) and

explained that, while space would be provided to review the direction of the programme daily:

Mr. Henner Hildebrand, dvv international Africa Region Team Leader.


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Day one would be a stock-taking day – starting from the understanding

that we already know YALE is poorly understood, budgets are low,

provisioning is poor - the focus of the day was aimed not at critically

‘whining’ but rather at taking the poor/not working issues as a given and

working forward from there; sharing where we are and what we have.

Day two focused on the imagining and dreaming – what and how we

want to see the realities. This would be followed by putting this vision

together what dvv international can offer/bring to the table.

Day three was about looking into the future – what are we going to do to

change what we’ve got and move toward what we want?

Section 2: Stocktaking YALE in Africa - where we are and what we have4

YALE in Southern Africa five-nation study

Mr. Wolfgang Leumer shared dvv international’s rationale for collaborating with OSISA, who

commissioned the study: the study complimented dvv international’s philosophy which underscores

the substantial role that youth and adult education has to play in fighting poverty and contributing

to development. Such objectives can only be achieved if, as pointed out by Dr. Chitepo during her

welcome address, politicians, legislators and decision-makers understand the importance of YALE

and thus increase efforts and investment in the sector. This requires situational analyses and

evidenced descriptions of the state of YALE, and the study directly contributes to this end. Mr.

Leumer then introduced Professor John Aitchison who lead the research and authored the regional

overview research report.

Professor Aitchison introduced the study

as a very authoritative and innovative

study sponsored by OSISA. He explained

that the 5 countries investigated (Angola,

Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and

Swaziland) were selected because they

have tended to be less researched in

terms of the sector in the Southern Africa

region, especially the Lucaphone countries

of Angola and Mozambique.

The research consists of five up to date country reports as well as a regional synthesis report and

enhanced research resources e.g. documents, templates for data collecting and websites.

4 All the full presentations summarised in this section were provided to workshop participants on disc format, and

are available from dvv international’s Southern Africa office.

Prof. Astrid von Kotze, workshop facilitator.

Prof. John Aitchison presents key findings of the YALE in Southern Africa five nation study.


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What is youth and adult education (YAE)?

Youth and adult education was defined in the report as “all education and training (including non-

formal education and informal learning) for adults and out-of-school youth that is not part of the

regular schooling, business, technical and training college and higher education systems that

children enter about age six or seven and exit from in their mid-teens to early twenties”. However,

the study found incompatible terminology between the countries and thus, the need for

internationally recognised, standardised terminology, the avoidance of a narrow identification of

“adult education” with literacy and adult basic education only, and clarification regarding the term

“non-formal education” for school equivalency education was emphasised.

Key challenges: the shapes of education, NEETS and the data desert

The current situation in most countries in the region is that of a broad based pyramid, with the

largest group accessing primary education and a very small minority accessing post-school

education. Prof. Aitchison emphasised the need to shift the ‘shape of education’ – to create a

situation in which the largest group are those who access secondary education and an increased

amount of people access post-school education because the labour markets have less and less need

for people with primary or limited education because those jobs are simply disappearing.

The NEETs, those not in employment or education or training, are both our future and our disaster.

It is estimated that 21-60% of youth and adults in the five surveyed countries are currently

unemployed and 9.1 million adults and 2.4% of youth are illiterate. Compounding the situation is

the extremely limited number of places for school leavers to enter. For example in Namibia, of the

annual 47,000 school leavers, only 1,500 (3.1%) are able to access vocational education and training

(VET) facilities.

In addition to these challenges, there is a critical lack of data on YALE in the surveyed countries.

This is compounded by poor capacity to generate, maintain, update and analyse data. When

research is done it is seldom updated, not very accessible or well disseminated, and there is

virtually no data on what is annually spent on YALE. These factors contribute to the lack of ‘big

picture’ analysis.

The regional context

The surveyed countries exhibit several common characteristics, which are not dissimilar to other

Southern African countries such as South Africa and Zambia, and which include having relatively

poor and predominantly young populations; high levels of unemployment; low average schooling

levels; a looming problem of male under education; education taking a high proportion of national

budgets and totally inadequate vocational education and training facilities.

Conclusions

There is an urgent need to rethink policy around youth and adult learning and education to address

the needs of the high percentage of youth that are not in education, employment and training


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There is an urgent need to rethink policy around youth and adult learning and education to address the

needs of the high percentage of youth that are not in education, employment and training (NEETs).

(NEETs). As well as addressing the systemic and endemic issues facing the sector and shifting the

current ‘shape’ of education.

Recommendations

A set of 45 recommendations are detailed in the report. These have been grouped into 12 sections:

1. Policy legislation and governance – the need to develop a comprehensive, consolidated youth

and adult education policy for each country and ensure effective implementation;

2. Awareness and recognition of youth and adult education – agencies at all levels, including

government ministries, to more overtly identify themselves as providers of YALE;

3. Literacy and language – to overhaul the conceptualisation, curriculum and materials of national

literacy, to observe international and regional conventions and to promote the use of mother-

tongue as the medium of instruction;

4. Curriculum – customise curriculums to respond effectively to learners’ needs; revise practices

and develop a unified national curriculum for literacy and adult basic education;

5. Data, information and research – standardise the data required from youth and adult

education providers, digitise access to reports, research and evaluations and strengthen the

capacity to conduct research that is able to inform policy and practice;

6. Quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation – develop a framework for youth and adult

education validation which is equivalent to the system for formal education;

7. Funding – urgently increase the percentage of national budgets allocated to the adult education

and training sector and consider a skills development levy on the private sector;

8. Programmes and infrastructure – extend the duration of rural and income generating

community projects to allow for deeper ownership and greater likelihood of sustainability;

9. Qualification frameworks – establish and support an appropriate national qualifications

framework (NQF) to ensure access to and recognition of prior learning of adults and simplify the

registration process for existing NQFs, especially for smaller organisations;

10. Practitioners and their development – develop and implement a capacity building plan for YAE

practitioners, harmonise conditions of service with those of conventional educators and

trainers, encourage Open and Distance learning and ensure universities and research

institutions provide YAE practitioners with support;

11. Out-of-school youth – explore the provision of separate programmes for out-of-school youth

and ensure NGO programmes include both out-of-school and employed youth;

12. Mobilisation, cooperation and networking – both government and civil society to commit to

reforming and revitalising youth and adult education, to strengthening its capacity and to

developing an action agenda.


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Reflections on the study

When you are talking about employment for Africa – what do you mean?

o We are talking about people in jobs with wages and salaries, but also those who are

working to gain a livelihood, for example by growing and selling vegetables.

As civil society we want to do lobbying and advocacy work, but the data we are using is from

the government, so how can we use it with confidence – how can we see the real picture?

o All over the world people do not trust government statistics, but often it is all we have

to work with. Literacy and education levels are a case in point. For example, we see

governments claiming literacy rates of over 90% and we know this cannot be true. So

we need to observe statistics with caution, although they do usually give us the ‘general’

picture, but we need to keep generating data to add to our factual knowledge.

We have problems of sustainability – our programmes are usually funded for 3 years or so and

then they stop. In one of the prisons in Mozambique about 90% of the inmates are youth, so if

we are going to make peace in our countries, we need to build something for the youth and that

requires more prolonged support.

As Dr. Chitepo said - we know these issues, we have known them for a long time – is it that the

efforts are becoming less or that populations are growing or both?

o It is a bit of everything, partly we just know more of these issues, we have wider access

to information. We also have international pressure to reach universal primary

education, so the issues are more visible now. We do have growing populations too – it

is complex and varies from country to country.

Our point of emphasis may not be the right one – if we put a lot of effort and resources into the

causes that are less important, we are going to continue in that way for a very long time. Adult

education and lifelong learning is about adaptation, changing to the needs as the world

changes, so we must step up our research so that we prioritise in the right areas.

It is the case that efforts are receding in some contexts. For example, in Malawi we no longer

have the technical education provisioning anymore – these are graveyards. We are now pushing

children towards academic skills and not all our children our academically orientated.

o This reflects the difference between lifelong learning (LLL) and lifelong education (LLE) –

we have never had LLE anywhere. The trajectory has changed, we need to change the

way we provide education to accommodate such realities.

The veracity of statistics cannot be underestimated. In 2007/08 the Kenyan government made a

valid undertaking to measure the national literacy rate and they found that UNESCO and other

agencies had over-estimated the literacy rate by about 15%, and that spurred government to

put more efforts and resources into literacy. So we must insist on more in-depth, robust

research into such issues.

In a recent pilot programme intending to enroll youth in skill training courses, prospective

learners were tested in order to determine their literacy skills. It was found that 40-50% of the

candidates having declared to have attained grades 6 or 7 were not able to do a basic literacy


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test. We need such evidence to ‘shake up’ politicians to review the seriousness of our statistical

claims, including the claim of a 92% literacy rate attainment.

Reliable statistics are critical because how do you do planning, monitoring and evaluation

without statistics and baseline data? It cuts across, right through our work, so we cannot escape

the fact that data is critical.

Policies have not encouraged people to go into the secondary and higher levels because of the

amount of investment involved. How do we ensure that we have some specialization for some

yet we do not leave behind the majority – how do we change the shape of education to what is

needed? There is a disjuncture between the world of work and what is happening in education.

o It is a question of adaptation - the system is not adapting quickly enough to address the

challenge. Policies are not actually talking to the real problem, they are talking to the

wrong problem – so research is needed to be able to identify the real problem that

policy must respond to.

Concluding remarks: Clearly some countries have to fix their formal education system to address

issues of drop out, repetition, accessibility. If we can get people up to grade 7, 8 or 9 – if that is

reached with quality, it can take us a long way towards meaningful education for development.

That is, if people can really read, write and count when they exit the system. That is one critical

concern – fixing these basics in the formal system. But we do also have to look at the reduction of

provisioning – so many youth in Europe, for example, spend half their education years already in

the work place. The need for good statistics, clear planning and the dire situation in our countries

does mean that YALE really does have a significant role to play within the context of development.

The policy situation and trends concerning YALE in Zimbabwe

Erison Huruba, consultant to dvv international Zimbabwe office, and Elias

Murinda, Director at the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and

Empowerment (MYDIE), opened the presentation by noting that many of

the contextual and YALE issues identified in the five-nation YALE study also

reflected the realities of the Zimbabwe context.

The national context

Zimbabwe has a total population of 12.4million, of which 71% live in rural

areas, and 52% of the population is female. With 82% of the population

being under 26 years (41% under 15 and 41% aged 16-25), the vast majority

of the population are marginalised youth.

During pre-independence, only 40% completed primary schooling, while the remaining 60%

dropped out. The situation was more dire for secondary level schooling, with only 4% of learners

completing and the significant majority of 96% dropping out. Literacy rates stood at 56%.

Mr. Elias Murinda (left) and Mr. Erison Huruba reflecting on YALE priorities.


15

Government response at independence

At independence, 75% of the population entered school, while 25% of the population simply never

entered school. Government’s response was primarily targeted at those who missed out on formal

education, with an emphasis on increasing skills in reading and writing. A mass literacy campaign

was launched, and a massive expansion in the formal school system was initiated – with significant

increased entrance at all levels; primary (79%), secondary (841%) and universities (300%). In

addition, government responded with a massive offering of non-formal basic education mainly to

supplement the formal education system, through vehicles such as correspondence learning, study

groups, and afternoon and evening classes. National literacy rates are currently stated as 92%.

Skewing the data and realities

However, literacy rates are measured by whether a person can read and write a basic sentence and

accomplish basic numeracy tasks, and not measured against literacy in its broadest sense, or as

defined by UNESCO. Thus high literacy rates can be claimed if one measures on such parameters. In

addition, when more learners joined the school system, the curriculum was not revised to cater for

the diverse interests and capabilities of the increased school population, and movement towards

diversification and curriculum reform was slow. Less academically oriented learners were frustrated

by their failure to achieve desired results, resulting in non-achievers and dropouts flooding the job

market (with only 20% ‘O’ level pass rates), thus creating a generation of frustrated youth because

they entered the job market with their limited education and skills yet there were not enough jobs

available for those with such limited skills.

Current challenges: conceptualisation, coordination, resource and data poverty

Programmes “hatched” at independence persist, with emphasis on adult literacy and basic

education, and economic activities are geared towards the mass literacy initiative - meaning literacy

is linked to basic skills for economic survival (for example counting eggs when chicken farming). The

conceptualisation of literacy is limited to the ‘three R’s’ of reading, writing and arithmetic and does

not include a more extended understanding of communicative practices, critical thinking, active

citizenship, individual rights and improving the quality of life. Empowerment of learners and their

role in economic development remain the buzz words in adult education yet literacy continues to

be narrowly defined.

The importance of partnerships between the state, civil society and the private sector in developing

and sustaining adult learning and education is known but a coordinated approach remains elusive.

Various modes of adult education for development abound in a number of ministries and

government departments. Independent colleges are thriving. In addition, a number of NGOs and

CBOs as players in youth and adult education exist but their various experiences and expertise are

not being utilised.

Support for adult education has slackened and the previously recognised Adult Education

Department was reduced to a Section within the Quality Assurance Division; it is now a Division


16

within the Department of Secondary and Non-formal Education (SECNFE), and the Division faces

resource challenges and shortage of personnel. This is despite the fact that Zimbabwe is a

signatory to various UN conventions (EFA, MDGs, UNLD) and has been following proceedings of

CONFINTEAs V and VI. A further concern is that research on various aspects of youth and adult

education to enable government to make research-based policies and decisions is limited, outdated

and often unreliable.

Responding to the challenges: The MYDIE skills training programme

The Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment (MYDIE) is working in a

collaborative manner with other ministries to address the problem of out of school youth, those

without skills, education and work (NEETS). Career guidance and life skills training is embedded in

all aspects of the programme.

Components of the programme include a project which targets younger youth and is implemented

with a number of government ministries and partners, though following lessons learned from an

evaluation, there remains a lot to be done on that project. Additional components involve the

identification of economic sectors that have the potential for income generation and learners are

supported with start-up kits, so immediately after training they can start their own projects within

identified sectors. There is also an informal apprenticeship programme which identifies specific

crafts persons who are already trained and skilled and who mentor young people in their specific

trade. In addition, a youth build programme is aimed at developing capacity for youth to engage in

community development initiatives.

The joint approach emphasised in the Hamburg declaration (CONFINTEA V) is seen as important and

MYDIE is advancing efforts to bring together various players in YALE, and is urging other ministries

to spearhead this approach. Germane to this approach is the need for a broader conceptualization

of literacy and YALE to include concepts of social capital, capability and social exclusion and,

importantly, the approach calls for more robust research.

Reflections on the presentation from Zimbabwe

For the informal apprenticeship programme - do you use craftsmen as mentors, or do you have

a placement where youth attend to learn?

o First service providers (mentors) are identified and given basic training in skills

development and they are supported with basic material requirements. They are then

allocated young people who are interested in their special areas of craft, and the youth

work alongside them to learn.

We are seeing capacity in terms of resourcing and programme cut backs – why is this?

o A lack of proper focus and conceptualisation which leads to reduced political will. So

when resources are scarce, that which is regarded as more important takes precedence,

for example universal primary education (UPE).

o There appears to be a misconception with many decision makers in Zimbabwe. They will


17

claim we don’t have a problem of out of school youth in Zimbabwe. Our leaders have

not caught up with reality because we made some progress soon after independence

and then we lagged again, and policy makers and implementers have not caught up with

current realities.

Concluding remarks: There is a remarkable convergence with the findings of the five nation

study in Southern Africa. Resources are not being injected into large scale YALE programmes. In

the case of Zimbabwe, the ideas are good and innovative at times, but there are a lot of

inhibitions that need to be overcome.

Introducing the worker’s practically acquired skills (PAS) logbook from Uganda

Mr. Henry Francis Okinyal, Director of the Directorate of Industrial Training

(DIT) at the Ministry of Education and Sports explained that the DIT is a

member of the Uganda Adult Education Network (UGAADEN). In partnership

with dvv international, UGAADEN convened a conference in November 2011

focused on YALE policy issues, so YALE discourse is up to date in the Ugandan

context5.

Contextual realities

Uganda is faced with the major challenge of widespread un- and under-

employment, particularly among the youth. Though reliable data remains a

challenge, approximately 400,000 youths enter the labour market annually, but

only about 100,000 are absorbed by the formal sector. The majority of job

creation is in the informal sector, i.e. approximately 80% of businesses fall

within the informal sector.

What is the Worker’s PAS logbook?

The workers PAS (Practically Acquired Skills) programme is a story

of a pilot programme in Uganda which may be a source of

inspiration. It is a logbook, but people are naming and framing it a

‘worker’s pass’ – so that is how it has come to be known locally. It

is a document / logbook that is used to certify the skills and

competences of an individual for a particular trade / occupation.

The new skills / competencies acquired are entered into the

logbook. This logbook becomes a reference document for

employers, employees, and assessors.

5 A report published in 2012 and based on the outcome and deliberations of the November 2011 UGAADEN

conference on YALE is available from UGAADEN, and was distributed to participants during the workshop. Contact [email protected] for access to the report.

Mr. Henry Francis Okinyal, Director of the DIT Uganda sharing the Worker's PAS innovation.


18

Purpose of the Worker’s PAS logbook

The starting point for the worker’s PAS is the occupational profile. The logbook enables recognition

of the entire scope of skills, knowledge and experience held by an individual, irrespective of the

context where the learning originally took place. This certification provides an opportunity for one

to prove the skills acquired non-formally / informally - either at your working station, daily labour

activities, in an internship, or even just through learning by doing. Employers and clients gain

confidence in one’s skills resulting in better job and income opportunities and one can further

pursue a formal career path based on his / her skills and competences as indicated in the logbook.

The Worker’s PAS is intended to:

focus on practically acquired skills, irrespective of the context where the learning originally

took place

address sectoral / individual needs in relation to skills shortages and contribute to work

modernisation

provide the opportunity to break down the formal learning process into tailored learning

opportunities

promote lifelong learning and facilitate planning for further learning

enable individuals to make progress in their learning careers based on their learning

outcomes and competences, not based on the duration and location of a particular learning

programme.

The Worker’s PAS project

The Worker’s PAS project goes beyond conventional understanding of Business, Technical and

Vocational Education and Training (BTVET). Project intervention includes capacity building,

institutional development, coaching, technical assistance to training providers, stimulation of

collective action amongst workers & employers, career guidance, skills training and advocacy. It is 3-

year project funded by the EU which started in 2011 and will end in 2013. The project facilitates

training in marketable skills for 600 youth, and envisages the issuing of at least 1200 Worker’s PAS

Logbooks through the partner organisation UGAPRIVI to the direct beneficiaries of the project.

Extract from pages 26 & 27 of the tailoring occupation Worker's PAS - showing specific skills/competencies (left side) and level of assessed achievement (right side).


19

Indirectly the scale-up potential for the Worker’s PAS lies at 2,500,000 informal workers in Uganda,

with further regional expansion of the accreditation system to the East African Community.

Project implementation

The project was first introduced to Ugandan stakeholders and launched with Ministers,

Ambassadors of the EU and neighbouring countries in May 2011. A pilot trial and training followed,

with a review of occupational profiles and test items developed. The first assessment of candidates

will be conducted in the hairdressing occupation profile.

The Directorate of Industrial Training mandated UGAPRIVI to design the accreditation process and

issue the Worker’s PAS Logbook. A labour market scan was carried out to determine market

demand and potentials in project districts. This was followed by mobilization of trainees in the four

districts of Kampala, Mukono, Jinja and Kamuli and training started in the hairdressing trade in

these four districts.

The following table summarises the implementation roll-out process:

Indicator Status end 2011 Planned for 2012 Expected in Project Period

Trainees trained or in training 269 500 600

Trades in training 3 7 8

Worker’s PAS developed 4 7 8

Trades in assessment 2 7 8

Candidates assessed Total: 624 Total: 800 Total:1200

Own trainees: 159 Own trainees: 500 Own trainees: 600

Learners assessed by UGAPRIVI through PSFU were 1,209

Implementation costs

Total cost per candidate is 82,9333 Ugandan Shilling (UGX) - approximately US$33.20. Associated

costs are: assessor = 31,600 UGX master assessor = 13,333 UGX assessment centre = 10,000 UGX

printing costs = 25,000 UGX and database management = 3,000 UGX. However, actual costs used

per candidate have been identified as 100,000 UGX (approximately US$40).

Current challenges with the project

This is a pilot project and a key current challenge is acceptability and marketing the concept. In

addition challenges faced are: increased demand for the Worker’s PAS Logbook outside project

areas (e.g. new districts); despite 12 project partners, SWISSCONTACT is the only major player;

there is need for a review of occupations or clustering them as per demands (e.g. a need to un-

cluster Welding); the need for progression paths and into the formal system (i.e. Ugandan


20

vocational qualification framework descriptors for all levels); data generation, reliability &

application; and funding & sustainability.

Reflections on the Ugandan worker’s PAS project

A question of who fills in the logbook was clarified as the registered assessors (those registered

with the programme as able to certify/stamp). These may be from different centres. So you may

move from one centre to the other until you have completed the logbook.

A question of whether any other countries have ever initiated such a logbook idea because

recognition of informal/non-formal learning and skills seems unprecedented, yet much desired

was responded with an example in Europe in the oil industry.

Concern was raised about the potential risk of the PAS system excluding people because the

logbook could be demanded by employers and, those who don’t have it may be excluded from

employment consideration. Similarly, concern was raised regarding the potential for the duty to

be placed on the learner and not the employer to devise activities etc. that can practically

assess and demonstrate the individual’s practical skills. An additional concern of inclusivity was

raised regarding people living in rural areas having access to opportunities to get the logbook

filled compared to those in urban areas. It was noted that the potential for such exclusion was

being monitored by the project partners, and that the project is currently in pilot stage with the

intention to roll it out to other districts.

The PROFASA project from Mozambique

Mr. David Harrington, dvv international Mozambique Country Director,

shared a positive experience of the Families without Illiteracy Programme

(PROFASA). The project was implemented over a five year period from 2006-

2011 and sought to reduce the rate of illiteracy by recruiting primary and

secondary school students as literacy facilitators. With a current illiteracy

rate of 48.1% in Mozambique, and only 1% of the education budget being

allocated to Adult Education, the project also aimed to evidence “how to do

more with a small budget”.

Target group

The project targeted youth and adults between the ages of 13 and 65 with a particular emphasis on

women. In 2006 the project planned for the participation of 1,200 participants and this target was

exceeded with 2,966 taking part of which 2,305 were female.

Project implementation

The project was first piloted in Nampula province in 2006 before being introduced in Sofala

province in the following districts (with illiteracy rates in parenthesis): Beira (24.7%), Dondo

(39.9%), Búzi (67.7%), Nhamatanda (61.9%), Machanga (71.8%) and Gorongosa (73.6%).

Mr. David Harrington, dvv international Mozambique Country Director sharing the PROFASA experience.


21

A criteria for selection of literacy facilitators was developed as i) to be a student in primary school

level 2 or attending secondary school, and ii) to have a good attendance and academic record.

Supervisors were expected to either i) be a teacher of Portuguese, ii) be a teacher of Mathematics, or

iii) be a school Director, and iv) accept the task with good will and not view the task as a burden or

additional task to their already over-loaded work from which a detrimental attitude to the project

could emerge and v) be considered a person of good character in and by the community.

Incentives were identified together with literacy facilitators and, of the incentives identified, kits

were distributed (containing a schoolbag, copy books, planning notebooks, stationery and a

wristwatch); training was provided to facilitators; progression to further education opportunities

and exemption of payment of school fees were realised. In addition, didactic and pedagogic support

was provided in the form of texts on andragogy and teaching methodologies, pamphlets and

manuals on reading in Portuguese, mathematics and numeracy manuals and other relevant texts.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) contributed to the project by providing spaces such as churches

and halls for classes to take place, and District governments carried out programmes of mobilization

and sensitization with local populations.

Project activities aimed to be as participatory as possible and included: mobilization and

sensitization of communities involving school Directors, Coordinators of Nucleo Pedagogica de

Base’s (NPBs – translated as Pedagogical Nuclei)6, and local community leaders; identification of

locations to hold classes and agreements with their owners; training of trainers and supervisors

(TOTs); registration of 2,966 participants (98 extended family groups) in 2006; the creation of a

teaching calendar together with facilitators and participants, with a minimum of 6 hours per week

over 3-4 days. The calendar also included 4-6 hours per week of life skills education (health,

sanitation, environment, etc.) and in some cases income generating activities, and; supervisory

visits to the literacy centres and NPB’s of various districts. The TOTS, supervision visits and robust

monitoring and evaluation of the project proved to be key priority activities to ensure the success of

the project.

The first trimester was overseen by the school Directors, the semestral periods overseen by

Directors of District Services (SDEJT’s), and annual oversight was conducted by the provincial

Director of Education.

Implementation costs

The total cost of implementing the project in 2006 was 425,253.13 Meticais (approximately US$

17,000). Of this 80% was funded from the Provincial Directorate of Education and Culture budget,

the other 20% being funded by the budgets of the District Services of Education, Youth, and

Technology. This budget paid for programme design, training manuals, training of trainers and

supervisors, and incentives for the facilitators.

6 NPBs are units of the Ministry of Education at District level.


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Project results

Despite a shortage of textbooks during the pilot, it was concluded that the programme should be

continued in 2007 and extended into the Sofala province. Participants completing 1 year of the

programme were capable of sitting the same final exams as those who had completed 2 years of

the regular literacy programme and the pass rate of project participants was 83.7%.

In order to accelerate the process of illiteracy reduction in Sofala province and contribute to

poverty reduction it was decided to adapt the project to absorb as many participants as possible.

This led to the creation of Stage 2 of PROFASA - extending the project to this additional province

and gathering evidence that the project should not be narrowly defined as only a mass basic literacy

programme, but rather as the key to the next stages of learning (progression) – with the

understanding that literacy the key to such progression: without basic literacy, people cannot enter

into other programmes, no matter how innovative or well-conceived those programmes may be,

thus basic literacy learning is conceived as critical.

Reflections on the PROFASA project in Mozambique

Clarity on how the project was considered a family literacy concept was sought with the

response that literacy facilitators are aged from 13 years. One of the requirements for them to

be a facilitator is that they must have family members (no matter how extended). The learning

starts from the facilitator who then extends it to family members (and beyond in some cases).

The 83.7% who passed are those who sat the exam, indicating drop out was experienced – what

has caused it?

o Gender related issues mainly, especially for females (e.g. household chore

expectations). However, disclosure of illiteracy amongst family members has not been

demonstrated as a barrier. Indeed, more commonly experienced has been youngsters

telling elders to ‘get down and study’, with elders positively responding to their younger

family member (literacy facilitator).

The popular education programme (PEP) in South Africa

Mr. Farrell Hunter, dvv international South Africa Country Director shared

experiences of the non-formal education (NFE) popular education

programme (PEP) operating in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. He

explained that PEP is a pilot project, a reflection-action approach which is

aimed at rights-based awareness / consciousness raising and transformation.

Programme model

The programme has three core components: a Popular Education School

(PES) which operates at the micro level, Popular Education Development

(PED) workshops operating at the meso level with the inclusion of CSOs, and

Popular Education Practitioners Circles (PEPC) which focus on reflecting

Mr. Farrell Hunter, dvv international Country Director South Africa sharing insights into PEP.


23

practice to influence policy at the macro level through practice, as well as seeking pathways to

influence legislative frameworks and formal provisioning (such as green papers, the current model

of further and higher education and training). The programme is based on principles of participation

– the curriculum is designed with and for participants around issues that are of interest and concern

to them. Learning takes place in community spaces ranging from garages to containers, and from

halls to well-equipped classrooms.

Programme focus

The programme works from the concept of ‘thinking globally and acting locally’. It does not focus on

the vocational and is not formally accredited, instead focussing on issues agreed upon as important

to participants and certificates of participation are provided. As such, the programme addresses a

wide range of topics including socio, economic, cultural & (non-party) political issues. It aims to

assist participants to find voice - speak up and out and act on the circumstances.

Target group

The programme is open to the young, older adults, those partially employed, those struggling for

food security / living in conditions of poverty.

Programme results

Drop out and interrupted learning is limited because, according to participants and facilitators;

they learn something new, they have surprising insights and begin to better understand how “one

thing connects to another”, they have space to address issues such as child abuse and racism

associated with a history of disenfranchisement, and the issues they address are relevant to their

lives (such as making linkages between the price of bread and global price fixing, violence

experienced in / by their community, and unemployment associated with global political forces).

Reflections on the PEP in South Africa

Clarification of programme implementation processes was requested, including who chooses

the ‘course’ content / curriculum, how facilitators are selected and how PEP relates to the

Reflect approach, given remarkable convergences between the two approaches. It was

explained that the PEP learning content is negotiated, and that - during the pilot stage - two

facilitators in the province are currently conversant with facilitating the process and ‘shadow’

facilitators are in the process of being mentored. Popular education was described as being

aimed more at transforming undesirable conditions and less focused on literacy skills

development which is incorporated in the Reflect approach.

The paradigm shift in the mid/late 1990’s from ‘thinking globally and acting locally’ towards

‘thinking locally and acting globally’ was also considered.


24

Pamoja West Africa Network7

Mr. Mouhamadou Diagne, Programme Officer dvv international Mali,

presented the work of the Pamoja West Africa Reflect Network on behalf

of Ms. Sue Upton, Network Coordinator who was unable to attend the

workshop. Mr. Diagne explained that Pamoja is a Swahili word meaning

‘to be together’, and the name was given to the Reflect Africa-wide

network by Ugandan practitioners as Uganda was one of the first countries

where Reflect was piloted by ActionAid International from 1993-1995.

About the network

Pamoja West Africa is a network of 12 national Reflect practitioner

networks (Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia,

Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria). The network’s

development has been ongoing since 2000 and was formally registered in

Mali in 2010, where the Secretariat is based. Objectives of the network are

to achieve the following in all 12 of the member countries (as well as incoming

member nations):

Contribute to increasing adult literacy

Establish and monitor national NFE policies

Lobby for the allocation of at least 3% of national education budgets to literacy

Encourage the use of Reflect / shared learning from good practices

Contribute to effective M&E of the Belem Framework commitments to youth and adult

education

Some key achievements of the network in the past 5 years

In 2007, members conducted a caravan and march campaign. Mini buses travelled through

communities in Guinea, Senegal and Mali to discuss literacy and HIV&AIDS. Caravaners were joined

by Malian NGOs in Bamako to deliver the requests and opinions gathered along the route to

decision makers attending UNESCO's African Regional Conference in Support of Global Literacy.

Marchers demanded that African governments allocate at least 3% of national education budgets to

support literacy programmes. During the conference, Mali's President committed his country to

respecting this demand.

From 2008-2010, members conducted an analysis of Non-Formal Education (NFE) policies. National

teams brought together representatives of government, civil society and education specialists in

member countries to analyse and document existing policy provision for youth and adult literacy.

Two sub regional conferences took place to enable French and English speaking countries to share

7 A Sept. 2012 report documenting Reflect Best Practices from Pamoja West Africa was distributed to participants

and is available from www.pamoja-west-africa.org

Mr. Mouhamadou Diagne listening to shared reflections on the Pamoja West Africa Network.

http://www.pamoja-west-africa.org/


25

their findings and discuss future action. This process served to draw attention to NFE issues and

establish base line data as a basis for policy-influencing advocacy efforts.

During 2010-2011, members undertook a budget tracking initiative. A workshop was conducted in

Nigeria for network members from Anglophone countries where participants were trained in using

the Economic Literacy, Budget Accountability and Governance (ELBAG) approach. Similarly, a

workshop for Francophone member countries was held in Burkina Faso where the use of

International Budget Project trainers and materials was employed. The workshops and follow-up

dialogue and shared learning processes aimed to build Pamoja West Africa Network members’

knowledge and skills to understand and monitor local and national budgets in order to increase

knowledge and advocacy-orientated action concerning NFE resources.

During 2012, some national Pamojas contributed to the government monitoring reports on youth

and adult education commitments made at CONFINTEA VI, under the Belem Framework for Action.

National Pamojas continue to share their experiences of how to improve civil society participation

in future national monitoring reports.

Strengths and constraints of the network

Some of the strengths of the Network were shared as:

Good links with thousands of communities across West Africa (legitimacy for advocacy)

A growing number of autonomous member networks (relevance)

Dynamic relationships between members (solidarity and shared learning), and;

Increasing collaboration with governments.

Constraints faced by the Network include:

Limited recognition of the value /needs of the network contributes to a lack of adequate

and consistent funding over several years, so:

The Secretariat is under staffed

Capacity of member networks is varied/limited

Planning is speculative, and;

Effecting change fast enough in a region where literacy rates are the lowest in the world.

Reflections on the network

By way of sharing lessons which may be of value to other sub-regions, the successes of the network

were compared with limitations faced by Pamoja networks of Southern and Eastern Africa. It was

considered that key pre-requisites for successful operation of the West Africa network have been:

dedication and commitment, good coordination, the coordinator and members proactively taking

initiative (despite language differences), and ownership (already existing prior to funding support).


26

Spotlight on Pamoja Guinea national network

Ms. Fatoumata–Dabo Camara shared insights into operations of the Pamoja

Guinea Network, a national member network of the Pamoja West Africa

Network.

About the network

Pamoja Guinea was originally founded in 2004 with seven NGO members and

currently 43 NGOs are members. Strategic objectives and activities include:

capacity building, YALE advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, networking and

shared learning, communication and capitalization. The network targets

engagement with politicians, partners in development, NGOs (national and

international) and the private sector.

The policy and legislation context

The network operates within the framework of influencing, tracking and capitalizing on the

following legislative frameworks and policies:

the national policy document for Literacy and Formal Education

the national Five-years plan 2011- 2015

the 15 February 2010 Decree NO 005/PRG/CNDD/SGG/2010 on the Creation of the Ministry

of Literacy and Promotion of National Languages

the 1998 Orientation System for Education

Decree D/2011/199/RPG/ on the Regulation of Literacy and Non Formal Education

Strategically, the network engages with the convention between the Ministry of Literacy and

Promotion of National Languages and a national coalition of Non-Formal Education and Literacy. In

this regard, the specific objectives of the network are to influence decision makers to meaningfully

apply articles 27-28 of the Decree D/2011/199/PRG/SGG, as well as to influence government to

create conditions for appropriate implementation of the relevant policies and laws of the sector.

The national YALE context

Ms. Camara pointed to the convergences between the Southern Africa five-nation study and the

realities of the Guinea context. In Guinea: there is very limited budgetary allocation for the YALE

sector - with only 0.02% of the national education budget allocated to YALE; there is a severe

shortage of qualified human resources (literacy educators and teachers); capacity of the

government and civil society to mobilise funds is weak; and the availability of reliable data is

extremely limited.

Some key achievements of Pamoja Guinea

Despite such conditions, however, Pamoja Guinea has established a partnership with the Ministry

of Literacy and Promotion of National Languages, the Reflect approach has been validated with

Ms. Fatoumata-Dabo Camara presenting the work of Pamoja Guinea.


27

inclusion in the national policy document, and in 2012 a validated strategic development plan for

literacy has been developed. In addition, Pamoja Guinea members actively took part in the 2007

caravan and march campaign in Mali (as referred to previously). Advocacy and lobbying activities

have been ongoing and this has involved gathering data on literacy in the Republic of Guinea. The

network has also lead capacity building activities for NGO members and government employees to

implement the Reflect approach. Network members have also participated in the elaboration of the

national literacy and non-formal education policies and strategies. Other achievements have

included active participation in events spotlighting the concerns of international literacy day (8th

September), organising a TV broadcast round table discussion on literacy-based development, and

conducting an impact study of Reflect in Guinea from 2003-2012.

Challenges faced by the network

Challenges of the network reflect the national YALE context constraints, with insufficient qualified

persons in the YALE sector, limited capacity of member NGOs to conduct advocacy work, scarce support

of government for the sector during repetitive political crises, and weak capacity of both the State and

civil society to mobilize resources.

Reflections on the work of Pamoja Guinea

The question of whether any skills training is offered through Pamoja and/or the Reflect

approach was raised, and it was explained that the literacy (in its expanded sense) skills

development process in the Reflect approach is always linked with skills-based priorities

identified by learners / participants - such as income generating activities. In this regard, skills

development is integrated into the Reflect learning process and based on the identified

priorities of and by participants. A pilot programme has been established between Pamoja Mali

and Pamoja Guinea, through which skills-based courses have been developed, for instance a

course on how to produce potatoes for commercial purposes.

It was highlighted that not all Pamoja network members may necessarily be implementing

Reflect, mainly due to funding constraints to conduct training in the approach. While most

member NGOs are implementing Reflect, some are not though all members are supporters of

the ideology and evidenced outcomes of the approach.

Inspiring cooperation with Ethiopian, Dutch and German resources

Mr. Gerhard Quincke, dvv international Eastern Africa Regional Director,

presented experiences from Ethiopia on how to work with the government to

demonstrate how adult education can be mainstreamed into education planning.

Background and pre-requisites for the present state of the cooperation

dvv international has been able to broaden its focus in Ethiopia and increasingly

work on the macro level on the basis of the following factors: Mr. Gerhard Quinke, dvv international Eastern Africa Regional Director.


28

a more than 10 year presence in the country, established trust and a clear designation of

roles - dvv international is the technical partner of Government with a bi-lateral Agreement

of Cooperation (AoC);

practical experience gathered over the years with stakeholders across the sectors and with

all of the 11 Ethiopian Regional States;

the existence of the well-funded Integrated Women Empowerment Program (IWEP) which

has been serving as a laboratory of ideas (and proven good practice);

an increasingly adult non-formal education (ANFE) focused policy development process,

with a National Adult Education Strategy, a 10 year Master Plan for Adult Education and a 5

year Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP IV) with implementation plans also at

regional levels;

With an adult illiteracy rate of 69%, Government has made Adult Education - referred to in

the plans as ‘Integrated Functional Adult Education’ (IFAE) a priority because with this level

of adult illiteracy Government recognised national development goals could not be reached.

How ANFE/IFAE/YALE is promoted in Ethiopia with dvv international

On the basis of the existing strategic framework and the experience gathered during broad

implementation work in the field, key elements of the technical cooperation for system-building

(e.g. Master Plan for Adult Education) include:

An interdisciplinary approach involving stakeholders (mainly ministries and their regional

and local representations) to jointly implement and monitor IFAE;

The designation of exemplary geographical areas of IFAE application (the so-called ‘Model

Woredas’ (with a ‘Woreda’ being similar to a District);

Besides inter-ministerial, cross-sectorial ‘horizontal’ integration of the programme work,

there is also ‘vertical integration’ across the various levels of governance (an inter-

ministerial governance body with adult education boards at local and national levels are

working together to oversee and coordinate the governance aspects of ANFE. A number of

ministries are included in this such as the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry

of Women, Youth and Cultural Affairs);

Mobilizing further key stakeholders (e.g. TVET, MSE promotion and micro-finance as well as

NGO‘s) and potential funding partners - as far as possible;

Informing about the ‘developmental value added of IFAE’ (advocacy, awareness creation)

among top political leadership to promote the allocation of appropriate financial, human

and infrastructural resources to the sub-sector;

dvv international facilitates access to regional/international adult education exposure and

networking (e.g. from ADEA and UNESCO conferences, via textbooks, donor networks).


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Current situation and platform from where the next AoC departs

Because of the sheer pressure of the circumstances (with almost 30 million more or less illiterate

adults, the Government cannot achieve its targets), and because of the response assisted by the bi-

lateral cooperation between the Ministry of Education and dvv international to date, IFAE can

‘come out of its corner’ into the mainstream of educational planning.

The practice of having functional evidence at the micro level underpins application through meso

level support, and provides political and strategic backing on the macro level-facilitated synergy

effects in a way that has: i) practically merged two programmes implemented through dvv

international (the women empowerment programme and bringing men into the fold), ii)

Government policy, strategy and institutional development and the support provided by dvv

international have become almost one.

In addition, ideological gaps (e.g. between Functional Adult Literacy and Reflect) have easily been

bridged, interdisciplinary thinking is continuously gaining political recognition at all levels and in the

regions (horizontal and vertical integration), and the understanding reached on the need of

integrated governance of ANFE can now pave the way towards a sustainable IFAE system (with an

independent adult education agency as a medium-term vision).

Joint policy-orientation of the two partners in Ethiopia

Adult education must be functional! Elements of basic education (literacy) must be integrated with

skills and business development alongside the promotion of post-literacy environments and micro

and small enterprises (MSE) development tools (including micro-finance).

Prerequisites to make such integrated approaches successful have included:

well-conducted market assessments (you cannot make macro changes without

understanding the dynamics of micro economics)

continuous research and activation of new, innovative income generating options geared to

the living conditions of the specific target groups along all possible value chains

the promotion of facilities/environments for the development of micro and small

enterprises including further education/training, facilities for micro-finance and business

advisory services

The current decentralisation process and the cross-sectoral character of adult education calls for

innovative governance arrangements to boost outreach/impact, and the presence of the

development partner also on the macro-level is indispensable to lay the foundations for the

sustainability of the programme work. By being active on the macro level, it provides space to

correct where gaps in support and efforts may exist at the micro and meso levels.


30

Challenges identified

The pace of the programme work can easily be overshadowed by events in the political sphere (at

federal and/or regional and/or local level). National government can’t always tell the district level

what to do because Ethiopia is a federal government, and that has challenges when working at the

macro level. In addition, the availability of well-qualified facilitators supported by a professional

back-up system (and the respective allocation of resources) has been a constraint: with 30 million

illiterate adults out of a population total of 80 million to reach, and facilitators conducting

monitoring and evaluation activities not having access to a car, the challenge of reaching the adults

is very real.

For IFAE governance arrangements to become fully operational, time and resources for capacity

development are needed, until a nationwide coverage in a country as big as Ethiopia can be

achieved. Furthermore, the creation of literate (post-literacy) environments is essential to promote

a culture of lifelong learning and to safeguard the sustainability of the programme efforts. A further

constraint has been that, while community mobilization and ownership at local levels remains

important, for broad coverage and outreach it is necessary to not only tolerate but actively involve

NGOs/CSOs in technical dialogue and in the governance of the system (at least in an advisory

capacity). This has not always been easy because relations between NGOs and government are

often strained. The power of having structures, using them and gathering evidence is well

understood but it is difficult to use such evidence when the NGO sector, though legalized, is not

really ‘allowed’ in the country.

Reflections on the cooperation in Ethiopia

The presentation from Ethiopia inspired a number of reflective questions and further understanding

of the cooperation realities as follows:

How have you managed to break down silos to achieve horizontal integration?

o Nationally we have not yet achieved that. But we have at district level through, for example,

farmer’s training centres, health posts, basic education centres – some of which were in a

reasonable state, some were in ruins. We encouraged realisation that the efforts and

energies can be merged – that IFAE does not have to be expensive, the existing facilities

such as these centres, NGO bases, churches, community halls etc. can be utilised. So by

working like this we are breaking through and moving towards the idea that we can

integrate horizontally more. Government are increasingly realising that this ‘master plan’ is

a way that can be utilised in districts and that the tools can help to effectively plan for,

monitor and manage IFAE.

What, if any, are the implications for getting all 5 ministries on board, especially in terms of

funding? And how do you manage coordination? With inter-ministerial plans, there is often the

differing ‘pulling and pushing’ agendas – how do you manage this?

o All ministries have signed agreements which spell out that they will manage the


31

implementation jointly – but that is on paper of course. The issue of sound coordination

is still in the making – it comes down to individuals who can drive it well. But when

certain drivers are not so effective, of course it is a challenge. We also do capacity

building work at all levels. The best success is at the local levels – where you see tangible

outcomes. We involve the boards to see where it is and is not working and where

corrective action needs to be taken. We also have budget tracking processes in place

but these can only really come about fully when you have these processes effectively in

place at the local levels.

How do you deal with the potential of ministries not really sharing information and learning

mechanisms well?

o Partly through our meso level intervention, where we encourage shared learning

processes. Bear in mind that dvv international is a facilitator; we cannot and do not call

the ministries to order, that is the Minsters’ role – it is the government’s programme

and we can only steer and guide where we can, not drive it, that is for government to

do.

Emerging YALE inspirations and key concerns

Following the stock-taking presentations which shared different approaches to YALE policy issues in

different contexts of the continent, participants worked in groups to reflect on the presentations.

The purpose of this exercise was to consider what inspired and what key issues arose from the

presentations. This was in order to commence the initial thinking of how to go forward over the

next years as dvv international operating in Africa. After 30 minutes of small group dialogue,

participants engaged in a gallery walk to observe and note areas of commonality and divergence

between the groups. The following graphics illustrate the thinking of the four groups:

Country Flagged highlights

Zimbabwe The focus on the importance of demographic data to determine YALE policy design and YALE financing

The five-country study o The importance of collecting and disseminating the right data

o The importance of providing/presenting evidence of how YALE works/impacts

o The importance of correctly conceptualizing YALE

Uganda o The fact that there is a functional AE network o The logbook (on skills)

Mozambique The family-centred approach as a potentially sustainable approach

South Africa The ‘genuine’ approach where contents come from the people (and by-standers get interested)

Mali & Guinea (the Pamoja countries)

o The mobilisation of civil society o The pursuit of the ELBAG approach

Ethiopia o The integrated, inter-ministerial approach o Ministries are held accountable


32

Highlights The PAS:

o Replicable o Special recognition of non-formally acquired skills o Model of what is possible o Potential for quality assurance

The importance of champions and duty bearers Positive, motivating models Appropriate responses to context Not ‘business as usual’ – insanity=doing the same thing

over and over but expecting a different result A new and clear approach to bring about new outcomes The importance of alignment and positioning Networks – collective action (for a common purpose) How to work with networks? Life skills for active/informed citizenship

Highlights 1. National problems require national

policies 2. Educational supply does not respond to

society needs 3. Recognition of prior learning =

accreditation (logbook – Uganda model) 4. Learning needs to be defined by

participants 5. Literacy and numeracy are necessary to

get other skills 6. Budget tracking (citizens) education to

follow the budget allocated to non-formal youth and adult education

What is our common understanding ISSUES OF CONCERN of gender consciousness? Issues of scale: data, economies of (delivery) Dialogue needed on standardisation ‘versus’ flexible, responsive NFE More demand for evidence-based interventions

o Integrated plans

o National CSO entities more sustainable

/effective when evolve bottom-up

o Participation of civil society in

consultations (platforms must be

created)

o Some acceptance of ‘youth’ education

INSPIRED BY


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dvv international decide

[the focus of AE efforts] on

the basis of the [country

strategic] concept,

priorities, which

partnerships are strategic,

and thus where to engage

human and financial

resources.

Vision and working principles of dvv international

Mr. Henner Hildebrand explained that dvv international’s vision

may best be described by recalling the Institute’s goal to assist in

the development of diversified systems of youth and adult

education (YAE), with YAE as an integral part of a lifelong learning

system. YAE is considered to be a powerful contribution to

reducing poverty in many aspects, not least in overcoming lack of

opportunities to participate in educational, economic, social and

cultural processes.

Mr. Hildebrand reminded participants that dvv international works

on the three levels (micro, meso and macro). However, there is no

global or African ‘blueprint’ of how to successfully work on all three

levels but suggestions out of experience, have lead to two key

recommendations:

Recommendation 1 (emerged from a 2009 evaluation of involvement in East and West Africa): dvv

international should develop together with its strategic partners a general concept for the work in a

country, possibly a region. This concept is based on context analysis and the identification of major

obstacles and opportunities for change.

Recommendation 2: The focus of the Adult Education efforts can vary from region to region and

from country to country depending on the situation. We rather suggest dvv international decide on

the basis of the concept, priorities, which partnerships are strategic, and thus where to engage

human and financial resources. There should be a three yearly rhythm for these conceptual

decisions and the yearly planning exercises should be based on the three yearly strategy and

evaluate its results and impacts.

Ideal approach / working principles

In line with these recommendations, dvv international has considered an ‘ideal approach’, or

principles for all country programmes in view of achieving progress, changes, impacts – on all three

levels:

Start with situational analyses in order to document the initial situation

Define joint objectives & changes to be achieved and determine a coordinated strategy of dvv

international (together with stakeholders/strategic partners)

Define the partnerships – to be clear on roles of all stakeholders (benefits for cooperation

between stakeholders) – put this in contracts

Aim at outcomes & impact: acknowledge importance of performance and outcome monitoring

as an integral part of planning and implementation


34

[W]hen we talk about

advocacy and support to

the macro level, we have

to look beyond the policy

paper to other systemic

challenges

Allocate time & resources for monitoring and documentation

Promote the development of a culture of learning in the projects through documentation of

best practices and impact analyses

Organise regular dialogue with partners taking stock of achieved results and realizations as well

as deciding on forthcoming programme focus

Aim at best practices (models) and dissemination

Lobby for political recognition of successful approaches.

Mr. Hildebrand noted that in practice, the latter point is particularly more complex. Although dvv

international can register a number of successes with political recognition of new approaches (e.g.,

Reflect in Guinea and Mali, Training of Trainers curriculum in Mozambique), action-points are much

more diverse. He also shared that dvv international is more and more aware of the diversity of

opportunities to participate in, or to influence, activities and developments at the macro-level.

UNESCO international roundtable on literacy

At the international roundtable on literacy, held on the 6th and 7th of September by UNESCO in

Paris, more challenges were noted with regard to the slow progress towards the Education for All

(EFA) goal 4: 50% reduction of the number of illiterates by 2015. Preconditions for success, agreed

by the governmental delegates at the roundtable meeting were:

A policy framework

A strategy for implementation including the governance of AE literacy programmes from local

to national level

A financing mechanism

Data management and monitoring and evaluation

Evaluation of outcomes and impact

In spite of the lessons learnt, the delegates also noted weaknesses which continue to seriously

hamper the achievement of set objectives:

Lack of financial allocations by government even in countries where a policy has been adopted

Lack of institutional capacity especially in governmental structures - this goes hand in hand with

lack of cross-sectoral coordination, management, development of partnerships, quality control

and data management, validation and certification, and M&E.

Focus on the ‘bigger picture’

What is most needed is technical know-how and financial capital to

support implementation of political decisions. Thus, when we talk

about advocacy and support to the macro level, we most probably

have to look beyond the policy paper to other systemic challenges.


35

With the principles of participatory work in mind, Mr. Hildebrand posed the question for the

workshop participants to discuss and agree over the next two days of “where can dvv international

do more, better, and differently?”

Reflections on dvv international’s approach

The magnitude of the task was highlighted and concern was raised about the potential weakening

of the Euro and dvv international’s scope to continue partnerships for YALE efforts in Africa, given

current macro-economic issues in Europe. In response to this concern, Mr. Hildebrand shared that

dvv international has learned from over 40 years of experience that ebbs and flows of interest in

adult education have fluctuated and committed efforts have tended to be very inconsistent. With

this in mind, if we are to effect real changes at national levels, dvv international needs to take ‘a

long breath’ and seriously consider where the Institute can and cannot work in 3-5 years. Longer

term cooperation with governments such as the experience of Ethiopia is required because

continuity, not just quantity, is critical. Partners also need to give careful consideration to where

they can rally and muster additional partnerships to extend and expand national YALE efforts.

Flagging YALE highlights from stocktaking presentations and gallery walk.


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Section 3: Imagining and dreaming – what and how for changed realities

Recapping common YALE policy concerns

The day commenced with a brief review of the stocktaking group work outputs and this provided

space for clarification and further understanding of the different groups’ highlighted points to be

addressed. It also provided an opportunity for participants to draw out anything considered to be

particularly important and which needed bringing to everyone’s attention ahead of the ensuing

‘ideal YALE policy making’ exercise. Important considerations discussed during plenary were:

Inter-ministerial cooperation seems essential - there are many areas of education that are not

conceptualized as YAE yet should be recognised as such, so clarification is needed in what is and

what is not defined as YALE and this requires an inter-ministerial approach. We need to be

cautious of statements such as “without literacy and numeracy no skills can be accessed” and

clarify what we really mean by this, so that we can clearly articulate what we mean by YALE to

ministries.

Inclusive stakeholder platforms are needed to allow space for dialogue on, and to give voice to,

approaches such as Reflect and Popular Education so that inter-ministerial cooperation listens

to a collective voice.

dvv international’s strategy going forwards needs to be very clear about how micro and meso

level work is linked to macro level impact.

Bottom up agendas may not work in all contexts – what works at grassroots levels might ‘ruffle

the feathers’ of government in other contexts so we must ensure our programmes are context

specific. Thus, provisioning and policy must be broad and flexible so that we can adapt to

needs as they change.

Strategic and context based approaches are important, but we must also ensure we generate

evidence so that our approaches are evidence based so that we can influence policy makers

more effectively. We are not strong in this area yet; we keep moving from one approach to

another and not generating enough evidence yet on any one approach.

In some countries capitalization is integrated into programming and that means showing

evidence by the end of your 3 year programming.

It seems we have many common principles but we don’t have a common denominator and the

issue of evidence helps us to provide what does and does not work in AE. We cannot go into

macro-economics without understanding how micro-economics work and vice versa.

Towards ideal YALE policy – simulation activity

This activity involved working in three groups, each representative of the different countries and/or

sub-regions to create the ‘perfect’ scenario YALE policy. Groups were provided with a variety of

materials to support this process and to help keep concentration and creative thinking active

(coloured sticks, play doe, coloured pens, sticky notes and flipchart paper). A fourth group of dvv


37

international regional level Directors was formed to fulfil the

role of policy review ‘judges’. It was explained that the aim of

the exercise was to invent policy – not necessarily build on

existing policy, or replicate policy, but rather to imagine the

‘ideal’ scenario. To guide the activity, the following

instructions were shared:

Policy-making groups:

o decide who you are (give yourselves a name).

o design your ideal YALE policy – consider micro,

meso and macro levels

o 60 minutes to prepare to present your policy draft

to an ‘expert’ group that wishes to support YALE

o each group will have 10 minutes to present

‘Expert’ group (dvv international):

o Develop criteria for judging draft policy presentations

o Decide on a process for the presentations

Supplementary material was also shared to stimulate thinking. The facilitator read out the following

extracts from ‘The education we need for the world we want’ – press release on the Outcome

document of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development Education Working Group at Rio+20:

In terms of quality education we need:

education for sustainable consumption and production

recognition for the need for lifelong learning – including formal, non formal and informal

education at all levels – if people are to play a full part in securing sustainable development

education that is holistic, interdisciplinary and includes the key dimensions of sustainable

development, which aims at the empowerment of citizens who are aware of their rights

education that is orientated to citizen mobilization and the construction of development

alternatives with social and environmental justice

education and research which is intercultural and promotes the social redistribution of

knowledge and power, taking into account gender, race, ethnicity, age, different abilities,

and sexual orientation among others

the ethical and political sense of education needs to be recovered for the strengthening of

democracy and social-economic transformation to ensure decent lives for all individuals.

In summary, the focus is placed on sustainable livelihoods, food security and democracy, and

critically, consideration is given to education for what, employment for what?

To set the tone for the group work, participants were asked to work with a partner for two minutes

and imagine they were going on a journey together. One takes the role of “let’s go on a holiday”,

Some basic materials stimulated creativity


38

the other keeps coming with barriers “yes but, yes but”, then the other suggests how to overcome

the ‘but’ and so on. After two minutes, partners exchanged roles but this time the response was not

“yes, but…”, instead it needed to be “yes and…, yes and…” After two minutes, participants were

asked to reflect on this brief pair work exercise and discuss the difference. Participants agreed that

the second time they were moving forward together, energised and coming up with lots of exciting

and innovative ideas. It was agreed that this was a constructive way to approach the YALE policy

design simulation activity.

Ideal YALE policy presentations

The ‘expert’ group defined the presentation procedure and parameters: each group would be

provided with 10 minutes to present, and this would be followed by space for questions and

clarifications. Groups were free to decide how they wished to present, though a visual of the

presentation was expected. The following outputs of the group work were presented:

Youth & Adult Learning and Education Advocacy Group (YALEAG) presented by Mr. Simbarashe Sibanda,

Research Officer of ADEA’s EMPS Working Group)

1. Preamble: We recognise that:

Young people and adults remain marginalised and lacking access to education

The diversity of learner needs and modalities

That education is an enabling factor for development and allows citizens to realise their potential

2. Vision: To create an environment of integrated, holistic, coordinated youth and adult learning and

education provision.

3. Policy elements:

3.1 Constitutional right: education is a right for all citizens of a country and the government has responsibility

and an obligation to provide education to its citizens. The education must recognise the diverse needs of the

citizens.

3.2 Clear definition of key terms including: i) youth (15-25 years), ii) adult (26 and over), iii) NFE, iv) informal

education, v) TVET, vi) Lifelong learning, vii) adult learning etc.

3.3 Governance and Finance:

3.3.1 A YALE Authority shall be established which is the coordination and regulatory body of all YALE

matters in the country.

3.3.2 The Authority shall be compromised of multiple stakeholders and headed by the Ministry of

Education.

3.3.3 The Authority shall be an oversight body and be responsible for such activities as research,

registration, quality control, monitoring and evaluation.

3.3.4 Each Ministry shall commit 5% of their annual budget to YALE programming, provisioning, research

etc. This shall be managed by the Treasury who shall receive and disburse the funds as determined

by the decisions of the YALE Authority.


39

Commentary on the policy presentation

What was the basis for the 5% allocation for the budget from each Ministry?

If a Ministry does not want to engage in this policy or contribute the 5%, then if they offer YALE

programmes, they will not be accredited by the YALE Authority and thus there will be no currency

associated with their training. The 5% is legitimate because we know Ministries already have a

budget for training, so 5% should be feasible for them. We propose there must be a minimum of 5%

but they could allocate more, we set the 5% as a minimum contribution.

Which organisation(s) will give 5% from Civil Society?

It is not really an issue of the percentage, what we are concerned with is that the policy includes an

agreed contribution. CSOs must include in their funding and budgets their contribution if they are to

be registered with the YALE Authority.

Why does the group not think the Ministry of Youth has a role to play?

They do, we just offered examples, all Ministries are eligible.

Do you think the other Ministries will accept being ‘lead’ by the ministry of education?

This is a matter of agreement by all Ministries to the terms of the policy.

Who briefs Treasury?

Treasury is there in two ways – first they are part of this. Then every year, each Ministry makes a

proposal to Treasury – so Treasury will review proposals based not only on their plans for their own

Ministry, but also their plans for the YALE programme support.

3.4 Diverse learners and diverse modalities:

3.4.1 We shall adopt an holistic approach to education and this shall include but not be limited to:

(a) Informal education

(b) Non-formal education

(c) Formal education

(d) Recognition of life experience and prior learning

3.4.2 As such, we shall ensure different skill sets are available to all, such as but not limited to:

(a) Communication skills development

(b) Literacy skills

(c) Numeracy skills

(d) HIV and AIDS literacy/knowledge etc.

(e) Cultural education and learning

(f) Environmental education and learning

(g) Vocational training and skills

(h) Entrepreneurial skills and training


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Unique and Genuine YALE Practitioners United Group, presented by Ms. Wongani Grace Nkhoma, Education

Programme Manager, OSISA: “Integrated YALE Policy for Sustainable Development”

Commentary on the policy presentation

Are we saying there will be research or that the policy will be based

on research?

First the policy is informed by the situation analysis and therefore

responsive to realities. In terms of implementation, the policy will

need to be reviewed and adapted to respond to the changing needs

informed by new and ongoing research.

Ms. Grace Nkhoma explaining the policy.

Situational Analysis:

Research on e.g.:

Out of school children

Unemployment

Illiterate adults

School drop outs (children)

Unemployed youths

Elements:

Entrepreunerial skills

Skills development

Livelihoods

Life skills

Active citizenship

Environmental awareness

Vision/goal/objectives:

Education is a right

Basic education (literacy/numeracy)

Lifelong Learning

National goals (e.g. vision 2020)

Strategies:

Second chance education

Job orientation

Entrepreneurial skills

Continuous learning

Basic literacy and numeracy

Implementation Framework:

Research

Inter-ministerial committees

Inter-sectoral approach

Financing - 6%

Integrated Plan

M&E framework

Coordinating agency

Capacity Development

Targets:

Youth

Drop-outs

School leavers

Out of school children/youth

Adults

Cross-cutting issues:

Rural/urban

Gender

HIV & AIDS

Disability

Ethnic minorities

Skills development

Roles/Actors:

Macro - government, donor agencies, macro

economic policy, MDG & EFA goals

Meso - stakeholders, CSOs, private sector,

FBOs, NGOs

Micro - Communities, CBOs, traditional leaders,

Councilors

* The elements of the policy are informed by the situational analysis (research).

* YALE is conceptualised as any youth and adult having the basic literacy and numeracy and knowledge skills that they neeed for any kind of job, including self-employment, as well as to be able to participate as active citizens for sustainable development.

* The term 'youth' is not defined because different countries have different definitions, but we have taken on board the term in the African Charter of 10-35 years of age.

* 6% financing is determined because of the urgency of the issues, so we set the standard to at least that demanded internationally.

* Under the roles - Government includes Treasury, all Minstries and donor agencies. At the meso level we are referring mostly to stakeholders who are actors (NGOs, FBOs). At the micro level, we refer to CBOs, traditional leaders, councilors and the wider community.


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What is committing Government to implement the policy?

Financing – the 6% of national education budgets is targeted towards YALE, so this is designed to

commit Government to policy implementation. We would also have an inter-ministerial committee

to track progress, commitment and hold Ministries accountable. The policy is also Constitutionally

recognised so we can litigate if Ministries do not fulfill the terms of the policy. The policy will also

have to be approved by Government, and driven by the lead Ministry. There are often National

Development Plans with reference to YALE, though reference is usually vague but it does provide

space to capitalize on that mention in terms of advancing commitments.

Ideal YALE Policy from the ‘Holistic YALE Group’, presented by Mrs. Sonja Belete, IWEP Manager, dvv

international Ethiopia.

The policy is placed within a framework of livelihoods for sustainable development, which includes a focus on

capabilities, resources and activities on the individual engaging in, and the influences of, society – from

community through to international levels. The graphic (see photo) helps to understand the framework as

presented:

1. Capacity: Considers the individual and his/her mobility, which informs learning content:

1.1 Literacy skills, livelihoods, LLL, NFE, life skills (soft skills), active citizenship, critical thinking

1.2 Integrated skills so that there are:

1.3 Different options for different target groups that allow them to fully

participate and be integrated into society

2. Target groups:

2.1 NEETs (youth), women, marginalised groups, rural and urban adults

3. Resources:

3.1 Minimum 6% of education budget for YALE

3.2 Mobilizing resources across sectors

3.3 Micro-economics, income generation

4. Social/cultural: The socio-cultural, economic and political sphere is also

understood as influencing the micro, meso and macro levels

4.1 YALE skill sets related to active citizenship/values

5. Physical (infrastructure, environment):

5.1 Mainstreamed promotion of environmental awareness (and it must actually be mainstreamed, not just

rhetoric)

6. Political/institutional: (the main area of challenge)

6.1 Roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders

6.2 Multi-sectoral

6.3 Holistic approach

6.4 Micro/meso/macro engagement

6.5 Data gathering, management and M&E


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Commentary on the presentation

Nice graphic and we can see the local through to national levels, but where does the international

influence fit in?

In our different spheres of influence – beyond national (just omitted to draw it onto the graphic).

Also, although we must speak to international conventions, this is a national policy, so a country can

decide to what extent it is pledging to a certain international standard or agreement / treaty.

Ideal YALE policy design critical reflections (‘judgment’)

After assessment of the presentations during a break, the ‘expert’ group provided feedback (with

some commended features highlighted) based on the criteria in the first column:

Item /Criteria Scoring Yes - No / Comments

Preamble

Group 1 YALEAG

Group 2 Unique &

Genuine YALE

Group 3 Holistic YALE

The relevance of YALE has to be stated, and clarified via documentation of evidence and underpinned by hard statistical data (baseline) in the context of the respective country

Weaker elaboration on relevance

YALE policy anticipates the possibility of its integration into national planning, making reference to international commitments (EFA and MDG goals)

Rights / national plans

Rights 2020

Implicitly dealt with positioning households, Individual, Livelihoods

The specificity of the role or space of YALE is embedded into a holistic conception of life-long learning (literacy as entry point or base for all other learning)

Holistic Informal education?

LLL sustainable

Livelihoods, mobility across sectors , the learner, integrated skills

Policy purpose and scope defined – beneficiaries Plausibility of link between micro – meso – macro is highlighted

15-25+ Terminology M-M-M not dealt with

10-35 Basic literacy and numeracy Emphasis on meso

Diverse Target groups flexible approaches capacity NEETS M-M-M- explicit

Implementation Framework Budget spread over departments: 5% per ministry

Comprehensive 6%???

6% education budget and other across income generation

Stakeholder Analysis Not mentioned Not mentioned Not mentioned

Governance YALE Authority Inter-ministerial Structure

Cross-sectoral coordination Not mentioned

Management Not mentioned Roles & responsibilities

Development of partnerships Not mentioned Not mentioned Not mentioned

Quality Control Not mentioned

Data Management Not mentioned better

M&E

Recognition and Certification Not mentioned Not mentioned Not mentioned

Resource Plan 5% ring-fenced ?? ??


43

Additional commentary

Recognition was shared that the task was very challenging in a short space of time, and

reference to contexts was not very clear because of mixed country groups; however policy plans

did not necessarily need to be national, they could have been regional for example. This said,

there was not a lot of difference between the 3 groups – many of the elements were there

across all 3 groups. Of course we will need to be more comprehensive in our articulation.

Situational analysis: few mentioned much on stakeholder analyses, including the role of the

different actors (Global Partnership for Education, Fast Track Initiative etc.)

Reference to aid effectiveness, harmonisation, country systems (Paris Declaration on Aid

Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action) could have been included, but the criteria did

not consider how and where funds come from.

Overlooked by all groups – though Constitution mentioned, but what about Acts, e.g. Education

Act? Legal education frameworks will also need to be spoken to.

There may still be potential for more ‘out of the box’ creativity, such as the Government

allocates each person at birth (say) US$1m, and it’s up to each family to manage that in the way

they see fit for the education and development of their child/family throughout his/her life. Can

we take such an ‘out of the box’ idea and work from it in a realistic way?

Harvesting and agreeing the main YALE principles/values to take forward A final task of the simulation activity was for all participants to take a highlighting pen and put a

mark next to the ideas that each person considered very good and should be taken forward. This

activity was a form of participatory voting, where each person was allocated 3 ‘ticks’ or votes. This

process helped to agree the main guiding principles of policy and implementation that participants

considered should be taken forward. The following features of ‘sound’ YALE policy were highlighted:

A YALE Authority/Agency/Council/Commission/Body – clearly defined in terms of purpose,

structure/governance.

YALE/YAE/LLL/LLE etc. – clearly conceptualized/understood and articulated/defined, with

considerations of the power and politics linked to the ‘fear’ of youth power and balancing the

CONFINTEA VI considerations of the value of youth in sustainable development.

Comprehensive, up to date, robust data and research – including evidence on financing and

real costs of YALE (investment and returns). Must be coordinated and centralised to develop a

YALE ‘reference library’ that can clearly define the ‘big picture’.

Broad stakeholder consultation/dialogue and consensus.

Holistic education – integrated, multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral, inter-agency etc.

Micro, meso, macro coherently linked (local/global inter-relations/inter-connectivity).

Must be impact, results orientated with robust M&E.

Capacity building orientated - learning and skills development.


44

Reflections on the YALE policy making simulation activity:

From a CSO perspective, it was refreshing to be given an opportunity to make demands to

policy makers, and it also helped to recognise the challenges and constraints in policy making.

Gave us a voice to guide dvv international on how they can work at the macro level going

forward.

Interactive and participatory, some challenges with consensus and time - of course policy is not

developed within an hour, yet we moved forward with a lot of good ideas and developed a basic

structure on something that takes governments years to produce.

Highlighted that when we work together with common understanding, drive and commitment

we can structure policy quickly; but when we are faced with inadequately staffed Ministries or

YALE departments, or Ministries that have not conceptualized YALE like the grassroots level,

then the communication is very challenging and lengthy.

The conceptualization of YALE is a huge challenge – what do we need to do to make it better

conceptualized? Tell our stories better. Ensure networks are operational and strong in terms of

articulating and implementing relevant activities.

Group 3 brought out realities – they worked from a bottom-up approach and started from

concrete situations of people living with certain realities – this was good to remind us that

policy is about people and their realities.

We must consider how our interventions add value – public value and how they can tangibly be

seen to make a difference.

Spotlight on dvv international strengths and areas for development

For this exercise, participants worked in region or country groups, with all dvv international staff in

a separate group to allow for frank and open reflections on experiences of working with dvv

international. Participants were tasked to reflect on their own country and/or region and dvv

international’s engagement in the specific context, and to list a) the capacities/strengths that dvv

international brings to the region/country and b) what can be strengthened. Partners’ perceptions

were then presented and compared with dvv international’s self-analysis in order to reveal

commonalities and divergences.

The outputs of this exercise can be found on the next pages, and some images of the group work

presentations are below.


45

Fro

m t

he

pe

rsp

ect

ive

s o

f……

. Strengths/unique capacities Could be strengthened

Zimbabwe Experience of building and supporting networks

Technical skills –including research, knowledge units (including internationally)

Manuals, best practices, resources archive (with long and wide history)

Catalytic (seed) funding – innovative and essential

Track record in capacity building at micro, meso and macro levels

International ‘brand’ – gives credibility which helps open doors

Link literacy and numeracy to poverty reduction – that more comprehensive understanding of literacy and YAE

Catalytic fund – too limited and does not provide initiatives to grow to their full potential

Local resource persons – limited use of as opposed to international resource persons

Reliance on partners which can undermine implementation – hence need to rely more on local resource persons – links to:

Building capacity of partners for good governance and accountability

Space to strengthen advocacy role – after signing agreements – needs to be a drive to advocate and sensitize

West and East Africa

Capacity building – support to networks

Training and professional development for AE practitioners including scholarships for Masters, Bachelors

International conferences/seminars - exposure opportunities

Programme development and books/equipment for AE including for government, CSOs, NGOs and other institutions

Funding/budget support for AE/action plans

Support to government AE programmes – literacy, primers, curriculum, activity support (e.g. editing of materials)

Diversification through the involvement of other development partners (e.g. E.U, World Bank)

Organisational capacity development

Policy and advocacy

Research in AE.

Southern Africa Enable partners and practitioners to meet/exchange learning etc.

Engage at all 3 levels of micro, meso and macro

Micro support via networks (especially Reflect, STAR, Felitamo) including bringing countries together e.g. Angola and Mozambique on Felitamo programme

Strong support to CSOs for lobbying and advocacy

Mid-level (meso) capacity building (regular periods)

Linkages to international networks and recognised globally (e.g. cooperation with OSISA)

Policy implementation support

Policy research support

Depth and breadth of AE knowledge

Regional partner meetings/ learning exchange limited

Support for policy implementation limited

Recognition by governments of dvv international work too limited


46

Fro

m t

he

pe

rsp

ect

ive

of…

….

dvv international Close working relationship with government in collaborative way

Focus on curriculum development and other policies

Embrace innovative approaches/innovation

Cross all structures and levels – micro to macro (bridging gaps)

Cross border links between CSOs and countries

Policy engagement

Not too big an organisation – some advantages

Advocacy and programme work specifically in YALE (‘unique selling point’)

Not limited to 3 year support – plans may be 3 years, but we can continue after that cycle

Learning organisation – e.g. move towards more systematic approach – including stronger sense of M&E - strengthens institutional memory

BMZ (Ministry in Germany) – good relationship with dvv so we have some sustainability and stability

Come from a strong background of work in AE in Germany (VHS) and internationally

Government recognition in many countries

Responsive/flexible at all levels, including macro (as opposed to parachuting our ideas)

Functional website and a lot of publications

Improve how we support partners’ capacity

Increase macro level involvement

Better understanding of government systems

Bigger/louder voice among German development cooperations needed

Raise visibility of dvv international at all levels and across all regions

Strengthen data collection and M&E system – use our existing M&E tools better

Reflections on and implications of the shared perspectives

There are a lot of commonalities which indicates that relations are open and flexible, and that there is self-awareness and openness to

self-critique within dvv international.

Capacity building work is a critical concern and has implications for future planning:

o Should dvv international go on investing in capacity building work when limited impact is observed over some years and a

range of capacity building processes?

o Capacity building for what - Advocacy? Lobbying? Programme planning etc.? Can partners be all things for all people, or should

dvv international focus on the core business of the partner only?

o Do we need to dialogue more the role of dvv international within civil society dynamics?

o Are organisational appraisals being comprehensively undertaken before engaging in partnership?

Reveals contextual differences – some countries have grown well out of capacity building processes, others have not.

Agreed to use these understandings as well as country reports and the five-nation YALE report recommendations to drive forward into

action planning in the last day of the workshop.


47

Section 4: Action planning for YALE in Africa – what we will advance

Review of outstanding issues

Mrs. Sonja Belete shared a brief recap of the previous day’s proceedings, and the following issues

which remained outstanding (or ‘hanging’) and to be further explored were agreed:

Concerns of agency and sustainability.

Finding solutions for a way forward for the lack of statistics and data.

The ‘how to’ – in particular, achievements for breaking of silos: ministries, departments look at

their work as absolute, without going into other areas. In Ethiopia they seem to have broken the

horizontal barriers. However, in Zimbabwe the silos are significant and we could learn from

Ethiopia how they have broken some of those barriers.

After dvv international has developed a broad policy framework, it is recommended (by partners)

that dvv international develop 5 year country action plans – emanating from the policy

framework.

Proposal for how to come up with a YALE Authority/Agency – not by creating a new structure, but

by looking at existing frameworks and structures and how we can develop from them.

How the ‘bus is being driven’ – dvv international has allowed us a voice in this meeting which is

laudable, and it is hoped that this can be replicated.

How we can share experiences between the UN, donors, government and civil society so that no

voice is left excluded from critical debates.

Using existing knowledge for action planning

In order to move towards the development of action plans, three combined bodies of work were

reviewed and drawn from. These were i) the recommendations and suggested agenda for action

detailed in the YALE in Southern Africa five-nation study overview, ii) the recommendations described

in country level overview reports prepared and shared by relevant participants ahead of the workshop,

and iii) the lessons learned from the Ethiopia cooperation experiences. Appendix C shows the format

of the prepared country level reports, and each submitted report was disseminated on a CD during the

workshop, together with background documents and all the workshop presentations (thus they have

not been reproduced in this report).

Recommendations and action agenda of the YALE in Southern Africa study

Professor John Aitchison shared how the recommendations were arrived at. Each of the 5 countries

were asked to identify what particular recommendations they wanted advancing. Prof. Aitchison then

put these together. Where there were some that were very specific to a particular country, these are

not included in the 45 recommendations described in the study overview publication, only those that

were common across the 5 countries were included. Country specific recommendations are available

in the relevant individual country report publication.


48

The recommendations were then compared to those that emerged from the CONFINTEA VI Africa

Region Preparatory meeting held in 2008, and remarkable convergences were found. Thus, what we

are seeing in these recommendations are systemic issues which relate to YALE in the Southern African

region. They therefore require high level policy to address them – they cannot be solved by a donor

providing some funds to solve a particular problem – they have to be seen as a whole. The

recommendations are already listed in section 2 of this report. What follows are some additional

points shared by Prof. Aitchison.

Terminology – as discussed repeatedly during the workshop, we need to get this right.

Mozambique has recommended a glossary of terms – this is something that can quite easily be

addressed by dvv international for example.

Policy – we must recognise that it is difficult to balance policy with what can conceivably be

accomplished by countries with limited budgets.

Governance – there are units often within the Ministry of Education supposedly responsible for

AE, but the typical scenario is that the units are the smallest, in the lowest part of the building,

furthest down the corridor, and staffed by 1 person when they are supposed to be staffed by

about 5 people. Such a unit must be solely dedicated to YALE and have power to talk to people.

Awareness & recognition – much greater propaganda about YALE is very much needed and to be

communicated. We need some kind of annual communication plan/calendar for YALE.

Literacy and language – where a dominant language of communication exists, such as in Angola

and Mozambique, there tends to be trends towards the use of that language in primary school and

there already exists too much evidence to know that initial literacy should be done in mother

tongue (L1). This includes learning materials in mother tongue, yet there is limited support for

production of materials in L1.

Curriculum – curricula are very outdated especially in terms of methodology – many still remain

with methods that are 20 years old and inappropriate.

Data, information and research – needs standardizing and minimal standards of what should

be/has to be provided. Needs to be on the worldwide web – if your data is not on the web, you do

not exist! So it’s a challenge especially for smaller CSOs to get data on the internet.

Quality assurance – we’ve discussed this a lot during the workshop - it simply has to be done,

linked to data and research and must be shared. Evaluation reports often go to donors and we

never see them after that.

Funding – we know there is a limited supply (globally), however a small proportion of what does

exist must go to YALE. Funding benchmarks should be starting points (such as the ‘International

Benchmarks on Adult Literacy’ arrived at following research by ActionAid International and the

GCE) – nobody has ever yet reached it, but the benchmark is there to work towards.

Qualification frameworks – there has recently been quite a lot of movement in many countries to

explore how frameworks can be linked, but nothing has yet been legislated.

Practitioner development – proper plans, conditions of service are very poor and universities have

a tangible role to play here.

Out of school youth –there may well be an argument to look at programmes for out of school


49

youth specifically so that we can better meet their needs.

Mobilisation, cooperation & networking – there is a real need for better networking between

governments, civil society and donors.

Though the scale and scope of the recommendations suggests that long term and systemic work is

needed in the Southern Africa region, a suitable ‘quick action agenda’ is equally vital. The six-point

quick action agenda suggested in the study (page 37) was briefly shared and follows below:

1. A public campaign to raise more awareness of youth and adult education.

2. A swift start to an advocacy campaign to ensure that these youth and adult education issues are quickly

brought to the attention of national budget decision makers are rapidly able to influence government

policy and the legislative agenda.

3. A re-galvanisation of adult literacy plans and resources and the renewal of literacy and adult basic

education curricula.

4. The upgrading of data, information and research capacity which may need to be addressed at the SADC

level - as has been done through the current Regional Qualifications Framework process.

5. Agreement should be reached (including with the SADC Education Secretariat) about a framework for

learning validation in youth and adult education, which should dovetail with the Regional Qualifications

Framework process.

6. Practitioner capacity building is a clear priority, including through better conditions of service.

Gweru statement of YALE in Africa recommendations

In order to reach an agreed set of recommendations from this impacting policy of youth and adult

learning and education (YALE) in Africa regional workshop, a process with a number of elements was

carried out, using the following steps:

1. Participants wrote up on cards the recommendations described in the country reports produced

and submitted before the workshop.

2. The recommendations from the YALE five-nation study report, as well as the highlights agreed in

day two of the workshop, were also written on cards.

3. Using all the recommendations and highlights, participants worked together to cluster and regroup

similar recommendations / highlighted issues.

4. Once the clustered sets of recommendations were agreed, participants agreed headings.

5. Participants then discussed and agreed which ‘heading’ (set of issues) were more relevant to

micro, meso and macro levels, and this resulted in the following conclusions:

i. must ensure micro, meso and macro speak to each other because the issues cut across

horizontally and vertically and are integrated.

ii. a principled approach can be defined as ‘holistic, integrated and community-

based/bottom-up/people-centred’.

6. Following this analysis, participants worked in pairs, each pair taking one heading with the

clustered cards to formulate a statement, drawing on the cluster of cards under each sub-heading.


50

7. After the statements were shared in plenary, country groups discussed and prioritised what they

considered to be the top 3 priorities (see colour coding next to the statements on the next page).

Agreement was reached with the conclusions provided in the YALE in Southern Africa five-nation study

that; one cannot focus just on a few priorities because these are systemic and therefore fully inter-

related and co-dependent. If we only focus on a few, it will make little to no impact. However, there is

still need for a quick action agenda to move towards coordinated and effective systemic responses.

The ‘Gweru Statement of YALE in Africa Recommendations’ is presented on the next page - with the

country identified three priority areas in parenthesis.

Towards Gweru YALE in Africa policy & implementation recommendations: workshop participants engaging in the clustering and analysis processes.


51

Gweru Statement of YALE in Africa Recommendations

Practitioner development – increase the capacities of YALE practitioners through trainings at all

levels in order to improve quality (NB: professional standards needed). [Ethiopia]

National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) – expedite the development of, and strengthen, the NQF

systems for the recognition, validation and accreditation of YALE programmes and practitioners.

[Uganda]

Policy – sector advocacy towards a comprehensive YALE policy is needed to ensure that learning

needs of youth and adults are satisfied. An action plan must inform strategic direction. [Uganda,

South Africa]

Funding – government should allocate at least 6% of the education budget and other sources

contributing to an autonomous YALE fund/agency with appropriate budget tracking mechanisms in

place. [Mali, Guinea, Zimbabwe]

Advocacy for YALE is necessary at all levels and can be done by all and be directed to all stakeholders

[Mali, Guinea, South Africa]

Out of school youth – put in place separate education and training programmes for non- employed

and out of school youth. [Zimbabwe]

International commitments – there should be political will to domesticate and meet various

international and national commitments to YALE. [Guinea]

Research – develop research capacity to generate data for decision making and for demonstrating

the positive role of YALE in national development. [Uganda, Zimbabwe]

Communication – put in place a YALE management information system (YMIS) to cover data

collection, storage and dissemination.

M&E System – develop and implement an M&E system that collects, makes available and uses

quantitative and qualitative data at all levels including curriculum, management and general impact.

[Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, South Africa]

Youth and Adult Education Agency - develop an independent YALE organisation responsible for the

design and implementation of national strategy to ensure systematic recognition and support of

YALE. The multi-stakeholder body will be under the Ministry of Education and build its structures

over time. [Ethiopia]

Coordination and Networking – mobilise stakeholders, strengthen and improve collaboration and

coordination between government, CSOs, learning institutions and private providers. [Mozambique]

Curriculum – revise and/or develop a national multi-sectoral curriculum framework for YALE that

responds to and takes into account the different needs of learners. [Mozambique]

Infrastructure - refurbish old and build new infrastructures for easy access to YALE for all.

Conceptual definitions – develop clear conceptual understanding of YALE with standardised

definitions of terminology which explains the links between various sub-sectors and levels.


52

Lessons from Ethiopia of how to engage with Government8

From the beginning dvv international has been engaging with the Ministry of Education as the main

partner in Ethiopia, and this remains the case currently. Before any activities commenced, a

Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up and signed by both parties. dvv international was not

required to register as an NGO working in Ethiopia, and that is a privilege. Thus, dvv international

works within the system, not outside or ‘from the side’.

The partnership developed an integrated women’s empowerment programme (IWEP) which includes

components on technical skills training, literacy development and entrepreneurship. Each of these

areas were given careful consideration by the partnership in terms of: defining concepts, policy,

institutions, programmatic design and plans, and impact (target group).

A partner modality was designed as outlined in the diagram below:

Core elements of the programme include a Technical Team which provides monthly technical support

and supervises literacy and skills development: visiting as teams, and support with training facilitators,

developing learning materials. In addition, a Support Committee meets quarterly and functions like a

board, providing oversight of the programme, and assessing work of the technical team. A regional

technical team and regional steering committee was also in place and these became Regional Boards.

An integrated plan per district per annum is developed. dvv international does not accept proposals

and plans from partners individually – plans must be integrated across the partners. The driving agency

for YALE is the Ministry of Education (MoE). There is a YALE (IFAE) focal personal sitting in every region

of the MoE – and this has been instrumental in helping to break down silos and improve coordinated

cooperation.

8 A more detailed description of the cooperation in Ethiopia is available on the CDs distributed at the workshop and

can be found in ‘77BGB –NFE skills development special edition of Adult Education and Development journal’, pg 67.

DVV (IWEP)

Partners

Target group

Primary

partner

partner

TVET

partners

Partners in

agriculture

Trade and

industry

partners

Technical

support

Funding

support


53

Identifying responses to key interventions – GWERU action agenda

Taking into account the whole group’s earlier conclusions that existing YALE in Africa issues and their

related recommendations are systemic and thus inter-related and co-dependent, in order to develop

an action agenda, key issues were re-clustered. Participants were asked to work in three groups and to

think at continental (Africa) level. One group focused on ‘coordination and networking’ as the main

focus (which included issues of research/data, communication, advocacy, YALE Agency); another group

took ‘advocacy’ as the main focus (included concepts/definition, research/data, M&E, coordination &

networking); and the third group considered ‘M&E’ as the main focus (which included practitioner

development, research and data, advocacy, curriculum framework). The group work task was to:

1. Identify 3 actions to take the focus issue forward

2. Identify roles/responsibilities (micro, meso and macro levels)

3. Define how the group perceived dvv international could or should play a role in this.

The outcome of this exercise can be seen in the table below:

Gweru Action Agenda

3 actions to take forward Roles/responsibilities dvv specific role(s)

Coordination and Networking

1. Organise and maintain stakeholder (all) consultative forum

Joint between government and civil society

Provide technical support and advisory role

2. Develop YALE mobilisation and advocacy programme

Forum members to carry out mobilisation and advocacy activities

Provide catalytic (seed) funding, resource mobilisation, development actors capacity development

3. Develop strategic plan for YALE structure/agency

Actions 1-3: Annual learning exchange meeting held on rotational basis across the African continent

Monitoring & Evaluation

1. Form a multi sectoral/multi-stakeholder task team to jointly develop and test an M&E system for YALE

National governments (Ministries of Education) driven

Act as facilitator across all 3 actions to initiate dialogue and eg: - Share best practices, tools,

examples and experiences appropriate to context

- Provide relevant technical expertise

- Funding support

2. Implement the YALE M&E system (with links to other relevant systems, using variety of tools) and through an action learning process

Ministries of Education (Government) with all stakeholders from micro, meso and macro levels

3. Analyse, disseminate and use the data for annual planning, quality

Multi-sectoral stakeholders at all levels


54

Advocacy

1. Collection of research, data and reports to gather evidence

1. Academic institutions conduct research and check validity etc

2. NGOs, CBOs, Coalitions (CSOs) – make data available and check validity of reports/data.

3. Government gather, share and disseminate

1. Provide financial and technical support

2. Bring international expertise

3. Bring players together (create linkages)

2. Define communication strategy across all levels (micro, meso, macro) with multiple stakeholders

1. Collaboratively identify techniques and vehicles for communication

2. Academics support with communication strategy technical expertise

3. Government cost strategy and lobby within departments and across ministries

Bring expertise, international experiences of relevant stakeholders

3. National roundtables leading to recommendations and follow up

1. NGOs and AE coalitions drive the processes

Technical and financial support

Concluding comments

Mr. Henner Hildebrand shared reflections from the workshop proceedings, stating that dvv

international organised this workshop because it was considered useful for everyone, not just for dvv

international, and he believed the workshop proceedings affirmed this assumption as correct. One

conclusion that can be drawn from dvv international’s perspective is that regional sharing and

discussion workshops should continue to be organised, as it is an important part of creating

transparency on how dvv international are planning and strategizing.

Mr. Hildebrand noted that dvv international should publish evaluations commissioned and

coordinated by the Institute and that, although dvv international is already doing this on the Germany-

based website (www.dvv-international.de) as informed by internal policy, evaluations must also be

published on the regional websites. He further conveyed that the workshop had enriched the thinking

of dvv international, particularly with regards to engaging with the macro level, while continuing to link

micro and meso levels to the macro level. He noted that there is still need to elaborate and further

reflection will be required. However, it is not the responsibility of dvv international headquarters to

read the workshop report and then develop its programme from there. The programme development

remains the responsibility of country and regional programme Directors. In this regard, Mr.

Hildebrand shared that on the previous evening dvv international staff had met to discuss and agree a

planning strategy for 2013-2016, and this will involve:

Country workshops will be organised between February-April 2013 to revisit country concepts,

situation analyses, imagine the changed national specific situation at all 3 levels (outcomes/results

http://www.dvv-international.de/


55

within the 3 years), strengths, weaknesses and comparative advantages of dvv international to

work in the specific country. The outcomes of this process will be used as a starting point for

country strategic planning per country. In so doing, it will be important to define the expected

outputs, how the new skills, competencies can be used and the expected changes – and build

indicators around this – country by country. Thus partners and dvv international will digest what

has been elaborated during this workshop within specific country contexts.

Finally, Mr. Hildebrand thanked everyone for their participation, insights and collective learning.

Workshop evaluation

Participants were invited to share 2-3 comments about what they felt was useful, not so useful, any

pleasant surprises or concerns about the workshop. Responses are captured in Appendix D.

Vote of thanks

Mr. Wolfgang Leumer stated that he was fortunate to have already known everybody who participated

in the workshop from different spaces, experiences and times and it had been a productive process

having everyone together. What was particularly valuable was to have colleagues from two different

Ministries of Zimbabwe listening to the experiences from different countries, and Mr. Leumer

expressed that dvv international very much valued their presence and participation. He also noted the

support of Dr. Chitepo who had graced the workshop by opening it and stimulating great momentum,

being ‘spot on’ with the questions and points she raised. In addition, Mr. Huruba, who, as a ‘product of

YALE’, has now come to a point where he will be looking at the mammoth process of writing YALE

policy with guidance from many interested stakeholders.

Mr. Leumer also thanked the staff from headquarters and the office in Cape Town who had supported

planning and organising the workshop, as well as Prof. Astrid von Kotze for her excellent facilitation

and Ms. Louise Knight for her quality voluntary rapporteur services. Colleagues from all countries were

sincerely thanked for sharing valuable insights and relevant experiences, and the individuals of the dvv

international staff team were acknowledged for working tirelessly to successfully convene the

workshop. Finally, Mr. Leumer noted that the workshop venue had been perfect and invited all

participants to convey thanks to the venue staff.

Closing remarks

On behalf of the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment and the Ministry of

Education, Sport and Culture, Mr. Elias Murinda offered sincere thanks to dvv international for creating

this platform to dialogue on the critical development issue of YALE. He stated that the success of YALE

will lead to poverty reduction and this is at the top of Zimbabwe’s national goals and plans. Mr.

Murinda noted that the workshop had provided all participants with opportunities to share

experiences and learn from countries of the region, and that he was confident everybody was

departing wiser and better prepared to execute YALE with success. As such, the expected outcomes of

the workshop had been met, allowing participants to revisit national YALE plans and strategies with


56

clarity and more agency to strengthen partnerships between Government and dvv international as

well as between Government and civil society. In closing, Mr. Murinda congratulated dvv international

and the organizers for a successful and fruitful meeting, hoping participants had found Zimbabwe to be

hospitable and warm, and pleased to make Zimbabwe a choice destination in the future, and all

participants were wished safe onward journeys.

Photo gallery


57

Appendix A: Participant list N0 Name Organization Position Email address Tel / Cell Nr.

ETHIOPIA (alphabetical order)

1 Mrs. Sonja Belete dvv international

Program Manager (IWEP)

[email protected] +251911367873

2 Mr. Gerhard Quincke dvv international Regional Director East

Africa [email protected] +254911402036

GERMANY

3 Mr. Henner Hildebrand

dvv international Africa Region Team Leader

[email protected]

+492289756901

GUINEA

4 Mrs. Fatoumata – Dabo Camara

Pamoja Network Guinea

Treasurer [email protected]

+22462516272

MALI (alphabetical order)

5 Mr. Mouhamadou Diagne

dvv international Program Officer [email protected]

+22376909968

6 Mrs. Esther Hirsch dvv international Regional Director

West Africa [email protected]

+22378147885

MOZAMBIQUE (alphabetical order)

7 Mr. David Harrington dvv international Project Director dvvinternationalmozambiq


8 Mr. Jose Mucuapa dvv international Project Coordinator [email protected]

z +2588247201730

9 Mr. Laurindo Nhacune Ministry of Education

Directorate of YALE Director Laurindo.nhacune@mined.

gov.mz +258-849322529

10 Pastor Reinaldo Sive MEPT/IDM Chairperson [email protected] +258 829816730

SOUTH AFRICA (alphabetical order)

11 Prof. John Aitchison University of KwaZulu-

Natal Professor Emeritus [email protected] +27741907350

12 Mr. Farrell Hunter dvv international Project Director f.hunter@dvv-

international.org.zw +27214474828/98

13 Ms. Louise Knight Rights2Change Consultant Director

(Workshop rapporteur)

[email protected]

+27114777576 / +27726200617

14 Ms. Wongani Grace Nkhoma

Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)

Education Programme Manager


15 Ms. Yoemna Saint South Africa Reflect

Network (SARN) National Manager [email protected]

g +27114829677

16 Prof. Astrid von Kotze Popular Education

School Network Facilitator [email protected]

m

UGANDA (alphabetical order)

17 Mr. Henry Francis Okinyal

Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT), Ministry of Education

Director [email protected] +254772508181

18 Dr. George Openjuru Uganda Adult Education

Network (UGAADEN) Chair person [email protected] +256772503301









58

ZIMBABWE (alphabetical order)

19

Dr. Thokozile Chitepo Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation & Empowerment (MYDIE)

Principle Director/ Acting Permanent Secretary

+263707921

20 Mr. Erison Huruba dvv international Consultant [email protected] +263712860297

21 Mr. Wolfgang Leumer dvv international Regional Director

Southern Africa [email protected]

+263778052969

22 Mr. Nicholas Mjanja dvv international Finance Administrator n.mjanja@dvv-

international.org.zw +263774505733

23 Mrs. Anne Mugumbate

Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture (MOESAC)

Director NFE [email protected] +263712517404

24 Dr. E. Munjanganja dvv international Resources Person LE.Munjanganja@googelm

ail.com +263778332996

25 Mr. Elias Murinda MYDIE, Zimbabwe Director [email protected] +263774454183

26 Mrs. Florence Sachikonye

dvv international Program Manager [email protected]

+263774513616

27 Mr. Simbarashe Sibanda

ADEA WGEMPS Research Officer [email protected] +263772525300


59

Appendix B: Workshop programme

Regional Workshop: 17-21 September 2012, Gweru, Zimbabwe

Impacting Policy of Youth and Adult Learning and Education (YALE) in Africa

Aims of workshop:

- present positive trends for supporting YALE in Africa

- surface model practices from different agencies

- identify ways of influencing policy in support of YALE

- suggest the role of different agencies (and in particular dvv international) for future YALE programmes

Assumptions:

- adult education beyond adult basic education / literacy is poorly understood across the continent

- we are all labouring under similar conditions and constraints

- this often translates into a prioritising of skills training / vocational education and training rather than a broader

education

- despite constraints there are innovative, imaginative initiatives

- while there are clear similarities between countries each needs to tailor-make their own policy / practices to

suit local conditions

Monday night

Brief welcome and general introductory session for all

o Introductions (BINGO)

o Logistics / practicalities

o Outline of workshop

o Reading time o Finalising „Highlights of YALE‟ presentations

Tuesday (Day 1)

Stock Taking

8:30 Henner Hildebrand Welcome Address by Dr. Thokozile Chitepo, Principle Director Ministry of

Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment

Introductions : Why this seminar on policy?

Icebreaker (juggling with names)

Henner / Wolfgang

Wolfgang

Astrid

9:00

9:20 9:35

9:55

Where are we? What do we have?

Presentation of 5 nation study

Plenary discussion Presentation of Zimbabwe study

Questions / Responses

John

Aitchison

Erison Huruba

/ Elias

Murinda

10:15 Break: Refreshments

10:45 Chair: Henner

Stories from the field: exciting YALE initiatives (Uganda, Mozambique,

South Africa, Mali, Guinea, Ethiopia)

12:00 Plenary discussion: clarifications / addition Wolfgang

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Energiser (Margolis Wheel) Astrid

14:10 Group work: Flagging Highlights

- identifying inspiring practices / ideas - discuss broader applicability

Plenary report-backs / discussion

Astrid

15:30 Break: refreshments


60

16:00

16:30

dvv international values / principles

Plenary discussion:

How do inspiring practices / ideas reflect / advance the principles /values of dvv international?

Lessons to be drawn: synergies / contradictions

Henner

17:00 Close

Wednesday (Day 2)

Imagining and dreaming beyond what is

8:30 Energiser Sonja

Brief review of Day 1: Naming achievements Farrell

9:00 Warm-up round robin Game: “let‟s…..yes, and….”

The YALE project of our dreams (Simulation)

Groups invent YALE projects: focus. Scope delivery Judged by dvv international group

Astrid

10:15 Break – refreshments

10:45 Presentation and judging of bids ALL

11:45 Chair: Astrid Review and plenary discussion:

1. Emerging trends / ideas….

2. How do they relate to existing (and to-be-constructed) policy?

3. Sort/define ideas in terms of micro to macro (possibly: fields of influence exercise)

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Energiser Dudu

14:10 Group work Reflection on experience: What is dvv international good at? Identify

existing / potential strengths (practices/ values / support action etc)

Astrid

14:45 Chair: Yoemna

Plenary: Focus on dvv international (cont)

- Areas of strengths

- Areas of possible development


16:00 OUTING (Choice of game viewing, river cruise, lion breeding programme)

Thursday (Day 3)

Action planning (into the future)

8:30 Energiser (ankle walk; rope trick – unpack!) Astrid

Review of Day 2: stock-taking Sonja Belete

9:10 Chair: John Aitchison Review of the 5 Nations report recommendations

Plenary discussion: Strategic decisions

9:40 Group work: Review key interventions

Build on key areas emerging from days 1+2: strengths / to be strengthened

Astrid


11:00 Review of group work reviews and

Plenary discussion

Astrid /

Farrell

12:30 Lunch


61

13.30 Group work: Country responses to key interventions:

- Which ones work for you?

- How so? Adjustments needed?

- What additional (advocacy) initiatives are missing?

- Identify responsibilities / division of labour

Astrid


15:30 - Gallery walk of country groups‟ responses Chair: David (?)Action plan for the future

- Time-line exercise (time frames / responsibilities / resources etc)

David / Astrid

16:15 Review of action plan: dvv international perspective Henner

17:00 Closing session


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Appendix C: Pre-workshop country report assignment Dear Colleagues

We begin the workshop with assembling what we have – and we request you to do two things in preparation for the workshop:

(1) Follow the suggested template suggested previously by Wolfgang Leumer, and prepare a brief ‘inventory’, maybe in tabular form (see example below). Please send this to [email protected], so it can be distributed and used as a reference.

(2) Prepare to present an example of a particularly inspiring initiative from your country / region – something that can serve as a potential ‘model’ for planning the future. We have called the session ‘Stories from the field: exciting YALE initiatives’ and hope this gets us going imagining beyond what is.

You will have 10 minutes to present your inspiring YALE initiative (with a few added minutes for questions).

We look forward to your inputs!

Structuring inputs Regional Workshop Impacting policy of Youth and Adult Learning & Education (YALE) in Africa

No Topic Issues to be addressed

1 Policies Recognition of YALE in the educational system Approach within which YALE is strategically placed

2 Legislation

3 Governance

Institutional setting (who is in charge/acting):

Country Ministry(s) Department(s) Directorate(s) Other bodies

4 Administrative Frameworks

Issues linked to the overall coordination of the sector

5 Financing

Benchmarks, unit costs, Budget allocation from federal/regional/local governments available sources (governmental, non-governmental incl. private sector,

donors …)

6 Participation and achievement

Who provides YALE? What kind of YALE is provided? Who is reached by YALE? Outcomes How is all this documented/measured?

7 Qualifications and qualifications authorities

Recognition and placing YALE in National Qualification Frameworks

8 Quality assurance

Data assessment and maintenance M & E

9 Practitioners and professional development

Status of persons facilitating, providing and managing YALE Approaches towards professionalization of persons providing YALE

10 Conclusions / recommendations


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Appendix D: Workshop evaluation – voices of YALE actors in Africa

“Congratulations to the organisers for a valuable process. The room has been transformed as a family room and we

engaged well together and learned from each other. The content has been relevant and important because we are

talking about beneficiaries/target groups who are our brothers and sisters who need opportunities to learn and

advance in their lives. dvv international do not come with a top-down approach to Africa – they listen to Africans and

try to facilitate what Africans consider is the way forward and you chose a good facilitator and the facilitation has

been good”.

“It has been a valuable week and all objectives have certainly been met. A surprise has been that one comes here

expecting to hear that certain countries are more advanced with YALE programming etc. compared to our own, but

we find their stories are very similar to ours and that helped to bring us together. Good facilitation and kept us to

time. We will need to reflect on our country situations now and engage with the issues we have addressed here. The

facilities/venue has been refreshing, allowing us a chance to stay alert and engaged with interest”.

“I have been involved in skills development in Uganda for many years and there have even been German

organisations working with us there. Until just a few years ago, I never linked skills development to youth and adult

education and NFE and I have been exposed more and more to these linkages over the past 3 years. The main

assessment of this workshop will be observing the action plans agreed here being tangibly implemented. In this

regard, the last session we just engaged in was a particularly interesting session for me and I am confident we can

implement the plans”.

“On a personal note, it has been a privilege to be involved in this exercise. The approach that we have been following

throughout the workshop makes one feel younger as an older gentlemen, and the sharing makes me realise that there

are diverse contexts with diverse solutions, and that is inspiring because it has been a learning exercise in itself just

being here, and that enriches us. I feel encouraged that YALE is in safe hands because the colleagues here are well

equipped to match the YALE challenges presented to them and that really inspires me. I myself am a product of YALE

so I know how people suffer when YALE suffers and so I am sure we will not stop advancing our efforts until we get

there”.

“I have found that dvv practices what it professes to be – they have space for participation, for different voices, to

contribute to problem solving and I have really learned a lot, and the opportunity to gain that learning is useful to me

because I can now convey this learning to my compatriots. The nub of all our discussions is how to make YALE work

and not reinvent the wheel, and I feel what I have seen here is that we are not reinventing the wheel, but advancing

it. How do we accompany our partners to find solutions? This is an important concern that I am taking away from this

workshop. If the spirit of cooperation, participation and collaboration that we have experienced these past 3 days can

be transposed to our local levels, we can succeed because such ways of working are powerful and effective. This is a

little laboratory for YALE in Africa and I urge that the networking that has been garnered here is continued from here”.

“Thanks to the organisers for giving me this chance to meet people who I have been able to learn from and I hope we

can take all this learning forward”.

“I had a moment of a ‘reality stop’ last night when the youth working in this venue asked about why we are here. I

shared what we were focussing on and why, and they told me how they themselves were desperate for further YALE

opportunities. So it reminded me that almost everywhere we go, even right here, our work remains in much demand”.

“I feel much clearer on what and how dvv international is working in other countries and this has given me confidence

of how dvv will work in Zimbabwe”.


64

“Thank you for the invitation to be here. It has been an opportunity to really see that we work with a partner that is

committed and visionary. I participated the other week in a roundtable in Paris and all we saw and heard was

recommendations. Here we saw recommendations but we also worked collectively on how to respond to these

recommendations. I have known dvv for many years through my previous experience of Reflect and now I see dvv is

not only involved with Reflect but also all approaches to solving adult illiteracy. Thank you to everyone here for all the

learning and, as we go back, let us build on the relationships that exist and have been built while we have been here

these 3 days”

“I think this is a very powerful room. I have been enormously excited by the interactions here and we can certainly

make a difference. We have a lot of experience at making a difference at the micro and meso levels and I can see that

we have plenty of agency to make a big difference at the macro level. Thank you, it has been a great 3 days”.

“We are launching an association in South Africa on 27th September and we can take our learning from here to inform

how that association can work and go forward. We have a lot of history of such associations in South Africa not being

effective and these 3 days can really help to ensure we can succeed. As an education activist who recently passed

away, Neville Alexander, said; if you don’t work to your own agenda, you are working to someone else’s”.

“The hospitality here has been excellent. We will have to organise a workshop in Ethiopia and we can learn from how

you have organised this workshop – everything has run smoothly from the travel arrangements to the minute taking. I

hope that Uganda will really grow with us and that we will see Uganda moving forward with us”.

“Thanks for all the organisation and facilitation and participation. I had an experience when organising our visa to

attend here with the official questioning why NGOs are always organising workshops and yet there seems to be no

progress, so I hope that we will demonstrate this is not the case on this occasion”.

“My experience of working with dvv is that dvv has always been transparent and remained engaged with us as a

partner and have walked the talk with us and walked the development path with us. dvv is always getting down to

understanding the realities of the context and this workshop has reinforced how SARN can maintain and strengthen

its advocacy role in YALE”.

“I have broadened my framework while being here, it was lovely to see old friends, meet new friends and enjoy the

ambiance of the workshop”.

“The most inspiring thing was how we could gather round and stumble towards solutions collectively. I have learned

several things here which I can carry home and impact my work”.

“I agree with all that has been said, and have appreciated the level of communication and understanding that has

occurred here. We had a lot of energizers but one that we use in West Africa is to tell stories and we did not do this

here…. (rapporteur could not capture the story about communication between a cowboy and native American, with

regret)”.

“Thank you for playing along, for engaging and allowing me to step out of my role and become a participant”.

antelope park, 17 20 september...2012/04/10 · introduction to dvv international1 dvv...

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