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Disadvantages, dialogue anddevelopment co-operation

in education

Report of a meeting of the International WorkingGroup on Education (IWGE)

Feldafing, Munich, 23-26 June 1998

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International Institute for Educational Planning

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International Institute for Educational Planning http://www.unesco.org/iiep


Disadvantages, dialogue anddevelopment co-operation in education

A report from the IWGE

Meeting of the International Working Group on Education (IWGE)

Feldafing, Munich, 23-26 June 1998

Paris 1999UNESCO: International Institute for Educational Planning


This document is the summary of discussions of the 1998 InternationalWorking Group on Education (IWGE) meeting. The views and opinionsexpressed in this volume are those of individual participants in the meetingand should in no way be attributed to UNESCO, the IIEP or to any of theagencies which are members of the Working Group.

Financial support for organizing IWGE meeting was provided by themember agencies of the IWGE Planning Committee.

This volume has been printed in IIEP’s printshop

Cover design by Blandine Cliquet

International Institute for Educational Planning7 – 9 rue Eugène-Delacroix, 75116 Paris

ISBN 92-803-1178-6

© UNESCO January 1999 IIEP/mm



Preface

This account of the 1998 meeting of the lead professional advisers oneducation to the world’s donor community provides a fascinating conspectusof the major preoccupations of the agencies at the present time. The themesof democracy and participation, the rapid pace of the globalization process,and the need to enable governments to enter into full partnership with donorsrun side by side with a concern for the involvement of local stakeholders inthe education process and the sensitive linking of assistance to the genuineneeds of grass-root communities.

In a situation where official aid flows are diminishing, the focus onimproving the internal organization of agencies, the development ofpartnerships and the encouragement of institutional capacity remain importantelements in ensuring effective aid delivery. In what is traditionally animportant first part of the meeting, the participating agencies revealed theircurrent preoccupations with the need to improve their internal organization,including the sharing of institutional knowledge, as new modes of partnershipare developed with governments, communities, NGOs and others. Key newareas of concentration to emerge from these presentations included earlychildhood development, basic education, and the role of tertiary educationin the overall pattern of development, while gender issues also continue tobe a major concern.

A specific focus for the meeting was the theme of poverty alleviationand, in particular, the strategies needed to provide education for disadvantagedgroups. The working sessions on this theme revealed a preoccupation withthe need for an interdisciplinary vision, involving partnership across a wholerange of agencies, with an emphasis on getting it right at the local level.

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Disadvantage, dialogue and development co-operation in education –A report from the IWGE

Central to the discussion was the underlying dichotomy between the conceptsof the locally conceived, relevant and delivered service, on the one hand,and the need to provide people with the potential to participate in theglobalized world community, according to their needs, on the other.

As the topic homed in on the specific needs of disadvantaged girls andstreet children, the group discussed ‘ten commandments’ for the support ofgirls and young women based on a whole range of interrelated strategies,revealing the complexity of the task faced by managers and planners.Similarly, for street children, there is an urgent need to involve many differentplayers in action programmes, including educating the police force and manyother government departments not usually associated with the problem. Thetwo working groups on disability and multilingualism deepened these issuesby examining the need – in the case of the disadvantaged – to exclude theconcept of dualism or separated education from both legislation and practice,fully integrating children with special needs into the main stream of education;the discussion on multilingualism focused on the need to give priority tolearning through the mother tongue in the first instance.

What might have been a rather technical discussion on new modalitiesin the delivery of education aid became a challenging discussion on theproblems faced by donors and governments in adapting to a new sectordevelopment approach. Many of the difficulties of planning and effecting,what amounts to, a sector reform were voiced, including the urgent need totrain the staff of development agencies as well as those of ministries. Thesession on consultancy emphasized the need for new skills and patterns ofwork, including institutional links as the basis for capacity building. Thediscussion on a Code of Conduct, submitted by the Horizon 2000 Group ofEuropean agencies, showed not only the progress made since the last IWGEmeeting, but also revealed how the perceptions of agencies can differsubstantially in this respect.

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Preface

As usual, this IWGE report does not reflect the official position andpolicy declarations of different agencies, but it does provide the reader withup-to-date information about the main concerns and preoccupations of theinternational donor community. It is hoped that the many thought-provokingideas contained in the report will help to clarify the ongoing debate ondevelopment support to education and, finally, help to find ways and meansof making that support more relevant and efficient.

This report has been drafted by Roger Iredale on behalf of the Secretariatand was circulated for comments to the Steering Committee members in theautumn of 1998. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Roger, onbehalf of the entire Working Group, for the excellent work he has done insynthesizing the discussion and bringing out the main highlights so well.

Jacques Hallak

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ix

Contents

Preface v

Composition of planning committee 11

Abbreviations used in this report 12

Introduction 15

Theme 1. Challenges facing donor agencies:globalization and partnership 17• Levels of bilateral aid 19• Levels of multilateral aid given to education 20• Current trends among the donor agencies 22• Donors’ perceptions of future emphases in education 36

Theme 2. Education aid strategies for poverty alleviation 43

Theme 3. Education strategies for disadvantaged groups 49

Theme 4. Addressing specific needs and problems:learning from experience 61• Reaching disadvantaged girls 61• Street children 66• Disability 69

Theme 5. New modalities in education 77• The sector approach 77• Consultancy 82• A Code of Conduct for education sector funding agencies 84



Additional evening session 89The adaptation of content to the challengesof the twenty-first century 89

Final SessionInformation session and summing-up 95• The EFA Forum (International Consultative Forum on Education for All) 95• The Special Initiative for Africa 96• Feedback session 97

Appendix A 101

Appendix B 107

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Composition of planning committee

The International Working Group on Education (IWGE) is an informalgroup of aid agencies and foundations which come together at regularintervals to discuss issues of common interest relating to international co-operation in the field of education. The Planning Committee of the IWGE iscomposed of representatives of the following agencies:

• Aga Khan Foundation (AKF)• German Foundation for International Development (DSE)• International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)• Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida)• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO)• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The Secretariat of the International Working Group on Education isprovided by the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP).



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Abbreviations used in this report

ADB Asian Development BankADEA Association for the Development of Education in AfricaAfDB African Development BankAGCD Administration générale de la Coopération au Développement

(Belgium)AKF Aga Khan FoundationBMZ German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and

Development (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftlicheZusammenarbeit)

CBO Community-Based OrganizationCIDA Canada International Development AgencyDANIDA Danish International Development AuthorityDDA Direction de la coopération au développement et de l’aide

humanitaire (Switzerland)DFID Department for International Development (UK)DSE German Foundation for International Development

(Deutsche Stiftung für internationale Entwicklung)EDF European Development FundEFA Education for AllEU European UnionFAWE Forum of African Women EducationalistsGDC General Directorate for Development Co-operationGNP Gross National ProductGTZ German Agency for Technical Co-operation (Deutsche

Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit)



Abbreviations used in this report

13

IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development(World Bank)

IDA International Development Association (of the World Bank)IDEA Institute for Development and Adult Education (Geneva)IIEP International Institute for Educational PlanningIWGE International Working Group on EducationJICA Japan International Co-operation AgencyMFA Ministry of Foreign AffairsMOE Ministry of EducationNORAD Norwegian Agency of Development Co-operationNUFFIC Netherlands Organization for International Co-operation in

Higher EducationOECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentSEN Special Educational NeedsSida Swedish International Development Co-operation AgencySP Sector ProgrammeTA Technical AssistanceTVET Technical Vocational Education and TrainingUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

OrganizationUNFPA United Nations Fund for Population ActivitiesUNICEF United Nations Children’s FundUSAID United States Agency for International DevelopmentVSO Voluntary Service Overseas



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Introduction

The International Working Group on Education met in Germany, from23 to 26 June 1998 at the Food and Agriculture Development Centre of DSEin Feldafing on Lake Starnberg near Munich, hosted by the GermanFoundation for International Development (DSE). Participants came from atotal of 30 institutions representing 5 multilateral aid donors, bilateralagencies from 15 countries, the OECD, Aga Khan Foundation, Associationfor the Development of Education in Africa and the International Institutefor Educational Planning (IIEP).

The IWGE is an informal group of the key representatives concernedwith the development of education aid policies and practices in the donoragencies. The group meets about every two years for an intensive professionalinterchange on current policy issues, and the informality of the sessionsensures that wide-ranging discussions take place in which the participantsexpress their own personal views as well as those of their agencies. A list ofthose who participated in the 1998 meeting appears in Appendix A.

The IWGE has been meeting since the early 1980s, when it took overthe functions of the earlier Bellagio Group which had also acted as a forumfor high-level discussions of policies in aid to education. Its meetings areorganized and supported professionally by the IIEP in Paris, which is alsoresponsible, with the Group’s Ad Hoc Planning Committee, for the productionof this report.

A detailed programme is provided in Appendix B. The first themewas Recent trends in education aid policies and practices, which is thetraditional ‘show and tell’ session at which representatives of all the donor




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agencies present the most recent trends in their agencies’ work. Theme 2concerned Education aid strategies for poverty alleviation, with leadpresentations by the World Bank (WB) and the Department for InternationalDevelopment, UK (DFID). Theme 3 dealt with Education strategies fordisadvantaged groups, and moved into Theme 4 which addressed specificneeds and problems surrounding Disadvantaged girls and street children.There were then sub-themes for two parallel panels dealing with Educationfor the disabled and Education in multilingual societies. Theme 5 dealtwith New modalities in education in development co-operation withpresentations involving the new sector approach, the issue of consultancy,and a proposed new code of conduct. An additional evening session dealtwith the theme: The adaptation of content to the challenges of the twenty-first century, and this session is summarized near the end of the report,immediately preceding the summary of the feedback session.

The conference ended with short information sessions on forthcomingevents, including the Education for All (EFA) Forum 2000 and the SpecialInitiative for Africa. There was a period of feedback and discussion atwhich members suggested themes for the next meeting, probably to be heldin the year 2000.

All these sessions are summarized in the body of the main text. Exceptwhere the name of the presenter already appears on the Programme inAppendix B, statements are not assigned to specific, named individuals, norare the discussions necessarily presented in the order in which they tookplace. The report attempts to draw out main issues and themes in an orderthat is logical rather than chronological, using what was said to provide aclear presentation for the general reader interested in these issues and howdonors reacted to them, as much as for those who participated in theconference.



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Theme 1.Challenges facing donor agencies:

globalization and partnership

The International Working Group on Educationis an important forum for the representatives ofdevelopment assistance agencies whose key

interests lie in providing support to education. The IWGE’s chiefcharacteristic is that it is an informal group involving a meeting of bilateraland multilateral donors at which representatives of the agencies speak forthemselves and not just as the spokespersons of their institutions. Its otheressential characteristic is that it is owned by its membership, who developtheir own agendas for meetings through an ad hoc steering committee whichmeets immediately before and after each working session.

At the time of the meeting in Munich there were two current issuesfacing aid donors: the first was contextual and related to the acceleratingpace of globalization and in particular the developments in electronic formsof communication that go with it. These are inevitably beginning to influencepeople’s lives, shape the way in which aid is delivered to clients, and guidethe channels by which donors, governments and others in the developmentprocess interact. Several agencies are thinking hard about the globalimplications of these growing networks and the new methodologies whichthey are generating. Globalization is affecting the educational agenda,including such key issues as evaluation, assessment and certification. Therapidity of communications is re-shaping methods of delivery and, morefundamentally, the ways in which people think. Communications willinevitably influence the content and delivery of education across the globe.

Jacques Hallak, IIEP Opening address




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The other major issue lies in an increasing demand for democracy andparticipation. Donors have traditionally worked at governmental level,involving themselves in schools and other educational institutions as theyhave developed projects with their governmental partners. Recent trendshave revealed a much more participative approach to education projectsthrough the increased involvement of local stakeholders.

There is a growing expectation among communities and localgovernment that they should be involved in decision-making at every level,and this new groundswell of local interest has major implications for thedelivery of education and for any external assistance that supports it. Allagencies and governments have to be prepared to think harder about greaterco-operation at local level, including the classroom. While many agenciesand organizations have already pioneered the involvement of communities,it is now important for all people in the development process to think aboutthe implications of operating down to the deepest levels of participation. Astime goes on, this issue will become even more central to the ways in whichagencies think about the design and style of their work, as the focus shifts totake in wider grass-roots opinion.

This second issue is reflected in the Germanelection campaigns, taking place at the timeof the IWGE meeting. While it is

recognized that aid policy is not a major part of the political debate in theGerman elections, any more than it is likely to be in any country’s elections,the German non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerned withdevelopment assistance have put together a Memorandum indicating tocentral government what they think its future aid priorities should be. Inputting together this Memorandum the parties involved, of varying politicalpersuasions, have found 95 per cent agreement on what should be done. Thepaper outlines some of the dangers which the writers believe face the globaleconomy and threaten sustainable development; it proposes, among other

Eckhard Deutscher, DSEWelcome address



Challenges facing donor agencies:Globalization and partnership

19

things, that more financial support should be given to NGOs to stimulatemore participative patterns of activity and that there should be a much widermobilization of the general public in North-South activities.

Such a move would encourage greater grass-roots involvement of theGerman public in developmental issues, including the environment, andwould more closely involve the Länder in future dialogue, particularly onthe importance of reaching the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNPfor development assistance. Following recent elections in other Europeancountries, a much greater consciousness of the importance of being involvedin collaborative linkages on a global scale has begun to show in a number ofother European partners, and it is hoped that the forthcoming Germanelections will widen this interest by including Germany with those countriesthat have already initiated change in this area.

Levels of bilateral aid

However, when it comes to hardfacts, despite the optimism thatrecent developments in variouscountries have engendered, theactual figures for aid flows provided

by OECD suggest that total bilateral development assistance has actuallybeen going steadily downwards over the past five years. At current priceand exchange rates, aid flows between 1991 and 1997 show a drop in absoluteamounts from $56,678 million to $47,580 million. This represents a fallfrom 0.33 per cent of the donor countries’ combined GNP to 0.22, which isthe lowest percentage level ever reached in relative terms by developmentassistance. Recent DAC figures indicate that the fall in official developmentassistance is mainly the result of systematic cuts in the aid budgets of the G7countries, while aid flows from the other countries have remained more orless stable during recent years.

Gabriel Carron, IIEP.Statement based on paper,

‘Basic statistics on bilateralofficial aid from DAC countries’.




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In 1997, of the bilateral donors, only Denmark (0.97%), Norway (0.86%),Netherlands (0.81%) and Sweden (0.76%) have managed to exceed the officialUnited Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP, though in absolute terms Japanis the highest provider of official development assistance at $9,358 million,followed by France ($6,348 million) and the USA ($6,168 million).

The proportion of this aid which is devoted to the social sectors,however, shows an encouraging rise since the 1990s. It amounted in 1995 tosome 30.5 per cent of the total aid given by DAC countries, consisting of:11.2% to education, 5.6% to health and population activities, 5.6% to watersupply and sanitation, 3.2% to government and civil society, and 4.8% toother activities. Basic education represents about 10 per cent of all educationaid, or 1.2 per cent of all aid, though this figure is very tentative indeed,given the lack of clarity about basic education as a concept.

Overall, however, the actual sums of money given to education havenot varied widely over the first half of the decade. In 1990 some $5.664billion were devoted to educational aid compared with $6.037 billion in1995 and $5.084 billion in 1996.

Levels of multilateral aid given to education

Multilateral aid to education is verydifficult to quantify. Data drawn mainlyfrom the World Education Reports of

UNESCO to 1995 indicate that from 1990 to 1995 multilateral banks andfunds contributed $2.1 billion in 1990 and $2.7 billion in 1995. United Nationsprogrammes, including UNESCO, contributed $285 million in 1990 and $305million in 1995. On the whole, the United Nations system lags far behindthe contributions made by the multilateral banks and funds, with the WorldBank the big spender at over $2 billion in 1995 (it is worth noting that adistinction should be made between commercial loans and soft loans whichhave an 80 per cent grant element within them). Analysis suggests that the

Professor Klaus Hüfner,Freie Universität Berlin




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education lending of the World Bank through the IBRD has increased, with adramatic rise after 1990 to an average of $1.17 billion per year between 1991and 1996, indicating the priority which IBRD has given to educationalinvestments.

In any attempt to provide a breakdown of these figures for the amountsdevoted to education, there are sizeable methodological difficulties thatinclude elements of double counting on the figures provided by some UnitedNations agencies. Moreover, it is difficult to extract figures for the educationalelements of projects operated by agencies that are primarily concerned withprojects in other sectors which have an educational element in them. One ofthe major contributors to educational projects has been the World FoodProgramme, which has supported activities through the use of counterpartfunds contributed to the sector by governments in exchange for food.

Drawing on what data are available, it can be said that the sum ofUNESCO+IDA1+a total sum extracted from the educational elements of otherUnited Nations programmes and funds indicates a real increase in fundingon education as between the 1980s and the 1990s, with the proviso thatduring the 1990s funding has remained relatively level from year to year.The underlying reason for this significant rise lies not with UNESCO andthe United Nations agencies, but almost entirely with the IDA.

It may well be that one possible reason forthe apparent reduction in bilateral funds

going to developing countries lies in the steady switch of funding on the partof some donors towards the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU).The funding of the countries of the FSU is not included in the DAC figures,and so the apparent stagnation or even reduction of funds may result fromthe diversion of money, that was previously going exclusively to developingcountries, to FSU areas.

Questions and responses

1. The IDA is the soft-loan part of the World Bank.




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Another issue is the question of private flows, which are defined asthose sums of money that enter developing countries as a result of privatesector investment; they do not, incidentally, include the money that goesthrough NGOs. The increase in private flows is substantial and requiresconsiderable further study. The World Bank, for example, is beginning totalk now to the International Finance Corporation about private investmentin the education sector. A clearer definition of what constitutes private flowsneeds to be developed and a dialogue established. On first sight, it wouldappear that corporate private investment in education may be huge, asexemplified by the so-called Motorola universities. There is also growingevidence that employers are beginning to realize that it pays to invest fundsin various types of basic education in order to increase productivity.

Current trends among the donor agencies

Presentations from the donoragencies indicate that there wereseveral common themes, togetherwith some interesting innovativeapproaches. Three major themes

currently preoccupy the donor agencies at the present time, both multilateraland bilateral. They can be summarized as: internal organization (or re-organization) to meet the challenges of new approaches to aid patterns andrelationships; the development of partnerships of all kinds and at all levels;and the question of how to approach sector development as a modality forthe provision of development assistance. Closely related to these questions,and intertwined with them, are the management of knowledge, the coding orclassification of aid activities, particularly those in the education sector, andthe development of institutional capacity combined with a closerconcentration on involvement with the community.

These paragraphs are extrapolatedfrom the ‘Show and Tell’ sessionsat which each agency outlined its

current preoccupations




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The World Bank is one agency where considerablerethinking within the Organization has led to a new

conceptual structure aimed at enhancing and improving both the educationportfolio and the people working in education through creating an Across-Bank Network which agrees strategy; promotes quality; encourages externalpartnerships; provides training; and manages knowledge. The last of theseensures that the Bank’s huge resources of written, electronically recorded,and tacit information are placed at the disposition of its own staff and itsclients. In practical terms, it has now established a help-desk, which isaccessible from anywhere in the world, capable of providing instantinformation to enquirers. Education statistics and indicators, project designand implementation, and the design and implementation of projects throughnew technologies are the first elements of this new development.

In addition to eight Intranet sites for internal users, the Bank has goneexternal and provided websites on the Internet, initially on early childdevelopment and distance education (the other themes will follow) with thenext being girls’ education. The overall aim is to develop a ‘KnowledgeBank’ available to all.

At the same time, the Bank’s portfolio reveals a move from narrowproject approaches to broad sectoral ones, steady shifts away from itstraditional investment in buildings, and a greater emphasis on primaryeducation. The overall aim, in partnership terms, is to work with clients tohelp them identify and take their next strategic steps towards making wiseand fair investments, provide access to relevant learning and quality teaching,and build institutional capacity under the umbrella of the overall Bankstrategy.

Decentralization has been an important factor in changing the shape ofdecision-making at the Bank. Five years ago it contrasted with UNICEF

World Bank




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(see below) in having policies highly centralized in Washington, whileUNICEF’s staff in the field had complete freedom to develop policy at countrylevel. Today it is no longer possible for someone at headquarters to decidethat “the Bank will only invest in….”, since staff members working at thecountry level will be addressing the question, “what is the right next strategicstep for this country in education?”

UNICEF, too, has been through an exciting period.Since 1989 it has emphasized primary education and

its many related aspects, but is now focusing on systemic changes to facilitatesustainability. Within the context of United Nations reform (which encouragesmore effective and efficient use of resources) UNICEF is engaging in sector-support initiatives which involve deeper collaboration with the World Bank,UNESCO and others. Support to basic education includes a greater emphasison schools as protectors of children’s rights, a deliberate merging of the‘false dichotomy’ between formal and non-formal education, and an increasedsupport for girls’ education.

In terms of the centralization/decentralization issue UNICEF continuesto emphasize local country policy formation. The New York headquartersis, among other things, developing a policy/knowledge network (whichperhaps the World Bank’s ‘knowledge bank’ concept reflects), developingits strengths in networking and policy dialogue.

Co-operation as a concept manifests itself throughout UNICEF as abridging partner between others. UNICEF develops agreed CountryProgrammes of Co-operation which avoid the necessity for conditionalityand similar constraints on equal partnership relationships. Sector investmentprogrammes provide an opportunity for collaboration with other donors anda more complex partnership.

UNICEF




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Organizational decentralization is central toUNESCO’s development, with programmes

increasingly devolved to field offices where individual units can developcountry policies that will strengthen their ability to help Member States. Asa consequence of its concern at the hundreds of millions of children who aredenied access to education and maltreated by the world of adults, UNESCOis looking to harness the political will of governments to invest in lifelongeducation. Like other organizations, it is concerned with the effects of povertyand is engaged in taking preventive action, rather than cure, to try to protectchildren from exploitation.

However, as decentralization within UNESCO gathers momentum,questions are being asked about the role of staff in implementation. TheDirector-General does not want UNESCO to be regarded as primarily animplementing agency, but staff themselves are often enthusiastic about gettinginvolved at local level in implementing something from which they can derivesatisfaction because they see tangible results. As UNESCO moves nearer tothe UNICEF model, inevitable questions have to be asked about therelationship between Paris and the field offices.

As regards the topic of specific needs and problems of disadvantagedgirls and street children, which is one of the main topics of the meeting, it iscurrently addressed by UNESCO in connection with matters relating toeducation, poverty and peace. Consequently, attention is drawn to the threatsposed to peace by worsening poverty in almost every society, and to itsrelated phenomena of symbolic and open violence, emigration, xenophobiaand exclusion, to name only these. Other factors also related to poverty andpeace, which are threatening human existence, are the deterioration of theenvironment and its immeasurable consequences. In addition, and moreimportantly, hundreds of millions of human beings are denied access to

UNESCO




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education. Young people’s needs and aspirations, especially those of girls,are not being met. Hundreds of millions of children are surviving and sufferingin child labour or on the streets, if they are not simply murdered by ruthlessadults. All these phenomena which are obviously against peace, are givengreat attention by UNESCO.

Major reorganization is a significant facet of theEuropean Union’s current development. Concurrent

with this are policy shifts in favour of moving support from capital to recurrentexpenditure, reducing the numbers of expatriate long-term experts in favourof encouraging indigenous planning and, after the next Lomé agreement,offering more direct budgetary support. One aspect of this steady devolutionof responsibility to recipients is the adoption of sector developmentprogrammes as a means of setting aid interventions in the context of a widerplan involving both recipient government and other donors. While much ofEU support has traditionally been to primary education, a dramatic increasein support to basic education is expected.

For the African Development Bank, policyformulation depends very much on the stated

preferences of its membership and clients Its lending policies focus onenhancing educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups, with particularreference to basic education. There is difficulty, as is the case with otherdonors, of defining what constitutes an educational activity, and clearly moreattention needs to be given to this issue. But the emphasis is on the widerdevelopmental framework within which educational activity takes place,while linkages and partnerships involve poverty alleviation activities thatinclude income generation and employment policies, along with other basicsocial services including health.

European Union

AfDB




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In 1997, the Asian Development Bank2 continued todirect the greater part of its education lending to basic

education. In fact, lending to basic education comprised 70.5 per cent oftotal lending to the sector. This reflects a continuing commitment to basiceducation on the part of the Bank – a commitment that is an integral part ofits general policy to increase support for human development in general.

The Bank’s increased provision of technical assistance in the last fewyears has been directed at capacity building rather than the more traditionalproject preparatory activities. Even project preparatory technical assistancehas changed in nature in recent years as the process becomes increasinglyparticipatory to increase local ownership. The Bank also approved in 1997 atechnical assistance grant of $580,000 for a regional study of trends, issues,and policies in education. This study will form the basis of the Bank’s revisededucation sector policy paper to be completed in 1998.

Finally, in keeping with its determination to base its project lending onfirm sector analysis, the Bank undertook comprehensive education sectorreviews in Pakistan and Indonesia using internal resources, and began areview for the Philippines. These reviews will serve as the basis ofstrengthening the coherence and focus of the Bank’s education sectorinvestment portfolios in these major borrowing countries. In addition, theBank established a resource group for governance and capacity building, toprovide guidance and training for its staff in addressing these key areas ofconcern and a working group on project performance monitoring with theaim of strengthening project implementation and impact through moresystematic monitoring. These groups are part of the Bank’s efforts to improvethe quality of project preparation and monitoring, and they will have

ADB

2. The Asian Development Bank could not be represented at the meeting but provided awritten report to the Working Group.




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considerable impact on the process of planning and monitoring basic educationprojects.

Other agencies have similarly been involved insubstantial reorganization. USAID has made

adjustments to its Strategic Plan in order to establish an Agency Goal forhuman capacity development aimed at halting and reversing a previousdecline in the Agency’s involvement in education. The concept of humancapacity built through basic education, tertiary education, training andtelecommunications has now become an additional goal of the Organization,involving the participation of outside groups, including grantees, contractorsand NGOs in the development of work in such areas as basic education,tertiary education, workforce development, information technology andtraining, in the latter case with an increasing emphasis on in-country andthird-country training.

With the actual sums of money spent on training having declined froma former $600 million to approximately $432 million annually and with acommitment to shorter-term spells of training, there is an extension of theconcept of partnership as the focus moves towards the development ofaccountability and technical leadership within developing countries. Alongwith this new pattern of training is a greater concern for policy dialogue,development co-operation and a desire to align quality, particularly in basiceducation, with action research at local levels.

One major concern for USAID is the inevitable development of distancelearning resulting from the rapid development of information technologyand telecommunications. This has important implications for the community,and especially for poor people in remote rural areas, whose access to thesetechnologies may be limited. The affordability of distance learning andconsequent access to education for people in all locations (and not just urbanélites) is a real issue that needs to be addressed.

United States: USAID




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For Sweden the issue is not so much that ofreorganization to meet new objectives, but of

ensuring that new policy developments in poverty reduction, sustainabledevelopment, equality between women and men, democracy and human rightsare fully understood and taken seriously by staff. Working groups in thefields of education and health sector support programmes, using seminarsheld with field staff, Sida’s high-level advisory committee, the Organization’slawyers and policy administrators, have served to establish a much strongerin-house sense of priorities and goals.

However, the Agency is aware that the development of new policiesand its increased involvement in moving towards sector developmentprogrammes require new competencies among staff. Training is central tothese developments, since people with former experience of operatingindividual projects do not necessarily have the skills, experience andcompetencies to analyze financial budgets, harmonize a sector-wide policy,and understand the broader issues involved. This is urgent because educationsector programmes are already operating in Ethiopia, Mozambique andTanzania, with further anticipation of work in Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Norway similarly is in the process of developinga systemic approach to basic education through

sector programmes and donor co-ordination based on recipient orientation,rather than the creation of new policies. It has developed a policy of ensuringthat its bilateral aid is an integrated part of national or regional planningbased on the recipient government’s sector priorities and that the aid is alignedwith the activities of multilateral donors. An overriding policy imperativelies in the concept of poverty reduction, with attention to girls’ and women’seducation and a developing emphasis on education for special needs.

For Denmark, too, a Strategy Paper, approvedby the Danish Parliament, already exists, in

Sweden: Sida

Norway: NORAD

Denmark: DANIDA




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which the precept that effective social sectors are prerequisites for all otherdevelopment is well established. The quest for partnership takes two forms:a desire to keep down the number of people operating in the Agency’s centraloffice by the development of institutional linkages between organizations inDenmark and with the professional institutions in the countries whereDANIDA works; and closely linked to this, a strong impetus towardsdeveloping the competencies of indigenous researchers capable of providingeffective basic data.

Local researchers should not simply exist to support their visiting foreigncounterparts, but they should be actively involved in the research workthemselves. This in turn requires the development of aspects of tertiaryeducation, the area that has for some years been neglected in favour of basiceducation. Without qualitative improvements to tertiary education, thedevelopment of partnerships with researchers and the improvement ofindigenous capacity simply is not possible.

But for DANIDA, one major challenge is the effective operation ofsectoral strategies. Sector policy is fine in theory until the moment comeswhere the partners need to focus on detailed financing and otherorganizational aspects. At this stage the donors’ widely varying requirementsplace huge pressures on the recipients. Perhaps before donors complain thatdeveloping country administrations lack the professionalism necessary toeffect the relevant change, they should review their own professionalismand make the necessary changes.

The United Kingdom has, as a consequenceof the 1997 election, found itself dealing with

quite major policy changes which have in turn led to interesting internaldevelopments. The new Labour Government’s emphasis on education as anational issue has large implications for its aid programme, where the same

United Kingdom: DFID




31

kind of emphasis has been established. This, taken with the commitment inthe new White Paper to the alleviation of poverty as a basic principle, hasled to a need for the Department to change direction on a grand scale.

Among the new emphases are equity of access, of treatment and ofopportunity, the retention of pupils rather than merely their enrolment, theremoval of gender disparities, and the importance of looking at the ‘difficult’parts of countries where groups are often neglected because of theirremoteness or poverty (as in the western parts of China, for instance).

The White Paper commits DFID to a joint approach to its programmes,and new or developing partnerships include those with NGOs, civil societyand the private sector. Debt relief programmes are being linked to theprovision of counterpart funds for the social sectors, especially in theCommonwealth, and there is increasing involvement of communities in theseand other new initiatives.

Internally, the new policies need a greater co-ordination across staff,who include increasing numbers of professional field staff concerned witheducation. DFID is therefore developing a unit which will provide a basisfor the development and dissemination of policy in education, together withthe provision of relevant information and statistics. Meanwhile, an educationsector policy paper is due to appear before the end of 1998.

The Netherlands faces a quite different set oforganizational issues as it devolves

responsibility increasingly to embassies, who will have a greater say inappraisals and dialogue with governments. As this happens the Ministry ofForeign Affairs is organizing itself on a thematic basis. The important issueis that all political parties in the Netherlands agree on the need for an increasein basic education, with an emphasis on more access for girls.

Netherlands: MFA




32

The programme has expanded substantially, with a rise from $10 millionin 1992 to $45 million last year with an expected increase to $85 million in1999 which, along with the devolution to embassies, will require considerableefforts to spend effectively. In addition, organizational changes are still neededto move away from the project approach, on which some 60 per cent ofDutch aid is still spent, to the development of sector-wide policies.

Canada also has an established policyidentifying human needs as one of six

programme priority areas, with a focus on basic education. A policy paperof 1997 identifies education as a strong part of poverty reduction strategies.Work will focus on teacher training, the development of learning materials,access in terms of gender, with particular reference to those most in need:girls and women, deprived rural communities, street children and disabledpersons. Early childhood development will form a part of the strategy.

The challenge to CIDA in implementing these strategies lies in theshortfall of relevant professional staff within the Agency. While there arestaff to cover Africa, there is no one allocated to South-East Asia and thereis only one for the Americas. At the present time Canada’s aid is still fairlytightly tied, and it does not have the staff to deal with the more sector-wideapproaches which could therefore present challenges. As a response CIDAis trying to network along the lines of the World Bank in order to compensatefor its limited human resources.

Social sector programmes are under-represented in the overall pattern of Finnish

aid, and social sector policy is yet to be defined; within the education sub-sector about 65 per cent of aid goes to basic education. The idea of partnershipis represented in the development of relationships with five universitydepartments, whose expertise is now available to the Agency.

Canada: CIDA

Finland: MFA




33

For Portugal, in its objectives of affirmingdemocracy and the right of law, the search

for co-operation lies in links with other bilateral agencies and with ministriesof education in a deepening of European-African dialogue. Co-ordinationwill be effected through an integrated aid budget under which a number oforganizations and institutes in Portugal will be linked in initiatives aimed atbringing together the five African Portuguese-speaking countries.

Difficulty in supporting sector developmentprogrammes because of limited numbers of

in-house staff is one problem confronting Austria’s aid programme. As itadopts an increasing emphasis on programmes rather than projects, Austriais seeking to support basic education in co-operation with local governmentinstitutions, NGOs and other local partners.

For the Swiss programme the concept ofpartnership lies in country programmes of

5-10 years’ duration which are negotiated with governments and relevantNGOs, where the recipients’ priorities are regarded as pre-eminent. Hence,for example, basic education is not a Swiss priority for Latin America simplybecause within the continent it is not regarded as such. On the other hand, inWest Africa both basic and adult education are supported, throughpartnerships with local groups, with the aim of empowering and strengtheningcommunities. In-house training is given on gender and there is a gradualencouragement of partners in developing countries to develop and adopttheir own gender approach.

Defining what constitutes education and howmuch is committed to it is a problem for

Belgian co-operation, since many of its education programmes are part ofpublic health and other sectoral projects. Partnerships have developed where

Portugal: MOE

Austria: MFA

Switzerland: DDA

Belgium: AGCD




34

programmes are operated in conjunction with NGOs, specialized agencies orreligious organizations. Internally, there have been major changes over thepast few years, with a tendency for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set thepace. One area of co-operation that influences the programme is the importantrelationship with Belgian universities, who exert considerable influencethrough their institutional relationships and have tended to constrain the amountof time and experience devoted to basic education in favour of other levels.

In the Japanese aid programme careful co-ordination needs to be given to thedevelopment of education aid, since there is

no single department to carry through education programmes, which areimplemented within a number of other programmes and modalities. A morelogical structure is planned within two years on a geographical basis, withsectors servicing those departments. While Japanese aid is very likely todecrease in response to the current economic crisis, education may wellincrease its share of the budget in percentage terms and there may be awelcome bias towards quality rather than quantity. Much of the bilateral aidcurrently passes through Japanese trading companies and this makes flexibilityin approach rather more difficult, particularly where sectoral and otherthematic approaches are required.

NGOs are increasingly seen as partners forItalian aid, which focuses on the importance

of human rights, and particularly children’s rights. This suggests an importantconcentration on gender as an issue, and in particular on the removal ofcultural, social and economic barriers to the education of girls. The provisionof basic programmes for women in rural areas and in war zones and acontribution to capacity building will include support to indigenous planning,research and monitoring. Italy looks to improve teachers’ conditions ofservice and to ensure that free education is provided to poor families. Asearch for innovative teaching methods is part of the programme.

Japan: JICA

Italy: GDC




35

Germany’s three institutions tend to lookat development assistance from the three

different perspectives based on their functions. BMZ went through areorganization a year ago and transferred responsibility for education to thehealth sector. In emphasizing the importance of basic education (but withcontinuing emphasis on the importance of vocational and technical education)Germany is looking for policy dialogue with recipients to encourage suchpolicy developments as reduction in military spending in favour of theeducation budget and directing educational reforms towards social justiceby discrimination in favour of neglected groups.

In supporting basic education GTZ focuses specifically ondecentralization, which it pursues in co-operation with governments,particularly in relation to activities such as the decentralized in-servicetraining of teachers. Internal reorganization has placed educational projectsin the context of an integrated social sector policy which brings togethereducation and science, health, population and nutrition, food security andconstruction. Execution of projects and programmes rests with regionaldepartments, using sectoral departments as advisers on the technical andprofessional aspects of the work.

DSE’s approach emphasizes a number of organizational issues withinthe Agency. In its programmes it seeks to address the cross-cutting issues ofthe environment and education, while contributing to the improvement ofquality by strengthening local capacity in research. Further partnership issought through the development of curricula that utilize local and regionalcultures, including the development of learning through mother tongues as ameans of giving people better access to information. Stimulation of localpublishing industries through training and other support is an element. Likeother agencies, DSE sees the development of tertiary education institutionsas a means of building capacity.

Germany: BMZ, GTZ, DSE




36

The Aga Khan Foundation is working withother agencies, including CIDA, DFID,

USAID, the EU, and the World Bank, on the financing of basic education,which is becoming a dominant theme. Its partnership with communitiesthrough mini-endowment schemes is described in a later section of the report.The AKF sees its considerable investment in early childhood education as ahighly important element in supporting basic education and involvingcommunities in education at grass-roots level. One of the dilemmas it facesis whether to put resources into such central facilities as teachers’ resourcefacilities in larger urban areas, or whether to channel the money right downto school level.

Stocktaking is an essential part of theforthcoming work of the Association for the

Development of Education in Africa. ADEA is, of course, not a donor agency,representing as it does aid agencies and African ministries of education.One major service which ADEA is now ready to offer to the donor communityis the PRISM database with CD-ROM, containing information on alleducation projects throughout Africa. With 850 listed, and access by country,agency, objectives and criteria, the database should enable all those withinterests in aid to education in Africa to access key data.

Donors’ perceptions of future emphases in education

Early childhood education is oneimportant area in which donors are

increasingly interested. For many, the term ‘education’ is too limited, andthe preference is for the generic term, early childhood development (ECD)as embracing a more comprehensive approach to the process of making earlierinterventions in the growth and development of children, both in family-based, parent education programmes for children aged 0-3 and more organizedchild care programmes, from the age of three upwards. There is a generalfeeling that advances in supporting basic education can be lost if there is no

Aga Khan Foundation

ADEA

Early Childhood Development




37

pre-experience preparation of the pupil from at least the age of three. Severalagencies feel particularly that ECD should form an integral part of basiceducation, and that higher success rates can be achieved by inducting thechild into the educational process at a younger age.

Among agencies expressing specific interest in this area of activity arethe Aga Khan Foundation, the World Bank, UNICEF, USAID, and thecountries of the Netherlands and Italy, though others also show an interest.In the case of the World Bank, ECD has emerged as one of a number ofissues that staff identified in a survey of what education ministers are mostlikely to ask questions about; ECD consequently appears on the Bank’swebsite as an area of interest. However, there is a structural problem intrying to assist ECD: in some countries it does not lie within the remit of theministry of education and there is therefore sometimes a lack of articulationbetween this period of the child’s education and the beginning of formalschooling at the ages of five or six. One of the difficulties in establishing theextent of donor interest and activity may lie in the classification of statistics,where ECD may be represented as an element of basic education.

Not surprisingly basic education emerges as akey interest across virtually all donors. For the

Aga Khan Foundation the financing of basic education is a dominant themeand includes mini-endowments for communities and individual schools toenable them to enhance the poor salary regimes of classroom teachers. Thiskind of community-level investment helps schools to continue to attractteachers in the face of poor salary levels. In the case of USAID, there will bea continuing emphasis on policy, especially on policy dialogue and policyappraisal with a priority on the quality of basic education. For Sida morethan 50 per cent of education aid (which in turn occupies about 10 per centof the Swedish aid programme) is devoted to basic education spending, whilethe Netherlands is also committing about 50 per cent of its programme toeducation at this level.

Basic education




38

In other agencies basic education is important, but as an integral part ofwider strategies, as in the case of the DSE (Germany), Italy, where access tobasic education is viewed as part of a human rights strategy, and Austria,where it is an element in community and district projects.

Others also see basic education as an important element in an overallstrategy, and for CIDA basic education is a major part of its overall humanneeds priority area. In the Belgian programme it is also a rising priority, butone which is constrained by emphases in other areas such as tertiaryeducation. In the case of Japan, it is difficult to identify the sums spent onbasic education because the coding system used by the agency conflatesprimary and secondary as one area of activity. In the case of the GermanFederal Ministry of Education, basic education is now accorded a higherpriority than other areas, though vocational and tertiary education continueto remain important. USAID continues to give basic education the highestpriority.

For DFID, basic education is anatural goal of its general aim toalleviate poverty, and universal

primary education (UPE) is a target adopted in the recent government WhitePaper. But basic education must not be viewed in isolation because of itsstrong linkages with other educational initiatives, including adult literacyand tertiary education, the latter of which contributes to basic educationthrough research, the training of teachers and many other channels.

This theme is taken up by other agencies, particularly DANIDA, whichpoints out both that basic education is not the same as primary education (apoint well established by the World Conference on Education for All) and thatsome degree of support to tertiary education is an essential ingredient in the

Importance of tertiary educationto basic education development




39

full and effective development of the education system at the basic level. Somebelieve there may soon be a strong reaction to the present run-down in fundingfor tertiary education (evidenced by USAID’s reduction of funding in tertiaryeducation) once figures become publicly known; there will inevitably be strongarguments that such reductions in capacity to train and perform research at thelocal level will be injurious to the cause of the development of basic education.The important impact of tertiary education activity on local capacity buildingand the effectiveness of work in other sectors has already been referred toabove.3 USAID is, indeed, beginning to focus on tertiary education reform,funding diversification, equity and the role of tertiary education partnershipsin accelerating development in all sectors.

But perhaps the most recurrentissue to emerge from all donors is

that of gender. Virtually every donor, multilateral and bilateral, is concernedwith gender issues, and particularly those relating to girls’ access to qualityeducational programmes. While no particularly new issues or ideas emergefrom the donors, although UNICEF stressed the importance of improvingthe teaching-learning process, it is abundantly clear that virtually every oneof them is concerned to ensure that gender is an issue in all sectors and at alllevels. UNESCO has a particular concern that in some situations it is womenthemselves who fail to stimulate, encourage and support girls in theireducational ambitions. As part of the process, UNESCO has undertaken toscrutinize learning materials with a view to ensuring that any gender bias,latent or overt, is removed. One important development is in the constructionof partnerships focused on tackling a particular set of problems, asexemplified by the important collaboration of DFID, the World Bank, theRockefeller Foundation and UNICEF in documenting lessons on addressinggender imbalance in the 31 countries that will not meet the internationaltargets in education systems, beginning in the Yemen.

3. CIDA and DANIDA.

The importance of gender issues




40

Perhaps the single issue that isnew in the agenda of mostagencies is the current trend

towards sector development programmes. DANIDA’s concern at the pressuresthat sectoral programmes place on recipients has already been recorded above,and this concern is reflected by other donors. Initiatives are under way toreach a general understanding of what constitutes a good design and on howthe policy should work in practice. In concrete terms, the question has to beasked how donors can both adopt a sectoral approach and still maintain theirown policy preferences: a donor cannot possibly claim simultaneously towant to be part of a sectoral programme and say that it does not support, forexample, civil works. What would happen if every donor approaching asectoral programme stated that it was prepared to support only basiceducation?

Donors must be prepared to adopt more flexible attitudes andapproaches. They could, for example, outline general priorities in principlebut not insist on the earmarking of funds for particular activities. Closelyrelated to this issue is the use of what is called ‘budgetary support’, aboutwhich there is considerable controversy. Is budgetary support, at one extreme,the provision of virtually unconditional funds to a ministry or, at the otherextreme, the provision of funds on the firm condition that all the donor’s(rather than the recipient’s) procurement procedures and channels are used?

What is clear is that there may be a relationship between the extent towhich a donor ties its aid and the size and flexibility of its staff. Thosedonors that have small in-house staff resources may as a consequence developa much larger domestic constituency, but conversely may have less freedomto untie aid and engage in genuinely sector-wide initiatives because of theneed to supervise external contractors very closely in order to ensure effectivedelivery.

The concept of Sector Developmentand its related problems




41

Ultimately, the issue of how donors approach sectoral programmes musthinge on the concept of ‘partnership’, with a proper understanding of whatis meant by the roles, rights, obligations and responsibilities of the variouspartners in the aid process. Working productively at ground level requiresmutual understanding, flexibility and a better analysis of what models of thesectoral approach are available.

A further discussion of the sector approach and of the definition anduses of budgetary support occurs in Theme 5 below.



43

Theme 2.Education aid strategies for poverty alleviation

Ideas about the role of education are undergoinga period of transition, as perceptionsincreasingly link education with the goals of

social cohesion and equity. These are issues which all countries and donorsare addressing, plus the recurring problem of linking school with work. Keyquestions arise in relation to these issues: we know that a stronger institutionalcapacity is required, that partners are required to accomplish complex goals,and that there must be an optimum blend of inputs.

The World Bank believes that it has a comparative advantage in theseand other areas, in that it can sustain long-term commitment and offerimpartial policy advice to its clients. This it is aiming to accomplish throughits current strategy of increasing the impact of education on development.This strategy is designed to assist the Bank in its mandate to become a partnerin strengthening economies and expanding markets to improve the qualityof life for people everywhere, especially the poorest.

The strategy is aimed primarily at assisting the Bank’s clients:• to ensure access to relevant learning in a quality teaching environment;• to invest wisely and fairly;• to build capacity to sustain these achievements without the Bank’s help.

These objectives are in response to the five main drivers of change atthe present time: the rapid spread of democratization on a worldwide scale;the development of market economies; increasing globalization; widespreadtechnological innovation; and changing public/private roles as the central

Maris O’Rourke,World Bank




44

position of government is questioned and the private sector becomes a moreimportant actor in the social sectors. In the education area the diversificationof private players includes students, parents, communities, non-profitorganizations, and entrepreneurs.

The major questions to be asked relate to student knowledge through acurriculum compatible with the situations of employment and unemployment;teacher competencies and the kind of training they require; the monitoringof student achievement and the development of evaluation and assessmentsystems; and the linking of what schools do in relation to the world of workthrough curriculum, the labour market and careers advice. The developmentof technological innovations will increasingly have a huge impact on thegeneration, collection, dissemination and use of knowledge and particularlyon the cost of its delivery.

Nevertheless, while there are significant improvements in the deliveryof education throughout most regions of the world, there remains significantinequitable access as between boys and girls, especially between the ages of12 and 17 in almost every region, and declining access for 6-11 year-olds insub-Saharan Africa (following a rise up to the 1980s). The World Bank,through its wide global knowledge, its capacity to offer impartial policyadvice and maintain a long-term commitment to its clients, and its expandingeducation portfolio, is in a strong position to contribute to greater equity andaccess. It will do this by moving to a broader sectoral approach whereeducational support contributes to the alleviation of poverty through suchareas as early childhood development, support for girls in basic education,investment in distance education, and systemic reform.

Examples of these developments are those being undertaken in China,where the Bank is assisting with improving access to basic education in thepoorest provinces, decentralization through support to local capacity, andstrengthening of vocational and technical education for market relevance.



Education aid strategies for poverty alleviations

45

In the years ahead the Bank expects increasingly to support investmenttargeted at the poor.

In pursuing these objectives the Bank intends to look at quality: atpresent only 12 out of its 41 education projects in Africa are fully rated asfocusing on the quality of education. There is an awareness that, if ministriesof education still require support in building up capacity, then there must bebetter strategies, including the integration of education investmentprogrammes into overall economic programmes.

One major issue is whether the Bank has the right staff for the currenttask in hand. As it moves from projects to adaptable programme loans (APLs),with their promised funding over a decade of developing and changinginitiatives, the Bank will require staff who are capable of developing dialogueand partnership as needs and conditions change.

Poverty alleviation is even more central to thepolicies of the United Kingdom since the May1997 election. DFID produced its White Paper

in November 1997 and proposes to publish its education policy paper in theautumn of 1998, with a central focus on the key issues in the White Paper:human rights, international development targets, partnership. With a targetof reducing the global number of people living in poverty by the year 2015,every initiative in every sector has to pass through the filtering mechanismthat asks whether it assists towards that end. Within the education sector,targets include:• universal primary education in all countries by 2015;• demonstrated progress towards gender equality and the empowerment

of women by eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondaryeducation by 2005;

• reduction by two-thirds in the mortality rates for infants and children underage five and a reduction by three-fourths in maternal mortality by 2015;

Myra Harrison,DFID




46

• access through the primary health-care system to reproductive healthservices for all individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible andno later than 2015.

The emphases for education will be on access, for girls as well as boys,rich or poor, rural or urban, and those in ethnically disadvantagedcommunities, on quality, on retention, and on equity. These will beapproached through policies that include school improvement, greater localparticipation and accountability, new opportunities for the poor,reconstruction of education systems in poor countries emerging from acutesocial upheaval, and research into the relation between education and theelimination of poverty. There are, for example, many ‘hidden’ children whoare not enrolled and who are therefore largely ignored; the disadvantagedand disabled are equally often invisible; those in post-disaster situations arethe most vulnerable. In addition, there is a need for a better understanding ofthe linkages between education and health, as exemplified in the impact onchildren of HIV/AIDS within the family.

Secondary education is an important and hitherto largely ignored issue.The question needs urgently to be addressed because of the need to providea continuum for those increasing numbers who do successfully complete theprimary cycle. In addition, the work done by tertiary education institutionsneeds to take on an increasing poverty focus, since there is much research tobe done on the linkages between poverty and virtually every other aspect ofsociety and the environment; the institutions themselves requirerehabilitation, strengthening and focusing on the real problems of rural,disadvantaged, and unemployed poor people. In the field of employment weneed to get away from the traditional educational jargons of technical/vocational education, and think in terms of local employment policies, incomegeneration and the skills required to meet various types of deprivation.



Education aid strategies for poverty alleviations

47

Above all, there needs to be a greater development awareness on thepart of all players of the scope for taking a much broader view of the role ofeducation in developing the right skills in the right places. This includes anunderstanding of how to enable poor and underprivileged groups to participatein the information/communication technology revolution, distance education,Internet access and other empowering instruments.



49

Theme 3.Education strategies for disadvantaged groups4

The disadvantaged can be broadly defined asthose who are not at school. They includechildren who could not, for one reason or

another, go to primary school, or who dropped out early. They aredisadvantaged by reason of gender, ethnic origin, poverty or rural location;in some countries they are a minority and in others they may even be themajority. Data on all these groups and how to help them are being collectedby the IIEP.

Some of the programmes dealing with disadvantage lie within theeducation system, as exemplified by interventions in early childhooddevelopment and other compensatory programmes, while others lie outsidethe system, as in the case of programmes of training in agricultural or healthtechniques. Some are complementary to the education system, as withremedial courses run by NGOs for children involved in double shifts whentheir shift is not occupied in school. The emphasis is on providing life skillsby bringing the youngsters back into education and the community andmaking them more effective citizens through the acquisition of appropriateskills, for example vocational ones.

4. This session began with presentations from a panel of speakers who had been invited toprovide and introduce papers.

Françoise Caillods,IIEP




50

The development of vocational skills, however, can be an expensivebusiness, however desirable it is to motivate the learner through ensuringthat content is embedded in reality. Where vocational activities are concerned,existing resources within the community need to be utilized. Probably theoptimum pattern is to develop adequate literacy/numeracy skills, and suchimportant areas of awareness as understanding and defending human rights,followed by work with a local artisan.

Indeed, for young people, programmes intrinsically linked to a localdevelopment project involving the community are most cost-effective.Educational programmes on their own are not an adequate response todisadvantage, and cross-sectoral approaches are desirable. The best mediumfor such intersectoral approaches is the NGO or another decentralized agency,which is more able to stimulate local initiatives and motivate young people.

The question arises, how to ensure the collaboration of governmentand local agencies? Financing is a key issue in this process. There is a needfor the state to be involved in what is being done and to provide stimulation,encouragement and finance, but to give its NGO partners the kind of respectand freedom that will enable them to work to local interests. There havebeen interesting experiments with central financing of operational activitiesperformed at local level through what is known as performance contracting.To deal with new methodologies inherent in these approaches, there is astrong need for innovative management training for NGO staff.

With such localized approaches there is a challenge in going to scale.Where improvements are achieved through a myriad of small programmes,it is important to develop some form of methodology that will guide thebroadening of small initiatives to a larger scale. Perhaps the future lies withthe gradual merging of non-formal and formal systems, but such a move willentail considerable renovation and restructuring of formal education.



Education strategies for disadvantaged groups

51

There is a strong link between educationaldisadvantage and quality. In Africa, LatinAmerica and South Asia particularly,

population increases have put pressure on public financing for education,leading to deteriorations in school quality. High levels of drop-out andrepetition at primary level are symptoms of the awareness of many parentsthat schools are dysfunctional. Moreover, systems are predicated on the highachievement of the ‘successful’, rather than on an inclusive education thataims to improve the problem-solving and critical learning skills of all pupils,and not just a select few. Simply to provide yet more of the same will notachieve the desired results. What are required are long-term commitmentsto improvement lasting a generation, rather than short-term attempts lastingonly two-three years at a time.

In the paper, ‘Learning for all: policy dialogue for achieving educationalquality’ there are two main theses: first, it is essential we turn our focustowards learning outcomes in the sense of what children learn and how theylearn it, rather than towards inputs. It is increasingly realized, and not justby educationists, that future economic growth and well-being require anentrepreneurial, creative approach involving not only numeracy, literacy andother skills, but such abilities as the identification of opportunities and thesolving of problems. Hitherto, ideas about learning have been shaped bymechanistic concepts of how the brain works, but recent research and thinkingsuggest that learning is spontaneous, wide-ranging and creative, involvingproblem-solving, creativity, a sense of community participation, social andeconomic relations, and other cultural dimensions.

Electronic learning resources will rapidly begin to reach even the mostremote villages, where the teacher will have to undertake a revolutionarychange to become facilitator and guide; the content will have to derive fromtraditional ways of thinking rather than from an organizational format that

Emily Vargas-BaronAsh Hartwell, USAID




52

emanates from urban life. There will be a need for more locally and culturallyderived curricular methods that will fit the requirements of parents andcommunity leaders and for forms of education that encourage all children tomake the most of their learning skills.

The second thesis that follows from this is that policy planners andtheir sponsors will have to move from central planning modes to locallyderived modes. There will have to be a shift from the expectation that centralplanning and infrastructure will deliver internal efficiencies and achievement-based outcomes to a concept of locally developed education that trustscommunities to utilize new patterns of dialogue involving public and privatesectors in collaborative efforts, working from the bottom up. The largestchallenge to planners and policy-makers will be that of understanding howto scale upwards in a way that works from local situations and cultures to apoint where the issue of quantity as well as quality is addressed.

The challenge, therefore, is to find ways of scaling up or building fromsuccessful innovations, using community systems of reciprocity andredistribution that typically team successful with less successful schools,that share learning experiences across communities and cultures, and usenew learning techniques to improve the quality of learning for all children.All this must be done without resorting to simple mechanical replications,since needs will vary from one environment to another.

In the twenty-first century learning will be the key strategic issue forall societies, yet in many places the disadvantaged are largely excluded fromeffective learning. We need to place the process of learning for all, ratherthan education for all, at the centre of the agenda, whilst reflecting on whatnew concepts of learning mean for the classroom, the curriculum and for thequality of education.




53

Some of these issues are illustrated by currentwork, following earlier similar research inBotswana, on disadvantage in Namibia, where

a large intersectoral task force has been established under the lead of theMinistry of Education. In one sense, most of the children in Africa could bedescribed as disadvantaged. In Namibia they include street children, thosein squatter camps, over-age youth who left school or never attended it, thosewith physical disabilities, orphans, refugees, pastoralists and other workingchildren. Conscious of the major problems faced by these groups and others,in 1995 the President invited the two Ministers of Education to develop apolicy for marginalized children.

Research shows that there is already a substantial literature onmarginalized children. One of the main difficulties in evaluating the scale ofthe problem in any particular country lies in identifying the missing children,who do not appear on school rolls or in other documentation and areaccordingly ‘invisible’. Initially, the task force assumed that what was neededwas the construction of more classrooms in the areas where children werenot in school. However, over time the realization dawned that poverty is thekey issue, rather than the supply of classrooms alone. While school fees donot officially exist in Namibia, parents are regularly asked for ‘voluntary’contributions to ‘school fund fees’, which effectively act as a deterrent almostas if they had been designed to exclude the major part of the population.One conclusion of the task force is that marginalized groups are looked downupon and hence pushed out of the system. To respond to this problem certainpolicies are required.

First, affordable education for children from poor families is required,together with information for parents on where available money can be tapped(as one old man put it, “there is a communication problem between the money

Ulla Kann,Consultant Sida




54

and the people”). Other possible interventions include effective transport toschool, the creation of small one-teacher schools with multigrade teachingtechniques (which the MOE does not like, but which parents do like). Otherinterventions should include the introduction of multicultural education,gender-sensitivity training, appropriate language policies, early childhooddevelopment and care, mobile schools, integrated community educationprogrammes, and greater flexibility in attitudes at the centre.

Other examples of interventions in the area ofdisadvantage can be seen in the work of theInstitute for Development and Adult Education

(IDEA). Established in 1987 by a group of staff of the World Council ofChurches, it has its headquarters in Geneva and four branches in Beirut,Port-au-Prince, Uvira (Congo) and Vitoria (Brazil). These branches providesupport to partners in areas of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East andthe Caribbean to assist with, among other things, literacy centres for refugees,a democratic human rights centre for the homeless, a Methodist church in apoor area, and a Palestinian refugee camp. Activities include supporting thedesign and preparation of educational programmes for partner organizations,revising teaching materials, training trainers, facilitators, and leaders ofcommunities and social movements, and undertaking research in languagesand other educational areas.

IDEA is concerned that adult education has historically been limited toliteracy work only, rather than covering the broad area of education as awhole; it perceives literacy as too narrow a concept for the training of adults.Hence, IDEA’s advice to its facilitators is they should involve students inthe composition of texts to be used as educational support for learning howto read and write, and literacy workers in the production of teaching materials.Mastery of mathematical thought through language is an essential elementin the process, so that students can master mathematical reasoning; equally,literacy skills should include mastery of different types of text leading to a

Ahlin Byll-Cataria,DDA




55

self-confident understanding of the range of expression rather than simply alimited grasp of writing.

In terms of impact, IDEA has established techniques that lead to theeasy and rapid acquisition of new knowledge by students, an ability to expressthemselves with ease, a capacity to put forward logical arguments, a criticalawareness, a linking of experience and knowledge, strengthening ofnegotiating skills and a sense of the sociocultural, economic and politicalreality within which they live. At the heart of IDEA’s work is a respect forthe communities and organizations concerned and an awareness of the ethicalconsiderations involved in educational interventions.

The issue of ‘who goes to school’ is clearly acentral one, for it is always the poorest and

most disadvantaged who do not. In most countries schools are financed bythe government and benefit the better-off elements of the population, whiledisadvantaged groups (the poor and usually girls) either do not benefit, orend up attending institutions created by NGOs. Deformalizing the formaland formalizing the non-formal may well make a significant futurecontribution to reducing the dichotomy existing between rich and poor interms of access to educational facilities.

There are, however, further anomalies and contradictions. First of all,initiatives to assist the disadvantaged have to be put in a broader perspective.Poor rural people are well aware of the external world in which globalizationis steadily removing boundaries and barriers. The poor frequently regardeducation as a means of escaping from the situation in which they findthemselves, and while the promotion of the mother tongue may seem tomany of us to be desirable, there is often a counter-demand from thecommunity itself for the acquisition of the language of marketability, whetherthat is a regional or an international language.

General discussion




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With the developing process of globalization, the global is becominglocal. In one case a village boy commented that, before he became literateall he wanted to do was leave his village; but having acquired literacy firstin his mother tongue and then in an international language, he commentedthat he no longer needed to leave, since he felt that the world was in theprocess of coming to his village. Another boy elsewhere said he wanted acomputer so that he could describe his village, obtain the same informationas urban children and learn data processing. Gypsies in Spain who wereintroduced to computers fed in their own language, myths, stories, songsand culture. Globalization and communications are producing surprisingoutcomes that may challenge traditional assumptions about what communitiesreally want. From the point of view of the parent, the objective is to give thechild an education that will enable him or her to go anywhere in the world,and a locally generated curriculum may well fail to meet that criterion.

It is, therefore, all too easy to be over-romantic about the localcurriculum and community-generated education, since there is a risk thatthey will create educational ghettos that end up restricting those who areinside them. One way in which bridges can be built between the locallyfocused ‘ghetto’ and the globalized environment is through the university,which can, if it is effective, help to develop links between the locally relevantand the wider world by providing a context in which the linkages can beunderstood and constructively exploited. Yet universities seem remarkablyineffective at fulfilling such strategic roles, important as they are.

Perhaps the most significant element in the global debate is that whichmost writers ignore: the political dimension. If there are refugee children,they are there because of politics. More importantly, many governments failor decline to recognize the fact that there are many groups of children whoare not at school. Frequently, no one is responsible for comparing enrolmentson the first day of the year with those at the middle or end of the year andfollowing them up. In many instances, the use of the Universal Rights of the




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Child is a useful way of putting pressure on governments that are not preparedto face up to the missing children in their system.

From a more practical point of view, the next question is how you takeinto account local people’s concerns and understand them in a coherent,helpful and sympathetic way. Putting power into the hands of localcommunities requires considerable skill on the part of donors in developinga policy dialogue between many players, including the private and publicsectors, the government and the community.

In some cases we have much to learn from the alternatives that arepresented outside of government, as in the case of the Bangladesh RuralAdvancement Committee (BRAC), where gradually the system of alternativeschools created by the NGO is merging with the formal education system.BRAC’s schools are locally sponsored and operated, and as children succeedin them, they gradually transfer to the formal system operated by government.

This development in turn raises issues of teacher training, since adifferent kind of school, especially a multigrade small school, requires aquite different approach to style and content. If we are looking at school andcommunity, then we need to note what learning takes place in the family aswell as in the classroom. Ways need to be found of measuring useful learningthat is not fact-based and conventionally examinable.

UNICEF has worked collaboratively with UNESCO for about six yearsto assist countries develop systems to monitor achievement, including themeasurement of life skills as imparted in the classroom. The task has proveddifficult, and the collaborators are now studying how to obtain betterindicators and how to assess the learning achievement of children who arenot in school. IIEP at the same time is encouraging countries to develop abattery of tests that are internally designed and result in policy reports thatprovide the necessary guidelines for quality improvement. The three




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conditions are not to impose others’ presuppositions or dreams on thecountries’ systems, not to talk but to listen, and to cross-refer people fromone country to another so that there is a genuine exchange of experience.

Others are involved in similar non-conventional processes. AKF issetting up information and advisory advice bureaux, as in Zanzibar. TheFoundation has already discovered that many of the questions which localpeople bring forward are generic in character and would relate to and berecognized by many other NGOs. There is therefore a need to create similaradvice centres elsewhere that enable people to participate more effectivelyin the process of community involvement; donors therefore need to askthemselves whether they are flexible enough to be able to find money froma departmental (and often compartmentalized) budget to fund such centres,which are of a multisectoral nature. As a consequence AKF constantlywonders how flexible aid agencies are in other respects: would they beprepared to support an NGO rather than an ailing parastatal for teachertraining or some other key function?

And finally, there is the issue of definition and information. Thedisadvantaged include any child who is out of school as well as those affectedby the devastating influence on a family of AIDS/HIV, refugees, ethnicminorities (who are often ignored). They almost certainly include childsoldiers. In Bangladesh alone there may be 28 million people who areunreached by any effective activity of government, and among them some2-3 million children who are not even assisted by BRAC or one of the otherNGOs. Far more information is needed about who and where these potentiallearners are, and much more work needs to be done on their categorizationand identification.

More work also needs to be done on the educational aspects of helpingdisadvantaged groups. Studies are needed on the relationship between thecondition of the child’s family and the family’s effect on his or her learning;




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more needs to be known about the effect of poor classrooms on learningoutcomes; case studies are needed on combining the learning of both childrenand adults together; consideration needs to be given to the genuine acquisitionof life skills by relatively inexperienced teachers, since it is pointless toinsist on the teaching of such broader skills without considering how peopleare to be equipped to undertake it.

In the end, an effective educational projectbases children’s learning on what they

themselves talk about, as does the Molteno Project in South Africa andNamibia. Underlying this approach is the accepted philosophy that whatinterests adults and holds their attention should be the basis for their literacylearning. The essential and recurrent issue is learning in the sense of socialdialogue and partnership, rather than teaching; and the concept of qualityunderlies every approach to the problem. In Africa EFA is as far away asever, and needs reinvigorating. Some countries have announced free universaleducation, but will not be able to sustain all pupils if they were to attend. Insuch circumstances it is virtually impossible to give the most disadvantagedaccess to the system. They are most likely to continue to be excluded from aresource-constrained system, unless alternative solutions are found.

As a means of reaching groups who cannot be reached by theconventional six-classroom school, non-formal education has a role to play,and one that will have increasingly important influences on formal educationas time passes. Yet, while the non-formal and formal are increasinglyconverging and any sector-wide approach cannot ignore non-formalapproaches to education, it would be a glaring error to be led into developingmore non-formal provision simply because it is cheaper. Education isexpensive because the proper supervision of and support to schools isexpensive. Whatever techniques are used to develop the concept of inclusivity,eventually the disadvantaged have to be brought by one means or anotherinto the main stream.

Summing-up



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Theme 4.Addressing specific needs and problems:

learning from experience

Reaching disadvantaged girls

In order to provide adequate educational supportfor disadvantaged girls, there are ‘tencommandments’ that provide a general context

for effecting improvements in educational opportunity.

1. Offer pre-school and primary education in the same premises, with acontinuous, integrated curriculum for children aged 3-10, deployingteachers who are managed by the same principal throughout the process,so that the pre-school element is an integral part of the educationalprocess.

2. Establish a school ethos of co-operative, child-centred activity at alllevels.

3. Draw teachers from the local community, appointing women whereverpossible.

4. Involve the whole community in taking responsibility, jointly with theprincipal, for selecting pupils; hiring and managing teachers;encouraging mothers to volunteer as teacher aides; making thecurriculum locally and culturally relevant; arranging the school dayand yearly calendar to fit community work patterns; and administeringthe school budget, including the definition of parents’ contributions tothe budget.

Jeremy Greenland,Aga Khan Foundation




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5. Provide for the children’s nutritional and health needs as well as theircognitive development.

6. Train teachers on the job and emphasize personal development (health,education, self-esteem, adult literacy), with a strong emphasis on self-esteem as an important component.

7. Provide regular support to teachers following their initial training,ensuring that they are not diverted too much by community pressures.

8. Select headteachers, (women, wherever possible), from within the cadreof locally trained teachers, and then give them special training andongoing support, especially in leadership and management skills.

9. Encourage collaborative relationships, including forms of co-management and co-financing, between community-based organizations(CBOs), NGOs and governments.

10. Combine a proportion of any external funding with money derived fromcommunities’ own savings in order to set up a mini-endowment scheme,so that the income from the endowments can help sustain these locallyestablished schools into the future, when other forms of external supportbegin to disappear.

Some of these desired approaches need footnoting. Financing(Commandment 10) is a crucial issue. If local people are to feel involved inthe educational process, and if this involvement is to be sustainable, it isnecessary to be able to generate an additional income-stream for thecommunity to be able to use in support of its ideas and proposals. This is noteasily done, and sensitive thought and planning need to be given to thecreation and protection of such an income-stream. A community could, forexample, buy a bus and use it to run children to and from school, buildinginto the fare structure an element of ‘profit’ which would then provide thebasis for the financing of other school activities; nevertheless, the legal,fiscal, cultural and practical difficulties involved in doing this should not beunderestimated.



Addressing specific needs and problems:learning from experience

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In the training of heads, experience indicates that it is important todistinguish between training in leadership and management skills, whichshould not be conflated as if they amount to the same thing. Though there isan obvious relationship between the two sets of skills, they need to beaddressed separately as complementary sets of activities.

The importance of the seventh ‘commandment’ relating to localpressures should not be overlooked. The experience of one woman organizerfor local people, who took a Ph.D. in teacher training at an overseas university,illustrates the point well: since returning to the project she has been threatenedby landlords, minor officials, and other local vested interests, who haveregularly demanded privileges such as the appointment of relatives toteachers’ and heads’ posts. Her overseas experience has given the organizerthe experience and confidence to withstand this kind of unpleasantness, butthose without such a wider vision will need continual support to stand up tosuch pressures.

UNICEF’s approach to supportingdisadvantaged girls illustrates a second set ofparameters which approach the issue from an

aid donor’s perspective. A 1995 Board Paper defines the need to increaseemphasis on girls’ education after basic data arising from the EFA initiativeshowed that the largest single group of disadvantaged children is female(two-thirds of 145 million children between the ages of 6 and 11 years). Anensuing extensive programme of consultation led to the document, Girls’education: a framework for action. This framework document laid out a setof principles that underpin work in this area, without being prescriptive.

The programme has six strategic approaches:1. Developing the Girls’ Education Programme through existing country

programmes, where girls’ education must be identified as a priority at

Mary Joy Pigozzi,UNICEF




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country level, and then matched against framework policies in order totrigger the allocation of additional resources.

2. The framework stresses the importance of increasing the element ofpartnership, where the selection of partners arises organically from aconceptual approach to whatever problems need to be solved.

3. NGO support, stressing the need to develop a mechanism forstrengthening civil society organization so that NGOs can play anappropriate role.

4. A communication strategy, enabling best practice and lessons to beshared, together with the mobilizing of support for girls’ educationthrough the media and other channels.

5. Advocacy, which is a traditional UNICEF activity, through publications,conferences and meetings on the rights and needs of girls, and throughwork at country level.

6. Knowledge building, which enables UNICEF itself and others to benefitfrom the experience that is generated in the country programmes of co-operation and other activities, including the provision of a knowledgebase for UNICEF staff, the documentation of best practices, and theidentification of projects that could successfully go to scale.

In pursuit of support for girls’ education, UNICEF has used additionalfunding to change the way the Organization works. The framework aimed atcreating systemic changes, which meant that where country offices wereable to develop new initiatives, additional funds would be available to themfor their proposals. Altogether, UNICEF has been able to raise some $60million from supplementary funds since 1994 to support general work fordisadvantaged girls. Before this, the focus on girls had tended to be marginalto the overall effort as ‘girls’ projects’ were developed; today the change infunding and structure has enabled the Organization to place girls’ interestsin a central position.

Partnership has been exercised by bringing in other players, not leastlocal organizations such as teachers’ unions. Such partnerships must be based




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on common interests where a shared vision is necessary. An NGO Alliancehas facilitated the support of indigenous NGOs and CBOs, using a globalTrust Fund which reaches to local levels. UNICEF has concentrated ondeliberately avoiding the use of Northern organizations and institutions infavour of enabling indigenous people to work together and learn from theprocess: in Africa much cross-country co-operation has taken place, withnotable successes in monitoring/evaluation and in learning achievement.

UNICEF has always perceived advocacy as one of its central functions,and girls’ education is at the cutting edge of this. Alongside this is acommunication strategy, among whose activities is the encouragement ofNGOs and journalists from the North to visit Africa and see situations atfirst hand.

The continent-wide steering committee for the African Girls’ EducationInitiative, involving CIDA, FAWE, UNESCO, ADEA, French Co-operation,Norway, and the other countries themselves, is an attempt to ensure thatAfrican organizations are basic to new processes. In addition, the knowledge-building partnership involving UNICEF, World Bank, DFID and Rockefellerwill be a means of ensuring a wider appreciation of the issues surroundingeducation for girls.

A number of problems have emerged from UNICEF’s experience. Withthe development of the concept of partnership, administration becomes aconstraining process: once partnerships are established, the problems ofmatching administrative procedures to those of others begin to emerge, and ittakes time to persuade one’s own operations section to bend house rules inorder to deal with unfamiliar procedures. Hence, it is necessary to have theflexibility and judgement to give ground where necessary. Related difficultiesalso arise when partners each start to indulge in the ‘micro-management’ oftheir parts of an agreed operation, rather than leave the overall managers aclear run. Finally, the psychology which leads the partner that gives the greateramount of money to see itself as a ‘more equal partner’ has to be changed.




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Street children

Before Jomtien and EFA there was littleattention to the problems of street children,but increasing interest has developed across

agencies. UNESCO’s video on street children arises from a systematic surveyof Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world,which produced a database from which selected projects could be analyzedfor lessons. The related publication, Working with street children, has drawnfurther attention to the problem. What has emerged from UNESCO’ssubstantial survey is the obvious issue that the most committed and effectivepeople are those who base their interventions on a personal and spiritualconcern for children. Street children challenge all of us by forcing us toquestion our human values and priorities.

Those who have become street children have violence on two sides:they are often the victims of violence and are themselves symbols of socialviolence. NGOs play an important role in helping these children, butgovernment also has to be increasingly involved, since it tends to view thechildren negatively. Yet since governments are the engineers of society, it isnecessary to ensure that they understand that they have a responsibility fordealing with the problem at its roots as well as remedially. To work onlywith NGOs and not also with government itself, is to try to put out the firerather than aim at its prevention.

UNESCO now has over 60 projects worldwide. Its approach is to setup a working group in a particular country in order to establish cross-sectoralinterventions. The methodology involves the provision of a modicum ofmoney (but not too much) to encourage the development of a wide range ofparticipants in the working-group, including virtually every department ofgovernment, since all departments have some role in dealing with and helpingchildren. These include the ministry of the interior, the police, the churches,scouts and different elements of the private sector. One advantage of

Alphonse Tay,UNESCO




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significant government participation is that, when funding for a project ends,the government participants are already salaried from their original sources,and so require little extra in the way of financial commitment. The essenceof the approach is in bringing diverse and disparate groups together to tacklea common problem.

Ministries of education will tend to dissociatethemselves from the problem of disadvantaged

groups in general and street children in particular, simply because they donot regard themselves as responsible for children who are not actually inschool. In some cases MOEs will be helped if there is available to them areferral service to which street children can be sent for social and medicalassessment and subsequent support, as in Windhoek, Namibia. Ministriesneed to be sensitized to their role in terms of preventing both the conditionswhich place children at risk and the need to offer them special protection;providing better education for life skills (including conflict resolution, druguse, HIV transmission); educating parents about the risks to their children;making the school a sanctuary against abuse and exploitation; adopting anti-discrimination regulations for children affected by AIDS, including thosepushed out of school because they come from HIV-affected families; andguaranteeing that more children stay in school longer, especially girls whocan otherwise become prey to corrupting influences.

The provision of boarding schools is important in addressing the needsof children who cannot for one reason or another be returned to their families.In Namibia the Street Children Project aims to reintegrate children withtheir families as a first priority, but failing that many are successfully placedin boarding schools at some distance from the towns. Where possible, thechildren are distributed between a number of schools, rather than beingconcentrated in one.

Discrimination underlies most of the issues surrounding street childrenand the concept of inclusiveness needs to be promoted more widely. Pregnant

General discussion




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girls are frequently excluded from school, though such exclusion is contraryto rights established under United Nations Conventions. Frequently parentswill threaten to withdraw their children from school if a headteacher acceptsstreet children on the school’s roll, and so public education is a crucial issue.

So far little work seems to have been done on gender differences in theplight of street children. One notable aspect of the issue is that the focustends to be on boys, who are more visible and increasingly less successful atschool. To address the problems of street children might be a way ofaddressing the generic educational problems of boys overall. It seems clearthat girls suffer at least as much as boys, but tend to do so more privately.They tend to be abused domestically on a greater scale, in terms of sexualexploitation and other forms of servitude, than are boys.

An important contextual development is the process of devolutiondownwards from the centre to various administrative levels, particularly themunicipality. IIEP’s Forum on Cities a year ago, established that even largecities like Kuala Lumpur have a variety of support systems to schools atmunicipal level, funded by a wide variety of agencies, including privatecompanies in some cases. In countries such as Brazil and Mexico, themunicipality has become the key element in the power structure, and in atypical case it is possible to find over one hundred programmes in a single cityproviding services and support for lost children. New stakeholders are emerging,and many were identified by the Istanbul Meeting on Habitat, where the cityas a concept became the central organizing force for urban society.

One difficulty hitherto is that most discussions of street children focuson cure rather than prevention. Far more needs to be done to ensure thatchildren do not become separated from their families, that they are supportedat home, that they succeed at school and that they are kept from getting intorisk situations. The need is to recreate a sense of neighbourhood, and to dothat it is necessary to go to the municipality and build wide linkages. It is




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regrettable but true that most urban planning goes ahead without attention tothe educational requirements (in the broadest sense) of urban communities.

One fact that has to be faced is that street children often do have familiesbut prefer not to be a part of them. Violence plays a central part in their lives,and living on the street may well be a more attractive choice than others opento them. This and other complexities need to be borne in mind and much moreresearch needs to be done both on causes and on the gender issues.

Within the wider context of Education for All, some of the issues thatwere not properly addressed at Jomtien are now being taken up by the EFASteering Committee. Among the themes being taken forward are earlychildhood development and adult education, but inclusiveness and theeducation of children in need of protection are among the topics to bedeveloped for the final Forum in the year 2000.

Disability5

Disability among children has been a majorpolicy issue for some considerable time andrecent analytical work by the OECD examines

educational practices for disadvantaged and disabled students and how to tacklethe 20-30 per cent of children who have special needs of one kind or another.An important milestone has been the Salamanca Declaration (UNESCO, 1994)which emphasizes “the necessity and urgency of providing education forchildren, youth and adults with special needs within the regular educationsystem.” On this basis a school system is basically dysfunctional if it cannotcater for the needs of all children, rather than only a proportion of them.

The proportion of children with special needs can be estimated at around20 per cent, but of these only a small proportion is actually disabled. This

5. This and the following section are reports of two working groups.

Peter Evans,OECD




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group forms a visible 2.5 per cent of the school population, and consequentlythere is a tendency to ignore the remaining 18 per cent.

United Kingdom practice and experience historically began from amedical diagnosis of impairment which led to the exclusion of sufferersfrom the education system on the basis of what are now recognized as spuriousclassifications. Only after 1970 did legislation begin to ensure an inclusiveapproach to special educational needs (SEN). Today interaction betweenchild and environment is seen as central, and needs as occurring on acontinuum and in a variety of forms.

There is in fact no evidence to suggest that disabled children do betterin segregated provision, or that the presence of disabled pupils in theclassroom distracts teachers from their normal tasks, or that it costs more toinclude such children in normal classrooms. As an alternative to a dual system,the single inclusive system benefits the schools which receive the extraresources that would otherwise have been spent on alternative provision.

There are clear implications for developing countries:1. Dualism should not be included in the law, since it distracts and hinders

potential reformers.2. Teachers have to learn to work in teams.3. Distortions in teacher training need to be avoided (Switzerland and the

USA both have legislative practices which hinder the training of teachersif work is not being done in special schools).

4. The deployment of specialists to deal with various kinds of disabilityprovides a positive advantage to an inclusive school, if it has theinitiative to deploy their skills and experience.

5. Communities have to be involved.6. Central governments must develop policies that support the principle of

inclusion and should therefore ensure that they implement internationalconventions and agreements, evaluate and monitor progress in doing so,and ensure their comparability with international norms.




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Ethiopia provides a useful case study wherethe number of ‘obviously disabled’ is around3 per cent and where social attitudes include

the belief that disability is a punishment from God or the result of the workof evil spirits. In urban areas these beliefs are less pronounced but in practicethere is still discrimination, with only a very slow movement towards theacceptance of disability.

Currently, NGOs present virtually the only service available, but Finnishaid is now engaged in a programme aimed at training specialist teachers in-country (in order to avoid difficulties over end-of-training return), under theauspices of a Finnish university (43 experts trained to date at BA/MA level).One early lesson was that if the government refers at a policy level only toequity and not to special needs specifically, civil servants will tend todisregard it as a priority. The question is still asked, ‘why train the disabledwhen the participation rate among other children is so low?’

The aim of the Finnish project is to integrate children into mainstreameducation. Within the Ethiopian situation it is unrealistic to think that it ispossible to teach children with disabilities in an ordinary classroom fromthe outset, but the work can at least be effected initially and where necessaryin a separate classroom within a mainstream school. But integration of thechildren and an inclusive approach to education for disabled pupils is a long-term objective. Already 25,000 teachers and thousands of other educationsector officials have been through awareness and in-service trainingprogrammes over the past four years.

One of the difficulties in the field is the needfor teachers to be able to formulate an

appropriate curriculum. They need to be able to ask (and answer) the question,‘are we providing services that are answering the need of the clients?’ Inaddition, suitable teaching materials need to be available.

Hannu Savolainen,MFA, Finland

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At a policy level, it is essential to convince governments that the SENarea represents a matter of human rights, rather than one of medical definition,treatment and care. Governments may argue that they must prioritize theirresources and will ask why they should expend them on expensive provisionwhen they can get only a percentage of all children in the country to come toschool anyway. In addition, they may fall back on the seductive argument thatif you put children into special institutions they can be catered for properly.

The answer is to suggest that by including special needs education withinthe system it is possible to make the system as a whole more effective byenabling it to accept wider groups of children. There are economic argumentsto support the view that by training teachers to work with disabled children,they will eventually teach more effectively across the board. An interimmeasure could be envisaged whereby governments are offered the option ofproviding for SEN in a special classroom.

Other arguments against the traditional approach to disability are:1. That medical classification of children with disability is arbitrary,

particularly when it comes to partial sight and partial hearing.2. Administratively convenient placement categories may not provide the

most relevant response to a child’s needs.3. Research shows that a higher level of children from ethnic groups get

classified as having SEN.4. Institutionalization of children tends to mark them with the

characteristics of the institution.5. Interaction between handicapped and other children is good for both.6. Inclusion of handicapped children creates respect for individuals.7. If you segregate children at school, where do they go on the labour

market?

One encouraging dimension of the problem is that countries that doadopt new measures can leapfrog many of the past errors. Moreover new




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technologies are rapidly becoming available and can be adopted to assist arapid process of change.

Multilingualism in education6

The paper ‘The necessity of introducingmother tongue in education systems ofdeveloping countries’ outlines the linguistic

situation of Africa, where 90 per cent of the people do not understand thecolonial languages, which are often the language of instruction. Only eightcountries have an African language as the official language. There are well-known arguments for and against mother-tongue education, and where it isadopted it should be promoted through more context-specific (rather thangeneralized) solutions, more systematic follow-up to the reports anddeclarations which recommend such education, a more balanced approachto the development of national language policies, and more research andinvestigation into the development of African languages and theirtransformation into a written culture.

The paper ‘In search of Mayan education inGuatemala’ reviews a relatively new project,now being evaluated, which is trying to promote

the development of Mayan education of people (70 per cent of the populationin Guatemala) long oppressed but now, under a new Constitution, able torevive, and make ‘official’, their language and culture.

The project is strengthening the National Council of Mayan Educationas well as related government and NGO institutions; helping local units ofMayan education to conduct innovative education in research, curriculumand materials development, and teacher training; and elaborating a Mayaneducation system in the country, not as a separate system but as an integrated

6. This section is based on the report of Sheldon Shaeffer, who was the group’s rapporteur.

Wolfgang Küper,GTZ

Theo Oltheten,NUFFIC




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and respected part of the national system. The project is trying to guaranteespace and flexibility for the innovations to flourish and, in the process, tosensitize the MOE and the public at large to new ways of thinking aboutlanguage and culture. An important lesson has been the need for the donorsponsor to work slowly, with few funds but with great sensitivity.

A DSE paper, ‘Mother tongue and education’argues for the use of the mother tongue as theinitial language of instruction and shows how

such instruction both complements the everyday language of the home andhelps to develop the mother tongue in regard to new terms and concepts.Evidence indicates that teaching children of a minority culture from thebeginning in a majority language leads to problems in cognitive developmentand in the mastery of competencies in other fields. Of particular importancein this sensitive area is the establishment and support for the development ofa ‘literate environment’ in the mother tongue – the encouragement andtraining of authors, editors, and publishers of mother-tongue literature, bothpopular and school-based.

What to do about the language of instructionis perhaps the most complicated and

intractable problem facing educators today. In multilingual societies, whetherwith two languages or hundreds, with one or none dominant, the issues ofwhich language or languages to use in schools, at what grade, and for whatpurposes, are never easy to resolve. The reason, of course, is because theseissues are profoundly cultural and political, dealing with (and helping todetermine) individual, group, and national identity; political power and socialposition; and education and economic success.

The issues are also, however, pedagogical and managerial. How todevelop materials in an unwritten language – or in many languages at thesame time? How to train minority (as well as majority) language teachers towork in the mother tongue? How many years does it take to ensure mastery

Wolfgang Gmelin,DSE

General comment




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of the mother tongue (one speaker asserted 12 years) – and then of thenational language? How to decide who chooses which mother tongue to usein a multilingual community?

It is for these reasons and others that, despite the assertion that multi-and bi-lingualism are not a hindrance to cognitive development (with researchshowing that initial literacy in the mother tongue can even help gain masteryof the second, national language), governments, ministries of education andmany donor agencies continue to resist the wider use of mother tongue ineducation. Walking carefully through the minefield of language policy anddealing creatively with the problems mother tongue instruction presents aremajor challenges for decision-makers and agencies alike.



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Theme 5.New modalities in education

The sector approach

Sectoral programme approaches to theprovision of educational assistance arecurrently very much in fashion. Two papers

produced by meetings of experts of the European Commission and memberstates, ‘Sectoral development programmes for education’ (October 1996)and ‘Establishing an education sector development programme’ (November1997) provide background to the two questions, ‘Where are we now?’ and‘Where are we going?’

The key elements of the sectoral programme (SP) are that, by beingsector-wide in scope, it in theory provides a clear strategy framework, placesgovernment and other stakeholders in charge, includes all donors’ activities,involves common implementation, and minimizes long-term technicalassistance. The principal aim is to combine policy intentions with resourcesin an operational programme that ensures coherence, co-ordination andcommitment from all parties.

There are, however, paradoxes in the approach: if agencies can reallyfully rely on efficient government procedures and structures for the deliveryof assistance, then it could be argued that the assistance is hardly needed!The essential point about providing support is that the structures into whichit is fed are not usually adequately developed, which is why the support isbeing offered. In addition, it is important to remember that SPs are a meansto an end, and not an end in themselves! They may offer a way of moving

Digby Swift,European Union




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away from the project approach, but they are still a modality for providingassistance and need to be thought of as such. They require a much greaterdegree of trust in government procedure and judgement, to the extent that areluctance can be detected among some agencies to ‘let go’ in the ways thatthe approach requires.

Historically, sectoral development programmes have developed aseducation has moved steadily on to the macro-economic agenda and as donorshave sought to use forms of budgetary support in place of the more traditionalproject approach to education aid. They have produced problems forgovernments, some of whom have put forward proposals that are tooambitious for available resources. Other difficulties have arisen as progresson budgetary and civil service reform has slowed almost to a halt, there hassometimes been lack of real government commitment to the process, andfailures by governments to take tough and unpopular decisions haveundermined confidence.

On the donors’ side there have been problems which will inevitablyarise with a new and experiental approach. These have included occasionalby-passing of government systems and procedures, attempts to set the paceby over-direction, delays and uncertainty over donor support (sometimesleaving governments with no scope for proper planning), lack of transparency,unnecessary use of expatriates, lack of consistency on issues such asallowances, poor communications and teamwork, and the undesirablepoaching of senior officials from their established government jobs toundertake work on behalf of the donor agencies at more attractive rates ofremuneration. Other difficulties have included the balancing of governmentand different donor needs, establishing real partnership, and avoiding toomany changes of course. It would be interesting to speculate on how aEuropean country would handle a reform funded by different externalagencies at different rates using different methodologies.



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The recent steady movement towards SPs has been generated by asuccession of currents and events: conferences, the successful applicationof the approach in other sectors, a desire to find new modalities for thedelivery of aid to education, the emergence of new policies among agencies,and initiatives towards co-ordinating approaches at bodies such as the EUHorizon 2000 Group, the IWGE and ADEA.

Experience so far suggests that future developments should be handledwith considerable caution, with a careful selection of pilot countries, anawareness that SPs can represent major education reforms that are not easyto manage even in ideal circumstances, a full acceptance of governmentownership and the need to use government systems rather than externallyimposed ones, and a more appropriate use of expatriates. The proposed Codeof Conduct (see below) needs to be agreed and implemented as part of theprocess.

The question of where we are going is closely linked to the need tomake patient progress in a mammoth task. Sensitivity to the difficulty of thetask is essential, and agencies need to be able to use government systemsrather than develop new systems of their own that will threaten those ofgovernments. Above all, officials need to be left alone to get on with theirwork.

Others also believe that the approachesreferred to above, particularly the SP, are

ambitious. The SP approach should not be taken up now only because thereis a recognition that the project approach and other instruments of the pasthave not been wholly successful.

Further recognition needs to be given to the fact that reforms arethemselves rolling processes. The SP is a process in itself, in which progress

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towards goals needs to be regularly reviewed and the goals themselveschanged if they prove to be unrealistic. It has to be constantly borne in mindthat SPs are not about central planning along the lines of past EasternEuropean models, but about sector reform. Nor does the whole sectornecessarily need reforming, so much as its entirety needs to be taken intoaccount when its individual elements are reviewed.

Seen from a government viewpoint, the SP is in any case whatgovernments have always focused on. The obvious central function of anMOE is – and has always been – to focus on the entire system. Projects arenot the normal currency of government, since they are traditionally the modalityof the aid donor.

In order to work properly, SPs should be tools that lead to greaterconsistency and coherence between governments and donors, but it is noteasy to write the complexities of reality down as if they were an equationthat can then be solved by the simple application of rules. As instruments,SPs must be designed to improve a government’s capacity to manage itsown programmes; the rationale must be to put management where it belongs,but always remembering that agencies have resources which are not alwaysavailable to governments themselves for precisely this kind of activity. AlsoSPs do require genuine collaboration and co-operation between agencies;they cannot simply be a new way of continuing to pursue traditionalpreferences for one or another element of education. In Mozambique, forexample, 22 donors cannot continue to want to spend two weeks each withthe MOE, just in order to meet their own objectives and criteria.

Discussion of SPs and the use of governments’ own procedures raisesthe issue of the meaning of ‘budgetary support’. In a sense, the concept ofbudgetary support goes back to Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan, wherethis kind of funding predates the concept of the project-based approach. It isclear that the term can take on many different meanings from agency to




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agency. There are also differences of opinion about fungibility, the processby which funds allocated to one sector enable a government to reduceexpenditure in that sector and increase budget allocations to another. Thereis an argument that within the government’s ‘pot’ of money, finances arealways fungible from one place to another and that funding always thereforeneeds to be earmarked for a specific development if covert transfers are tobe avoided, as is the case with the African Development Bank.

From the point of view of the World Bank money is only disbursedagainst specific purchases or named activities – a local fund that is expresslyused for petrol, for example. In such circumstances, it is acceptable to uselocal procedures so long as they conform to World Bank guidelines. In manycases, however, national procurement and audit methods are not adequatefor this kind of procedure. In the case of the World Bank in India, for example,the Government of India decided that the District Primary Education Projectstructures were not suitable for the complex new procedures needed for theprogramme and, accordingly, set up an instrument using an old nineteenthcentury piece of legislation to do so. Many countries might not have thatdegree of flexibility to be able to adapt.

Other difficulties with the SP approach lie in its potential to excludecertain agencies from the collaborative process on the grounds that the kindsof activities which they favour do not fit the overall approach. UNICEF andFinnish aid might, in certain circumstances, rank among these agencies.Overall, the key point is that SP represents a form of what is known at USAIDas non-project assistance, whose rationale is to enable and empowergovernments. Competence, coherence and management are the ultimate issuein making the technique work. Obviously, the process is at an early stage,and there are bound to be difficulties as agencies and governments worktheir way through a challenging agenda of substantial change in workingmethods and attitude.




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Consultancy

Consultancy has traditionally been a centralpart of aid provision, used originally in theproject mode of aid delivery. Consultants have

been universally perceived as representing the interests of the donor agencies,rather than those of the recipient governments, and the donor is still todayperceived to be the major client, even though in theory he/she providesservices for the benefit of government and other beneficiaries.

However, with the current tides of change in patterns of assistance,consultants are increasingly used in the development of policy and strategy,the elaboration of financial and technical issues, and in monitoring andevaluation activities. As the nature of consultancy changes, so consultancystyles are changing away from single task-oriented activity to facilitation,teamworking, and capacity building.

But by far the most important development is the move towards the useof national consultants drawn from within the country or region in whichthe work is to be done. The advantages are obvious: national consultantsknow the local scene, are more acceptable to local institutions, have a longer-term understanding and commitment, cultural affinity to situations, familiaritywith local languages, more appropriate communication skills and are oftenmore cost-effective, especially in terms of the time taken to understand thesituation and their potential for greater continuity.

Accordingly, there needs to be a concentrated effort on building upskills and experience through training and other forms of preparation. Thenew skills required by developing aid patterns need analysis and codificationso that more effective use can be made of existing consultants and new onesadequately prepared for changing tasks. The questions we need to askourselves include where we will find new-style consultants, how we avoidseducing both academics and civil servants away from the already useful

David Theobald,British Council




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tasks that they perform, whether we should skill and equip institutions ratherthan just individuals to undertake consultancy, and whether the new kind ofhigh-cost management consultant from the corporate world represents valuefor money.

One approach to the issue of consultancy liesin the alternative use of institutional linkages,

as deployed by DANIDA. These linkages form part of collaborative networkswhich contribute to institutional development. Linkages between universitydepartments offer opportunities for the creation of capacity in areas ofexpertise currently in short supply or available only from internationalconsultants. These collaborative networks are based not on the traditionalNorth-South institutional links, but on contacts between a number ofinstitutions (one of which could be based in Denmark, but not necessarily),so that they can exchange information, expertise and experience. Five-yeartime-spans are essential to the building up of indigenous capacities. Thiskind of long-term relationship has the potential to develop the kind ofcollective, departmental expertise that can provide an alternative to inducingthe individual academic or key civil servant to desert other essential duties.

The obvious objective of any consultancy should be to assist in thedevelopment of local capacity. One particular donor has experimented withrequiring every visiting foreign consultant to lead a local seminar aimed atdeveloping local capacity. The broad reality is that most consultants havelittle interest in replacing themselves with local counterparts.

However, it has to be recognized that there are cases where the provisionof consultants is simply essential to the completion of a task. Recent AfDBexperience in Ethiopia illustrates the point: consultants were needed tosupervise the building of 700 schools across a wide area of the country. Inthis case, where the issue was one of quantity rather than quality, localconsultants were hired and provided with motor cycles to complete the task.

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Nevertheless, governments are frequently horrified by the cost ofproviding consultants, and one MOE recently pointed out that the $240,000allocated to 12 months of foreign consultancy would have provided for 240teachers over the same 12 months. Eventually, the agency used VSOvolunteers and other low-cost methods for obtaining some of the necessaryadvice. There is, however, also an argument that, expensive as it appears tobe, the cost of consultancy should not be set beside or compared with capitalexpenditure, such as the cost of building schools. Consultancy, properlydeployed, is an essential investment in capacity and in the efficientdeployment of resources.

Ultimately, consultancy is difficult to value. It is a necessary elementin the development of strategies, in appraisal, design, monitoring, and a rangeof other activities. All agree that the building up of indigenous capacity isessential and that this should be done systematically through linkages andthe improvement of institutional capacities. It should be remembered thatwhere national consultants are not available, regional capacity often existsinstead. But progress needs to be made towards the harmonization ofemoluments and the identification of new competencies to meet new formsof collaboration between governments and agencies.

A Code of Conduct for education sector funding agencies

A number of donors, notably thoseparticipating in the Horizon 2000 Meeting ofEducation Experts from the Commission and

the member states, have proposed a code of conduct put together to encouragemember states and others to follow the Code’s general guidelines on howdonors should harmonize and co-ordinate their activities and strengthenpartner governments. These guidelines were discussed with ministers of theADEA at a meeting in Kampala, where the ministers showed particularinterest in the importance of using existing structures and of ensuring an

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eventual harmonization of remuneration rates as between local and nationalconsultants, with immediate harmonization of subsistence and travel rates.

The general content of the Code of Conduct can be summarized asfocusing on:1. Provision of full information (including all reports, appraisals,

evaluations) about the sector to government and other donors.2. Strict adherence to maximum remuneration and allowances rates agreed

by donors, and avoidance of buying out civil servants for privateconsultancy.

3. Ensuring that TA is driven by absorptive capacity, with reports togovernment managers, support of institutional capacity, and prioritizingof local consultancy capacity.

4. Encouragement of consensus, local co-ordination mechanisms, andownership.

5. Working towards using the financial, procurement and other procedures(including the fiscal year) of the recipient country with a view to movingtowards general budgetary support once appropriate mechanisms arein place.

6. Using existing structures to achieve maximum integration into MOEpolicy.

7. Ensuring effective communications between local donor office andheadquarters.

8. Working towards joint appraisal, monitoring, audit and evaluation.9. Fitting in with the recipient’s timetable in a way that is manageable

and not intimidating for government.10. Securing gender and environmental aspects within education activities,

where appropriate.

The general aims of the document are to achieve transparency, equity,co-ordination and integration, while attempting to develop capacity as aconsequence of giving the ownership and leadership of support to education




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sector development programmes to government through the joint appraisal,monitoring, auditing and evaluation functions. The ultimate aim is, of course,to build trust, confidence and respect between donors and their partnergovernments through shared responsibility.

A couple of agencies, who are not part of theHorizon 2000 group, have serious reservations

about the document. They believe that it contains elements that would beunacceptable to their boards of management, that are inconsistent with theirapproaches to the aid relationship, and that the Code has serious legal andfinancial implications which need further consideration among donorsgenerally.

Moreover, one critique suggests that the Code needs rephrasing to giveit a more sensitive style, while another believes that it fails to distinguishadequately between major policy issues and points of detail, the latter ofwhich therefore tend to take on greater significance than they merit. Animportant additional point is that the Code contains no reference to NGOsor to institutions such as universities. One point of view suggests that, insteadof streamlining our procedures, we are tending to make our agencies toocomplex, that they are becoming less rather than more flexible, and that anynew Code of Conduct should place greater emphasis on collaboration andpartnership.

The origins of the Code lie with the IWGE itself. At the last meeting,its proposed development received considerable support and encouragement,but the Code is no longer an IWGE document, having been taken forward bythe Horizon 2000 meeting and subsequently adopted within the EuropeanUnion. For the EU’s part, the document arises from a 1996 resolution of theEuropean Development Council establishing the Horizon 2000 group, whichwas invited to go back to the Council with a paper. This paper is, in effect,the Code of Conduct, which so far has moral rather than statutory force. Its

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discussion by African education ministers through the ADEA was very mucha validation exercise designed to test whether the proposals were in principleacceptable to governments. The document is now ready for furtherinternational discussion, which should iron out some of the difficulties whichsome agencies have in accepting its general terms and enable a further versionto emerge which is acceptable to all.



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Additional evening sessionThe adaptation of content to the challenges

of the twenty-first century

The topic develops the subject matter of aconsultation paper which has already formedthe basis for discussions among experts at the

International Bureau of Education in Geneva and elsewhere. The issue is:what are likely to be the most important challenges in the content of educationover the next 20 years or so, as faith in the concept of a centralized curriculumdisseminated top-downwards gradually dwindles? The emphasis is no longeron building capacity in the area of curriculum design, but rather on findingmechanisms and organizing a process that will involve all stakeholders inthe education system right down to classroom and community level.

In this context, content consists of three elements: the curriculum itself;textbooks and other media, including electronic sources of knowledge; andthe actual approach to teaching and learning. There is, of course, no suchthing as a codified process for updating content, and while we approve inprinciple of the idea of school-based curriculum and community involvement,we have not yet reached a formula for organizing and updating the actualmechanisms for achieving them, nor for training people to handle the process.With the changes of expectation that accompany the forces of globalization,we see a growing demand for alterations in the processes for retrainingteachers, in the strategies for the creation and production of textbooks, inthe actual content of certain branches of knowledge. The more we enter thescientific world, the more we need to think about the process that will enableschools to absorb all these changes in their environment in a reasonablycontinuous way.

Jacques Hallak,IIEP




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We therefore need to develop a capacity for involving teachers,stakeholders, officials and many others in the processes of adapting thecurriculum to new events and needs. The rewriting of African history in thenew Republic of South Africa has been an epic task requiring a high degreeof participation and understanding; conversely, the French Government’sattempt to change the curriculum was recently ambushed by stakeholders,who effectively pulled it to pieces.

How, therefore, do we organize government, officials and all others ina co-operative arrangement that will lead to the building of an understandingof how to live together in a world that is increasingly more global? Theenvironment is one key element. The Delors Report also emphasizes livingtogether; how do we create such concepts as good neighbourliness? Is therea way of inserting a common core of understanding into the learning processwhich would make us more able to educate our children to live together inreasonable harmony?

Could we, for example, start building with a sharing of views aboutliving together within a broader environment? In Costa Rica, for example,environmental education begins not with Costa Rica itself, but with the widerworld, in which the sea is as important as the land. Hence, when thecurriculum reaches the country itself, Costa Rica is not just the land itoccupies, but the sea that surrounds it, with the consequence that Peru andCalifornia become effectively neighbours whose interests need to beunderstood and taken into account.

In discussing content we are talking, therefore, not about a product or aservice but about a process which we need to understand if we are to build acapacity to develop it. This must include a sharing of experience andknowledge between countries, involving a common understanding of suchthings as humanities, civic education, common skills, history and geography.But it needs also to focus on the means by which we develop an updatingmechanism and train teachers and other stakeholders to handle it.



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This approach chimes in well with the overallthemes of the present IWGE, in that it focuses

on such issues as partnership and the building of capacity. Nor are theproblems raised simply those of developing countries, but rather of allcountries regardless of their economic status. In this sense the dialogue tapsinto the educational problems of the wider world, where there is a growingpreoccupation with the relationship between education and development.

UNICEF is among those organizations that have been looking at thecurriculum. Living together is an essential element, and the content for thetwenty-first century is not simply a question of inculcating peace andgoodwill. Living together involves questions such as interdependence,treating others equally, giving respect, expressing and communicating wellwhile knowing one’s rights, developing a full personality, acting withautonomy, establishing an ethical moral code. Included among these arenecessary life skills such as conflict resolution, tolerance, pluralism,resilience, critical judgement and independent thinking. Knowing, doing,living together, being, and learning how to transform society are key elements.

A more pessimistic view of curriculum is that schools cannot reallyachieve developments ahead of society, that they can only successfully includein content what society requires of them. In Japan, for example, there is nowa movement to change textbooks to reflect a different perception of history,but textbooks will change only when society is ready for the change. Perhapsmore important than attempting once more to revise or adapt the curriculum,we should be concentrating on implementing it, for this is certainly the needin most African countries.

Lessons can be learned from previous experience in various countries.In the USA the 1950s saw a period when the question was asked, howeducation could contribute to the elimination of discrimination and thedevelopment of racial and community harmony? It is still difficult to judgehow far education has played its part in the positive changes that have taken

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place in American society, and how elements of discrimination have continuedto be fostered by social class. On the other hand, the women’s movement ina number of countries has seen the build-up of a body of knowledge andattitudes through a huge amount of work in the media, and the exchange ofinformation across traditional boundaries. Some of this was certainly achievedin the schools, with the elimination of stereotypes and other approaches thathave been well documented over the years. The point is that educationcontributed to the creation of a critical mass, at which point the broadersocietal changes in attitude appeared.

What element of the curriculum can be regarded as truly local incharacter? It is easier perhaps to identify the sets of skills that have becomealmost global in character as the same elements appear in vastly differentlocations. Literacy, numeracy, the ability to communicate, to compete, tosolve problems, resolve conflicts, are among the widely sought-after abilitieswhich seem to be required, not just for the labour market, but for a widereducational purpose. Life skills, or whatever we choose to call them, arevalued across cultures, from the Lebensbewertigung of German culture(‘managing somehow to live in a very complicated situation, coming upwith a liveable life’) to the concept of ‘life common-sense’, including respectfor age, of North Korean education and culture.

But backlashes occur. In America there has been a provincial reactionto attempts to internationalize elements of the school curriculum, with aslight element of parochialism in some areas as parents and school boardshave resisted attempts to globalize educational content. In Africa, we mustrecognize that there are schools where there are no trained teachers and poorclassrooms and where changing the curriculum will require very complexevents to take place. In Peru, NGOs have come up with suggestions forsubstantial pedagogical improvements which the Ministry of Education willnot allow to be introduced.



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It is true that school is a reflection of society and its deep culture, butstudies nevertheless show that teachers and other educationists can have aconsiderable impact and that a key time is from the age of 10-plus. We needto be able to link community with global perceptions of learning, derivingwhere we can content from the local teacher and the community.

What is significant is that there is a growing resistance to output-basedcurricula, with their crude emphasis on assessment and outcome. The needis for ‘life competencies’ rather than a stress on the cognitive and a tightlimitation of the meaning and purpose of education. Piecemeal approachesto content are not productive if they emphasize only curricula: they need tobe integrative, to involve a much wider range of issues, to have aspects incommon with the education of adults and youth. The skills that the futurewill demand will not be narrowly assessable, but wide and varied. The newmechanisms for changing content will need to rely widely on experiencedrawn from many parts of the world and from many aspects of experience.



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Final SessionInformation session and summing-up

Two brief information sessions figured on the agenda which relaterespectively to the EFA Forum and the Special Initiative for Africa.

The EFA Forum (International Consultative Forum on Educationfor All)

From 1991 there has been an EFA ForumSteering Committee which has met at leastonce a year, and is responsible for planning

the large EFA forums which have so far met in Paris, New Delhi and Amman.The last of these, the Mid-decade Review, involved some 250 participantsfrom 73 countries. Given the size and cost of such meetings they arenecessarily infrequent, and the next is planned to take place in the year 2000in order to take stock of what has happened, what has not happened, andwhat further needs to be done.

The EFA Forum Steering Committee has representatives from a rangeof bodies, and its various groups collectively represent all parts of the globe.One of its groupings is the convening group consisting of UNESCO, UNFPA,UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank, but it is emphatically not a donors’club nor a United Nations group. NGOs are naturally among the participants,as are the media. In turn it is served by a Management Group, which isresponsible for monitoring the budget but cannot take decisions. TheSecretariat of the Forum is provided by UNESCO.

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The Year 2000 event will not be a second Jomtien, but a smaller forum-type meeting, to be held early in the millennium year. The heads of the fiveconvening agencies have already met to agree on the format, and practicaldecisions now have to be made about where, exactly when, and who will beinvited.

Given the inaccuracy of the data presented atthe last Forum meeting, there is now a

concerted effort to generate information that will get nearer to the reality ofeducation as it exists on the ground. There is a need to delve deeper down tothe micro-level and to mobilize networks in the regions to accomplish thistask. Areas for researching include such topics as access and gender, and co-ordinative work must be done to make use of existing and ongoing qualitativestudies. Regional networks have to be mobilized to analyze in greater detaileducational reality at school and cluster levels.

The data issue is important, since we need to know where the progressof education has reached in the world at the present time. In addition, weneed to establish what are the key issues for the coming century, and this canbe done only if good-quality data are collected and much more is availableon the qualitative side.

The Special Initiative for Africa

The World Bank and UNESCO are currentlyco-leading this initiative and African countrieshave now accepted it, following the many

negotiations which have taken place since the initial discussions in 1996.Multilateral and bilateral agencies are now closely involved in the project,along with the governments themselves. The pilot programme will focus onthe 15 countries with the lowest levels of education: Angola, Burkina Faso,Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali,Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Somalia.

General discussion

Aïcha Bah Diallo,UNESCO



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The origins of the project were fraught withsome difficulty, when a number of bilateral

agencies formed the view that the initiative had been formulated in NewYork by the United Nations agencies, without sufficient consultation withthem. A number of countries were also politely lukewarm. All agencies havenow agreed to work together, and a total of some $12 billion a year has beenallocated to all sectors, with about $4-5 billion for education.

Over the past year we have witnessed a number of countries seeking todevelop initiatives, with their government firmly established in the driving-seat for management, control and overview. Ethiopia has already gone italone with the Bank and other donors, while a range of countries are nowready for investment, with others in the process of data collection. CoffeyAnnan, on arrival at the United Nations as new Secretary General, haswillingly taken on and affirmed his commitment, and United Nationsmembers have now agreed to adopt an African Decade for Education inorder strongly to mobilize this initiative.

After a slow start, the World Bank is currently involved in a process ofstocktaking of the Initiative. Progress has been made on workshops onteachers’ salaries in francophone West Africa, and similar workshops arefinally beginning to move forward on other key policy issues. There is stilla need to mobilize resources available for follow-up at country level.

Feedback session

This session provides an opportunity for members of the IWGE toevaluate the meeting and to suggest topics for the next one. There is also thequestion of the timing of the next IWGE meeting.

‘Show and tell’ sessions are generally considered to be informative anduseful, even if some newcomers find it difficult to get to grips quickly withthe style and approach. However, it is felt that because of the increasing

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number of participating agencies, these sessions have also become very heavy.It is suggested that a more thematic approach would be more effective, withagencies or countries illustrating an agreed issue with reference to theirprojects, particularly if there was an emphasis on why certain initiatives hadnot succeeded; this should also be done more rapidly and briefly.

A number of topics emerge as good potential issues for future workingsessions and for action to be taken in between:

1. Training for the staff of agencies, with the possibility of an inventoryof which institutions offer relevant training for agency staff; this isconsidered an urgent matter for most agencies, in particular in relationto the new competencies required for working with the sector-wideapproach. The IWGE could host a forum for the systematic discussionof how training can best be undertaken, bearing in mind that the IWGEis itself a kind of training for those who attend it; the organization ofjoint staff development could be explored; related to this is anidentification of how staff can be trained in the kinds of issues relatedto capacity building and new styles of consultancy; definition of thisshould not focus on simply one particular training institution, but on anetwork of institutions, all contributing together and supporting oneanother’s capacities (in line with the philosophy of capacity-buildingdiscussion at the current meeting of the IWGE).

It is suggested by the Planning Committee that the IIEP follow-up onthese matters.

2. Knowledge management, so that the experience of one donor canbecome known to other agencies and the donor community at large;the issue would relate to the means by which we manage our ownlearning and how we access effective knowledge about what ishappening on the ground, for example in African classrooms.



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3. More in-depth discussion of sectoral programmes, following theapproach established within the health sector where ongoing discussionsare taking place; related to this is follow-up of the discussions on donor/government co-ordination and the concept of partnership and ownership,with the emphasis on best practice and lessons learned; and also theCode of Conduct, on which further action cannot wait for two years.

It is suggested by the Planning Committee that a Nordic agency takethe lead to ensure proper follow-up in the area of sector developmentprogrammes.

4. Further discussion on quality of learning which could be the main themeof the next IWGE meeting and act as a central focus for discussions ofa number of specific themes such as: non-formal education, which isonce more beginning to move up the agenda as there is greaterappreciation of the links between formal and non-formal approaches;information technology and its role in relation to basic education;strategies to improve tertiary education, with reference to distancelearning; a focus on youth, looking at the links between vocational andbasic education.

Some of these proposals raise the issue of whether or not the IWGEshould set up a sub-group to work on issues before the next full meeting,and whether some kind of interim newsletter, to be dispatched by e-mail, or the creation of a website would enable members to keep intouch. The IIEP will look at these issues.

On timing, there is a view that the next meeting of the IWGE couldbest take place in the year 2000 after the EFA Forum. Before this Forumthere will be a substantial amount of consultation worldwide whichwill occupy members’ time and perhaps make it difficult to arrange ameeting which all could attend. There is therefore a case for waitinguntil after Forum 2000 so that progress on EFA can be reviewed.



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Appendix AList of participants

I. Multilateral agencies and institutions

African Development BankMr Robert SchoellhammerSenior Education Analyst, Human Resources Development Division, EastRegion

Association for the Development of Education in AfricaMr Richard SackExecutive Secretary

European UnionMr Digby SwiftEuropean CommissionDirectorate-General for Development

International Institute for Educational PlanningMr Jacques HallakDirector

Mr Gabriel CarronSenior Programme Co-ordinator

Ms Françoise CaillodsCo-ordinator of Decentralized Programmes

Mr Roger IredaleIIEP Consultant




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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentMr Peter EvansAdministrator, Strategies for inclusion in society and education

UNESCOMrs Aïcha Bah DialloDirector, Division of Basic Education, Education Sector

Mr Alphonse TaySenior Programme SpecialistEducation of Children in Difficult Circumstances, Education Sector

UNICEFMs Mary Joy PigozziSenior Education Adviser, Education Cluster

Mr Sheldon ShaefferRegional Education Adviser (UNICEF, Bangkok)

World BankMs Maris O’RourkeDirector Education, Human Development Network

Mr Adriaan VerspoorLead Education SpecialistHuman Development – Africa Region

II. Bilateral agencies and foundations

Aga Khan FoundationMr Jeremy GreenlandDirector of Education Programmes



Appendix A

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AustriaMrs Lydia SaadatFederal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Development Co-operation

Mrs Atiye ZaunerAustrian Foundation for Development Research

BelgiumMr Walter D’HondtAdministration générale de la Coopération au Développement

CanadaMs Marilyn BlaeserSenior Policy Advisor, Education, Policy Branch, Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency

DenmarkMr Knud MortensenSenior Education Advisor, DANIDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

FinlandMr Heikki KokkalaEducation Adviser, Department for International Co-operation, Ministry ofForeign Affairs

Mr Hannu SavolainenCo-ordinator, Finnish Funded Special Education Programme in Ethiopia,University of Joensuu




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GermanyMr Herbert KrumbeinBundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung

Mr Christian WidmannBundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung

Mr Eckhard DeutscherDirector, Education, Science and Documentation Centre, German Foundationfor International Development

Mr Wolfgang GmelinDeputy Director, Education, Science and Documentation Centre, GermanFoundation for International Development

Mr Wolfgang KüperHead of Division, Education and Science, German Agency for TechnicalCo-operation

ItalyMs Eléna Sardi de LettoEsperto di formazione, General Directorate for Development Co-operation,Ministero degli Affari Esteri

JapanMs Yumiko YokozekiDevelopment Specialist (Education), Japan International Co-operationAgency



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NetherlandsMr Ronald SiebesEducation and Developing Countries Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Mr Theo OlthetenDepartment of Educational Studies and Consultancy, NetherlandsOrganization for International Co-ooperation in Tertiary Education

NorwayMrs Ellen Marie SkaflestadHuman Resources Development Section, Norwegian Agency of DevelopmentCo-operation

Mr Arne Fredrik NilsenLINS International Centre, Oslo College

PortugalMs Maria Eduarda BoalDirectora, Gabinete de Assuntos Europeus e Relaçoes Internacionais,Ministerio da Educaçao

SwedenMrs Agneta LindHead of Education Division, Department for Democracy and SocialDevelopment, Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency

Ms Ulla KannConsultant, Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency




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SwitzerlandMr Ahlin Byll-CatariaService ressources humaines, secteur éducation de base, Direction dudéveloppement et de la coopération, Département fédéral des affairesétrangeres

United KingdomMr David TheobaldSenior Education Specialist, The British Council

Ms Myra HarrisonChief Education Adviser, Department for International Development

Ms Carew TreffgarneSenior Education Adviser, Department for International Development

United States of AmericaMs Emily Vargas-BaronDeputy Assistant Administrator, Director, Centre for Human CapacityDevelopment, U.S. Agency for International Development

Mr Ash HartwellConsultant, U.S. Agency for International Development

III. Other invitees

Mr Klaus Hüfner, Freie Universität Berlin



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Appendix BDetailed programme

Wednesday, 24 June

Official opening by Jacques Hallak (IIEP)Word of welcome by Eckhard Deutscher (DSE)

Theme 1. Challenges facing donor agencies: globalization andpartnership. Introductory statements on:• Trends in bilateral aid (Gabriel Carron, IIEP)• Trends in multilateral aid (Klaus Hüfner, Consultant)

General discussion and ‘show and tell’7

Theme 2. Education aid strategies for poverty alleviation .Introductory statements by:• Maris O’Rourke (World Bank)• Myra Harrison (DFID)

General discussion and ‘show and tell’ (continued)

Thursday, 25 June

Theme 3. Education strategies for disadvantaged groups – key issues• Panel composed of Françoise Caillods (IIEP), Emily Vargas-Baron/

Ash Hartwell (USAID), Ulla Kann (Sida), Ahlin Byll-Cataria (DDA,Switzerland)

• General debate

7. This is a traditional session at which donor agencies update each other on recentdevelopments in their agency.




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Presentation of Code of Conduct by Carew Treffgarne, (DFID) (part ofTheme 5)

Theme 4. Addressing specific needs and problems: learning fromexperience• Reaching disadvantaged girls

Brief introduction by Jeremy Greenland (Aga Khan Foundation) andMary Pigozzi (UNICEF)

• Programmes for street childrenIntroduction by Alphonse Tay (UNESCO)

• Parallel panel: Education for the disabledPanel composed of Peter Evans (OECD) and Hannu Savolainen(Finland) followed by discussion

• Parallel panel: Education in multilingual societiesPanel composed of Wolfgang Küper (GTZ), Wolfgang Gmelin (DSE)and Ronald Siebes (Netherlands) followed by discussion

Informal evening session on ‘The adaptation of content to the challenges ofthe twenty-first century’ led by Jacques Hallak (IIEP)

Friday, 26 June

Theme 5. New modalities in education development co-operation.Introductory statements on:• Sector approach by Digby Swift (European Union)• Consultancy by David Theobald (British Council)• General debate

Information session (African Initiative and EFA Forum 2000)

Conclusions and proposals for further action of the group.

Lunchtime informal meeting of Ad Hoc Steering Group.



IIEP Publications and Documents

More than 1,200 titles on all aspects of educational planning have been publishedby the International Institute for Educational Planning. A comprehensive catalo-gue, giving details of their availability, includes research reports, case studies, seminardocuments, training materials, occasional papers and reference books in the followingsubject categories:

Economics of education, costs and financing.

Manpower and employment.

Demographic studies.

Location of schools (school map) and micro-planning.

Administration and management.

Curriculum development and evaluation.

Educational technology.

Primary, secondary and higher education.

Vocational and technical education.

Non-formal, out-of-school, adult and rural education.

Disadvantaged groups.

Copies of the catalogue may be obtained from IIEP Publications on request.



The International Institute for Educational Planning

The International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) is an international centre foradvanced training and research in the field of educational planning. It was established by UNESCOin 1963 and is financed by UNESCO and by voluntary contributions from Member States. Inrecent years the following Member States have provided voluntary contributions to the Institute:Denmark, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela.

The Institute’s aim is to contribute to the development of education throughout the world,by expanding both knowledge and the supply of competent professionals in the field of educationalplanning. In this endeavour the Institute co-operates with interested training and researchorganizations in Member States. The Governing Board of the IIEP, which approves the Institute’sprogramme and budget, consists of a maximum of eight elected members and four membersdesignated by the United Nations Organization and certain of its specialized agencies and institutes.

Chairman:Lennart Wohlgemuth (Sweden)

Director, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.

Designated Members:David de Ferranti

Director, Human Development Department (HDD), The World Bank, Washington, USA.Carlos Fortin

Deputy to the Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD), Geneva, Switzerland.

Miriam J. HIRSCHFELDDirector, Division of Human Resources Development and Capacity Building, World HealthOrganization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland.

Jeggan SENGHORDirector, African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar,

Senegal.

Elected Members:Dato’Asiah bt. Abu Samah (Malaysia)

Corporate Adviser, Lang Education, Land and General Berhad, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Klaus Hüfner (Germany)

Professor, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.Faïza Kefi (Tunisia)

President, National Union of Tunisian Women, Tunis, Tunisia.Tamas Kozma (Hungary)

Director-General, Hungarian Institute for Educational Research, Budapest, Hungary.Teboho Moja (South Africa)

Special Adviser to the Minister of Education, Pretoria, South Africa.Yolanda M. Rojas (Costa Rica)

Professor, University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.Michel Vernières (France)

Professor, University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France.

Inquiries about the Institute should be addressed to:The Office of the Director, International Institute for Educational Planning,7-9 rue Eugène-Delacroix, 75116 Paris, France.
