EDUCATION FOR ALL: GLOBAL PROMISES, NATIONAL CHALLENGES
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION AND SOCIETY Series Editor: Abraham Yogev Volume 1: Volume 2: Volume 3: Volume 4:
International Perspectives on Education and Society Schooling and Status Attainment: Social Origins and Institutional Determinants Education and Social Change Educational Reform in International Perspective
Series Editor from Volume 5: Volume 5:
Volume 6: Volume 7:
David P. Baker
New Paradigms and Recurring Paradoxes in Education for Citizenship: An International Comparison Global Trends in Educational Policy The Impact of Comparative Education Research on Institutional Theory
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION AND SOCIETY VOLUME 8
EDUCATION FOR ALL: GLOBAL PROMISES, NATIONAL CHALLENGES EDITED BY
DAVID P. BAKER Pennsylvania State University, USA
ALEXANDER W. WISEMAN The University of Tulsa, USA
Amsterdam – Boston – Heidelberg – London – New York – Oxford Paris – San Diego – San Francisco – Singapore – Sydney – Tokyo JAI Press is an imprint of Elsevier
JAI Press is an imprint of Elsevier Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA First edition 2007 Copyright r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email:
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CONTENTS ix
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
xiii
PREFACE
EDUCATION FOR ALL: PARADOXES AND PROSPECTS OF A GLOBAL PROMISE Karen Mundy
1
THE POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN EDUCATION: MECHANISMS OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE TO PROMOTE EDUCATION FOR ALL Yuto Kitamura
31
THE MARKET, THE NATION AND THE SCHOOL: EFA IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION AND NATIONALISM Muhammad A. Naseem and Adeela Arshad-Ayaz
73
GROUNDS FOR PRIORITIZING EDUCATION FOR GIRLS: THE TELLING CASE OF LEFT-BEHIND RURAL CHINA Vilma Seeberg, Heidi Ross, Jinghuan Liu and Guangyu Tan INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AS A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING EDUCATION FOR ALL: PERSPECTIVES FROM THREE ASIAN SOCIETIES Vivian Heung and David Grossman v
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155
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CONTENTS
IN PURSUIT OF EFA: EXPANDING AND ENHANCING MULTIGRADE SCHOOLING IN BHUTAN Peter Ninnes, T. W. Maxwell, Wangchuck Rabten and Karchung Karchung
181
EVERY CHILD IN SCHOOL: THE CHALLENGES OF ATTAINING AND FINANCING EDUCATION FOR ALL IN INDIA P. Geetha Rani
201
STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY RESPONSE TO EDUCATION FOR ALL: LINKING GLOBAL DREAMS TO NATIONAL REALITIES IN PERU Nelly P. Stromquist
257
THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH AND ADULTS IN MEXICO MORE THAN 15 YEARS AFTER JOMTIEN: GLOBAL PROMISES, NATIONAL CHALLENGES Teresa Bracho and Arcelia Martı´nez
279
THE REFORM FOR EFA IN MEXICO: DISAPPOINTING PROGRESS, COULD DO BETTER Christopher Martin
305
EDUCATION FOR ALL AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AT-RISK STUDENT POLICY IN CURACAO, NETHERLANDS ANTILLES Rosita C. Tormala-Nita
325
EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES C. C. Wolhuter
337
Contents
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TEACHER QUALITY AND EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Thomas M. Smith and Albert Motivans
363
CHALLENGES OF REBUILDING EDUCATION IN CRISIS: ACCESS TO UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION IN AFRICA Ladislaus M. Semali
395
HOW ‘‘BASIC’’ IS BASIC EDUCATION?: RESTRUCTURING BASIC EDUCATION IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF EFA Chijioke J. Evoh and Noxolo Mafu
427
MAKING SENSE OF THE EFA FROM A NATIONAL CONTEXT: ITS IMPLEMENTATION, AND IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLDS IN ETHIOPIA Shoko Yamada
453
EDUCATION FOR ALL: A MYTH OR REALITY? LIMITATIONS OF IMPLEMENTING EDUCATION FOR ALL: THE SIERRA LEONE CONTEXT Jasmine Renner
493
WCEFA: A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF MULTILATERAL EDUCATION Phillip W. Jones
521
AUTHOR INDEX
539
SUBJECT INDEX
547
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS CO-EDITORS
Alexander W. Wiseman
School of Education, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA
David P. Baker
Educational Theory and Policy Department, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
CHAPTER AUTHORS
Adeela Arshad-Ayaz
Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Teresa Bracho
Public Administration Department, Centro de Investigacio´n y Docencia Econo´micas, Me´xico, D.F. Mexico
Chijioke J. Evoh
The Milano School for Public and Urban Policy, New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA
David Grossman
Faculty of Languages, Arts, and Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong SAR, China
Vivian Heung
Center for Special Needs and Studies in Inclusive Education, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong SAR, China ix
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LIST OF CONTIBUTORS
Phillip W. Jones
Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Karchung Karchung
Ministry of Education, Bhutan
Yuto Kitamura
Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Jinghuan Liu
Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
Noxolo Mafu
The Milano School for Public and Urban Policy, New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA
Arcelia Martı´nez
Public Administration Department, Centro de Investigacio´n y Docencia Econo´micas, Me´xico, D.F. Mexico
T.W. Maxwell
School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, Australia Ford Foundation, Mexico, D.F. Mexico
Christopher Martin Albert Motivans
UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Karen Mundy
Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Muhammad A. Naseem
Department of Education LB-553-8, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Peter Ninnes
UNICEF Education Officer, Dili, East Timor
Wangchuck Rabten
Ministry of Education, Bhutan
P. Geetha Rani
Educational Finance Unit, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India
List of Contributors
xi
Jasmine Renner
Department of Education Leadership and Policy Analysis, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA
Heidi Ross
School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Vilma Seeberg
Cultural Foundations of Education, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
Ladislaus M. Semali
Curriculum and Instruction Department, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Thomas M. Smith
Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Nelly P. Stromquist
Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Guangyu Tan
Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
Rosita C. Tormala-Nita
Department of Educational Policy & Community Studies, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA
C.C. Wolhuter
Faculty of Educational Sciences, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Shoko Yamada
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan
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PREFACE Comparative education researchers have been studying both the promises and the challenges surrounding the Education for All (EFA) movement for decades, but in comparative education research literature there is still neither consensus on the impact that EFA has nor clearly identified global trends in either EFA policymaking or policy implementation. It seems that for every promise that EFA brings, there is an accompanying challenge. This volume of International Perspectives on Education and Society highlights the struggle between the global promises and the national challenges of EFA. The World Conference on EFA in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 reinvigorated the push for modern mass schooling – making it a primary focus of national education policymakers and researchers around the world. The EFA declaration that grew out of this conference served as a culmination of a century-long movement to transform existing national educational systems from elite or otherwise limited organizations into the most comprehensive mass system of schooling ever devised. This commitment to the global expansion of basic education to all children, youth, and adults was reconfirmed at the Dakar World Education Forum ten years after Jomtien. Taking a close look at the promises and challenges of EFA has many benefits. For one thing, it highlights the ways in which the worldwide expansion of mass schooling has become institutionalized at the global level. Scholars have been examining cross-national data for trends in schooling growth and expansion since the 1970s, but with the advent of EFA as both a formal and informal global movement the formerly isomorphic institutional process has rapidly expanded. Institutional educational change has been accelerated and legitimized in the form of basic formal state-sponsored schooling for the masses. The chapters in this volume also ask (and answer in part) why EFA has gained such popularity and adherence from so many countries around the world. One answer might be that people everywhere really care about the education of their citizens, and this may be true. But, scholars and policymakers might also point out that most social agendas are maintained xiii
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because they serve a need. What do countries need that participating in the EFA movement and meeting the EFA goals provides? At this point it is important to remember that schooling is not only a tool that is believed to be crucial in educating individual students, but also for community and national development. The last century of schooling around the world is intimately linked to the fulfillment of national development goals. As such, schooling has become a national project to enhance the civic welfare, political status, and economy of a nation through the development of economically productive, socially and technically literate, and politically active citizens. By taking a close look at the ways that EFA is either discussed or implemented in various nations around the world, it is perhaps easier to see how schooling uncovers the nation-state presence in people’s lives. During the twentieth century, schooling became a function of the state. Regardless of the amount of years students are schooled in any particular country around the world, schooling for the most part is a mass and often compulsory process and, as such, it is sponsored and organized in some way by the state through funding, curriculum guidelines, mandated textbooks, teacher certification or training, and high stakes examinations. Consequently, schooling is a product of state mandates and actions or inactions and the immediate environment in which schools operate. Even given the impact of national context and state agendas, this push for universal access to basic education reaches beyond national borders. It is indeed a global issue and as such is part of a global culture, governance structure, and a market. These overarching ideas have made EFA more of a human right than just a national strategy to economic success, and this is reflected in the scholarship about EFA and the greater institutionalization of formal education in society. The first three chapters in this volume by Karen Mundy, Yuto Kitamura, and the team of Muhammad A. Naseem and Adeela Arshad-Ayaz address the global context and influence of EFA. Providing basic education for all children, youth, and adults is an ambitious goal. And, the challenges of reaching this goal are nowhere more evident that in the historically disenfranchised and uneducated groups of people. Several chapters in this volume address this concern. In particular, the chapters by Vilma Seeberg, Heidi Ross, and others address the promises and challenges of educating girls in rural China. The chapter by Vivian Heung and David Grossman tackles the challenges of inclusive education for special needs of students in selected Asian nations. And Rosita C.
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Tormala-Nita’s chapter discusses the challenges of educating all students in the Netherlands Antilles given its large at-risk student population. Specifically, these authors ask whether or not all children, youth, and adults really can benefit from the EFA movement. This volume on EFA also includes several chapters that emphasize the particular promises and challenges of implementing basic education in Sub-Saharan nations. Chapters by C. C. Wolhuter, Thomas M. Smith and Albert Motivans, Ladislaus M. Semali, and Chijioke J. Evoh and Noxolo Mafu address political, capacity, access, and socio-cultural promises and challenges of EFA, respectively. Other chapters in this volume are detailed and thoughtful accounts of the progress and challenges of implementing EFA-driven educational reform in specific nations as remote as Bhutan (see the chapter by Peter Ninnes, T. W. Maxwell, Wangchuck Rabten, and Karchung Karchung) and Peru (see the chapter by Nelly P. Stromquist), as large as India (see the chapter by P. Geetha Rani) and Mexico (see the chapters by Christopher Martin and the team of Teresa Bracho and Arcelia Martı´ nez), as aid-dependent as Ethiopia (see the chapter by Shoko Yamada), and as war-torn as Sierra Leone (see the chapter by Jasmine Renner). These chapters suggest that national contexts critically filter the impact that the global, multilateral EFA movement does or can have on basic education within nations. It is not simply a matter of laying a mass schooling model on a country and plugging it in. EFA may be a global goal and national priority, but cannot be implemented ‘‘on the ground’’ without negotiating the specific local contexts and challenges within each nation. This volume concludes with a chapter by Phillip W. Jones that places the EFA movement in a more critical historical context and suggests that as a movement it may have run its course. In particular, multilateralism, while still an important force in global educational change and development may have relied on politically driven coalitions that have slackened since the demise of the Soviet Union. As this final chapter shows, there is certainly evidence to suggest that this is the case. Regardless of one’s theory about the efficacy and impact of EFA, the speed at which real educational opportunity will be made for all children depends on serious, honest, and cogent analysis and debate of both the promise and challenge of EFA. The range, detail, and quality of comparative scholarship on the central issue of EFA in the world today are reflected in these chapters. It is our belief that the policy-relevant research and scholarship in this volume’s chapters explain both the impact that EFA has and several global trends in policymaking and policy implementation. Of
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course, only time will tell us what the legacy of the EFA movement will eventually be. David P. Baker Pennsylvania State University Alexander W. Wiseman The University of Tulsa
EDUCATION FOR ALL: PARADOXES AND PROSPECTS OF A GLOBAL PROMISE Karen Mundy ABSTRACT Education for all has become a rallying call among heads of states, international organizations, corporate leaders and transnational advocacy groups. Implementation of EFA goals has also expanded, and today enjoys both new volumes of aid spending and new modes of aid delivery. This chapter considers why the global promise of EFA has moved beyond international rhetoric to action, and explores what the current EFA movement can tell us about the prospects of rights-based and redistributive forms of global governance.
INTRODUCTION Since the 1999 Dakar World Education Forum, the achievement of ‘‘education for all’’ has steadily built momentum as a focus for discussion and action within international fora. Today it would be difficult to find any meeting of world leaders in which the universal right to education is not trumpeted as a common international goal. ‘‘Education for all’’ is a rallying call among heads Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 1–30 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08001-7
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of state and international financial institutions, and a focus for transnational advocacy by civil society actors. More recently it has emerged at the fore of meetings among the world’s corporate leaders. ‘‘Education for all’’ is also an expanding arena for international development cooperation, characterized by widespread experimentation with new modes of aid delivery, new kinds of donor–recipient relationships and relatively high volumes of aid spending. Why has the global promise of EFA moved beyond international rhetoric to action now? This paper argues that the resurgence of interest in EFA by the global community today is tightly linked to two new developments. The first is the emergence of fragile and deeply paradoxical consensus about international development among G8 governments. This consensus links development to democracy, good governance and human rights in a more extensive manner than ever before, while also strongly asserting the primacy of markets and capitalism. Education bridges these two sets of development ideals. In addition, EFA has been fed by the burgeoning of transnational social movements that have used education as a core venue for advocating for global redistributive justice. To explore the recent resurgence of interest in EFA, the following section provides a critical overview of the history of the ‘‘education for all’’ goal within the international community from 1945 to 2000. The paper then examines what has changed in the context, rhetoric and agents of the international regime for educational development since the late 1990s. A final section explores what the current EFA experiment can tell us about the prospects and paradoxes of rights-based and redistributive forms of global governance in our new century.
‘‘EDUCATION FOR ALL’’ AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE POST-WORLD WAR II ERA Efforts to remake world order following World War II saw the inclusion of education as a universal right in the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Article 26), and the establishment of the United Nations Education Science and Cultural Organization with a broad mandate to support (among other things) the extension of a universal right to education. After a century of expansion in systems of mass public education in Western countries, it is perhaps not surprising to see education emerge as a central focus for post-World War II multilateralism. At the level of norms and ideas, the institutionalization of state-led and universally accessible education systems
Education for All
3
in the Western world played a ‘‘chartering’’ or steerage role in the construction of an education for development regime (Meyer, 1977; Anderson, 1983; Chabbott, 2003). Educational multilateralism, like other forms of post-World War II multilateralism, emerged from the idea that the spread of national social and political institutions modeled on the experiences of Western nation states was crucial for world peace. However, rhetorical commitment to a universal entitlement to education did not translate into a strong form of international collective action to ensure educational rights. The highly state-centric structure of world politics in the period after 1945 limited appetite for collective action and coordination around either universal rights or issues of global inequality. Thus, what emerged after World War II was a highly decentralized regime to support national educational development, not universal educational rights. Several United Nations organizations – UNESCO, UNICEF and the UNDP – along with the bilateral aid organizations formed during the 1960s and 1970s – took up the notion that education could be used as an important tool in national development. Rich country aid for educational development grew quickly (see Tables 1 and 5), accounting for close to 10% of all aid flows after 1960. The idea of a universal right to education (the initial meaning of the term ‘‘education for all’’) was quickly displaced by a focus on education as a requirement for economic development. As governments and international organizations began to involve themselves in education for development activities, a loose international regime for educational development emerged. This regime had no formal system of governance or coordination among its many actors – it simply operated under the aegis of the idea that more education ¼ more development. It was dominated by ‘‘official actors’’ – a handful of multilateral organizations (UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank) and bilateral aid organizations (CIDA, SIDA, USAID, DFID, etc.). Southern governments were recipients of the regime, but often not active participants within it. Individual citizens were typically treated as the ‘‘targets’’ (Samoff, 1999, 2001). Few nongovernmental actors were involved or recognized within this official regime. They remained outside its conferences and conventions, despite a history of activism by International Teacher Unions and international humanitarian and religious organizations from the early 20th century (Mundy & Murphy, 2001). By and large, educational development was seen as the job of national governments, supported by funding and expertise from bilateral donors and international organizations. By the mid-1970s, virtually every industrialized country supported educational development through its bilateral foreign aid program, but this
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Table 1.
The Expansion of Aid for Education, 1965–2004 (In Millions of Constant 2004 US$). 1965 a
Bilateral educational aid (OECD countries) World Bank lending to educationb
UNESCO Total regular budgetc Education programsd Extra budgetary support for education programse UNICEFf OECD/DAC GDP deflatorg
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2004
3,357.31 3,723.40 4,500.44 6,904.15 6,232.24 7,350.14 6,382.15 4,374.88 6,776.98 179.86 425.53 710.66 894.85 2,015.49 1,821.96 2,262.22 903.90 1,684.0 293.76 68.35 138.54
411.65 86.70 120.27
539.34 117.00 238.58
616.19 114.07 202.54
806.41 189.27 n/a
491.55 89.42 96.48
480.62 102.71 108.40
675.90 135.61 124.16
610.00 109.87 105.96
n/a 16.68
53.19 18.80
79.31 31.52
70.37 49.17
69.69 46.49
73.97 77.06
89.72 94.73
162.65 80.54
282.00 100
KAREN MUNDY
a DAC: International Development Statistics (IDS) online databases on aid and other resource eflows, www.oecd.org/dac/stats/idsonline. Query results DAC online database on annual aggregates (Table 5), 16 April 2006. b World Bank figures available at: http://devdata.worldbank.org/edstats/worldbank/ending/file2005/file%202.xls, accessed 6 April 2006. Note: There is a break in the series because a new coding series for sectoral analysis was instituted in FY2003 and backdated to 1990. c UNESCO approved program and budget, various years. Figures refer to biennial budgets. d UNESCO approved program and budget, various years. Figures refer to biennial budgets. e Estimated extra-budgetary contributions as they appear in the approved program and budgets, various years. Figures refer to biennial budgets. f Figures for 1970–1995 from UNICEF Annual Reports, various years 1996; figures for 2000 from: UNICEF Executive Board, report of the mid-term review of the mid-term of the UNICEF medium-term strategic plan (2002–2005), 13–17 September 2004, p. 25, http:// www.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/04_13, accessed on April 6, 2006; figures for 2004 from: UNICEF Executive Board Annual Session 2005, 6–10 June 2005, report of the Executive Director: results achieved for children in 2004 in support of the medium-term strategic plan, p. 37, www.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/05-06_ExecDirs_repor2(1).pdf. Note: Figures for UNICEF for 2000 and 2004 are reported as girls’ education. g DAC GDP deflator: 2004 ¼ 100, www.oecd.org/dataoec/43/43/34980655.xls, accessed 16 April 2006.
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occurred at wildly varying and often volatile levels of between 3 and 30% of their total official aid. No single bilateral donor outweighed the others financially or could claim to provide intellectual or political guidance to the others – not even the US, despite its status as hegemon in the global system. Yet bilateral aid represented more than 3/4 of the overall aid for education. The net result was an ‘‘education for development’’ regime dominated by many small- to medium-sized, short-term, bilateral transactions, often working at cross-purposes. For four decades (1960s–1990s) ambitious attempts at global level coordination of bilateral education for development activities failed, and usually failed quite quickly.1 At least in part this failure occurred because each OECD government sought to use educational aid to promote its own unique political and economic interests. Alongside these fragmented bilateral efforts, UN organizations also failed to develop a coordinated approach to support educational development. UNESCO, the putative leader in the field, kicked things off with ambitious regional conferences and targets for educational development in the late 1960s and 1970s (Chabbott, 2003). Despite initial hopes however, UNESCO became neither center nor coordinator of the education for development regime. OECD member governments failed to fund UNESCO at levels sufficient to allow it to play a global coordinating role (its funding never rose above that of a medium-sized university). Limited resources and intense politicization caused UNESCO to lose the confidence of OECD governments in the 1970s and 1980s (Jones, 1988; Mundy, 1998, 1999). In turn, UNESCO’s weakness created space for other, more entrepreneurial UN organizations to become active in educational development. UNICEF developed its own distinctive approach to educational development during the 1960s, making a bid for funding from OECD governments by focusing a part of its work on the educational needs of the world’s children, and later by highlighting the plight of the girl child (Black, 1996). The World Bank entered the arena in the 1960s, and began to argue for investment in education for its economic outcomes (Jones, 1992; Mundy, 2002; Resnik, 2006). By the 1990s, the Bank had overtaken UNESCO in terms of both expertise and flow of funding (in its case, in the form of loans). Increasingly, the Bank sought to encourage other donors to orient their educational aid to meet the goals of structural adjustment reforms. By and large, however, these multilateral actors acted independently and often competitively: only rare efforts were made at programmatic coordination. The diffuse nature of the education for development regime also played out in its growth as an epistemic and professional community (Chabbott, 2003). From high level manpower planning to vocational education,
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nonformal education, adult literacy, higher education and back again, a vague and expansive menu of what was ‘‘needed’’ was reported or endorsed in a succession of international conferences and publications. A growing professional expert community on educational development, largely housed within international organizations and research institutions, could do little to harness donors behind a common agenda because their own assessment of priorities changed so rapidly and diverged quite widely (King, 1991; Chabbott, 2003). Apart from major divisions between those who viewed education primarily as a productive investment and those who argued that it should be treated primarily as a human or citizenship right were many smaller divisions between those who saw in higher education, primary education, vocational and nonformal education, etc., the next ‘‘magic bullet’’ for development (Mundy, 1998, p. 464). A fractious epistemic community allowed for a very loose coupling between rhetorical commitments and practical activities – creating in effect a smorgasbord of priorities and approaches from which donor countries might choose according to their own geo-political and economic interests. Countries like France, England and later Australia focused attention on scholarships and provision of teachers; others adopted vocational, adult and literacy education as the focus of their support (the Nordics). All of this occurred outside of any systematic or coordinated effort to support national planning for educational change (King, 1991). The operational modalities of this education for development regime followed from this basic framework, and focused on specific projects, never the recurrent costs of educational systems. Aid for education did not focus primarily on the universal right to education or the construction of mass public education systems. Instead, most aid flows to education were focused at levels beyond primary schooling. More than half of all aid to education was devoted to the provision of teachers, experts and training from donor countries. Almost all of it was provided in the form of short-term projects. Flows of expertise and project funding were highly fragmented and based on the geo-political or economic interests of bilateral donors governments or the idiosyncratic approaches of specific multilateral organizations. The reasons for this were varied. (1) Donors assumed that national governments would/should fund and provide universal primary schooling. (2) Recurrent costs like local teachers and textbooks, which are the largest piece of any public education budget, were seen as ineligible for aid funding. Funding of the recurrent costs of educational systems was viewed as ‘‘unsustainable.’’ (3) The bilateral donors who dominated the field tended to tie aid to their own economic and political interests and thus were biased toward programs
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of post-primary training, foreign scholarships and institution-building where their own institutions and services could be tapped. In particular, ‘‘technical cooperation’’ flows (training, scholarships and experts) operated as a form of tied aid, with strong returns to the economies of the donor countries. (4) The escalation of Cold War politics and the history of colonial relationships fed the focus on higher levels of training. Although the international aid regime grew quite rapidly in the period between 1945 and 1990 (Table 1), its architecture worked against the realization of a formally coordinated international system for guaranteeing the provision of education for all children.
A New ‘‘Education for All’’ Consensus While it is important not to overstate the case, the education for development regime has experienced some sweeping changes over the past decade. These changes are particularly dramatic when placed alongside what has been widely assessed as the failure of the international community to achieve the goals established for education at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 (Torres, 2000; Chabbott, 2003). The 1990s saw a precipitous decline in overall flows of aid, and an even steeper decline in aid for education. Instead of the ‘‘peace dividend’’ (expected by many at the end of the Cold War), issues of global poverty and inequality were sidelined as governments struggled to adjust to a rapidly integrating global economy. By the late 1990s, however, a new consensus about international development appeared to be gaining momentum among OECD governments and across multilateral organizations. ‘‘Education for all’’ emerged as a cornerstone within what several authors have described as a new development compact (Therien, 2005). As I will show below, the current agreement about the importance of basic education within the international community is unprecedented in terms of scope, density and consistency. This agreement has led not only to new flows of aid, but also to new forms of donor coordination and changes in the delivery of educational aid. New actors – most importantly networks of international nongovernmental organizations – have emerged to support the achievement of education as a basic right. Many organizations have also adopted a rights-based approach to education. Embedding Education in a New Consensus on Global Development In the period since 1995, some of the most dramatic shifts in the education for development regime have come on the heels of renewed efforts to build
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international consensus about how to deal with global inequality and poverty. Several authors have characterized this new ‘‘consensus’’ as part of a broader rapprochement between the neo-liberal and pro-economic approaches to globalization and development endorsed by the IMF and the World Bank in the 1980s–1990s, and the more equity-focused and globalization-skeptic approaches adopted by the United Nations and some OECD governments. The origins of this rapprochement can be located in the need to respond to both rising international protests against globalization and the aftermath of the East Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s (Stiglitz, 2003). The rising importance of the European Union, with its more expansive approach to welfare state capitalism, has also played an important part in the emergence of this consensus (Noel, 2005). After more than a decade of declining aid and neo-liberal policy reforms, OECD governments and their multilateral institutions have begun to develop a consensus about international poverty and inequality that appears to offer a framework for a global ‘‘Third Way’’ (Therien, 2002, 2005; Ruggie, 2003; Noel, 2005). Ruggie describes this new global compact as encompassing: ‘‘y the centrality of governance, the rule of law, education, and health to economic success; the positive role of investment, including skills and technologies embodied in foreign direct investment; the need for further debt relief and other forms of development assistance for poor countries; the urgency of lowering trade barriers imposed on developing country exports by agricultural subsidies and other non-tariff barriers in the rich countries; the protectionist potential posed by pursuing social and environmental objectives through linkages to trade agreements; and the need for governments and international institutions alike to forge partnerships with the private sector and a wide range of civil society actors.’’ (Ruggie, 2003, p. 305)
The emergence within this consensus of renewed attention to international development can be traced back to the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s endorsement of ‘‘Shaping the 21st Century’’ (OECD/DAC, 1996). In this 1996 document OECD governments promised to increase bilateral aid, harmonize their activities and focus on a handful of top development priorities – including universal education. It was followed by a joint declaration among the IMF, OECD, World Bank and UN in 2000, entitled ‘‘A Better World for All’’ (IMF, OECD, & World Bank, 2000), promising closer coordination, more attention to country ownership of development and tighter focus on specific development priorities (including education). Both agreements fed into the Millennium Development Summit and Millennium Development Declaration (United Nations General Assembly, 2000), which aligned the United Nations and its agencies, the Bretton Woods institutions and OECD governments behind a unifying
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framework. The Millennium Development Declaration sets out eight Millennium Development Goals with time-bound, measurable targets. These targets included halving world poverty by 2015, reducing infant mortality by 2/3, halving spread of HIV/aids, combating malaria, halving the number of people without safe drinking water and promoting gender equity and environmental sustainability. Universal primary education and gender equity in education are Goal numbers 2 and 3 in the MDGs. Education, particularly primary education, plays a central part in this new international consensus about development and global poverty. This is reflected not only in the priority given to education within the Millennium Development Goals, but also the near-to-revolutionary attention that the World Bank and the IMF now pay to the achievement of universal access to basic education in their country programs and Poverty Reduction Strategy Framework (United Nations Millennium Project, 2004; UN Millennium Project, 2005b; Mundy, 2002, 2006). Table 2 tracks some of the many new commitments made to education by the G8, international organizations and UN World Conferences over the past decade. The elevation of education within the new development compact can be partly explained by the fact that education straddles both equity and productivity conceptualizations of development. As the following quote from the World Bank suggests, education bridges the divide between the neoliberal and the social welfare orientations of the 1990s: ‘‘The expansion of educational opportunity, which can simultaneously promote income equality and growth, is a win–win strategy that in most societies is far easier to implement than the redistribution of other assets, such as land or capital. In short, education is one of the most powerful instruments known for reducing poverty and inequality and for laying the basis for sustained economic growth, sound governance and effective institutions.’’ (World Bank, 2002a, p. v)
Maxwell (2005, p. 3) sums this up somewhat differently: ‘‘A crude characterization of the current approach is to encourage internal and external trade liberalization, and simultaneously invest in health, education and good governance, so that people are able to take advantage of new economic opportunities.’’ ‘‘Education for all’’ combines the ideas of liberalization, equality enhancement, guaranteed citizenship rights and effective governance central to the new consensus on international development. The emergence of a new consensus about international development has moved beyond the establishment of a common ideology and approach to global development within the international community. Alongside the MDGs have emerged a multitude of new mechanisms to improve the quality of relationships between donor organizations and recipient governments
Year United Nations conferences
Evolution of ‘‘Education for All’’ in the New Development Compact. Forum
10
Table 2.
Commitment or Action
1989 Children’s Summit
Covenant on the Rights of the Child (right to free primary education) – 190 states are signatory 1990 World Conference on Education for All, World Declaration on ‘‘Education for All’’ UPE by 2000 Jomtien, Thailand 1993 World Conference on Human Rights Vienna Declaration and Program of Action states obliged to promote gender equality, esp. in education 1995 World Summit for Social Development, ‘‘Universal and equitable access to education y’’ is 1 of 10 commitments Copenhagen Dakar Framework for Action (a) Expand early childhood education (b) Free universal primary education by 2015 (c) Access to life skills (d) 50% improvement in illiteracy (e) Eliminate gender disparity 2005 (f) Improve quality of education World Bank presents idea of a fast track plana: ‘‘no countries seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted by their lack of resources’’
2000 Millennium Summit and Millennium Declaration
Millennium Development Goals Goal 2: Achieve UPE Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower Women (target 4 – eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary schools)
2002 United Nations Conference on Financing ‘‘Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development’’ for Development, Monterrey, Mexico Commits governments, international financial institutions and United Nations organizations to work through new forms of development partnerships and coordinate external aid – France and US promise first increase in ODA in a decade
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2000 World Education Forum (Jomtien follow-up) Dakar Senegal
1996 OECD Development Assistance Committee ‘‘Shaping the 21st Century’’
Commits OECD governments to coordination of aid at country level and to a common set of development priorities – including universal access to primary education
2000 G8 Ministerial Meetings
Commitment to fund viable national education plansb Commitment to debt relief for education
2001 G8 Ministerial Meetings
Re-affirmation of commitment to education, establish an education taskforce for 2002 G8 meetingc Endorsement of EFA fast track plan as funding mechanism for EFA, commit to increase bilateral assistance for UPEd Rome Declaration on Harmonization (OECD/DAC 2003) Endorses the idea that Northern governments should provide funding necessary for governments to abolish user fees. Confirms that total promises for increased aid would mean a US$ 50 billion or 60% increase in Official Development Assistance by 2010 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness adopted by more than 100 OECD countries. Includes commitments to untie aid, strengthen accountability to citizens and parliaments Promises US$ 15 billion for education over next 15 years – challenges other OECD governments to do the same
2002 G8 Ministerial Meetings 2003 OECD DAC meeting 2005 G8 Ministerial Meetings (UK launches Commission for Africa Report)
2005 OECD ‘‘Paris Declaration’’
2006 UK Government
International Organizations
1999 IMF/World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative introduced 2000 UNESCO appointed coordinator of interagency follow up on EFA and DAKAR
2000 IMF, OECD, UN and World Bank
Education for All
G7/8 OECD
Establishes basic norms for educational expenditures in budgetary allocations linked to medium term national development plans and expenditure frameworks; also criteria for debt relief High level Task Force and EFA Working Group established EFA Global Monitoring Task Force to work with revitalized UNESCO Institute for Statistics In 2002, UNICEF and UNESCO endorse the EFA Fast Track Plan and call on G8 to do soe ‘‘A Better World For All’’ statement sets out agreed and common priorities and targets for development
11
12
Table 2. (Continued ) Year
Forum
2001 Millennium Development Project Launched 2002 United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) 2002 World Bank Board introduces new policy actively opposing user fees in educationf 2002 World Bank IDA introduces grant facility 2002 World Bank Managed Fast Track Initiative
Commitment or Action Working groups to suggest ways of meeting MDGs and monitor – one of seven committees is for education Coordinated by UNICEF
For first time some education sector funding provided on grant rather than loan basis Countries with credible (IMF/WB approved) poverty reduction strategy paper and an education sector plan can join, but fund remains limited to US$ 200 million over three years Funding for the Catalytic Fund rises to US$ 243.4 million
2004 Fast Track Initiative Re-endorsed 2005 Millennium Development Project Report 2006 Global Task Force on Child Labour and UNESCO, ILO, WB and Global March EFA 2006 UNESCO launches Global Action Plan a
http://www.UNESCO.org/education/efa/wef_2000/press_releases/dak_04_27_18h.shtml, accessed 10 January 2003. See http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/g7/summit/2000okinawa/finalcom.htm, accessed 10 January 2003. c See final communique´ at http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/g7/summit/2001genoa/finalcommunique.html, accessed 10 January 2003. d See education report at http://www.g8.gc.ca/kan_docs/etfr-e.asp and summary at http://www.g8.gc.ca/kan_docs/chairsummary-e.asp, accessed 10 January 2005. e See http://www.UNESCO.org/education/efa/news_en/g8_summit.pdf, accessed 10 January 2005. f See http://www.campaignforeducation.org/_html/2002-news/enews-04-08_en/content-txt.shtml#item5, accessed 10 January 2005. b
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(e.g., the Poverty Reduction Strategy Frameworks and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, described in more detail below), and to stimulate coordination among international aid organizations, international financial institutions and rich country governments. The solidity of the international consensus about education is reflected in the seeming ease with which many development organizations and advocates are now also calling for a new, global level Education for All Compact (Sperling, 2001a, 2001b; Birdsall & Vaishnave, 2005).2 For example, the UN’s Millennium Development Project Task Force on Education has argued for a new ‘‘Education Compact’’ to parallel the new development compact devised at Monterrey: ‘‘Bold political leadership is needed in a compact between developing countries and donors y Under the compact each side is responsible for doing its part. Donors make a serious commitment to and respond to countries that are doing things right, assured that the external resources are being well used. Developing countries take on the tough political reforms in their systems with confidence that they will have sufficient and predictable financial support to deliver on promises made to their own citizens.’’ (UN Millennium Project, 2005b)
Among the most notable aspects of these calls for a new ‘‘global compact on education’’ is the degree to which they demand reform of the aid business itself. Building on recommendations for donor harmonization and coordination advanced by the OECD, the UN Millennium Project (2005b) urges donors to ‘‘commit new funds (7 billion per year) in a new way through a strong coordinated global effort that rewards and reinforces countries’ measurable progress.’’ What is being demanded is a long-term, steady and reliable source of funding for the recurrent costs of schooling in the poorest countries of the world, as well as major improvements in terms of donor coordination, concentration of aid on the poorest countries, the untying of aid to education and direct funding for recurrent costs of education. From a Global Compact to Donor Coordination at the Country Level One part of the emerging consensus on international development that has enormous implications for education is the new interest in achieving coordination of donor efforts within recipient countries. Coordination implies ‘‘harmonization’’ of donor initiatives around a common framework of priorities and targets that can be used to hold recipient governments accountable, as well as pooling of resources and direct support for national budgets. What is sometimes not recognized is how frequently education has emerged as the key sector in which donors experiment with these historically novel efforts at donor coordination and pooling of resources.
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The first and possibly farthest reaching of these coordination efforts has been the introduction in 1999 of a World Bank and the IMF joint ‘‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative.’’ The initiative engages recipient governments in the development of a national development plan whose focus is not simply growth but poverty reduction. The ‘‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)’’ in turn is intended to be pivotal in IMF and World Bank funding decisions (indicating eligibility for debt relief and other programs), and acts as a common benchmark for the contributions of bilateral donors. The PRSP is novel in several ways (World Bank, 2002b). It requires governments to formally integrate social development goals with plans for macroeconomic stability, liberalization and debt repayment, and to develop a medium-term expenditure framework that bridges what had previously often been quite separate planning exercises with World Bank, UN and IMF. It commits the IMF to a poverty and social development mandate and bridges the focus on growth, stability and equity that had previously divided donor organizations. A PRSP requires governments to conduct wider consultations about national plans than in the past, and to take more ‘‘ownership’’ of development planning. But it also works in the opposite direction, by providing a common set of targets and plans that can be used by donors and citizens to hold governments accountable. There is a large, fractious debate about the ultimate impact of PRSPs on national sovereignty and ‘‘ownership,’’ including an impressive empirical literature that suggests that PRSPs often impose specific (IMF-driven) targets that favor stability and liberalization over social development (McGee & Hughes, 2002; Gould & Ojanen, 2003). For our purposes, what is worth noting is that the PRSP process has had the specific effect of bringing about the much tighter integration of educational development planning into national expenditure planning (Carnoy, 1999; UNESCO, 2006a, 2006b). As part of this process the PRSPs create the need for much more sophisticated planning regimes within Ministries of Education, and also tend to establish certain ‘‘indicative targets’’ for educational expenditures that favor reallocation of resources to both primary education and specific line items (i.e., from teachers’ salaries to teaching materials) (Alexander, 2002; Aoki et al., 2002). On the other hand, the PRSP process has also helped to make this information available for public scrutiny in an unprecedented fashion (see, for example, Global Campaign for Education, 2004). Alongside PRSPs have grown some interesting initiatives by nongovernmental actors to track expenditures against PRSP commitments (Dyer & Pain, 2004). In addition to the far-reaching PRSP process, a number of additional initiatives among donors to achieve national level coordination of
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development efforts have cropped up in recent years. This includes the ‘‘harmonization’’ initiative spearheaded by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (through which governments have formally committed to pool resources and coordinate aid), and formalized in the 2003 Rome Declaration on Harmonization (with UN, Bretton Woods and OECD governments as signatories) (OECD/DAC, 2003, 2005). It also includes widespread experimentation among bilateral aid donors with ‘‘Sector-Wide Approaches’’ (SWAps) in which individual bilateral programs of assistance are linked to a national sector plan. In many SWAps, bilateral funds are pooled together to provide direct budgetary support to the national Ministry of Education. Sometimes individual donors enter into silent partnerships in which their funds are pooled and managed by another donor – to further reduce transaction costs. Education has emerged as a key sector in which donors are experimenting with SWAps (see, for example, Riddell, 2000; Samoff, 2001, 2004; Dyer, 2005; UNESCO, 2005, 2006a). Two education-specific efforts at country-level coordination and target setting are also worth mentioning. In the wake of the Dakar World Forum on Education, UNESCO initially interpreted its mandate to include assisting nations and regions to develop and monitor the implementation of national ‘‘education for all plans.’’ More recently, however, UNESCO has yielded to pressure from OECD governments to develop a wide-ranging Global Action Plan (GAP) that will give it a more prominent role in coordinating and monitoring EFA activities at the country level (UNESCO, 2006b, 2006c). The second coordination mechanism is the Fast Track Initiative (FTI). Initially the FTI was conceived of as a new financing facility sponsored by OECD governments and hosted by the World Bank. Its goal is to ensure that no developing countries with clear plans for achieve universal primary education would fail to make progress due to lack of resources. The FTI has not been funded at anticipated levels by rich country governments, though new pledges from the UK and Netherlands have meant that it is able to offer catalytic funds to countries with a sound plan for achieving EFA. The FTI has now been reconceptualized as a facility that gives governments additional resources to help them plan for, access and manage large programs of pooled sector-wide funding from bilateral and multilateral donors. Countries who apply to the FTI must have a PRSP and a ‘‘credible’’ national education plan for delivering publicly financed and free primary education (World Bank Development Committee, 2004; UNESCO, 2005, 2006a). Despite these various efforts to ensure country-level harmonization of aid, a degree of fragmentation and inter-agency competition is still
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apparent. Even coordination among IFI-led initiatives remains disjointed – thus, according to a recent World Bank report, ‘‘as yet there is no regular process to ensure that the connection is made between a country’s PRSP, its medium-term expenditure framework [MTEF], its FTI program and its annual budget’’ (World Bank Development Committee, 2004). The FTI itself is not sufficiently funded to allow it finance all the countries meeting its criteria, and has been subject to wide-ranging criticism regarding some of its benchmarks.3 One part of the international community seems to view the FTI as a loose body whose job is to ensure donor coordination at the country level. Staff within the World Bank seem more interested in the way it can ‘‘become a force for building elements of output orientation, performance measurement, autonomy and accountability into schooling systems’’ (Pritchett, 2004). Expanding the FTI in either of these directions will bring it ever more clearly into direct competition with the coordination role already mandated by the international community to UNESCO (2006a, p. 122). Nonetheless, the principles that underpin PRSPs, the FTI, UNESCO’s GAP and the Rome Declaration are remarkable. They imply a more elaborate, consistent and publicly transparent indicative framework for coordinating education sector aid than has ever been in place in the education for development regime since its formation. The transparency of these frameworks allows for broad and informed public debate in ways that were not possible in previous aid arrangements. As an example, consider the tendency of the International Financial Institutions to assert their view that the private provision of basic education is a crucial element in educational reforms (World Bank, 1995). In the recently revised FTI benchmarks, strong debate led to the setting of a specific limit (10%) of primary pupils at privately financed schools (EFA/FTI Secretariat, 2005). These new coordinating mechanisms also imply an increasing willingness on the part of a particular group of OECD nations to forgo the traditional, sovereignty-based bilateral model of foreign aid in favor of collective action. Experimentation with pooled funding, direct budgetary support and funding of recurrent costs of primary level of education each suggests that universal primary education is being recognized by many OECD governments as a global public good in need of collective rather than unilateral action. New Resource Flows and Commitments The emergence of a common set of development priorities has set the stage for the first increases in official development aid from OECD countries in over a decade, beginning with announcements by the European Union and
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the US at the March 2002 Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico. The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD suggests that aid flows are set to rise to US$ 75 billion by 2006 from US$ 52 billion in 2001, according to pledges made in Monterrey. The following five countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland and the UK, have laid down a clear timetable for achieving 0.7% of GDP target for official development aid. If all DAC countries were to meet their express commitments, the ODA to GNI ratio would increase to 0.30% by 2006, and 0.32% by 2010 (from 0.22 in 2001), with just under three quarters of the increase coming from the European Union (OECD/DAC, 2004). Some G8 governments have recently promised an even greater acceleration of ODA commitments: the richest 15 EU governments committed to achieve the 0.7% ODA/GDP target by 2015, while less wealthy members will meet a target of 0.33% (Gupta, Pattillo, & Wagh, 2006). This is significant because the EU makes up 50% of total ODA (US and Japan combine to give another 1/3). Across OECD donors the share of grants (over loans) and the concentration of ODA on least developed countries have continued to rise (Gupta et al., 2006). In addition, private giving for international development in the OECD countries has continued to grow, providing (according to some estimates) as much as an additional 30% to ODA resources (Atkinson, 2005; Gupta et al., 2006, p. 9). However, it is important to note that at least some of the official increase in ODA is the result of debt forgiveness rather than direct increases in bilateral aid budgets, and a substantial share has gone to Afghanistan and Iraq (Gupta et al., 2006; UNESCO, 2006a, p. 108). These substantial increases have been matched by several interesting proposals for raising available funding for development – as, for example, the UK’s proposal for an International Financing Facility (IFF), and France’s proposal for a new international tax.4 A large number of OECD governments (including the six largest ODA donors) have now also made clear pledges committing themselves to increased funding for universal primary education, as can be seen in Table 3. Among the most noteworthy has been the recent announcement by Gordon Brown of US$ 15 billion for basic education over 10 years – a commitment that will double the amount of aid to basic education currently given by the UK. As Table 1 suggests, the majority of aid to education still flows through bilateral, not multilateral, channels. In terms of overall flows, aid to all levels of education has now regained the levels it enjoyed in the 1980s and early 1990s, and has increased 85% in constant dollar terms since 2000, to US$ 8.5 billion in 2004 (UNESCO, 2006b, p. 87). Flows to basic education have also
Donor countries
OECD/DAC Member Support for Basic Education 2000–2006.
Canada
2001: Canada says will double its resources for basic education US$ 100 million per yeara. Canada endorses Fast Track Initiative 2006: Canada makes first contribution to the Fast Track Initiative; aid for education reaches 17% of ODA
Nordics Japan France Netherlands
Norway pledges to increase ODA for basic education by 15%b Japan announces US$ 2 billion for education over next five yearsc Commitment to the Fast Track Initiative Netherlands committed to h135 million for education initiativesd 2002: Dutch parliament commits to spending 15% of all ODA on basic education by 2005 2003: 2.5 billion ODA promised for education, 76% on basic education 2003: Funds for Fast Track Initiative for Global Campaign for Education committed
UK
2001: UK announces increase in aid for educatione 2001: UK established Commonwealth Education fund to support NGO advocacy in education 2006: Gordon Brown launches new campaign to make free education his government’s next global cause. Promises an addition US$ 15 billion over 10 years (doubling UK aid for education).f One hundred million committed to the Fast Track Initiative
US
2000: US President signs legislation opposing ‘‘user fees’’ in ODAg 2001: Gene Sperling, former member of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, begins basic education project and US GCE coalition 2002: US pledges US$ 100 million more in education aid to Africa (US$ 20 million for five years)h 2004: Tabling of the Clinton/Lowey Education for All Act – to provide US$ 500 million by 2005 and US$ 2.5 billion by 2009 to establishment of universal basic education systems; establishes high level EFA Interagency task forcei
18
Table 3.
a
See http://www.g8.gc.ca/statements/20020627-e.asp?id=1, accessed 10 September 2003. See http://odin.dep.no/ud/engelsk/aktuelt/taler/statsraad_b/032171-090029/index-dok000-b-n-a.html, accessed 10 September 2002. c See GCE News, September 2002, http://www.campaignforeducation.org/_html/news/welcome/frameset.shtml, accessed 10 September 2002. d See mention of this commitment and others in Nelson Mandela’s speech, available at http://www.ei-ie.org/camp/english/gce/ GAW02%20Mandela%20Op-Ed.htm; see also http://www.minbuza.nl/english/Content.asp?key=431123&pad=257572,428699,430698& usecache=1, accessed 10 January 2005. e See http://www.oxfam.org.uk/educationnow/ukspendingreview.htm, accessed 10 January 2005. f See the Independent, http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article336337.ece, accessed April 25, 2006. g See http://www.50years.org/update/userfee.html, accessed 10 September 2003. h See DevNews, 21 June 2002. Available at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,date:06-21-2002menuPK:34461~pagePK:34392~piPK:34427~theSitePK:4607,00.html#Story3, accessed 10 January 2005. i Available at http://clinton.senate.gov/clinton/news/2004/2004420359.html, accessed 10 January 2005. b
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grown very rapidly (Table 4), and can be expected to grow even further if recent pledges are received. Basic education now accounts for more than 1/3 of all bilateral aid to education – up from less than 5% in the early 1990s (UNESCO, 2006b, p. 88). Six countries account for more than 3/4 of all flows to basic education (France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, UK and US), but more than 1/2 of all DAC countries have increased the proportion of ODA going to basic education (UNESCO, 2005). Nonetheless, several analysts have shown that a large financing gap still must be broached if the world is to meet the MDG target of universal primary education by the year 2015. A World Bank analysis estimates that an additional US$ 3.7 billion per year is needed through 2015; UNESCO has suggested that in total US$ 11 billion is needed annually to meet all the EFA goals, including adult literacy and early childhood education (Bruns, Mingat, & Rakotomalala, 2003; UNESCO, 2006b, p. 103). Thus, according to the UNESCO estimates, even with current commitments we are only 50% of the way toward closing the financing gap for EFA. Levels of aid to basic education across bilateral donors vary enormously, with the UK at one end of the spectrum providing more than 80% of its aid to education to basic levels while Italy giving less than 1% (UNESCO, 2006b, p. 108). Despite increases to basic education aid, a majority of donors still give 2/3 of their aid to education at higher levels. It is now widely recognized that much of the additional funding for the achievement of basic education will require donor governments to assume some of the recurrent costs of the primary education systems of least developed nations for an extended period of time. Again, in a sharp departure from past trends, donors have become increasingly willing to channel aid as direct budgetary support over somewhat longer time horizons.5 The European Union and the British now prefer this modality, and other donors (including France, and the US through its Millennium Challenge Account) have begun experimenting with it. In some countries (e.g., Zambia, Ugunda) upwards of 40% of the national education recurrent budget is funded by external donors, implying not only unprecedented levels of commitment to the sector, but also high levels of aid dependency (UNESCO, 2005, p. 208). It is also important to note that a rising amount (perhaps as much as 80%) of all aid to education is delivered in the form of technical assistance – one of the least efficient and most highly tied forms of aid (Berg, 1993; Gupta et al., 2006, pp. 12–13; UNESCO, 2006a, p. 108).6 New Actors and a New Global Politics of Accountability Another aspect of the new educational multilateralism that is unprecedented is the inclusion of new kinds of actors in both international and national
20
Table 4. Official Development Assistance (ODA) for Education, 1990–2004 (In Billions of Constant 2004 US$).
Overall education (percent bilateral ODA) Basic education (percent bilateral ODA) Basic education (percent overall education ODA) Total $ OECD ODA (bilateral)
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
9.76
8.67
9.55
9.42
10.71
11.24
10.59
10.90
10.28
10.79
7.84
8.67
8.79
7.73
9.11
n/a
n/a
n/a
0.09
0.61
1.19
1.31
1.18
1.02
1.26
1.66
2.01
2.19
1.91
2.66
n/a
n/a
n/a
0.95
5.68
10.61
12.38
10.79
9.89
11.71
21.21
23.13
24.92
24.70
29.20
75.28
71.67
59.49
60.50
58.61
56.78
54.81
50.90
52.80
55.18
55.82
54.88
62.02
76.24
74.40
KAREN MUNDY
Source: ODA figures from International Development Statistics online database, online query, DAC Table 5. http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/ idsonline, accessed 16 April 2006. DAC deflator for resource flows from DAC donors (2004 ¼ 100) from http://www.oecd.org/dataoec/43/43/34980655.xls, accessed 16 April 2006.
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education for development policy arenas. It is not just that new partnerships with civil society and private sector organizations have come to be seen as essential by official political actors on the international stage (Ruggie, 2003; Gould, 2003). There has also been a remarkable growth of effective transnational organizations representing coalitions of civil society and private sector actors (see Table 5). These organizations often link local level coalitions to transnational campaigns in ways that have proven effective in shaping educational policies at both the national and the global levels. As Mundy and Murphy (2001) have shown, transnational advocacy networks on such issues as human rights, debt relief, ODA reform and globalization have frequently taken up the issue of the universal right to education as one part of their broader advocacy efforts. In addition, a strong transnational advocacy network on ‘‘education for all’’ has also Table 5.
New EFA Actors and Initiatives Since 2000.
Global Campaign for Education (GCE) formed in 1999
Commonwealth Education Fund African Network Coalition on Education for All (ANCEFA) World Economic Forum (education initiatives launched in 2002)
US Basic Education Coalition
Centre for Universal Education, Council of Foreign Relations, US International Business Leaders Forum
Membership organization of national and regional coalitions of NGOs and civil society organization, INGOs with goal of leveraging achievement of funding for education for all. Includes Northern and Southern national and regional coalitions UK government and businesses fund southern NGO coalitions in education A network of national coalitions across Africa, affiliated with the GCE and funded by CEF and Netherlands Global Governance Initiative: tracks and monitors commitments to the MDGs. One of seven working groups is on education workshop on private/public partnership in EFA (November 2004) ‘‘Global Governance Initiative on Education’’ published in 2005 NGO coalition to pressure more and better ODA for basic education, funded by Hewlett foundation. Lobby and research body advocates for more and better ODA for EFA, funded by the Hewlett Foundation Works with the Prince of Wales, UNDP to establish framework for global corporate social responsibility 2005: ‘‘Business and the Millennium Development Goals’’
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emerged. Initiated by OXFAM International, Action Aid and Education International (the international association of teachers’ unions), the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) now includes some of the largest international NGOs involved in education (OXFAM, CARE, ActionAid, Global March) as well as national civil society coalitions in more than 30 countries. Originally viewed by the international community as an under-utilized resource in the provision of educational services, today INGOs have taken on new and unanticipated leadership in international EFA efforts. INGOs have asserted themselves as advocates and policy activists (Miller-Grandvaux, Welmond, & Wolfe, 2002; Oxfam International, 1999; Social Watch, 1999). The GCE has been instrumental in pushing bilateral donors, international organizations and members of the group of eight industrialized countries to make concrete commitments of resources for EFA. It has also emerged as policy watchdog at the international and national levels, raising issues of adequate financing and equitable distribution of opportunities in national educational planning exercises and international forum. In the last two years, for example, GCE or its members have produced research and policy papers on the educational dimensions of PRSPs in individual; provided substantive criticism of the indicative framework for national educational planning set out in the FTI (Rose, 2003); produced a ‘‘report card’’ on developing country and rich country contributions to meeting EFA and MDG goals; and launched a campaign at the annual World Bank/IMF meetings to highlight the negative impact of IMF conditionalities on the achievement of EFA in Zambia (Global Campaign for Education, 2004). GCE or its members are now represented on virtually every High Level Working Group or International Forum on Education for All. Their inclusion and action has introduced a new dynamism to international political alignments – they clearly hope to leverage greater and more coordinated collective action while at the same time introducing more accountability for recipient governments and donor governments to EFA commitments. The Global Campaign for Education and other civil society organizations have increasingly carved out a place for themselves as the makers and monitors of global EFA goals (Murphy & Mundy, 2002). As an example, the effects of civil society efforts to rid Tanzania of primary school user charges are often cited. In this case, research on the impact of user fees generated by Tanzanian groups was used by US NGOs to press the US government to halt funding to the World Bank if it imposed any form of user fees as part of its loan conditions. The World Bank subsequently removed this loan condition and the Government of Tanzania declared free primary education. The Tanzania experience in turn stimulated a number of
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other African governments to remove user fees in education and declare universal free primary education. Here a new form of global accountability spurred significant advance in the achievement of ‘‘education for all.’’ In addition to these nongovernmental organizations and civil society coalitions, several private sector organizations have recently become active supporters of a global ‘‘education for all’’ initiative. These include the World Economic Forum (2005), a consortium of business organizations which has spearheaded a Global Governance Initiative to monitor achievements of the MDGs (including education) and is actively pursuing discussions about private/public EFA partnerships; the Commonwealth Education Fund (which brings together private sector and public sector fundings in the UK); the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF, 2005); and a series of EFA research and advocacy efforts funded by the Hewlett Foundation. As compared to civil society coalitions, these private sector coalitions have different rationale for supporting a global EFA effort: they are more closely interested in trained labor, and more sympathetic to private service provision. Nonetheless, they appear to support the general idea that access to basic education is a public good that should be made universally available.
EFA as a Measure of Change In this chapter, I have sought to establish the basic parameters of an important series of shifts in the way that one aspect of multilateral activity is conceptualized, organized and enacted: that focused on assisting the poorest countries to ensure the universal right to education. My account has pointed out several unprecedented and surprising shifts. Education is now embedded in a widening consensus about the core features of ‘‘good’’ global development – a consensus that appears to bridge what had been a fundamental divide between those agents who have been more concerned with social equality and fundamental human rights and those less concerned with equity who are convinced that global economic growth through greater global integration is the way forward. The fact that the international community – both official and nongovernmental – has chosen to establish the universal right to education as an important part of its emergent vision of world order suggests that there has been a turn away from the laissez faire neo-liberalism of the 1980s and 1990s. The international community has also gone farther, by establishing a clear, common set of priorities for education, focusing on time-bound targets for the achievement of universal basic education. ODA funding (both at large and specific to basic education) has begun to increase. New forms of
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donor coordination at the country and global levels, and new aid modalities (most notably forms of pooled funding for the recurrent budgetary costs of schooling) are now well established and growing. The rising interest among OECD countries in pooling resources and coordinating international efforts in a social policy field like education suggests an important turn toward collective action and the construction of global public goods. Nonetheless, the elevation of ‘‘education for all’’ as a focus for international action leaves much to debate. Of the goals adopted at the World Education Forum (2000) (including the idea, for example, of publicly provided education and adult literacy and nonformal education), only universal access to quality primary education has been widely adopted as an international target. Perhaps even more importantly, many of the ‘‘tough political reforms’’ being advocated by the international community as essential to a new global compact on education are quite contentious. Thus, for example, the Millennium Project and the FTI advocate reductions in the unit costs of primary education, greater involvement of private sector service deliverers, introduction of standardized testing regimes and the decentralizing of educational systems (UN Millennium Project, 2005a, 2005b; World Bank, 2004a, 2004b; World Bank Development Committee, 2004). Each of these reforms is reminiscent of the 1990s liberalization movement in education. Furthermore, the new compact suggests relatively little about how to work in contexts not characterized by ‘‘good governance’’ – weak, corrupt, collapsed or post-conflict states are largely left off the map. The rise of an ‘‘education for all’’ consensus can tell us much about the limits and paradoxes emerging in world order today. The limits are apparent in the fact that funding to achieve EFA – though growing at a surprising rate – is still far short of international estimates. They are also apparent in the continued competition among multilateral and bilateral actors in the field of education for development. Many of the older pathologies of educational ODA persist in the new regime: the gap between rhetoric and resources; a hesitancy to empower multilateral channels over bilateral channels for funding; and tensions between competing planning efforts (PRSPs, UNESCO’s EFA and the FTI) and competing lead agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank). We still lack an overarching mechanism for coordinating and ensuring a global entitlement to education. These limits are also apparent in the choice of education over other forms of social protection by the international community. To borrow from Therien’s critical reflections on the wider emergence of a global development compromise, the new focus on basic education as a strategy for poverty reduction may be seen as a victory for those who continue to frame the
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problem of development as one of individuals who are not well adapted to the demands of the market, and states that need to bear responsibility for development failures. As such, we might view the resurgence of interest in EFA as part of a global consensus that actively avoids an understanding of development focused on global structural inequalities and the need for permanent national and global measures of redistribution and social protection (Therien, 2005; Maxwell, 2005, p. 4).7 I take a somewhat different view of the resurgence of global EFA commitments. The move toward expanded resources, donor coordination, pooled funding and direct support of recurrent costs of primary education implies an important shift in the commitments of G8 governments – away from once-off projects for educational development, and toward regularized long-term funding of a basic social right. As I have tried to argue here, such changes have come at least in part because of rising engagement and activism of transnational civil society organizations. Global EFA promises have been backstopped by EU governments and other like-minded countries, where citizens have endorsed a more expansive and redistributive approach to global public policy. There are, I believe, significant indications of a transnationally organized global public that is critical of globalization and global economic inequalities. For this global public, advocacy around the right to education has become an important venue for expressing a commitment to redistributive justice on a global scale. I suspect that it is largely because of this global public that EFA momentum will not be lost, this time around. It will prove politically difficult (perhaps impossible) for any of the major OECD governments currently funding upwards of 40% of the costs of primary schooling in countries like Zambia or Uganda to withdraw the bulk of their support. Current technologies and the interconnectedness of civil society organizations guarantee that such backtracking would lead to an immediate global broadcast of the disenfranchisement of millions of young children. In an important sense, the ‘‘education for all’’ consensus can be read as part of an important and active phase in the restructuring of governance at the global level. With all its limitations and diverse interpretations, universal public access to free basic education has now achieved status and legitimacy as a global public good on a scale not realized during the 20th century.
NOTES 1. Examples of failure include: UNESCO regional conferences of the 1960s; OECD DAC efforts to coordinate education sector activities among OECD
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members in the 1970s; World Bank’s initiative in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s; and the Jomtien World Conference on Education for All (1990). In each case, international targets were set but not met. More importantly, the donor community failed to provide resources promised to meet these targets. 2. Recently, Senator Hillary Clinton also introduced legislation to promote the idea of a global compact in education. The Education for All Act of 2006, which would authorize assistance for developing countries to promote quality basic education and establish the achievement of universal basic education in all developing countries as an objective of US foreign assistance policy, S. 3909 and H.R. 6152 were referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committees, respectively. Both bills authorize increasing appropriations for international basic education up to US$ 2.5 billion by fiscal year 2011, and call on the President to create an Education for All Task Force to ensure that the US provides the resources and leadership necessary to achieve universal basic education. 3. Among the benchmarks for acceptance into the FTI are an appropriate ratio of primary to post-primary education sector expenditures, plans to achieve set teacher/ student ratios and specific levels of teacher remuneration. 4. The IFF would take donor commitments and a down payment and use these to back international bonds that could generate an immediate expansion of funds for development. 5. Gupta et al. (2006, p. 15) report that donor countries have increased their commitments of budget support from ~10% to new highs of 20% of total aid commitments since 2000. 6. Gupta et al. (2006, p. 13) note that almost 70% of the technical cooperation going to sub-Saharan Africa since 2000 has been allocated to social infrastructure (including education and health), a significant rise from 55% allocation in 1990. 7. Thus, in Maxwell’s view ‘‘Poverty reduction is good, but social inclusion is better’’ and ‘‘there has been too much focus [on health and education] in PRSPs and public expenditure plans, at the expense of productive sectors and social protection.’’ He argues strongly for more attention to food insecurity and malnutrition (Maxwell, 2005, p. 4).
REFERENCES Alexander, N. (2002). Paying for education: How the World Bank & IMF influence education in developing countries. Research Report, 1998, updated 2002. Citizens’ Network on Essential Services, Washington, DC. Available at http://www.campaignforeducation.org/ resources/May2002/CNES%20Paying%20For%20Education.htm , accessed 4 October 2004. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. New York: Verso. Aoki, A., Bruns, B., Drabble, M., Marope, M., Mingat, A., Moock, P., Murphy, P., Paci, P., Patrinos, H., Tan, J.-P., Thomas, C., Winter, C., & Yang, H. (2002). Education. In: World Bank. Poverty reduction strategy paper source book. Washington, DC: World Bank (Chapter 19).
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Atkinson, A. B. (2005). The way forward. In: A. B. Atkinson (Ed.), New sources of development finance (pp. 238–246). New York: Oxford University Press. Berg, E. (1993). Rethinking technical cooperation. Reforms for capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa. New York: United Nations Development Program. Birdsall, N., & Vaishnave, M. (2005). Education and the MDGs: Realizing the millennium compact. Columbia Journal of International Affairs, 58(2), 257–264. Black, M. (1996). Children first: The story of UNICEF past and present. New York: Oxford University Press. Bruns, B., Mingat, A., & Rakotomalala, R. (2003). A chance for every child: Achieving universal primary education by 2015. Washington, DC: World Bank. Carnoy,, M. (1999). Globalization and educational reform: What planners need to know. Paris: International Institute for Education Planning (IIEP). Chabbott, C. (2003). Constructing education for development: International organizations and education for all. New York: Routledge/Falmer. Dyer, K. (2005). The cost of poverty: Transaction costs and the struggle to make aid work in the education sector in Tanzania. Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper, UNDP. Dyer, K., & Pain, C. (2004). Civil society budget monitoring for national accountability. Workshop Report, 17–19 February, Lilongwe, Malawi (mimeo). EFA/FTI Secretariat. (2005). Guidelines for assessment and endorsement of the primary education component of an education sector plan. Available at http://www1.worldbank.org/ education/efaafti/documents/assessementguidelines.pdf, accessed 30 January 2005. Global Campaign for Education. (2004). Undervaluing teachers: IMF policies squeeze Zambia’s education system. Available at http://www.campaignforeducation.org/resources/ resources_listall.php, accessed 10 January 2005. Gould, J. (2003). International non-state actors and social development policy: Comments on the article. Global Social Policy, 3(3), 349–366. Gould, J., & Ojanen, J. (2003). Merging in the circle: The politics of Tanzania’s poverty reduction strategy. Policy Paper 2/2003. Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Gupta, S., Pattillo, C., & Wagh, S. (2006). Are donor countries giving more or less aid? IMF Working Paper WP/06/01. International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC. IMF. (2000). A better world for all. Washington, DC: Communications Development. International Business Leaders Forum. (2005). Business and the millennium development goals: A framework for action. Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum and the UNDP. Jones, P. (1988). International policies for Third World education: UNESCO, literacy and development. New York: Routledge. Jones, P. (1992). World Bank financing of education: Lending, learning and development. New York: Routledge. King, K. (1991). Aid and education in the developing world: The role of donor agencies in educational analysis. Essex: Longman. Maxwell, S. (2005). The Washington consensus is dead: Long live the meta-narrative. Working Paper 243. Overseas Development Institute, London. McGee, R., & Hughes, A. (2002). Assessing participation in poverty reduction strategy papers: A desk-based synthesis of experience in sub-Saharan Africa. Research Report 52. Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.
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Meyer, J. W. (1977). The effects of education as an institution. American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), 55–77. Miller-Grandvaux, Y., Welmond, M., & Wolfe, J. (2002). Evolving partnerships: The role of NGOs in basic education in Africa. Washington, DC: USAID. Mundy, K. (1998). Educational multilateralism and world (dis)order. Comparative Education Review, 42(4), 448–478. Mundy, K. (1999). UNESCO and the limits of the possible. International Journal of Educational Development, 19(1), 27–52. Mundy, K. (2002). Education in a reformed World Bank. International Journal of Educational Development, 22(5), 483–508. Mundy, K. (2006). Education for all and the new development compact. International Review of Education, 52(1), 23–48. Mundy, K., & Murphy, L. (2001). Transnational advocacy, global civil society: Emerging evidence from the field of education. Comparative Education Review, 45(1), 85–126. Murphy, L., & Mundy, K. (2002). New roles of INGOs in the education for all movement. Background Paper for the 2002 EFA Monitoring Report. UNESCO, Paris. Noel, A. (December 2005). The new politics of global poverty. Downloaded on April 25, 2006 from www.queensu.ca/sps/the_policy_forum/speakers_series/NPGPDec05.pdf OECD/DAC. (1996). Shaping the 21st century: The contribution of development cooperation. Paris: OECD. OECD/DAC. (2003). Rome Declaration on harmonization. Downloaded on April 25, 2006 from http://www.aidharmonization.org/ah-overview/secondary-pages/why-RomeDeclaration OECD/DAC. (2004). Annual development co-operation report. http://www.oecd.org/document/ 19/0,2340,en_2649_37413_25612371_1_1_1_37413,00.html, accessed 10 January 2005 OECD/DAC. (2005). Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness. Downloaded on April 25, 2006 from http://www.aidharmonization.org/ah-overview/secondary-pages/editable?key= 205 Oxfam International. (1999). Education now. Oxford: Oxfam International. Pritchett, L. (2004). Towards a new consensus for addressing the global challenge of the lack of education. Copenhagen Consensus Challenge Paper. Copenhagen Consensus, Copenhagen, Denmark. Resnik, J. (2006). International organizations, the ‘‘education economic growth’’ black box, and the development of world education culture. Comparative Education Review, 50, 173–195. Riddell, A. (2000). Implications for agencies of pursuing sector wide approaches in education. Unpublished paper. Rose, P. (2003). The education fast track initiative. Report prepared for ActionAid on behalf of the Global Campaign for Education. ActionAid, London. Ruggie, J. G. (2003). The United Nations and globalization: Patterns and limits of institutional adaptation. Global Governance, 9, 301–321. Samoff, J. (1999). No teacher guide, no textbooks, no chairs: Contending with the crisis in African education. In: R. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (pp. 393–431). Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Samoff, J. (2001). The evolution of education aid to Africa: Changing terminology, persisting practice. Paper presented at the annual meetings of Canadian and International Education Society (CIES), Washington, DC.
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Samoff, J. (2004). From funding projects to supporting sector? International Journal of Educational Development, 24(4), 397–427. Social Watch. (1999). Social Watch (No. 3). Montevideo: Instituto del Tercer Mundo-Social Watch. Sperling, G. (2001a). The developing world’s quiet crisis. The Financial Times, Washington, DC. Downloaded from http://www.brookings.edu/views/oped/sperling/20010716.htm on January 5, 2006. Sperling, G. (2001b). Toward universal education: Making a promise and keeping it. Foreign Affairs, 80(5), 7–13. Stiglitz, J. (2003). Globalization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton. Therien, J. P. (2002). Multilateral institutions and the poverty debate. International Journal, 57(2), 233–252. Therien, J. P. (2005). The politics of international development: Towards a new grand compromise? Economic Policy and Law: Journal of Trade and Environmental Studies Special Issue. Available at: www.economics-International.org, accessed 15 March 2005. Torres, R. M. (2000). One decade of education for all: The challenge ahead. Buenos Aires: International Institute of Educational Planning (IIEP). UNESCO. (2005). EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005. The quality imperative. UNESCO, Paris. UNESCO. (2006a). EFA Global Monitoring Report 2006. UNESCO, Paris. UNESCO. (2006b). EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007: Strong foundations, early childhood care and education. UNESCO, Paris. UNESCO. (2006c). Report by the Director General on the global action plan to achieve the education for all goals. Executive Board 174EX/9. UNESCO, Paris. United Nations General Assembly. (2000). United Nations Millennium Declaration. UN Resolution A/RES/55/3. United Nations, New York. United Nations Millennium Project. (2004). Interim report on achieving the millennium development goal of universal primary education. Report of the Millennium Development Project, http://www.unmillenniumproject.org, accessed 10 September 2004. United Nations Millennium Project. (2005a). Investing in development: A practical plan to achieve the millennium development goals. Earthscan and the UN Millennium Project, London, http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/, accessed 10 January 2005. United Nations Millennium Project. (2005b). Toward universal primary education: Investments, incentives and institutions. Report from the Task Force on Education and Gender Equality. Earthscan and the UN Millennium Project, London, http://www. unmillenniumproject.org/, accessed 10 January 2005. World Bank. (1995). Priorities and strategies for education. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2002a). Achieving education for all by 2015: Simulation results for 47 low income countries. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2002b). Review of the poverty reduction strategy paper approach: Main findings. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2004a). Fast track initiative news, August, September, October. World Bank, Washington, DC. World Bank. (2004b). Aid effectiveness and financing modalities. Available at http:// imagebank.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2004/10/04/ 000012009_20041004095816/Rendered/PDF/300691put0as0vol.02.pdf, accessed 4 October 2004.
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World Bank Development Committee. (26 March 2004). Education for all fast track initiative. Progress Report. World Bank, Washington, DC. World Education Forum. (2000). The Dakar framework for action, education for all: Meeting our collective commitments. Dakar, Senegal: World Education Forum. World Economic Forum. (2005). Global Governance Initiative Annual Report 2005 (see pp. 51–63 on education). Available at http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Governance+Initiative, accessed 15 March 2005.
THE POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN EDUCATION: MECHANISMS OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE TO PROMOTE EDUCATION FOR ALL Yuto Kitamura ABSTRACT The promotion of Education for All (EFA) in today’s globalized world is an important responsibility to be borne by the international community as a whole. International cooperation in education is being undertaken in many developing countries under collaborative arrangements of ‘‘Actors’’ with varying positions. Essential as the backbone of such cooperation is a mutually complementary partnership between the public (governments and official aid agencies) and private (civil society). Without this, international cooperation in education is exceedingly difficult to implement. Thus, led mainly by international agencies, the mechanisms for global governance for the promotion of international cooperation in education have been created. This paper sets out to analyze the mechanisms of governance on a global level as led by international agencies. Moreover, it attempts to elucidate the role of civil society, which has gained in importance as a partner of Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 31–72 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08002-9
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governments and international agencies, leading to a study of public and political dimensions in international cooperation in education. Furthermore, to see how the international community might close the four critical gaps in the areas of ‘‘policy, capacity, data and financing’’ and assist developing countries in promoting EFA, the paper analyzes an example of a recent international initiative called the EFA Fast-Track Initiative (FTI).
INTRODUCTION The guarantee of educational opportunities to fulfill basic learning needs is a fundamental right of all people. The promotion of Education for All (EFA) in today’s globalized world is an important responsibility to be borne by the international community as a whole. International agreements and treaties attest to this ideal. International cooperation in education is being undertaken in many developing countries under collaborative arrangements of ‘‘Actors’’ with varying positions, namely, governments of developing countries, aid agencies of developed countries, international organizations and civil society as a whole. Essential as the backbone of such cooperation is a mutually complementary partnership between the public (governments and official aid agencies) and private (civil society). Without this, international cooperation in education is exceedingly difficult to implement. Thus, led mainly by international agencies, the mechanisms for global governance for the promotion of international cooperation in education have been created. However, current conditions around the world show that much progress remains to be made in order to realize the goals of EFA. According to the World Bank (2003a), there are four critical gaps in the areas of ‘‘policy, capacity, data and financing’’ that need to be closed if the EFA goals are to be achieved around the world. Different stakeholders have thus introduced various attempts for improving conditions of basic education, particularly in developing countries, through such global mechanisms. This paper sets out to analyze the mechanisms of governance on a global level as led by international agencies. Moreover, it attempts to elucidate the role of civil society, which has gained in importance as a partner of governments and international agencies, leading to a study of public and political dimensions in international cooperation in education. Furthermore, to see how the international community might close the four gaps indicated by the World Bank and assist developing countries in promoting EFA, the paper analyzes an example of a recent international initiative called the EFA Fast-Track Initiative (FTI).
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EDUCATION AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT It is a basic human right of all people to be able to receive an education.1 It was after the end of World War II that this became a widely accepted idea in the international community and when active efforts, mainly by governments, were made to achieve it. The springboard for action was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, and a number of international agreements have followed, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in 1966 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989. The 1989 Convention particularly pays special attention to the needs of developing countries in promoting education and urges international cooperation to achieve this goal. Based on the concept of education as a fundamental human right, the promotion of education through international cooperation has been actively pursued, principally in developing countries. The embodiment of this drive was seen at the World Conference on EFA, held in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 and at the World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000. These two conferences were attended by representatives from more than 150 national governments, more than 30 international agencies and over 100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The delegates debated how best to conduct international cooperation in education and adopted wide-ranging international targets to achieve it. These conferences were of an unprecedented scale in terms of international meetings held on the subject of educational diffusion. They were also historically highly significant in the sense of redefining international cooperation in education as a task to be tackled by the international community as a whole. In particular, the Jomtien conference was a watershed. It put forward the concept of EFA and by interpreting the notion of basic education in a broad sense, led to the sharing by the international community of the basic philosophy that came to sustain the subsequent developments in international cooperation in education. In other words, it reaffirmed that the promotion of basic education was a national and international responsibility in view of the fact that the guarantee of educational opportunities to fulfill basic learning needs was a basic right of all children, young people and adults (UNESCO, 1990). What is special about the concept of EFA is that while stating that the universalization of primary education is a fundamental condition of educational development in developing countries, it attempts at the same time to view basic education from a wider perspective that includes areas such as non-formal education for technical and vocational training
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and adult literacy. Such an interpretation of basic education reflects the various international agreements that had been formulated until then in the form of declarations and treaties. In September 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Two of its eight goals prioritizes EFA goals, i.e., universal primary education (UPE) and eradication of gender inequality in education. This is a clear indication that the international community widely acknowledges the improvement of basic education to be an important task in achieving development. Nonetheless, the ideals enshrined in these declarations and treaties have not always been materialized in many countries. Above all, in today’s international community, the gap is widening between people who are guaranteed access to education and those who are denied such access. By way of illustration, since the dismantling of the Cold War bipolarity, the poverty gap between countries and regions is expanding and the number of refugees triggered by the spread of ethnic conflicts is increasing. The result is a huge impact on people who live in politically unstable regions, giving rise to impediments to the promotion of education such as the loss of schooling opportunity.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE REGARDING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN EDUCATION When considering cooperation in education in the context of the presentday globalized international community, this paper shall construe ‘‘global governance’’ to mean the situation wherein are found legal models agreed upon by constituent members of society (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘Actors’’), a certain order created out of democracy, or values such as human rights and compliance basically without coercion by physical force. It must be noted, however, that theories on global governance have been investigated through research conducted from different perspectives of academic disciplines such as political science, sociology and international law. Hence, while all such research approaches share the same standpoint of studying order on a global scale, the subjects of research and the methods of analysis vary considerably. Therefore, as regards the points listed below, all the different theories of global governance have elements in common (e.g., Hewson & Sinclair, 1999; Nye & Donahue, 2000; Shoji, 2004): (1) by incorporating the concept of governance rather than government, they lower the barrier between international politics and domestic politics; (2) as the mover in forming and maintaining order, they direct attention to all kinds of
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Actors outside national governments and (3) by looking at activities and ideas with which Actors actively try to influence society, they direct attention to the active aspects of order and not merely to the static aspects of order as a body of rules.2 Based on an understanding of these points concerning global governance, this paper shall attempt to examine how mechanisms of governance are being created in the field of international cooperation in education. On the ground level in international cooperation in education, in pursuit of the global target of achieving EFA, international organizations have led the way in creating a system of international cooperation based on a certain ‘‘order’’ created out of internationally agreed models (namely, declarations and treaties) and the value placed on the guarantee of educational opportunities as a basic human right. International and interstate organizations were set up alongside the formation of modern nation-states. Thus, international agencies can be thought of as always based on the framework of nation-states but at the same time, within a certain scope, they have autonomy as organizations. This means that while considering the position of international agencies, it is absolutely essential to understand the two standpoints of idealism and realism (or liberalist and realist views) with regard to the roles they play. That is to say, the view that deems international organizations to be the movers in achieving international ideals in areas including peace, human rights and development and the view that considers them to be merely instruments in the foreign policies of countries. In contrast to the rationalistic approach that focuses on the power and profit structures between governments such as the realist and the liberalist, the constructivist position does not treat national interest and identity as given premises but as ‘‘socially constituted’’ between the players (Hoshino, 2001), pointing to the possibility of making a constructivist approach in understanding the formation and changes of models embodied in international organizations. In this paper, all the different approaches will be borne in mind in examining what kinds of models are in the process of being formed through international cooperation in education, as led by international agencies as agents that deliver global governance to the international community.
Promotion of EFA Led by International Agencies International cooperation in education is being promoted under collaborative partnerships between diverse Actors. In particular, the United Nations
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Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the coordinator of EFA and other international agencies have played the leading role. The Jomtien conference of 1990 was held under the joint auspices of UNESCO, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. The Dakar Forum of 2000 was organized by five international agencies, the four organizations named above plus the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The reason for this multiplicity of international agencies strengthening collaboration in the field of education can be found in the general trends of the development sector as a whole, including growing interest in social development and in turn human development after the 1980s.3 After the Jomtien conference, collaboration among international agencies continued throughout the 1990s. For example, in June 1996, the MidDecade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on EFA was held in Amman, Jordan, hosted by the Director-General of UNESCO with the cooperation of agencies that co-sponsored the Jomtien conference. Some 250 policy-makers and other representatives from governments, international organizations and NGOs attended the Meeting.4 Discussions were held on the results of the interim assessment made in 1995 on the progress of EFA in all countries. Delegates then discussed what would be necessary to realize the EFA goals set in Jomtien for achievement by 2000.5 Nonetheless, what was discussed at the Mid-Decade Meeting was not transferred into practical action in large measure and EFA was not realized by 2000. For this reason, as demonstrated by the goals agreed upon at the Dakar Forum, the renewed EFA goals had to be adopted at Dakar, a decade after Jomtien. In so doing, the deadline for basic goals (such as universalization of primary education and improvement of literacy) was extended from 2000 to 2015. A new conceptual development was attempted with regard to the goals of life skills and quality of education. In other words, the realms of basic education expressed in Jomtien such as ‘‘learning achievement,’’ improvement of ‘‘essential skills’’ and the ‘‘knowledge, skills and values required for better living and sound and sustainable development’’ were reorganized conceptually at Dakar: these were divided into two areas: the learning of skills, including life-skills, and improvement in the quality of education to learn these skills. Furthermore, a clearer intent to tackle of the gender issue was undoubtedly a step forward from Jomtien (UNESCO, 1990, 2000a). The Dakar Forum reset the EFA goals as described above. Discussions were simultaneously held over the problems that beleaguered action by the international community in the promotion of EFA conducted in the 1990s.
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Notably, the following problems were listed: (1) inadequacy of partnership building, (2) lack of continued monitoring and (3) lack of any framework for comprehensive financial assistance.6 Each of these problems reveals that international cooperation in education is difficult to promote without global partnerships.
Forging Partnerships The partnership among EFA partners is forged through the processes of planning, forming and implementing the international community’s global public policies, or more specifically, policies on international cooperation in education. An EFA forum is held as a mechanism for coordinating these processes on a domestic or regional level.7 This EFA forum comprises relevant government ministries of developing countries and educational aid workers belonging to developed governments, international agencies and NGOs, who meet regularly to exchange information and views.8 Whether held on a domestic level or in conjunction with neighboring countries on a regional level, these EFA forums aim to establish partnerships between Actors with differing positions so that the ownership of developing countries’ governments can be safeguarded. The forging of such partnerships is thought to lead to better monitoring and assessment of the processes of policy implementation and the creation of a comprehensive financial assistance framework in the field of education. However, contrary to its concept, the EFA forum has not been functioning well both at country and regional levels, and establishment of the partnership seems have been donor-driven. In many cases, functions of the EFA forum were established at the Donor Coordination meeting, also known as the Donor Group meeting or the Education Sector Group meeting at the country level. Donor coordination meetings are basically organized in collaboration between the government of developing country and donors assisting that country. While it is often necessary to coordinate the different interests of each donor, at the same time, if partnership becomes too much donor-driven, it may result in the neglect of the real needs and demands the government of developing country has for its education sector. In such case, this may work against rather than for safeguarding the interests of the government. Moreover, some countries have introduced separate coordination meetings for donors and NGOs to engage in partnership-building with civil society, while others have integrated donors and NGOs into one group. For example, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of
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Cambodia has been organizing joint consultation meetings with both the Education Sector Working Group of donors and the NGO Education Partnership. However, there have been much more close collaboration between the Ministry and the donor group than there have been with NGOs. Many governments of developing countries in addition to Cambodia do not easily agree to work with NGOs and the partnership often takes the form of collaboration largely between the government and donors. The EFA High-Level Group Meeting (HLG) and the Working Group Meeting on EFA (WGEFA) are in place to engage in a coordination on a global level.9 The HLG was organized on the basis of the agreement as stated in the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the Dakar Forum, that the Director-General of UNESCO should hold a meeting once a year attended by a small but flexible group of high-level personnel who would ‘‘serve as a lever for political commitment and technical and financial resource mobilization’’ (UNESCO, 2000a, p. 10). The first meeting was held in October 2001 at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Ever since, a meeting has been held in autumn of each year.10 The HLG is attended by heads of state, education ministers of developing countries, ministers for international cooperation of developed countries, representatives of international agencies and representatives of international NGOs, who discuss what direction international cooperation in education should take toward achieving the EFA goals. The HLG has a strong political undercurrent. The results of its discussions are adopted and released as a communique´ at the end of the meeting. The EFA partners are expected to reflect these results in every one of their policies. The communique´ that was adopted at the very first meeting stressed the lack of funding in many developing countries for promoting EFA and appealed for all partners to seek new and creative ways of filling the funding gap (UNESCO, 2002c, p. 29), which should be led by the World Bank in cooperation with UN agencies. In response, the following spring of 2003 saw the institution of the EFA FTI under the leadership of the World Bank, which had further developed its education support policies. The FTI was a new attempt in the funding of basic education which will be discussed later in this paper.11 Unlike the HLG, which has such strong political overtones, the WGEFA is a forum for discussion on a more practical level.12 Consequently, those who attend the WGEFA meetings, which are chaired by the Assistant Director-General for Education of UNESCO, are working-level officials, including senior staff belonging to education ministries of developing countries, staff responsible for international cooperation in education belonging to education ministries and development agencies of developed countries,
The Political Dimensions of International Cooperation in Education
39
senior staff belonging to international agencies and representatives of international or regional NGOs. The WGEFA is regarded as a place for the international networking of working-level officials, where they learn good practices and exchange dialogue on problems facing different countries. Furthermore, the WGEFA actively invites the participation of NGOs of developing countries, which do not often have the opportunity to attend international conferences, to hear the views of people who do not normally have a ‘‘voice’’ in the international community. The HLG and WGEFA meetings are given their own place in the global mechanism of promoting international cooperation in education. That is, the HLG determines the global framework for the promotion of cooperation, based on which donors mobilize technical and financial resources. To plan, form and implement specific policies within this framework, the WGEFA provides a forum for discussion and information exchange for working-level personnel who gather from all over the world. The information that emerges is then put to use in discussions at national or regional levels and is given more material shape through policies that fit specific national or regional contexts. However, it cannot be said that these mechanisms always function smoothly. More often than not, UNESCO, and the EFA coordinator, receive criticism from different Actors that the status of these meetings is ambiguous or that coordination between the meetings is poor. It is also important to note that the cooperation of Actors at the global level is essentially for developing an international framework to promote EFA through meetings such as HLG and WGEFA. In comparison with the cooperation found at the global level, we can see more actual and concrete cooperation among the same Actors at country level through, for instance, the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp). In addition to these meetings, another priority with partnership building in international cooperation for education in recent years is the strengthening of liaisons among international agencies. To illustrate this, there are the Flagship Programmes,13 initiated after the Dakar Forum (UNESCO, 2002b). This was conceived as a mechanism for providing a concentrated input of support in a certain area while capitalizing on the specialties of individual international agencies. For many international agencies, liaisons at the time were often merely one-time efforts to carry out individual projects. By contrast, these recent Programmes are for building collaborative partnerships among international agencies, as well as for other related organizations working in the relevant area, on a program-by-program level based on open partnerships. This method of collaboration is in keeping with the general trend in international cooperation today, which is based chiefly
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on sector-wide support. Thus, in building a medium- or long-term aid structure, this can be considered to be an effective approach. Nonetheless, not all programs are working effectively. Depending on the program, the relationship between different agencies may be inadequate. In some cases, while the program name may sound impressive, the assistance offered is on an old-style project-basis rather than the all-round assistance that should be provided. Many problems still exist. Still, under the EFA targets, many international agencies, especially those such as WHO, ILO and UNHCR who have not fully liaised with other international agencies working in the education sector, are strengthening partnerships and this bodes well for the implementation of international cooperation in education within a more dynamic network.
Monitoring System One of the issues highlighted by the Dakar Forum was the lack of continued monitoring on the progress of EFA. After the Jomtien conference, UNESCO led the establishment of the International Consultative Forum on EFA. As mentioned above, in 1996 in Amman, an interim assessment was held on the degree of attainment of the EFA goals. Disappointingly, this International Consultative Forum was held only irregularly and failed to monitor yearly progress on a continuous basis. Thus, until the EFA 2000 Assessment,14 which was the survey conducted by some 180 countries on their educational status, was submitted to UNESCO as the key reference material for the Dakar Forum, it was difficult for the international community to assess how much progress was being made in each country during the 1990s. Having learned this lesson in the Dakar Framework for Action, agreement was reached on the creation of a global monitoring system to be led by UNESCO and operating under collaboration with UNESCO’s research institutions and regional or sub-regional EFA forums. Subsequently, in the First HLG meeting, UNESCO, together with key partners, emphasized the need for annual publication of an EFA monitoring report (UNESCO, 2002c, p. 29) that is trustworthy and analytical to assess the extent of effort individual countries and the international community are making to fulfill the commitment they made in Dakar. This led to the Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom to take the lead among developed countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark. The DFID moved to provide human resource and financial assistance, with the result that the Global Monitoring Report Team was formed in 2002 and
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based within the UNESCO Education Sector. The team is comprised of staff who are seconded from aid agencies of donor countries and UNESCO staff. Commissioned by UNESCO, this independent team has published the EFA Global Monitoring Report each year since 2002.15 The statistical data needed to measure progress in EFA is compiled and analyzed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) with cooperation from specialist statisticians belonging to the education ministries of various countries. For this purpose, a specialist team called the EFA Observatory has been instituted within the UIS. This team not only gathers statistical data but also conducts workshops for experts in educational statistics from developing countries, with the aim of developing EFA indicators and standardizing the methods of gathering and analyzing statistical data (UIS, 2002).16 A pivotal aspect in this monitoring system is the role of global mechanisms, including the HLG and WGEFA. This is to say, the information shared with in WGEFA is also used in the EFA Global Monitoring Report, which is published each year before the HLG meeting is held and is used as basic reference material for discussions at the HLG meeting. Reimers and McGinn (1997) stress the importance of formulating policy with research-based knowledge. Education policy can be formulated based on appropriate information about current conditions of basic education in the country. They propose that ‘‘informed policy making’’ should be practiced in the process of creating and implementing policy along with a proper monitoring and evaluation system. Buchert (1998) also emphasizes that empirical result on education conditions should be utilized not only for the process of formulating policy but also for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of education policy. However, as Riddell (1999) points out, in many cases, results of research, monitoring and evaluation have not been utilized as inputs for education reform programs of developing countries. Thus, it is obvious that a mechanism to reflect results of research on policymaking needs to be incorporated into the monitoring and evaluation system. The introduction of the EFA Global Monitoring Report can be considered as an example of efforts to implicate research results reviewed at global level onto education policy at country level.
Comprehensive Financial Assistance Although such global mechanisms are being created in the way I have described in this paper, the effective and efficient implementation of international cooperation in education faces a host of issues that need to be
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resolved. Most of the reasons for the inadequate progress made toward meeting the EFA goals during the 1990s were country-specific. However, Delamonica, Mehrotra, and Vandemoortele (2001) indicate that ‘‘one explanation stands out in virtually all countries: inadequate public financing for primary education’’ (p. i). Above all, financial assistance is the most difficult problem besetting the international community. The universalization of free and compulsory primary education of good quality in all countries by 2015 is the EFA goal agreed upon at Dakar, but to realize this goal, an increase of current levels amounting to roughly 32–37 billion US dollars a year in financial aid is required (World Bank, 2003a).17 Furthermore, the World Bank conducted case studies on 47 low-income countries and estimates that these countries would need to increase their total expenditure on primary education from the annual US $7.4 billion they are currently spending to an average of US $16.4 billion per year by 2015 (World Bank, 2002a, 2002b). These 47 countries would require US $2.5 billion to US $5 billion per year in additional external resources as an absolute minimum. This estimate is three to five times more than the amount they currently obtain in external aid for primary education.18 If I extend the estimation to all developing countries, it would be required from US $5.6 billion to US $10 billion per year in external donor financing to achieve UPE by 2015. Nonetheless, when planning financial aid toward education in developing countries, it is virtually impossible to estimate accurately the total amount of money that should be allocated altogether. As the estimated figures show, despite the requirement for extra official development assistance (ODA) for the promotion of education in developing countries, the reality is that only approximately 10% of the ODA total (Table 1) goes toward education in bilateral or multilateral aid. Therefore, what is needed is to increase the ratio of total ODA directed into the education sector and also to augment the total amount of ODA.19 In March 2002, the International Conference on Financing for Development was held in Monterrey, Mexico, where large donors such as the United States and the European Union (EU) announced increases in ODA.20 Also, at the G8 Summit held each year, discussion is ongoing regarding the creation of a comprehensive framework for assisting developing countries. Notably, the G8 Education Task Force was initiated after the Genoa Summit in Italy in 2001. The Task Force deliberated over the action-developed countries should take to achieve the EFA goals agreed in Dakar by extending further concrete technical and financial assistance. The Task Force’s report submitted to the Kananaskis Summit (Canada) in 2002 urged the speedy material implementation of the agreement made at Monterrey. The report
US
Japan
Germany
UK
France
DAC Total
Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. N/A 703.7 N/A 830.75 N/A 10.37% N/A 18.55% N/A 826.44 N/A 699.34 N/A 9.33% N/A 14.86% N/A 728.63 N/A 864.31 N/A 8.69% N/A 16.47% N/A 882.17 N/A 795.18 N/A 10.97% N/A 17.60% N/A 1215.44 N/A 1072.9 N/A 12.72% N/A 25.89% 142 1594.17 89.47 1290.51 38.59% 15.30% 5.61% 26.80% 109.5 909.42 34.13 1139.22 38.75% 11.08% 3.75% 25.12% 69.76 850.12 148.2 790.73 41.18% 12.97% 17.43% 21.73% 37.38 789.24 34.87 846.12 31.29% 9.23% 4.42% 24.24% 119.98 1183.22 52.46 738.73 36.46% 11.29% 4.43% 22.54% 189.46 733.44 44.76 553.11 74.31% 7.51% 6.10% 20.59% 205.14 788.6 80.37 573.74 64.25% 10.57% 10.19% 20.11%
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 181.95 16.96% 290.24 22.49% 263.83 23.16% 108.93 13.78% 110.67 13.08% 82.78 11.21% 61.22 11.07% 43.23 7.53%
228.11 15.47% 298.85 16.44% 268.04 15.77% 201.46 13.22% 178.61 10.13% 168.96 9.85% 169 9.44% 165.55 8.37% 175.76 8.24% 215.73 9.59% 173.13 6.39% 193.63 7.39%
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 25.35 15.00% 23.86 14.41% 34.97 19.90% 67.56 31.32% 70.72 40.85% 67.56 34.89%
2301.17 N/A 41.00% N/A 1378.16 N/A 23.88% N/A 1506.79 N/A 23.90% N/A 1513.32 N/A 24.59% N/A 1633.02 N/A 24.70% N/A 1448.81 N/A 22.54% N/A 1733.06 N/A 30.12% N/A 1683.98 N/A 35.26% N/A 1520.92 N/A 36.35% N/A 1496.23 12.95 36.25% 0.87% 755.77 112.95 26.72% 14.95% 776.15 142.33 29.90% 18.34%
5664.02 14.73% 4946.99 11.51% 4776.89 11.17% 4668.26 11.96% 5376.85 13.12% 6045.81 14.93% 5261.22 13.46% 4666.7 14.41% 4482.05 12.73% 4995.83 13.21% 3523.53 9.77% 3672.25 10.46%
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 44.55 0.95% 305.6 5.68% 641.66 10.61% 651.51 12.38% 503.53 10.79% 443.1 9.89% 585.04 11.71% 747.28 21.21% 849.25 23.13%
43
1990 451.83 5.40% 1991 451.83 4.81% 1992 430.2 5.46% 1993 404.78 5.53% 1994 372.1 5.11% 1995 368 6.56% 1996 282.6 4.09% 1997 169.41 3.43% 1998 119.45 1.99% 1999 329.05 4.81% 2000 254.97 3.44% 2001 319.27 3.85%
The Political Dimensions of International Cooperation in Education
Table 1. ODA Targeting Education and Basic Education from the Top Five OECD/DAC Member Donors (in US $million) (Education: As Percentage of Total ODA; Basic Ed. [Basic Education]: As Percentage of Total ODA Allocated to Education Sector).
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Table 1. (Continued ) US
Japan
Germany
UK
France
DAC Total
Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. Education Basic Ed. 2002 283.13 2.68% 2003 277.62 1.89% 2004 581.89 3.58%
218.2 932.78 101.27 692.31 72.78 77.07% 13.94% 10.86% 20.80% 10.51% 224.77 988.94 57.82 982.32 86.5 80.96% 15.61% 5.85% 24.20% 8.81% 496.59 1273.78 35.99 1102.4 106.16 85.34% 21.53% 2.83% 28.84% 9.63%
124.29 3.55% 348.41 9.02% 450.38 8.44%
68.36 925.78 161.07 4385.51 1092.98 55.00% 25.61% 17.40% 10.76% 24.92% 233.27 1268.67 209.55 5400.19 1333.61 66.95% 24.33% 16.52% 10.85% 24.70% 321.06 1526.64 269.03 6776.98 1978.67 71.29% 27.42% 17.62% 12.45% 29.20%
Source: Prepared by the author based on data available from the OECD/DAC database in the International Development Statistics online (IDS/o) [http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats].
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100% 90% 80% 70% 60%
U.S.A. Japan Germany UK France DAC total
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Fig. 1. Trend of ODA Targeting Basic Education from the Top Five OECD/DAC Mem Donors. Source: Prepared by the author based on data available from the OECD/DAC database in the International Development Statistics online (IDS/o) [http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats].
recommended that first, financial assistance toward developing countries centering on the above-mentioned FTI should be implemented and that it was important for the G8 countries (United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Germany, Japan and Russia) to demonstrate active involvement (G8 Education Task Force, 2002). Although educational aid in proportion to ODA of developed countries is somewhat fixed at around 10%, aid put into basic education has been significantly increasing (Fig. 1). This is a manifestation of the positive attitudes among developed countries to support the achievement of the EFA goals. Such financial assistance, however, must be provided efficiently and effectively in a comprehensive manner from the developing countries’ perspective. Aid-receiving systems are not adequate in developing countries, which complicates matters – for example, the lack of transparency in domestic policy decision-making and the inadequate implementation of policies. Problems of this nature suggest that assistance should be strengthened in capacity building, such as development of systems and human resources in developing countries. There is also the broad recognition that sound economic and education sector policies are required to achieve EFA. Even though the Monterrey Conference was successful in terms of increasing international financial
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assistance to developing countries, the Monterrey consensus itself stresses the importance of mobilizing domestic financial resources for development. The World Bank’s EFA Financing paper states that 90% of the incremental recurrent costs of achieving EFA have been financed by the countries themselves (World Bank, 2002a). Japan, for example, has stressed that a credible EFA national action plan (or national education strategy) to ensure adequate mobilization of external as well as domestic financial resources ‘‘should be integrated in national development strategies with a clear commitment to ensuring national resource mobilization’’ (Government of Japan, 2002, p. 1).
THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY As this paper has discussed, international cooperation in education is being conducted on the basis of partnerships among Actors of diverse positions, namely governments of developing countries, official aid agencies, international agencies and civil society. Among these Actors, the organizations and individuals encompassing ‘‘civil society’’ have been playing a particularly important role in recent years. Until now civil society was contained within the framework of national governments and had been thought of as political society, with the same demarcation as the state. However, today’s civil society is becoming much more open internationally, forming a community that goes beyond national governments. It is thus necessary to examine the concept of ‘‘third domain’’ as opposed to ‘‘public’’ and ‘‘private’’ domains. The third domain is the ‘‘common’’ domain wherein organizations and individuals that constitute civil society conduct activities. The ‘‘common’’ domain is regarded as a medium for private bodies to fulfill public responsibilities. However, the civil society in such ‘‘common’’ domain, particularly the NGO world, is characterized both internationally and nationally by multiple organizations with different agendas, interests and functions. It is important to note that they are not all welcomed by governments of developing countries. What is also important here is that the public regulations imposed on civil society in carrying out its activities are not only regulations imposed by the state but also include regulations based on mutual agreement of the bodies comprising civil society. By instituting such voluntary self-regulation, the pursuit of private gain is checked and order is created.21 Furthermore, Walzer (1995) claims that civil society should not be regarded only as a political domain but rather as an arena for economic or
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social relationships. This approach leads to multiplicity within the definition of civil society. For instance, at the 46th Session of the International Conference on Education held in Geneva in September 2001, while drawing attention to the rich pre-colonial tradition with regard to civil society, delegates from Africa stated strongly that ‘‘the wise people, third generation, or traditional professional associations y are not as visible as modern NGOs in the eyes of international partners’’ (UNESCO, 2001a, p. 5), but in African civil society, they are important constituents. In recent efforts in international cooperation in education, such diverse Actors as the organizations and individuals constituting civil society are forming such a ‘‘common’’ domain by means of networking. For example, after the Dakar Forum, international NGOs like Oxfam, ActionAid Alliance and Education International called strongly for solidarity. In response, the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) was formed.22 The GCE is a coalition of NGOs and teacher unions from various countries. It engages in advocacy and lobbying for the right to receive education. Participation in GCE is determined by the free will of its members. All members are equal in theory and there is no institutional leader. Instead, the chairman of the board members represents the body at international conferences and similar events. UNESCO set up the Collective Consultation of NGOs on EFA (CCNGO/EFA) after the Dakar Forum as a vehicle for facilitating the participation of civil society in international cooperation in education, and a mechanism for reflecting the voice of civil society in the policies of national governments and international agencies. About 600 international, regional and national NGOs are registered with CCNGO/EFA. They form a network for promoting EFA and regularly conduct opinion and information exchanges with international agencies centering on UNESCO. This is an indication that the network of civil society is clearly regarded as being a partner of state governments and international agencies. As illustrated by these networks, civil society has formed partnerships with governments and international agencies in a wide range of domains and sectors. The following four points summarize the roles that are expected of civil society in this context: (1) alternative service providers; (2) innovators of new ideas; (3) watchdogs of governments and official agencies and a voice of the public and (4) agents in community-based governance.23 These are traditional roles expected of civil society, but today, there is the further addition of its role as ‘‘policy partners.’’ All these expectations clearly underlie the promise made by government and international agency representatives taking part in the Dakar Forum that they would ‘‘ensure the engagement and participation of civil society in the formulation,
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implementation and monitoring of strategies for educational development’’ (UNESCO, 2000a, p. 8). These expectations are discerned in the support which the governments of developing country and donors showed in developing the EFA national action plans through a more transparent and democratic process involving stakeholders, which included representatives of the public, community leaders, parents, learners, NGOs and civil society. Civil society is expected to play a wider range of roles today. Thus the importance of networks such as the GCE and CCNGO/EFA is likely to continue to increase in civil society. Above all, greater diversity in the networks will be required. To this end, these networks are establishing voluntary regulations and order based on mutual agreement by all organizations, while at the same time respecting flexible affiliation. They urge the participation of not only the large international NGOs typified by Oxfam and ActionAid Alliance, but also the active participation of local NGOs of developing countries. Still, local NGOs are confronted with the need to understand a certain amount of English (or in some cases French), which is the lingua franca of international discussions, and there are other practical impediments that make it more difficult for them to participate in these international networks. While each network is eager to gather opinions at the grassroot level, the reality is that a certain kind of hierarchy is emerging among NGOs. A gap is developing within such a hierarchy between international NGOs and local NGOs. In short, staff who have been educated in graduate schools of Western countries or who have experience working for international agencies are increasing in number in international NGOs, which raises the quality and competitiveness of the work carried out by these organizations. This is why reasonable discussions and assertions made by international NGOs are often more readily understood by international agencies, but to the detriment of local NGOs. Given this situation, further examination must be attempted of the public dimension of partnerships between civil society and international agencies and governments.24
THE INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE TO MOBILIZE RESOURCES: A CASE OF THE FAST-TRACK INITIATIVE Despite the creation of the various mechanisms described above, many stakeholders in the EFA process remain critical of the seemingly slow pace to promote basic education around the world. In response, the World Bank
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proposed the idea of the EFA FTI, which focuses on a specific area and allocates the maximum amount of financial and material resources. In this section, I analyze a case of the FTI for examining how the global mechanism could have the potential and promised impact on EFA-related policymaking and policy implementation. In response to the recommendations made at the first HLG in 2001, the World Bank began to implement the FTI idea in 2002. That year, the World Bank laid out a financing framework intended to create ‘‘a forum in which lead donors domestically, and internationally, can respond coherently to country demands for technical and financial assistance in developing and implementing national education strategies’’ (World Bank, 2002c). The World Bank planned to mobilize additional financing for the education sector in developing countries from various sources, which would include loans provided by the International Development Association, debt relief, bilateral aid, funding from the private sector and a trust fund for donors. The FTI was derived from the concept of this financing framework. The FTI has changed in its scope and orientation since it was initially put forward in 2002. This section focuses more on the initial process of establishing the Initiative in order to show how its mechanism was created. In addition, the current conditions of the initiative are discussed in an attempt to try to see gaps between global dialogue and national interests.
Introduction of the FTI While taking into account points made in criticism of the financing framework, the World Bank developed an action plan to promote EFA. Entitled Education for Dynamic Economies: Action Plan to Accelerate Progress Toward Education for All, it was presented to the Development Committee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at its spring meeting in April 2002 (World Bank, 2002d). The action plan outlines measures to close the four crucial gaps – policy, capacity, data and financing gaps – in 88 countries that seem to be ‘off track’ to achieve universal primary completion by 2015. It is important to note that for accurately depicting the reality of primary education system coverage and student attainment in developing countries, the World Bank emphasized the use of completion rates and not enrollment rates, as traditionally used, as the basic measure of progress toward the EFA goal of UPE.25 The Action Plan proposed that the Development Committee provide increased and immediate support to 10 of the 88 countries that had finalized
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their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) to put them on track toward achieving the goal of UPE as fast as possible. The international community, particularly donor countries, have been frustrated over the lack of progress toward achieving EFA in many countries. Bloom and Cohen (2002) emphasize that lack of political will has been widely recognized as the greatest problem obstructing progress toward EFA goals. The World Bank is of a similar mind, arguing that it is necessary to focus on those countries that have shown high political commitments to improve basic education in their countries. Thus, one should expect to see better outcomes if the international community concentrates its financial and technical assistance on a limited number of countries that have shown higher willingness to develop their societies. The World Bank, therefore, took the fact of a government’s finalizing its PRSP as evidence of a high level of political commitment to development issues. It explained that: the fast tracking would be done within the PRSP/CDF26 framework and implemented through a multi-donor education consortium that would align the external financing needs of these countries with available financing support from donor agencies (World Bank, 2002d, p. 5).
In its Communique´ of April 2002, the Development Committee of the World Bank/IMF endorsed the Action Plan and encouraged ‘‘all countries to place education at the heart of their poverty reduction strategies, reform their education policies to achieve Universal Primary Completion and monitor progress toward the 2015 education goals in line with an enhanced focus on results’’ (emphasis added by the author).27 This concluding phrase suggests that there is the agreement with the idea of providing concentrated financial and technical support through the FTI to those countries with high political commitment. To realize the Action Plan, the Committee further stated: ‘‘We committed ourselves to work together in a much more coherent way to help bring this about and to provide the necessary additional domestic and external resources.’’28 Preparations for launching the FTI began immediately after this Development Committee meeting. Rose (2005), however, points out problems regarding the process of introducing and developing the FTI, which include ‘‘the omission from the FTI process of those countries most off-track; inappropriate choice of benchmarks used to allocate resources; and inadequate analysis of key demand-side issues’’ (p. 381). Because many partners expressed concerns particularly over the number of countries eligible for the FTI and the eligibility criteria, the World Bank had to modify its criteria for selecting countries. In its proposal for the FTI, the World Bank explained that the initiative would
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‘‘begin with a pilot phase, including about 10 countries, to be followed quickly by an expansion phase encompassing a broader set of countries’’ (World Bank, 2002f, p. 2). However, many partners preferred to increase the number of countries covered in the pilot phase in order to gain maximum impact for the Initiative as well as avoid criticism from developing countries that might not be selected. Many partners also thought that completion of the PRSP the only criterion would not be sufficient for judging a government’s level of political commitment. They argued that the criteria needed to be more flexible and comprehensive. Thus, the criteria were expanded to include preparation of a national education strategy, such as a national EFA action plan. This was added because EFA partners agreed that preparation of a national education strategy demonstrates a government’s commitment to improve the conditions of its education system. Some partners like UNESCO had also proposed providing additional assistance to countries with larger populations. It is because that even though these populous countries may not have finalized their PRSPs or may be in a better economic situation than other developing countries, they definitely have the largest absolute numbers of out-of-school children.29 Eventually, the World Bank invited 18 countries to participate in the pilot phase of the FTI. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (11 countries), the Middle East (1), Southeast Asia (1), Latin America and the Caribbean (4) and Eastern Europe (1) would become eligible to receive additional financing support to improve their primary education programs (World Bank, 2002c). Most of them, except for Albania, are in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) category and all have been preparing PRSPs. Five other countries that have the largest numbers of children not in school were also invited from Sub-Saharan Africa (two) and South Asia (three) to join in the pilot phase of the FTI. It is important to note that many of the countries at the highest risk of not achieving EFA by 2015 are found primarily in these two latter regions. Among the five countries selected, only the Democratic Republic of Congo is an HIPC country and most, except for India, have been preparing PRSPs.30 There had been, however, criticism that the most needy countries were not selected in the pilot phase of FTI because many of them are the countries most unable to use resources effectively. The World Bank and other donors were also aware of this problem. In its financing framework, the World Bank states that current efforts in assisting developing countries to promote EFA are ‘‘too piecemeal and ad hoc’’ and ‘‘aid flows remain concentrated on a small number of countries that are often neither the most needy nor the most able to make effective use of resources to tackle poverty’’ (World
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Bank, 2002d, Note 7). ActionAid (2003) also points out that donors are not meeting their commitments on levels of finance, timetables for implementation and transparent and collaborative decision-making. Similar criticisms were raised from developing countries and NGOs and as a result, the number of countries eligible for FTI funding was finally expanded to include all the low-income developing countries at the occasion of the fourth FTI partnership meeting in November 2004. As of January 2006, twenty countries have had their education plans endorsed and are receiving support from the FTI.31
Accelerating the FTI Process The various steps taken to implement the FTI as outlined above reflect the policies and strategies of major donors to support developing countries in their promotion of UPE. In the Communique´ of the Genoa Summit held in July 2001, the G8 members recognized the importance of education in development and reaffirmed their commitment to help countries in need by improving the effectiveness of their development assistance in support of locally owned strategies. The G8 governments specifically mentioned that resources should be made available through the HIPC initiative. They also decided to set up a Task Force on Education composed of officials from G8 countries. In consultation with various stakeholders, which included donor and recipient countries and civil society, the Task Force then prepared a report for the Kananaskis Summit in June 2002. The report voiced support for the World Bank’s FTI proposal. In response, the G8 leaders agreed to significantly increase their bilateral assistance for ‘‘countries that have demonstrated a strong and credible policy and financial commitment’’32 to EFA goals. At both summits, the G8 demonstrated their strong interest in promoting UPE, giving particular attention to gender equity. Three international conferences were also held that helped the international community focus on the issue of resource mobilization in development: the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, Mexico, 18–22 March 2002), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August–4 September 2002) and the High-Level Forum on Harmonization (Rome, Italy, 24–25 February 2003). By strengthening partnerships among various stakeholders, major donor countries and agencies at these conferences agreed to mobilize more financial resources behind key development issues. Their goal was to realize the United Nations MDGs, two of which – UPE and gender
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equity – were also EFA goals. To achieve these objectives, multilateral and bilateral development institutions are cognizant of the importance of ‘‘international effort to harmonize the operational policies, procedures, and practices of [their] institutions with those of partner country systems to improve the effectiveness of development assistance.’’33 Discussions held at these conferences have accelerated the efforts of the international community to develop the FTI. The FTI partners, i.e., donor and recipient countries, international agencies and civil society, meet annually to discuss and assess the progress toward UPE, and these annual meetings have been organized back-to-back with the HLG meetings. This ensures that discussion at the HLG meeting would be appropriately reflected in the FTI process. For example, the FTI Catalytic Fund was established as a result of the FTI meeting in Oslo, Norway, in November 2003, in order to provide transitional (2–3 years) financial assistance to low-income countries with a relatively limited donor presence and difficulty in obtaining additional external funding. With the assistance provided by this fund, countries are expected to scale up implementation of their sector programs and seek long-term support from new donors. This idea behind the Catalytic Fund reflects the recommendation made at the third HLG meeting in New Delhi, India immediately before the Oslo meeting. In its Communique´, the HLG suggested that the donors ‘‘should reach agreement on a clear framework to improve the effectiveness of the FTI and mobilize resources for endorsed countries.’’34 However, the FTI was a result of not only the recommendation from the HLG but also a maturation of the education assistance policies of the World Bank at that particular time. The World Bank has accelerated its support to basic education in developing countries since the 1990s and published a number of research reports and policy papers to demonstrate how technical and financial assistance should be provided to developing countries in order to help them realize the EFA goals (e.g., World Bank, 1999, 2002a, 2002b, 2002d, 2003a). Among them, Education for Dynamic Economies: Action Plan to Accelerate Progress Toward Education for All, which was submitted to the World Bank/IMF Development Committee in April 2002, clearly illustrated the direction of its educational development assistance and set UPE as its priority target (World Bank, 2002d). This clear priority for UPE had led other donors to implement the FTI. The endorsement of the FTI has significantly impacted the national conditions of developing countries for promoting basic education. Vietnam had to accelerate the process of developing the national EFA action plan after it was selected as one of 18 countries in the pilot phase of the FTI. If it were
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not eligible for FTI support, Vietnam would have to spend more time to develop the national EFA action plan. The introduction of the FTI has motivated many other low-income countries to become more serious about developing an education sector plan such as the national EFA action plan. Moreover, there are countries which do not have sufficient capacity to develop an education sector plan by themselves. For those countries, The Education Program Development Fund (EPDF) of the FTI can provide technical support and help them build capacity required to prepare a sound education sector plan.
Financial Challenges and the Indicative Framework In the Monterrey Consensus, major donors pledged to increase their ODA as mentioned above. To accomplish this, the World Bank emphasized that new financial resources should be provided, preferably in the form of grants and concessional assistance. Donors have been discussing how to close the financing gap by mobilizing external financial resources in the education sector, particularly for primary education, through the FTI. The World Bank has emphasized two points as strategies unique to the FTI, the introduction of an indicative framework and emphasis on assisting recurrent costs in the education sector. In preparing for the FTI, the World Bank developed a set of technical benchmarks for primary education efficiency and quality based on findings from the research of Colclough and Al-Samarrai (2000). The World Bank explained that the benchmarks should be understood as ‘‘norms’’ to guide service delivery and for financing reforms (World Bank, 2002d). As the World Bank has claimed, the idea of introducing the indicative framework should be recognized as a unique and interesting attempt since it could be the first ‘‘common frame of reference for all countries’’ (World Bank, 2002d, p. 11) to take sufficient account of financial and policy implications. The indicative framework is composed of the benchmarks listed in Table 2 (World Bank, 2002e).35 Prouty (2002) explains that the indicative framework could encourage some countries to change their policies since ‘‘some policy changes are a simple question of leadership’’ (p. 2). Prouty refers to insufficient hours of primary schooling in developing countries, when he points out that governments need to make efforts to change the situation of education in their countries and the indicative framework should act as a guide. The World Bank further clarifies that key outcomes should be judged by the degree of
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Table 2.
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Indicative Benchmarks.
Indicators
Student flow Percentage of age-group entering first grade in primary cycle (total/girls) Percentage of age-group completing the 6 grade in primary cycle (total/girls) Average repetition rate (%) Service delivery Average teacher salaries (as multiple of GNP per capita) Pupil–teacher ratio Spending on inputs other than teachers (as percentage of recurrent education spending) Annual instructional hours for pupils Percentage of pupils enrolled in privately financed primary schools Cost of construct, furnish and equip a primary classroom (US $) System financing Domestically generated government revenues as percentage of GDP Public recurrent resources for education as percentage of domestically generated revenues Public recurrent resources for education as percentage of GDP Primary education spending (as percentage of total recurrent education spending)
Range for EFA Success Countries
Benchmarks
100 70–103
100
2–20
10 or lower
1.2–6.6
3.5
20:1–55:1 19–45
40:1 33
0–15.7
850–1,000 10 or less 8,000
11–35
14–18
10–30
20
1.9–8.0
2.8–3.6
40–59
42–64
Source: Rose (2005), p.388.
improvement in the following three rates: primary completion rate for girls; primary completion rate for boys, and net intake ratio into first grade for girls (World Bank, 2002e). It is important to recognize that some of parameters in the indicative framework, such as pupil–teacher ratio and repetition rate, could indicate progress in improving the quality of education. The World Bank has been often criticized for paying too much attention to expanding educational opportunities while neglecting the importance of ensuring quality of education. As a consequence, it is clear that the World Bank has become more sensitive to the issue of quality in the FTI process. The World Bank stresses that ‘‘true and sustainable learning begins to occur only after the completion
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of at least five to six years of primary education of reasonable quality’’ (World Bank, 2002d, p. 2). The World Bank is aware of the fact that ‘‘unlike universal enrollment, universal primary completion cannot be achieved without ensuring sustained household demand for education, students’ learning progress and school quality – all of which are interlinked’’ (World Bank, 2002d, p. 7). Another issue raised by the World Bank deals with external assistance to recurrent costs in the education sectors of FTI countries. Delamonica et al. (2001) point out that ‘‘recurrent expenditure on primary education will have to increase by about $6.9 billion per year’’ (p. i) in order to achieve UPE by 2015. The World Bank asserts that ensuring an increase in recurrent expenditure is the key to success for many countries in promoting UPE. A study conducted by UNICEF indicates that in order to realize UPE, average recurrent expenditure on primary education in Sub-Saharan African countries must be 54% higher in 2015 than it was in 2000 and South Asia will have to increase their expenditure by more than one third (Delamonica et al., 2001). The indicative framework recommended by the World Bank could serve as a good reference for donors to examine the possibility and adequacy of providing external financial assistance through the FTI to support the recurrent expenditures of eligible countries. Rose (2005), however, points out that the benchmark for teacher salaries, which comprise the vast majority of recurrent education spending in many countries, is both politically and economically problematic because donors often see this benchmark as a blueprint rather than a choice for recipient countries. There are broad concerns within the donor community that the external assistance to recurrent items in the educational budgets of developing countries could easily make them dependent on external financing. This is problematic for sustainability of educational development, because some countries may not make the necessary effort to reallocate and/or increase domestic financial resources to cover the required recurrent expenditure in their education sectors. Hence, if donors for some reason had to cease their support of recurrent costs in these countries, the countries would not be able to sufficiently maintain their educational system. This has been an issue over last decade but the donor community has not yet reached any consensus over it since each donor has its own philosophy, interests and policies regarding provision of development assistance. Representatives from donor countries discussed this issue as one of the main topics at a meeting on ‘‘Basic Education: Donor Roles and Responsibilities’’ held at the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for
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Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD/DAC) in Paris in 1992. They could not build any consensus on this issue at this meeting, and there were not many changes in policy made during the 1990s.36 However, the attitude toward this issue held among donor countries seems to be changing recently. The G8 Education Task Force, established after the G8 Genoa Summit in 2001, points out in its report to G8 leaders that ‘‘there is a high recurrent-cost component in basic education’’ for countries seeking to achieve the goal of five years of UPE. Meeting this cost would require about 20% of a country’s recurrent budget on education, and half of this would have to go to primary education (G8 Education Task Force, 2002). Members of the Task Force thus support the World Bank’s FTI for providing additional support to countries, including support to their recurrent budgets. Though it is still not easy to make any judgment on the correctness of supporting recurrent costs, donors should be able to use the indicative framework as a reference to encourage developing countries to be conscious about their national budget so that they do not need to depend too much on external assistance. It may also be necessary for countries to seek other means and ways to mobilize external financial resources. I examine this issue in the following analysis of the Japanese government’s attitude toward educational development assistance. Such an analysis could provide insight into the kinds of problems and possibilities donors might face in the processes of promoting basic education in developing countries in general and in particular implementation of FTI. Even though the Japanese government has been against the idea of supporting recurrent expenditure in the education sector because of political reasons, there seems to be some possibility of providing financial support to the recurrent budgets of FTI countries. One scheme for providing financial support to developing countries is a reserve fund called a ‘‘counterpart fund.’’ While the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) normally provides program-type aid to recipient countries, there are also several categories of funding, including the counterpart fund that could be provided as monetary aid and/or spent to support sectoral expenditures. After the government of Japan and that of the recipient country sign an exchange of notes, the recipient country will be requested to set up a reserve fund (i.e., the counterpart fund) in local currency equivalent to the Free on Board (FOB) value of the procured equipment and materials provided by the Japanese government.37 There would appear to be the possibility requesting that the governments of FTI countries to allocate the counterpart fund to their education
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ministries in order to cover recurrent expenditure in the education sector.38 This could be an innovative idea for donors such as Japan, who have certain limitations on providing financial support to recipient countries. However, at the same time, the conditions need to be carefully monitored by donor countries since various criticisms have been made over how recipient countries utilize the counterpart fund, particularly with respect to transparency of the process of allocating the fund. Many critics have noted that the counterpart fund has sometimes been linked with corruption and embezzlement by government officials. These discussions on external financing through the FTI have made mention of gaps in financial capacity between some FTI countries with sufficient financing and other FTI countries who have an insufficient number of donors. According to the FTI Secretariat, the latter can be considered ‘‘donor orphans.’’ The countries with sufficient number of donors can receive increased and better coordinated financial assistance from existing as well as potential new donors through the FTI. The Catalytic Fund has been established in order to provide transitional financial assistance to countries with fewer donors which may not be able to receive necessary aid (as already discussed in the previous section). However, such transitional funding for two or three years seems to be insufficient to develop the capacity for the governments of donor orphan countries to make their FTI plans attractive to donors. The governments, particularly ministries of education, also need to provide trainings for education administrators at both central and local levels and to strengthen their institutional capacities such as administrative structure and accounting management system in education sector. However, many governments have been struggling to provide the required training to education administrators due to a shortage of financial resources. This is a phenomena characterized as a typical vicious circle which we have been observing in many developing countries not only within education sector but also in many other sectors. Donors would like to end this sort of vicious circle in education sector by introducing the FTI, but they still lack clear mid- and long-term prospects for providing continued support and we may need to curb out optimism over the future of basic education in low-income countries, particularly the so-called donor orphans. Thus, it is critical for donors to present a blueprint for their support to basic education in developing countries. If they can succeed in doing so, it would be encouraging for countries struggling to receive sufficient external financial, as well as technical supports to their education sector.
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The Influence of Civil Society Organizations It is interesting to note that the World Bank was not the originator of the idea of concentrating additional financial resources on a limited number of countries. In 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar, representatives from Oxfam International39 proposed a Global Action Plan for basic education that seems to have a strong influence on the development of the FTI (Murphy & Mundy, 2002). Oxfam’s action plan is aimed at mobilizing resources and political will to achieve international development targets, particularly those on EFA. Representatives of civil society organizations took a core part of this plan into account, when they adopted the NGO Declaration on Education for All on 25 April 2000 in Dakar (one day before the World Education Forum started), which urged donors to finance their contributions to developing countries through ‘‘increased aid and debt relief’’ and to establish ‘‘clear mechanisms for financing, implementing and monitoring’’ those countries’ efforts in this area.40 The Declaration further called for donors to increase aid for basic education to at least 8% of the total aid budget (UNESCO, 2000b). In April 2002, and in advance of the spring meeting of the World Bank/ IMF Development Committee, the GCE stated that the key to success in achieving EFA by 2015 ‘‘will be whether Finance and Development Ministers can agree to launch a financing framework that will ensure’’ the provision of necessary resources to countries seriously committed to EFA. The GCE proposed that finance and development ministers of donor countries mandate the World Bank ‘‘to work with donors to create a financing framework to fill financing gaps in specific countries’’ (Oxfam International, 2002). This was in fact a message from civil society asking donors to seriously consider the launch of new initiatives such as the FTI. Oxfam, as one of the most influential members of the GCE, played a central role in lobbying donors to accept this proposition. At the press conference held in Washington, DC on 12 June 2002, James Wolfensohn, the then-President of the World Bank, acknowledged the strong influence of Oxfam in the decision-making processes of the World Bank and other donors to promote EFA. He stated that ‘‘Oxfam has been extraordinarily supportive, both in terms of putting the case and in terms of implementation’’ (World Bank, 2002f), including the development of the FTI in line with the consensus made at Monterrey in March 2002. While Wolfensohn recognized the importance of listening to voices from civil society, he also stressed that bilateral and multilateral agencies are core
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partners in promoting EFA. Wolfensohn pointed out that the World Bank had held a series of discussions regarding the process of developing the FTI with various EFA partners, including a number of countries, UNESCO, UNICEF and the EU. He emphasized that the FTI is ‘‘an initiative that has gained a lot of coherence and support from others, and it is not just something that we’re dumping on the community today or, indeed, seeking to assert primacy’’ (World Bank, 2002f) for the World Bank.
CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES This paper described how different Actors in the international community have been collaborating in the process of promoting basic education in developing countries, with a particular focus on a new initiative called the FTI. In this analysis, I have tried to highlight the problems with the mechanisms of global governance that have arisen in relation to the four crucial gaps indicated by the World Bank in the areas of policy, capacity, data and financing. Through this study, it has become clear that more people are aware of the importance of supporting education, particularly basic education, and that the international community has been exploring more effective frameworks to provide assistance to developing countries. Among the various frameworks that have been suggested and implemented, the FTI seems to be one of the most influential and innovative initiatives; nonetheless, there are still a number of problems regarding the promotion of basic education in developing countries. This section raises some issues that could hinder effective promotion of EFA, particularly concerning implementation of the FTI. It is important to note that issues raised here are applicable not only to the case of the FTI but also to various other frameworks for international cooperation in education through the global mechanisms discussed in this paper. First, the country-level development of human and institutional capacity should be recognized as the most urgent and fundamental problem in order to ensure the effective promotion of EFA. Many developing countries have been struggling to improve their managerial capacity and systems (Buchert, 2002). International EFA partners should always remind themselves that it is primarily the responsibility of the countries themselves to promote EFA. Thus, capacity-building at the country level is key to ensuring ‘‘countrydriven’’ development. Second, the international community must promote good coordination among donors. For better donor coordination, at the first donors meeting on FTI held in Brussels on 27 November 2002, the donors group agreed that
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they should collaborate ‘‘within the context of existing structures at country level.41 It was also proposed that a ‘champion’ (normally the lead donor for the education sector in each country) be the focal point for mobilizing and coordinating donor support’’ (Good & Boer, 2002). This agreement seems reasonable, but in reality donors vary in terms of their flexibility in providing financial support, as the issue of supporting recurrent costs shows. The degree of how much flexibility recipient countries would have when they receive donor support should be also considered. The Japanese government, for example, points out that ‘‘the financing modality for FTI should be as flexible as possible and should have a broad range of delivery schemes’’ (Government of Japan, 2002, p. 3). Furthermore, there have been communication gaps between the headquarters of donor agencies and field offices at the country level. It is the donors’ responsibility to develop better coordination among donors as well as within their organizations. Third, as described above, the World Bank/IMF Development Committee basically agreed with the World Bank’s FTI proposal, but at the same time it also warned the World Bank to pay careful attention to diverse circumstances between countries, view them within a particular country’s context and pursue the FTI as part of integrated poverty reduction strategies (World Bank, 2002g). Regarding the issue of effective donor coordination, it is also important for all stakeholders to discuss ways to ensure the ownership of country in the process of formulating the FTI proposal and implementing it by promoting a country-driven approach. Fourth, sound economic and education sector policies are required to realize the EFA goals. To give one example, a World Bank team that conducted a case study on Yemen pointed out that policy and institutional reforms, along with significant support from donors, are keys to the success of EFA, in particular with the FTI (World Bank, 2003b). Thus, it is crucial to link the national EFA action plans with existing development strategies/ frameworks such as PRSPs and the United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAF). Furthermore, consideration should be given to how the FTI could be implemented within the existing political bodies/ frameworks. For instance, various political networks/partnerships have been developed in Africa, such as the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).42 EFA partners will need to effectively mobilize these partnerships in the process of developing and implementing policies for achieving EFA. Fifth, serious data gaps have emerged since the 1990s during the so-called Jomtien Decade, as briefly discussed in this paper. A range of stakeholders
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established a global mechanism to promote EFA, but that mechanism has not been fully utilized to improve the situation. For example, some donors have been critical of the weakness in ‘‘the synergy between the FTI process and the outcomes of the EFA Global Monitoring Report’’ (Government of Japan, 2002). Furthermore, several ministers in the World Bank/IMF Development Committee have stressed that the parameters and benchmarks should be realistic. The Committee argues that ensuring that the indicative framework of FTI is adequate to the task will require a comprehensive approach to collect up-to-date data at country level (World Bank, 2002h). Ultimately, the EFA movement as a whole is aimed at promoting not only primary schooling but also various fields of basic education. Although the FTI seems to be an innovative attempt to bring donors together, I am concerned about the possibility that other important areas of basic education, such as literacy and non-formal education, may be neglected. The international community must view the EFA movement in a comprehensive manner.
CONCLUSION This paper asserts that the global mechanism to promote basic education in developing countries has been supported by various Actors with different interests. Relationships among Actors were analyzed from two different viewpoints, namely idealism and realism. The international community has established a global framework to mobilize required resources to promote basic education in developing countries under the goals of EFA. This global framework has been developed very much based on the philosophy of Actors in the international community to ensure the right to education for every single person in the world. I then tried to illustrate from the realist viewpoint, how different Actors play their roles in the process of solidifying this ideal through the example of the FTI. It appears that there is a tension between ‘global promises’ and ‘national challenges’ which I was addressed in this paper. In fact, each developing country eligible for the FTI seems to be actually struggling to adopt this initiative in its national context. I would further discuss that according to constructivist thought, national interests in the realization of EFA goals are not given premises but something socially constructed through the international agreements made by different Actors in the international community. The body that promotes global governance in present-day international relations is in principle the nation-state as symbolized by the national
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government. As this paper has outlined, while the roles of Actors categorized as international agencies and civil society have diversified, the framework that sustains them is essentially the nation-state. For example, international agencies serve the role of mediating among different Actors that endeavor to maintain their own distinctive positions while interacting with each other, and yet, this role can only be properly played when a certain level of agreement exists between nation-states. Ehrenberg (1999) explains that while positively appraising the contribution toward democracy that the Actors of civil society bring by confronting state authority, any civil society is formed, supported, maneuvered and repressed by the state that corresponds to it. With these premises in mind, the task of thinking about the political and public dimensions in international cooperation in education, as I have indicated in this paper, rests on how best to create the ‘‘ownership of developing countries’’ and ‘‘broadly based partnerships.’’43 However, it is an enormous challenge for the international community to create such ownership and partnerships. As touched upon in this paper, donor agencies and the international community often dominate discussions at the global level, and it is difficult for many developing countries to reflect their real situations on the global promises. The result is that governments of developing countries lose the ownership of introducing educational reforms in their country. Nonetheless, most governments of developing countries are not in favor of working with NGOs, even though global frameworks such as the EFA have emphasized strengthening partnerships with civil society. In order to improve the situation regarding ownership and partnerships, developing countries need to develop four capacities, i.e., policy, capacity, data and financing, which were indicated by the World Bank. Although some of them are being fulfilled through various efforts of different Actors both at global and country levels, as mentioned in this paper, a large part of capacity development is still remain as difficult tasks for many developing countries. Today, it is time for Actors in the international community to seriously examine how global frameworks such as the FTI should be accomplished at the country level through the appropriate and effective assistance to developing countries. One of the terms often used on the frontline of development work is ‘‘mainstreaming.’’ The notion that it is a basic right of human beings to receive an education is based on the understanding that people who are oppressed or excluded from society must receive education to enter into the mainstream of that society. For this purpose, Smith (2005) stresses that the real driver for improving the quality of education is likely to be in the school
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communities, and therefore it is important to strengthen the ownership of decision-making by parents and civil society through financial supports from the government budget and/or external assistance provided by aid agencies.44 When global governance in international cooperation in education is tied with the creation of mechanisms that enable participation of various Actors in mainstream discussions, then a new public domain will no doubt emerge. By giving an overview of the mechanisms needed in propelling EFA, I used an example of international cooperation in education, with special attention on the FTI, as an illustration in an attempt to delineate an image of global governance. Particular attention was given to the examination of such mechanisms as ‘‘socially constituted’’ among different Actors. Ultimately, each Actor needs to strengthen the political will to promote basic education in developing countries through international cooperation. This paper only skims the surface regarding global mechanisms, however, and was not able to provide a concrete description of how actual governance operates under various Actors, particularly at the country level.45 A deeper analysis into the roles of individual Actors and verification of how global governance in international cooperation in education should work remains a task for future investigation.
NOTES 1. Tomasevski (2003) claims that the 4-As (availability, access, acceptability, adaptability) should be guaranteed as the right to education. For more details, see Tomasevski (2003), Chapter 4. 2. For further discussions on global governance and the roles of different Actors, with particular focus on international organizations, see articles published in the special edition on Global Governance and its Critics, International Social Science Journal, 170 (December 2001), Blackwell Publishers/UNESCO. 3. A phenomenon typifying increased interest in social development (especially education) by aid agencies is the boost of educational loans given by the World Bank and the associated increase in the proportion of such loans compared to the entire loan allocation. For details, see the World Bank (1999). 4. Preceding this conference, top leaders of the five international agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and World Bank) jointly published an article in the International Herald Tribune. They indicated that roughly 6 billion US dollars each year would be needed in order to achieve universalization of primary education by the year 2000 (The International Herald Tribune, 7 June 1996). Such joint contributions to international media such as the IHT by leaders of international organizations have continued to be made at important junctures, after the Dakar Forum and before the G8 Summit (Kananaskis, Canada, 2002). This attempt at the
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use of the media is being actively pursued in international agencies guiding the direction of debate on international cooperation in education. 5. For details of the discussions held at this Meeting, see UNESCO (1996). 6. For various problems relating to international cooperation in education in the 1990s, see UNESCO (2002a). 7. Some countries use an education-related donor coordination meeting as a substitute for an EFA forum. 8. Among these education aid workers, the EFA coordinators play a highly significant role. They are appointed by the education ministries of each developing country, and are normally senior bureaucrats of the education ministry of the country concerned. These EFA coordinators initiate the holding of an EFA forum or make preparations for the donor coordination meetings held in different countries. 9. For details on HLG and WGEFA, see UNESCO (2002b). 10. The second meeting was held in Abuja, Nigeria, in November 2002; the third in New Delhi, India, in November 2003; the fourth in Brasilia, Brazil, in November 2004 and the fifth in Beijing, China, in November 2005. 11. For details on the background and process of introducing the FTI, see Kitamura (2004) and Rose (2005). 12. The venue for the WGEFA has been the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. The first meeting was held in November 2000 and subsequent meetings have been held in the summer of each year. 13. To date, programs have been initiated in the following areas: the UN Literacy decade (a collaboration of the UN system as a whole led by UNESCO); the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) led by UNICEF; Focusing Resources on Effective School Health (FRESH) for UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank; early childhood care and development (a consortium of international agencies formed); UNAIDS Inter-agency Task Team on Education; teachers and quality of education (UNESCO, ILO, Education International); education in emergencies and reconstruction (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNHCR, Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)); and inclusive education (UNESCO, Oslo University). For details on the Flagship Programmes, see UNESCO (2002b) and the EFA website of the UNESCO Education Sector [http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/]. 14. The EFA 2000 Assessment of individual countries can be accessed via the EFA website of the UNESCO Education Sector (see note 13 for URL). 15. In publishing this EFA Global Monitoring Report, the International Editorial Board was established, comprising eminent scholars and workers in the field of education in developing countries. The International Editorial Board decides the editorial policy for each year, including the theme for each report. The first edition published in 2002 gave an overview of the progress of EFA internationally. The 2003/4 report dealt with gender issues in education. The 2005 report discussed problems relating to the quality of education. The 2006 report focuses on literacy. 16. However, it seems to be that the Observatory has not been functioning as well as originally expected. It would require more extensive supports from countries to make it more effective in coordinating specialist statisticians and policy-makers belonging to the education ministries. 17. As can be seen from the wide discrepancy in the estimate of 5 billion US dollars, the World Bank team that carried out the survey admits the difficulty of
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making any estimate. For reference, the maximum estimate figure of 37 billion US dollars per year is equivalent to 0.15% of the total Gross National Income (GNI) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC) member countries. The total ODA provided by DAC countries in 2002 amounted to 0.23% of GNI total, calculated by the author using 2002 data acquired from the OECD/DAC database, International Development Statistics online (IDS/o). For information on the ratio of ODA to GNI of DAC countries, refer to World Bank (2004, p. 304.). 18. The US$2.5–US$5 billion estimate appears different from the estimate of US$10–US$13 billion per year presented in the Financing for Development (FfD) Report, jointly prepared by the World Bank and IMF in Fall 2001 (World Bank, 2001). (The US$10–US$13 billion estimate was included in the overall estimate of US$40–US$60 billion per year that should be required to achieve all of the Millennium Development Goals.) This difference between US$2.5–US$5 billion and US$10–US$13 billion exists because the FfD calculation reflects the total incremental resources required for all developing countries, while the World Bank’s Action Plan on EFA (World Bank, 2002c) analyzes only 47 poor countries. Furthermore, the World Bank’s Action Plan introduces a more restrictive normative framework, which assumes a substantial domestic resource increase, thus making its estimate of external financing gap much smaller. 19. With respect to this point, I would need to reconsider the position of development assistance in the complex context of international politics and economy, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, the author would like to briefly point out the impact on the one hand of security and diplomatic strategies of developed countries such as the anti-terrorist measures adopted recently and the securing of natural resources, and on the other hand of measures taken by developed countries in response to changing economic circumstances such as Japan’s reduction of ODA. 20. In 1990, the ratio of ODA in total GNI of DAC countries was 0.34% but by 2001 the figure had dropped to 0.22%. However, in the wake of the Monterrey Agreement, in 2002 the percentage rose to 0.23%. If the DAC countries continue to show the same level of commitment, the ratio hopefully would reach 0.29% by 2006 (World Bank, 2004, p. 304). 21. Harbeson (1994) points out that analysis of ‘‘the idea of civil society leads to (1) a clearer awareness of the dimensions of civil society and (2) a range of alternative models of civil society that can serve as bases for specifying empirically testable models’’ (p. 15). This paper applies Harbeson’s notion in analyzing the role of civil society in international cooperation in education and tries to discuss the implications for developing a model of civil society, though this is actually not accomplished in this paper. 22. The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a representative organization, driven by its members. The campaign was founded in 1999 before the Dakar Forum by a group of NGOs and teachers’ unions, including Education International, Oxfam International, Global March Against Child Labor, ActionAid, and national NGO networks from Bangladesh, Brazil and South Africa. Since then, many other major international, regional and national groups active in the fields of education, human rights, social justice and the eradication of poverty have joined the coalition. The GCE encourages and supports the formation of national platforms, bringing
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together community groups, unions, education NGOs, churches, young people, women and other stakeholders to create broad-based citizen pressure for action on EFA goals. For more details of its activities, see the Global Campaign for Education website [http://www.campaignforeducation.org]. 23. These roles were a topic of heated debate among the participants at the 46th Session of the International Conference on Education – representatives of governments, international agencies and NGOs. For details on this conference, see UNESCO (2001a). 24. As one approach for gathering voices from the grass-roots level, a senior official of the World Bank advocates the need for the concept of ‘‘harmonization’’ aimed at providing all people with the opportunity to communicate their views, saying that is possible for the World Bank to urge governments of developing countries to prepare such opportunities (Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education, 2004). 25. Notably, while it was the World Bank that asserted the importance of shifting the basic measure of EFA progress from enrollment rates to completion rates, the World Bank did not strictly promote this conceptual shift from the beginning. For instance, when James Wolfensohn, the then-President of the World Bank, explained the EFA goals to members of the Development Committee at its Spring Meeting in 2002, he said they included ‘‘achieving full enrollment of all primary school-aged children by 2015’’ despite the fact that universal primary completion was clearly stated as one of the EFA goals in the Dakar Framework for Action. For the text of Wolfensohn’s statement, see ‘‘World Bank President Outlines Post-Monterrey Action Plan to Development Committee’’ (The World Bank Press Release, No. 2002/ 280/S, Washington, DC, April 15, 2002). 26. In the late 1990s, James Wolfensohn proposed developing a holistic long-term approach to development that seeks a better balance in policymaking by highlighting the interdependence of all elements of development. This approach has been called the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF). For more details, see the World Bank web site [http://www.worldbank.org]. 27. This Communique´ was adopted by the Development Committee on 21 April 2002. The full text is available on the IMF’s website [http://www.imf.org/external/ np/cm/2002/042102.htm]. 28. A citation from the Communique´ adopted by the Development Committee on 21 April 2002. 29. UNESCO has supported the E-9 Initiative, which was launched in New Delhi, India, in 1993, on the occasion of the EFA Summit of the Nine High-Population Countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan). These countries represent more than half of the world’s population. For more details, see UNESCO (1993) and UNESCO (2001b). 30. The first FTI countries are as follows: 18 countries (Albania, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia) and five countries with high-population (Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Nigeria and Pakistan). 31. As of January 200, the following countries have started receiving FTI endorsement: Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana,
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Honduras, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritania, Moldova, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Vietnam and Yemen. For more information, see the FTI website [http://www.fasttrackinitiative.org/education/efafti/]. 32. A citation from the Kananaskis Summit Chair’s Summary. For documents relating to the G8 Summits in Genoa (2001) and Kananaskis (2002), such as the Communique´ and the Chair’s Summary, see the G8 websites [http://www.g8.gc.ca/ sumdocs2001-en.asp and http://www.g8.gc.ca/sumdocs2002-en.asp, respectively]. 33. A citation from the Rome Declaration on Harmonization. For its full text, see the World Bank website [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/ Harm-RomeDeclaration2_25.pdf]. 34. For a full text of the Communique´, see the UNESCO website [http:// www.unesco.org/education/efa/Communique_Final_EG.DOC]. For more details about the Catalytic Fund, also see the FTI website [http://www.fasttrackinitiative. org/education/efafti/]. 35. These benchmarks have been developed particularly for low-income countries, which need to more drastically improve conditions in their education sector. For some FTI countries that have better conditions, the situation may already fall within the boundaries of these parameters. Here, I see a problem regarding the selection of eligible countries in the FTI process. 36. For details of discussion held at this OECD/DAC meeting on basic education, see Utsumi (2001). Utsumi was a member of the Japanese delegation to the meeting. 37. The JICA website [http://www.jica.go.jp/english/] shows general examples of how to utilize the counterpart fund. For more general information on various categories of funding, see White and Toye (1996). 38. In interviews with MOFA and JICA officials conducted in Tokyo, May 2003, I was told that MOFA and JICA have been exploring the possibility of asking the governments of some FTI countries in Latin America to allocate the counterpart fund to the education sector for covering recurrent expenditures. 39. Oxfam is an international development, relief and campaigning nongovernmental organization. It was one of the major NGOs behind the creation of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), which is a coalition of civil society organizations working in the field of education and related areas in both North and South. 40. For the full text of the Declaration, see UNESCO (2000b). 41. Since the Spring Meeting of the Development Committee in 2002, there have been a series of donor group meetings held in Washington, DC, Paris and Brussels. The meeting held in Brussels on 27 November 2002 was the first ‘‘official’’ donors’ meeting on the EFA Fast-Track Initiative to be attended by virtually all donors concerned (representatives from 25 bilateral and multilateral agencies). This meeting was convened by UNESCO and the World Bank, co-chaired by Canada and the Netherlands, and hosted by the European Commission. The complicated manner in which the meeting was organized shows how much the donors group cares about promoting to the international community the importance of partnerships in developing the Initiative. 42. ADEA was established in 1988 and has developed a network among various stakeholders working in the field of education and development, which include education ministries, development agencies, specialists and researchers and NGOs. NEPAD was established in 2001 by the initiative of prominent African leaders. It is
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important to note that this partnership was developed autonomously. Thus this partnership could be a key for promoting the ownership of African countries in development. 43. McGrath and King (2004) address that ‘‘knowledge-sharing in the agencies needs to be consistent with the overall agenda of national ownership of development and genuine development partnership.’’ However, external sharing for all agencies is seriously compromised by the extent that they are perceived, and perceive themselves, still to be in the ‘driving seat’ of development cooperation (p. 179). For further discussion on issues of ownership and partnership, see Samoff (1999) and Higgins and Rwanyange (2005). 44. It is, however, important to note that, as Crossley and Watson (2003) point out, particularly through the sector-wide approaches (SWAps), external aid-suppliers can influence the shaping of national thinking and control of entire education systems. 45. For example, even UNESCO, which is the overall coordinator of the EFA movement, suffers drastically in terms of funding and other backing in comparison to the size of the role it is expected to play in the international community. Thus, it faces difficulty in playing a fully effective role.
REFERENCES ActionAid (2003). Fast track or back track? – The education fast track initiative: Make or break for the Monterrey Consensus. London: ActionAid UK. Bloom, D. E., & Cohen, J. E. (2002). Education for All: An unfinished revolution, Dœdalus, Summer 2002 (pp. 84–95). Buchert, L. (1998). Introduction. In: L. Buchert (Ed.), Education reform in the south in the 1990s. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Buchert, L. (2002). Education for All: An attainable dream?. Prospects, 32(1), 5–17. Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education (2004). Japan Education Forum: Collaboration toward greater autonomy in educational development. Hiroshima, Japan: Hiroshima University. Colclough, C., & Al-Samarrai, S. (2000). Achieving schooling for all: Budgetary expenditures on education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. World Development, 28(11), 1927–1944. Crossley, M., & Watson, K. (2003). Comparative and international research in education: Globalisation, context and difference. London: Routledge Falmer. Delamonica, E., Mehrotra, S., & Vandemoortele, J. (2001). Is EFA affordable?: Estimating the global minimum cost of ‘‘Education for All’’. New York: UNICEF. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society: The critical history of an idea. New York: New York University Press. G8 Education Task Force (2002). Report of the G8 Education Task Force. Prepared for the G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada, on 26–27 June 2002. Available: http://www.g8.gc.ca/ sumdocs2002-en.asp/ Good, L., & Boer, J. (2002). EFA FTI Donors’ Meeting (Brussels, Belgium, November 27, 2002): Report of the Co-Chairs. Unpublished report by the president of the Canadian International Development Agency and deputy director general of International Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands.
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Government of Japan. (2002). Japan’s comments on the FTI process. Paper submitted to the FTI donors group, dated December 13, 2002. Harbeson, J. W. (1994). Civil society and political renaissance in Africa. In: J. W. Harbeson, D. Rothchild & N. Chazan (Eds), Civil society and the state in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Hewson, M., & Sinclair, T. J. (Eds) (1999). Approaches to global governance theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Higgins, L., & Rwanyange, R. (2005). Ownership in the education reform process in Uganda. Compare, 35(1), 7–26. Hoshino, T. (2001). Kokusai-kikou: Gabanansu no e¯ jento (International organizations: Agents of governance)Contribution. In: A. Watanabe & J. Tsuchiyama (Eds), Gurobaru gabanansu: Seifu naki chitsujo no kouchiku (Global governance: In search of order without government). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Kitamura, Y. (2004). Kisokyouiku heno kokusaiteki-na shikin enjoy no kokoromi: EFA fasutotorakku inisiathibu dounyuu no haikei to kouzou (New international initiative for financial aid in basic education: Background and problems of education for all (EFA) – Fast-track initiative (FTI)). Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu (Journal of International Cooperation), 20(1), 53–63. McGrath, S., & King, K. (2004). Knowledge based aid: A four agency comparative study. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(2), 167–181. Murphy, L., & Mundy, K. (2002). A review of international nongovernmental EFA campaigns, 1998–2002. Background paper prepared for EFA Global Monitoring Report 2002. Nye, J. S., Jr., & Donahue, J. (Eds) (2000). Governance in a globalizing world. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Oxfam International. (2002). Every child in school: A challenge to finance and development ministers. Oxfam Briefing Paper, 20. Prouty, B. (2002). Politics and policy: New thinking on how to achieve Education for All. Paper prepared for the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics – Europe, Oslo, 24–26 June 2002. Reimers, F., & McGinn, N. (1997). Informed dialogue: Using research to shape education policy around the world. Westport, CT: Praeger. Riddell, A. (1999). Evaluations of educational reform programmes in developing countries: Whose life is it anyway?. International Journal of Educational Development, 19, 383–394. Rose, P. (2005). Is there a ‘fast-track’ to achieving education for all?. International Journal of Educational Development, 25(4), 381–394. Samoff, J. (1999). Institutionalizing international influence. In: R. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Shoji, M. (2004). Gurobaru-na koukyou chitsujo no riron wo mezashite: Kokuren, Kokka, Shiminshakai (Towards theory-building of global public order: The UN, the state and civil society). Kokusai Seiji (International Relations), 137, 1–11. Smith, H. (2005). Ownership and capacity: Do current donor approaches help or hinder the achievement of international and national targets for education?. International Journal of Educational Development, 25(4), 445–455. Tomasevski, K. (2003). Education denied: Costs and remedies. London: Zed Books. UIS (2002). Report on the meeting and proposals for the future development of EFA indicators. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
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UNESCO (1990). World Declaration on Education for All and framework for action to meet basic learning needs. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (1993). Education for All Summit of Nine High-Population Countries (New Delhi, 12–16 December 1993): Final report. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (1996). Education for All: Achieving the goal (Final Report of the Mid-Decade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All). Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2000a). The framework for action (Education for All: Meeting our collective commitments). Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2000b). Final report (The World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000). Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2001a). Synthesis report: Special session on the involvement of civil society in Education for All, 8 September 2001. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2001b). Literacy and non-formal education in the E-9 countries. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2002a). EFA Global Monitoring Report: Is the world on track? Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2002b). An international strategy to put the Dakar framework action on Education for All into operation. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2002c). High-level group on Education for All (First Meeting, UNESCO, Paris, 29–30 October 2001): Report 2001. Paris: UNESCO. Utsumi, S. (2001). Kokusai kyouiku kyouryoku-ron (International cooperation in education). Kyoto, Japan: Sekai shiso-sha. Walzer, M. (Ed.) (1995). Toward a global civil society. Oxford: Berghahn Books. White, H., & Toye, J. (Eds). (1996). Evaluating Programme Aid (IDS Bulletins, 27(4)). Brighton, UK: University of Sussex. World Bank (1999). Education sector strategy. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2001). Financing for development. A paper submitted to the Development Committee, DC2001-0024, September 18, 2001. World Bank. (2002a). EFA financing: Estimating internal and external financing requirements for 47 low-income countries. Paper prepared for the Accelerating Action Toward EFA Conference, Amsterdam, April 2002. World Bank. (2002b). Achieving Education for All by 2015: Simulation results for 47 lowincome countries. Report prepared by Human Development Network, Africa Region and Education Department, The World Bank. World Bank. (2002c). World Bank announces first group of countries for ‘Education for All’ fast track. Press release dated on June 12, 2002, News Release No. 2002/345/S. World Bank. (2002d). Education for dynamic economies: Action plan to accelerate progress toward Education for All. A revised report submitted to the Development Committee, DC2002-0005/Rev 1, April 9, 2002. World Bank. (2002e). Education for All (EFA) fast track initiative: Draft proposal. Discussion paper dated May 9, 2002. World Bank. (2002f). Toward Education for All: What can the G-8 do? The World Bank Press Conference at the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, June 12, 2002. World Bank. (2002g). Statement by Senator the Hon. Ian Campbell, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Australia. Statement presented at the Development Committee, DC/S/ 2002-0017, April 19, 2002. World Bank. (2002h). Statement by Trevor Manuel, Chairman of the Development Committee, Minister of Finance, South Africa. Statement presented at the Development Committee, DC/S/2002-0031, April 21, 2002.
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World Bank. (2003a). Progress report and critical next steps in scaling up: Education for All, Health, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation. A synthesis report prepared for the Development Committee, DC2003-0004/Add.1, April 3, 2003. World Bank (2003b). Yemen and the millennium development goals. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (2004). World development indicators 2004. Washington, DC: World Bank.
THE MARKET, THE NATION AND THE SCHOOL: EFA IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION AND NATIONALISM Muhammad A. Naseem and Adeela Arshad-Ayaz ABSTRACT One of the central themes of Education for All (EFA) for the last two decades has been empowerment through access to education. The history of EFA, however, can at best be termed as checkered. EFA has been relatively successful in drawing world attention and improving access to education. However, the question whether world attention and improved access has resulted in empowerment of people in the developing world still remains unanswered. In this paper we argue that the limited success of EFA can best be examined and analyzed by paying close attention to tension between demands of the global capital and labor market place and nationalist agendas of the developing (post-colonial) state. These tensions affect the EFA agenda in the developing countries in complex ways. Taking empirical-educational data from Pakistan we demonstrate that demands of the global capital and the labor market had resulted in an increased attention on institutions and programs of study that cater to the needs of the global capital and labor pool. Access to these institutions is Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 73–107 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08003-0
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limited to certain strata of the society. On the other hand the mass education program in Pakistan is largely defined by the nationalistic agenda of the post-colonial undemocratic state. A net impact of the interplay of these global and national dynamics is that not only the EFA’s aim of mass education is hampered but also more importantly education in its present state is not empowering the recipients.
INTRODUCTION As the EFA movement enters its 25th year its history can at best be termed as checkered. On the one hand, the drive for EFA has enjoyed unprecedented success in a number of areas. It has been able to draw world attention to the imperative of access to EFA both in the developed and in the developing world. Though the targets set 25 years ago have not been met an enhanced attention to education as a basic human right has resulted in education for more than a 100 million people. A manifestation of this achievement is the zeal with some nations such as Canada, Finland, Cuba and South Korea that have made great strides in achieving goals set by the EFA movement albeit each in its own way. It is also manifested in the ambitious and enthusiastic educational policies and agenda of other nations such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka that seek to achieve the EFA goals. An even greater success of EFA movement has been the leadership and vision it has provided to world policy makers, financial planners, educators and other stakeholders and concerned parties. What has gone rather unnoticed is the success of the EFA movement in bringing into focus the qualitative aspects of education that hitherto have been largely rhetorical. In this respect one of the greatest achievements of the movement has been the creation of a discourse on quality of education. A net result is an ongoing dialog at almost all levels of scholarship on the qualitative aspects of education. Definitions of quality of education or educational quality are being contested both in the academia and on the policy tables. However, the changes in the global political, economic and intellectual realms have thrown up new challenges that the EFA movement now faces. In this paper we focus on some of these challenges. These are namely: the challenge to define quality of education or the educational quality (throughout this paper we will use these terms interchangeably) in a way that addresses both the fissures and the integrating tendencies that are the hallmark of the era
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of globalization. In other words, to try and define quality in a flexible way so that it can be useful in the context of emerging national(ist) identities as well as in the context of an interdependent and economically integrated world. We argue that insights from humanist, feminist and post-foundationalist traditions should be combined in defining quality. In our opinion such a definition will have the required flexibility to address the local as well as global dimensions of education. In the second part of the paper we take discursive and empirical data from a developing country, namely Pakistan, to demonstrate that the challenges faced by the EFA movement can best be understood by examining the interaction of the demands of the global capital and the labor market and the dynamics of nationalistic agenda of the post-colonial states.
EFA MOVEMENT IN THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT First World Conference on EFA was held in Jomtien, Thailand, in March 1990. One of the basic objectives of the conference was to renew efforts to attain one of the cardinal rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – namely the right to education. At the time of the Jomtien conference there were close to 1 billion adults who were not literate. Twothirds of these were women. At that time more than 100 million children did not have access to primary schooling. Roughly 60% of these were girls. The primary focus of the first EFA conference was on recognizing and addressing the complex dynamics of access to education in the overall context of availability of information and its appropriate communication (delivery). However, the conference acknowledged the importance of factors such as relevance and quality of education. In April 2000 world’s political and educational leaders met once again in Dakar, Senegal, to assess the performance/record of their respective countries a decade after the first meeting in Jomtien. The journey from Jomtien to Dakar is marked by limited success on some fronts and inertia on others. For example, in 10 years since 1990, 10 million people were made literate each year, thus bringing down global illiteracy figures to 875 million from 960 million in 1990. On the other hand, illiteracy among children of the world went up from 100 million in 1990 to 113 million in 2000. The gender ratio remained steady at 60% illiterate girls to 40% boys. The Dakar Framework of Action went beyond the Jomtien Declaration in that it identified the key actors in the EFA drive (countries/governments, civil society, development partners such as the bilateral and multilateral
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development agencies), and set deadlines for achieving EFA goals set in both the Jomtien Declaration and the Dakar framework. It set 2002 as the deadline for finalizing national action plans (NAPs), 2005 for ensuring gender equality (in terms of access to both primary and secondary education) and 2015 for achieving EFA (UNESCO, 2005). However, one of the most important commitments of the Dakar Framework was with respect to ‘enhancement of education quality’. Almost all international declarations and instruments are rather silent on the issue of quality of education in the overall context of universal primary education (UPE).1 It was not till very recently that this issue has come to forefront (see, for instance, the 2005 EFA global monitoring report, hereafter referred to GMR-2005). The authors of the GMR-2005 note that education is intrinsically a set of processes and outcomes that are qualitative in nature. However, unfortunately it is the quantitative aspects of education that have been the main focus of attention of policy makers in the recent years. Quantitative aspects of education such as the number of children attending school are by definition a secondary consideration. The authors of the report go on to argue that merely filling up educational spaces serves no real educational purpose if the education that is imparted is not of a sufficiently relevant and meaningful quality (UNESCO, 2005, pp. 28–29). Furthermore, the report asserts, ‘‘the achievement of universal participation in education will be fundamentally dependent upon the quality of education available y. The instrumental role of schooling – helping individuals achieve their own economic and social and cultural objectives and helping society to be better protected in important ways – will be strengthened if education is of higher quality’’ (UNESCO, 2005, p. 28). While the World Declaration on EFA (Jomtien, 1990) did recognize the importance of quality education it neither fully defined nor fully developed the notion. It was not till the Dakar Framework of Action in 2000 that the ‘quality’ aspect of education was recognized as important as the ‘access’ dimension. The Dakar Framework affirmed that quality was ‘as the heart of education’ (UNESCO, 2005, p. 29). The Dakar Framework articulated the notion of quality along four dimensions: quality of learners (healthy and motivated), quality of processes (competent teachers using active pedagogies), quality of content (relevance of curricula) and the quality of the system (good governance and equitable resource allocation) (UNESCO, 2005, p.29). While there is an overriding consensus among scholars and policy makers on the value of quality education there seems to be little or no consensus on what exactly is meant by the notion. There exist a plethora of definitions of ‘quality of education’.2 These definitions emanate from a number of epistemological,
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theoretical and conceptual frameworks3 and articulate educational quality in terms of differing, sometimes diametrically opposite objectives, outcomes and contexts. In the following section we briefly survey some of the definitional aspects that emanate from these approaches along with the notion of educational quality as articulated and developed by the feminist scholarship.
DEFINING QUALITY OF EDUCATION According to the Encarta World English Dictionary quality is defined as a distinctive characteristic, an essential identifying nature or character, the general standard or grade of something, or the highest or finest standard. In educational realm it is the last mentioned definitional dimension that has been used to ground the articulation of notions of educational quality or the quality of education (though different in many respects the literature on education uses these notions interchangeably; in this paper we will follow the tradition of using these notions interchangeably). However, in doing so most of the scholars fail to take cognizance of the fact that such usage not only gives ‘quality’ a sense of universalism (standardization), but it also lends to it an inert and unchanging character. Such definitional oversight, in our opinion, makes the task of articulating and conceptualizing ‘quality’ extremely daunting. Furthermore, in our opinion this has been one of the factors that impede the objectives of EFA. We will come back to this point at the end of this section. Let us briefly survey some of the traditions from which different notions of educational quality have emanated. The Rights-Based Definitions There are three prominent conceptualizations of quality of education that are grounded in the rights-based paradigm. First of these is the UNESCO articulation, which understands education as an essential human right. This conceptualization looks at education along four interrelated dimensions: education for knowledge, education for action, education for responsible citizenship and education for self. It builds upon the earlier UNESCO articulation that rested on twin pillars of ‘life long learning’ and ‘relevance’ especially as enshrined in the Faure report of 1972. Significant in the evolution of the UNESCO definition is the fact that it unfolds the notion of changing world realities. Nowhere is it more significant than in the expanded notion of education for responsible citizenship or ‘learning to live
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together’. Grounded in constructivism the notion of learning to live together calls for an education that can inculcate critical skills for a life free from discrimination, where all have equal opportunity to develop themselves, their families and their communities. UNESCO’s definition of quality differentiates between the processes that can/do lead to outcomes and the outcomes themselves and focuses more on the former than the latter. Like UNESCO, UNICEF’s definition of quality (in/of education) is also grounded in the humanist/constructivist tradition. Similarly, like the UNESCO definition it also draws upon the Convention on the Rights of the Child and articulates quality education as one that focuses on learners, environment in which learning takes place, learning processes, content and learning outcomes (UNESCO, 2005). Two of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that the UNESCO and UNICEF definitions of quality of education draw upon are contained in Article 29. According to Article 29 (c) ‘‘efforts be made for the development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own’’. Article 29 (d) of the Convention on the other hand calls for the ‘‘preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin’’ (UNHCHR, 1990). While other provisions of the Article are no less important we feel that 29 (c) and (d) are more important in the sense that they take cognizance of the changed and changing realities of the contemporary world that provide the context for education. They call for an education where the measure of quality is not the whole child in particular national contexts, rather the whole child in the context of a globalized, multicultural and economically interdependent world. As we shall argue later in the paper these provisions of the Convention come in direct clash with the nationalist agendas of the governments especially in the postcolonial developing world on the one hand and with the demands of the neo-liberal agenda of the global market on the other, thus impeding the objectives of the Dakar Declaration.
Notion of ‘Quality’ in The Dominant Educational Paradigm While on the one hand there is a movement toward adopting child-centered approach to education the notion of quality today is still primarily grounded
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in the dominant educational paradigm, namely behaviorism. According to many variations of this paradigm knowledge is considered to be extrinsic to the learner. In other words, the learner is a blank slate or an empty vessel in which prescribed, externally defined and controlled knowledge is to be inculcated. Freire (1990) called it the banking method. Others term it as the executive approach (Fenstermacher & Soltis, 2004). Quality in this paradigm depends on the effectiveness of teacher as the expert; on measurement of behavior against standardized tests; and a carrot and stick remuneration system. Variations of the notion of quality as embedded in the behaviorist paradigm can be seen in both the developed and the developing countries. In the former it is manifested in policies such as standardized testing for both students and teachers (for example, in the US). For a scathing critique see McLaren (1998), the no child left behind policy of the Bush Administration (Sleeter, 2004), the recent market model reforms in many provinces of Canada, notably in Ontario (Dei & Karumnachery, 2001), etc. In many developing countries the behaviorist notion of quality has been manifested in irrelevant and superfluous educational policies, and educational practices such as autocratic teachers, rote learning, memorization, unfair practices during examinations, etc. It should, however, be noted that there are notable exceptions in both the developed and the developing countries where behaviorist notions of education and quality are not the norm. For example, the educational reform in Quebec, Canada, or the educational standards of quality in Finland are entirely grounded in the constructivist tradition. Similarly, in the developing world there are a number of countries that have defined the standards of educational quality through alternative paradigms. These include countries such as Cuba, South Korea, Sri Lanka, etc.4
Feminist Notion of Quality of Education Notably absent from the discussions of defining quality are the feminist perspectives on quality of education (see, for example, UNESCO, 2005, pp. 32–36). This is despite the fact that the overriding theme of the EFA global monitoring report 2003/2004 was gender equality (UNESCO, 2003). One of the prime reasons for this absence is that the 2003–2004 and subsequent reports primarily focus on gender equality in quantitative terms and do not consider feminism as an alternative epistemological tradition that has a very different notion of what constitutes quality education. We feel it is
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important to note that feminist theory/scholarship is not a unitary body and within the tradition there are multiple notions of quality and education.5 However, there seems to be a consensus across the board that feminist notion of quality education is different from the mainstream (malestream) notions. Martin (1999) and Noddings (1995) have made powerful cases for ‘care’ as the measure of quality in education. Noddings’ notion of care is made up of four components, namely modeling, dialog, a practice of care and confirmation (which she defines, following Martin Buber, as comprising affirmation and encouragement of the ‘other’). A close look at these components of care show that they are capable of inculcating the attributes contained in Article 29 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNHCHR, 1990) mentioned above. The feminist concept of care, for instance, has the potential to expand qualitatively the notion of education as a human right in several ways. First, it rearticulates the relationship between the school and the home in the context of changing economic (and social) relations. It calls for a redefinition of traditional roles that these institutions play with respect to education (Martin, 1999). Similarly, Noddings’ articulation of care as comprising of four interrelated components, modeling dialog, practice of care and confirmation, seek to rearticulate the relationships between the parents and the children, between teachers and students and between students and the ‘other’. This is significant in the light of the fact that the educational discourses are heavily focused on the construction of the ‘other’, a construction that this ethic of care seeks to challenge, thus leading to a better understanding of the ‘other’ both domestically and externally. The notion of confirmation itself comprising of twin notions of affirmation and encouragement of the ‘other’ provides a counterbalance to the exclusionary tendencies that are a part of the nationalist curricula in a number of developed and developing countries. In sum, a feminist rearticulation of quality of education in terms of an ethic of care has a better chance of preparing students for the values enshrined in Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Post-Foundational Definition of Quality in Education We group post-colonial, post-modern and post-structuralist perspectives on quality of education under the broad rubric of post-foundationalism. We do so on the grounds that while these perspectives are unique in their units and levels of analyses, their notions of subject and in their view of education,
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they do share a common epistemological base. They are all opposed to the meta-narratives be they the religious or the enlightenment grand narratives; all of them advocate the importance of local over the global and take discursive construction of reality as the source of meaning making and meaning fixation. Post-foundational scholars focus on curricula (content) rather than structures as the measure against which quality of education can be ascertained.6 Quality education for them is one that deconstructs the oppressive formations that are discursively constituted. Inherent yet implicit in the EFA’s articulation of quality is the equation of quality with empowerment. However, it is the articulation of empowerment that is problematic. In most of the definitional attempts (for example, in the Dakar tradition) the underlying assumption is that empowerment will follow access to education. In other words, the notion of empowerment has never really been put to critical scrutiny. We define empowerment as the capacity to make informed, free and critical life decisions about the self, the other and all structures local and global that may affect these decisions and choices. In this context mere access to education may just be the necessary first step but empowerment in the real sense will depend on education that inculcates critical capacity to make the above-mentioned decisions.7 Thus, quality is directly linked to empowerment. Coming to the contention that we stated in the beginning of the paper we feel that quality can best be defined using insights from the humanist, the feminist and post-foundationalist traditions. As a number of influential feminist scholars argue it is simply not enough to ‘reform’ the existing educational content and structures so as to make them more gender sensitive. Female attributes such as care have to be brought in and the content and the structures have to be modeled on them. Doing so has the benefit of addressing the changed dynamics of the relationship between the home and the school (Martin, 1999; Noddings, 1995; Greene, 2003). To this insights from the humanist and post-foundationalist traditions on social as well as discursive construction of knowledge result in a notion of quality (of education) that has the capacity to address issues of content (curricula, textbooks, etc.), relevance (non-standardization) and discursive constitution of multiple identities (local, global, cosmopolitan). It is precisely the absence of such a notion of quality that results in misplaced emphasis on quantitative aspects of education on the one hand and on overly nationalistic content on the other, thus resulting in ineffective educational policy making that is unable to articulate (and consequently achieve) the agenda for EFA. In the following sections we take empirical and discursive evidence from Pakistan to provide evidence to this effect.
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Post-foundational articulation of quality education, with its opposition to meta-narratives (be these of nationalism, religion or science), has at its core the issues of relevance and content of education. The emphasis of postfoundationalist articulation on dismantling meta-narratives and their replacement by local (micro) narratives points to the fact that reality (and knowledge) is locally constructed and thus it is easier for the students to relate the knowledge that is imparted to their lived experience. This deconstruction of meta-narratives thus aims to make the content of education more relevant to the local reality and at the same time be more sensitive to the incorporation of insights from local knowledges.
EDUCATION FOR ALL? THE CASE OF PAKISTAN8 Literacy: The Numerical Dimension At its birth in 1947, 85% of the Pakistani population was illiterate. In underdeveloped regions of the country the literacy rate was even lower, with rural women having virtually a zero literacy rate. Ever since, successive governments have declared the attainment of UPE as an important goal. Although considerable resources have been expended in creating new infrastructure and facilities in the last 50 years, the literacy rate in Pakistan nevertheless remains low. Two-thirds of the population and over 80% of rural women are still illiterate. More than one-quarter of children between the ages of 5 and 9 do not attend school. According to published government statistics, the current literacy rate in Pakistan stands at 51.6% (Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2002–2003). In quantitative terms this represents an impressive increase in literacy levels over the last 10 years. From 37.2% in 1993 it represents a 14.4% increase especially when plotted against the astonishing population growth rate that has averaged ~2.33% a year in the last 10 years. The literacy rate for males is 54.81% while that of females is 32.02% (Ministry of Education website, 2004). The Ten Year Perspective Plan 2001–11 and the Three Year Programme 2002–05 propose increasing the literacy rate to 59% (69% for males and 47% for females) by 2005. Government sources estimate that during 2002–2003, ~3.2 million additional people aged 10 and older will become literate through primary education. There is, however, skepticism about the real value of these figures. It is a commonly known fact in Pakistan that official statistics do not accurately represent the situation on the ground. This was confirmed by a number of
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people that we interviewed at the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance in Pakistan. Both the literacy and the population growth rates are inflated and/or watered down in accordance with the demands and pressures of donor agencies and the structural adjustment policies (SAP).9 For example, the reported literacy rates depend on what is used as the official definition of literacy at the time of projection of these rates.10 For example, during the Zia years (1977–1988), the official definition of a literate person was one who could sign his/her name. At other times a literate person has been defined as one who can read a vernacular newspaper. One interviewee told us: ‘‘at times the officials responsible for projecting statistics start with a predetermined number or percentage given to them by the government and then keep on introducing dummy variables till such time that the desirable percentage is reached’’ (personal interview). The fact of the matter is that despite tall claims by successive governments Pakistan ranks among the bottom 30 countries of the world in terms of Human Development Index. The situation is even worse with respect to education where it ranks among the bottom 15 countries of the world. When compared with other countries of South Asia Pakistan is once again at the bottom of the ranking in terms of both the HDI and educational attainment. For example, net primary enrollment rate (NPER) in Pakistan is 46%,11 the lowest in South Asia. Even if we combine the enrollment rates of primary, secondary and tertiary education Pakistan’s total of 36% is much lower than regional average of 54%. Even compared to the least developed regions in the world Pakistan’s educational achievements look grim. For example, the adult illiteracy rate of Sub-Saharan Africa is 37% while the adult illiteracy rate in Pakistan is 56%. The situation seems even grimmer when other factors like gender/class disparity and high dropout rates are taken into account. Pakistan has the lowest ratio of female to male enrollment in the region. It comes as no surprise that the public spending on education in Pakistan as a percentage of GDP is also the lowest (1.8% of GDP) as compared with other countries of the region. There are only 12 countries in the world that spend less than 2% of GDP on education; Pakistan is one of those 12 countries (UNDP, 2003, Human Development Report). In terms of public expenditure on education as a percentage of its total public spending Pakistan spends a mere 7.8% on the public education. In this respect too Pakistan ranks among the bottom five nations in the world (UNDP, 2003, Human Development Report). Data from Pakistan Integrated Household Survey (2001–2002) indicate that male and female literacy rates are 57% and 29%, respectively (PIHS, 2002). Just as there are huge gaps between male
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and female literacy rates, similarly there are great urban and rural disparities, not to mention regional disparity that also exists in Pakistan. Despite different measures taken by different governments it is abundantly clear that educational situation is declining continuously. For example, NPER exhibits a declining trend over the years. NPER declined from 44% in 1995 to 42% currently (PIHS, 2002). The Pakistan Integrated Household Survey data indicate that there are 13 million children of age group 5–9 years out of school, out of a total of 50 million children. Net secondary enrollment rate also reflects a similar story; overall net secondary enrollment rate in Pakistan is as low as 10% with huge gender disparity (PIHS, 2002). In addition to the above-mentioned problems Pakistan faces a serious problem of high dropout rates, i.e., students dropping out before completing primary or secondary level. An analysis of high dropout trends in conjunction with low enrollment trends presents a very bleak scenario for Pakistan’s educational future. Just as the enrollment trends have declined over the years the dropout rates have increased. For example, the dropout rate has increased from 40% in 1996 to 54% in 1999–2000. Again there is a marked gender disparity in dropout rates; girls tend to drop out at a higher pace than boys; once again this goes without saying that there are also urban, rural and regional disparities. While the 3 year plan 2002–2005 details ambitious plans for raising the literacy level from 49% to 60%, gross primary enrollment from 83% to 100%, the net primary enrollment from 66% to 76%, middle school enrollment from 47.5% to 55%, secondary school enrolment from 29.5% to 40% and higher education enrollment from 2.6% to 5%, the pattern of percentage of the GDP that it has committed to education shows a declining tendency. Moreover, despite tall claims about removing gender disparity in education, the record in this respect shows that the gender gap in terms of educational institutions available for boys and girls, respectively, as well as in terms of overall enrollment has increased instead of decreasing. The gender gap in terms of primary educational institutions in 1990–1991 stood at 83,000 more schools for boys than girls. By 2001–2002 this gap had increased to 109,000 schools. Similarly, in terms of primary enrollment, the gender gap in 1990–1991 was 7,162,000, which increased to 7,325,000 in 2001–2002.
The Infrastructure: Reproducing Inequality Education in Pakistan is organized along primary (years 1–5), secondary (years 6–10), higher secondary (college; years 11 and 12) and post-secondary
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(university; years 13 to >16) stages. In terms of institutions Pakistan has a multitiered system. On one level these tiers are visible in terms of the public– private dichotomy.12 Within each of these tiers are further divisions. Take, for example, the public sector institutions. There are multiple tiers of public schools. The top tier includes urban-based public schools that impart a better quality education, have competitive entrance requirements and enjoy considerable prestige. These include the Model schools (e.g., Islamabad College for Boys, Islamabad College for Girls and various Model schools run by the Federal Government, the Divisional Public Schools, etc.). Also in the same league are the schools funded and run by the armed forces of Pakistan (e.g., various Pakistan Air Force, Navy and Garrison Schools) and various preparatory schools-cum-colleges that prepare cadets for the armed forces academies while also preparing students for higher education in other civilian fields (e.g., Cadet College Hasan Abdal, Kohat, Burnhall, etc.). The second tier is composed of the urban-based government schools that are funded and managed by the provincial governments. The standards of these schools vary from one place to another. While some are better managed and impart a better standard of education, others are not as good. On the third tier are government schools based in the semi-rural and rural areas of Pakistan. These institutions often lack qualified staff and adequate infrastructure. Some are reported not even to have proper buildings. While some of the private schools in the top and second tiers are co-educational, public schools at almost all levels are segregated. Private schools can also be broadly divided into three categories. In one category are the elite foreign schools such as the American and International schools in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and franchise schools such as the Shoifat School Lahore. In the second category are schools such as the Aitcheson College, Lahore, the Chand Academy, etc. These are very tough to get into and the fee structure is higher than the rest of the public schools.13 In the third category are private school systems such as the City School network and the Beacon House School System. These schools have maintained a higher standard of education, have fee structures that fall in between the elite and the public schools and are spread all over Pakistan and in some cases offer their own curriculum. These schools also prepare students for the ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations conducted by the University of London. Finally, there are a large number of private schools that have mushroomed over the last 20 years. These schools mainly cater to the lower middle and lower classes and have low fees. The quality of education imparted by these institutions, while not very high, is still better than the government-run schools at the bottom of the public
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school system (Kardar, 1998). Finally, later entrants in the schooling system are the NGO-run and community-based public schools. Some of these schools such as the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) schools have carved out a name for themselves. Others do not enjoy such a good reputation.
Educational Policy Making in Pakistan In order to grasp fully the workings and mechanisms of the educational system in Pakistan it is important to understand the policy dimensions of the educational discourse. Constraints of scope and space do not permit a full and detailed discussion of the educational policy dynamics. We will, thus, briefly outline the main contours of the educational policy discourse while focusing on the curriculum aspects. Education policy discourse in Pakistan has been largely guided by the transposition of an educational vision that is grounded in the colonial and the Orientalist discourses of education on the one hand and the global modernization and developmentalist discourses on the other. In the former discourse the emphasis and focus of the educational policy making were essentially on quantity rather than on the quality and relevance of education to the needs of the society. The underlying assumption was that once a critical mass of ‘literate’ and ‘educated’ citizen was reached, society at large would benefit from an ‘improved’ quality of life. In other words, it has been assumed that quality will follow quantity and that both quality and quantity will be in synchrony with the ethos of the post-colonial society in the new state. Broadly speaking the colonial educational discourse is manifested in Macaulay’s (1995) famous (or infamous) Minute (in Ashcroft et al., 1995), wherein he said, I would, at once stop the printing of Arabic and Sanskrit books; I would abolish Madrassa and the Sanskrit College at Calcutta y We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects y. (p. 428)
This thinking was conditioned by three factors: one, the exigencies of the global economic system of which the British colonial economy in India was a part; two, the demands of the colonial administrative system in India that required a class that could act as a cohort of the colonial administration; and three, the colonial cultural project.
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The educational discourse in post-colonial Pakistan drew heavily upon the colonial educational discourse and the political/nationalist leadership largely articulated policies in light of their Orientalist understanding of the new nation and statehood. Hence, for this earlier generation of educational policy makers the main aim of educational policy was to create a class of administrators (the civil bureaucracy) and a labor pool that could keep the economy of the post-colonial state in line with the demands of the peripheral capitalist system. At the same time the religious discourse contested for and intervened in the educational policy making and manifested itself in the liberal sprinkling of religious metaphors and references to the relevance of religion to the educational system of the new state (see, for example, Rahman, 1953). Education policy as framed by these discursive influences came to a head in the late 1950s in the form of the report issued by the Commission on National Education (Government of Pakistan, 1959; hereafter GoP, 1959). Saigol (1995, p. 118) terms this report the magna carta of education in Pakistan, ‘‘as it laid the fundamental structure which essentially remains in tact, despite ideological shifts during subsequent periods’’. The Commission itself was comprised of consultants from leading Western universities such as Cambridge, Indiana and Columbia, and think tanks such as the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Institute, etc. It is interesting to note that at the same time blue print of Pakistan’s economy was also being drawn by consultants from the US and other Western nations. Thus, in both the economic and the education policies of this era the influence of the dominant development paradigm (modernization theory) is not surprising. The report laid down the basis for harnessing the nation’s bio-power by defining the citizen as both a worker and a patriot. It called for a curriculum reform aimed at developing ‘‘the basic skills in reading and writing and arithmetic, a liking for working with one’s own hands and a high sense of patriotism’’ (GoP, 1959, p. 115). At the same time the report also laid down the groundwork for discipline and surveillance. It specified the kind of workers the country needed, namely an executive class, supervisory personnel and skilled clerical workers (GoP, 1959, p. 92). It also demarcated the spaces that citizens were to occupy or be confined to. Educationally, unskilled workers were to be produced by elementary schooling, engineers and executives by professional colleges and skilled technicians/clerks by parttime apprenticeship institutions (GoP, 1959). There are two points evident here. First, the educational discourse organized the system in terms of a mental–manual binary (between workers and executives) and a hierarchical division of educational space where
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particular types of institutions were to produce particular types of educated subjects (e.g., elementary schools – unskilled workers; poly-technics – skilled workers; professional colleges – executives and supervisors). Second, it is noticeable that no mention of a democratic citizen or the institutional arrangements to produce such a person is evident in these arrangements. The emphasis was on producing patriotic citizens. Patriotic citizenry is easier to control and discipline than a democratic citizenry. The 1972 education policy defined the ideal Pakistani citizen as ‘‘y dynamic, creative, capable of facing the truth: an individual able to comprehend fully the nature of technical and social change and having deep concern for the importance of society’’ (GoP, 1972, p. I). Educational policies during the non-plan period, like previous policies, also focused heavily on discipline as one of the main objectives of education. There was, for instance, a greater (and different) emphasis on uniforms. Uniforms were seen as a mechanism for constituting particular identities through inclusion and exclusion. Bhutto’s education policy, for instance, mandated that all boys were to wear the national dress (shalwar kameez) to school. The designation of the shalwar kameez as the awami (national) dress laid down one more criterion for nationalist identity. However, only men and boys were supposed to wear the outfit to work and school, respectively (though some urban upper middle-class women also did). Women and girls were thus excluded from this visual representation of nationalism and thus the citizenship criterion.14 During the 1980s and 1990s the framing of educational policy drew heavily on the global political and economic discourses of Reaganism and Thatcherism, on the religio-polistic discourse (Naseem, 2004) at home and the Gulf Syndrome (also popularly known as the Dubai Chalo: ‘Let’s go to Dubai’ syndrome). Influenced by these discourses the educational discourse in Pakistan constituted a subject that immigrated to Gulf countries, got rich and now contested for political, economic and social space with the existing privileged subject at home. The subjectivity of this Dubai-returned subject was conservative, nationalistic and religious. These subjects, in their contestations with the existing subject in Pakistani society, in turn affected the nationalist and religious discourses that were instrumental in their symbiotic fusion. The latest education policy makes special provision for madrassah schools. According to the policy document ‘‘Deeni Madaris (plural of madrassah) are independent institutions. They have organized themselves into 5 Wafaqs/ Tanzimes/Rabitaes. There are about 7000 Madaris in Pakistan with the total enrolment of about one million students including 78000 females. The
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Government of Pakistan is providing incentives to integrate religious education with the formal education and bring these Madaris into mainstream’’15 (Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, 2004, online), other than institutionalizing madrassah and mohalla schools (without any consideration for curricula, etc.). Where and whenever the policy discourse talks about improving educational opportunities for women, it is basically influenced by the demand for creating a workforce in which the bio-power of the female subjects is harnessed to the same degree as that of men. This is especially the case under the SAPs. This is why education, instead of improving the plight of women, has burdened them with the double responsibility of working at home (with no help from men) and outside at the same time while men are expected to work only in the public sphere. Inadvertently all educational policies emphasize women’s role as mothers, whose role in taking care of the male workforce is vital. Similarly, the vocational training for women specified and recommended in these policies is also geared toward this end.
EFA Planning in Pakistan The Government of Pakistan developed a National Plan of Action on EFA (2001–2015). In the context of history of educational policy making in Pakistan as described above at best the plan can be called ambitious. Although the plan states that the major motivation behind the framing of the plan emanates from the Jomtien and especially the Dakar Declarations a careful reading of the plan reveals that at best the plan is based on the quantitative aspects of the two declarations. For example, the plan objectives state: The Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan 2001–11 has been formulated to visualize the required long-term macroeconomic and sectoral growth strategies. As effective implementation is the key, a steady movement towards 2010–11 will be vigorously pursued through operational strategies embodied in the Three Year Development Programme, which will roll over every year. This will enable tactical adjustments through Annual Plans and Annual Budgets for the medium-term, without compromising the long-term strategic direction. (GoP, 2003, p. 9)
It is evident that the primary focus of the plan is the long-term macroeconomic and sectoral growth. Little attention is given to the quality of education as envisaged by the Dakar Declaration. Similarly even a cursory reading of the plan’s priority areas reveals that even at the planning stage the planners are more focused on the quantitative issues especially those that are related more to the market imperatives than the overall growth of the
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children as democratic and productive citizens. The plan outlines four basic areas of focus:
economic framework for growth; poverty reduction and human development; overcoming drought and reviving agriculture; public sector investment.
Within these areas the plan specifically focuses on the second area mentioned above, namely poverty reduction and human development. The plan then goes on to chalk out strategies in specific fields related to poverty reduction and human development. These fields are:
poverty reduction strategy; employment policy; education and training; science and technology; information technology; health and nutrition; population welfare; social welfare; gender and development; governance and civil society.
Education Sector Reforms Strategies In terms of quantitative expansion the authors of the plan envisage a public– private–NGO partnership. Article 3.3.9i, for example, details the targets in this respect (GoP, 2003, pp. 28–30). According to the provisions of this Article 8,250 new primary schools will be opened, funded by public monies under the educational sector reforms (hereafter ESR) in the period 2001–2005, and another 3,000 schools in the period 2005–2006, thus creating 1.4 million primary school places. In the private (philanthropic) sector 2,500 schools will be added to the existing 27,000 mosque schools (also known as the Madrassa schools: primarily attached to the mosques and run by charity donations and funding from religio-political parties). The plan envisages 900 schools to be opened by various NGOs and another 6,500 schools by the private sector. Furthermore, 9,000 non-formal basic schools (NFBES) and 200 community schools are planned. In addition measures such as double shift in existing schools, adopting a school plan and upgradation (in terms of physical infrastructure) of existing school are seen as some of the measures that will redress the quantitative educational and literacy deficit in the country (GoP, 2003).
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The plan also outlines measures for the improvement of qualitative aspects of education in the country. Among salient measures in this regard are: better personnel management system, merit-based hiring, improvement in quality of teaching by means of institutionalizing of ‘incentives and accountability system’, in service training for teachers, revision of curricula and textbooks, child-centered teaching, etc. The plan also calls for free provision of textbooks, elimination of gender bias from textbooks and encouragement of ‘‘enquiry, creativity and progressive thinking through project-oriented education’’ (GoP, 2003, pp. 30–32). At the outset it is evident that the plan suffers from any real vision and thus commitment. Though the plan is clearly couched in the dominant developmentalist discourse it fails to clearly lay down any epistemological or theoretical base. For example, the plan is silent on how the objectives set by the Dakar Declaration fit with either the national developmental vision (if any) or the nationalist identity dynamics of the post-colonial state on which the contents of the existing education system are based. It does not address the issue of continuity (or the lack of it). This is a glaring shortcoming keeping in mind the fact that in the last 15 years or so Pakistan has had as many as 10 different governments of various hues and shades. At the same time the example of South Korean success suggests that addressing issues of continuity is extremely important if EFA goals are to be made meaningful and achieved. Given the historical orientations of Pakistan’s educational policy making two factors stand out. One, educational policy making is guided in a large part by the interplay of tensions between the demands of the global labor market and the nationalistic identity that the post-colonial state in Pakistan desires to construct. Two, as in many other policy areas Pakistan’s educational policy making is also Indo-centric. India’s recent status as an emerging world player (and big earner) in the ICT-related knowledge industry has spurred a desire in Pakistan’s education circles to emulate the model. In the following sections we examine how the demands of the nationalist agenda and those of the global labor market define Pakistan’s educational agenda. Let us start with looking at the nationalistic content of education in Pakistan.
Nation(alism) and The School For the majority of students who study at the public schools in Pakistan, textbooks are the only source of knowledge. The prescribed textbooks are developed on the basis of curricula approved by the Curriculum Wing (CW)
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of Pakistan’s Ministry of Education. These books are often badly designed and badly produced. The quality of research leaves much to be desired. The data are inaccurate and editorial mistakes abound. Of the two subjects examined for this research Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) is a compulsory subject that is taught at all levels starting in class 1, while Social Studies is also a compulsory subject that starts at the level of class 3. Prior to 1958 the curricula contained separate subjects of history, geography and civics. However, the military regime of Ayub Khan abolished history as a subject and introduced a new subject by the name of ‘Muasharati Uloom’ or Social Studies (for classes 3–8) and another subject by the name of Mutala-e-Pakistan or Pakistan Studies for classes 9–12 (Aziz, 1993). Both these subjects are an amalgam of history, economics, civics and social studies (Aziz, 1993). The combination of history, geography and civics into one subject amounts to a fusing of time, space and the relations between citizens and the state into one subject of study through which knowledge is to be imparted to the students (Saigol, 1995, p. 208). A close look at the curriculum documents16 (CDs) issued by the CW of the Federal Ministry of Education and the textbooks that are prepared according to these documents shows that the amalgamation was not really an attempt to provide a multidisciplinary perspective to the students. Each area within both the CD and the textbooks is tightly compartmentalized and anything that does not fit anywhere else seems to be thrown in at random (Saigol, 1995). There also seems to be no attempt to provide the epistemological explanation of amalgamating these disciplines together. No explanation of interlinkages or underlying factors or themes that (might) unite these areas is provided either. These texts both create and blur disciplinary boundaries simultaneously with what Saigol (1995, p. 208) terms ‘‘a fragmented view of social reality y [that] produces y violent consciousness’’. It is interesting to note that there is little difference between the Urdu and the Social Studies curricula. The Urdu curricula, consisting of courses basically meant to impart knowledge of the student’s first language, comprise much the same contents as the Social Studies texts. Furthermore, both the Social Studies and the Urdu texts (both CD and textbooks) are heavily gendered with a pronounced andro-centric bias. There is an equally pronounced bias in favor of males in the authorship of the textbooks and the drafting of the pertinent CD. One pioneering study that looks at the representation of women in school textbooks has noted that in the books surveyed for the study a total of ‘‘3819 characters were portrayed in the textbooks y of which 81% were male and remaining 19%
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were female. In this way the sex ratio came to be 419 males per 100 females which was way up compared to the national sex ratio of 111’’ (Anwar, 1982, p. 12). Though this particular study (Anwar, 1982) looked at gender representation from a quantitative perspective it came up with some startling findings and provided the basis from which qualitative research on gender representation could be conducted. Anwar (1982) demonstrated through the statistical analysis that ‘‘the greatest discrimination against females was seen in the secondary school textbooks – the level of education beyond which majority of females do not go’’ (p. 20). This is incidentally also the age where consciousness of self (and other) is formulated. The study also found out that there is a predominance of urban characters in the textbooks (whereas 70% of Pakistanis live in rural areas) (p. 21); that the most frequently occurring activities depicted in the textbooks are what can be termed male activities (i.e., fighting wars, spreading religion, political activities, scholarly activity – especially writing novels, articles, etc., outdoor hobbies, welfare activities and religious practices); most common activities in which females are depicted in the textbooks are cooking, cleaning, child rearing, domestic help, cotton and fruit picking, cloth and dish washing (p. 39). In terms of the images of males and females in the textbooks and their attributes, Anwar (1982, p. 46) reports that ‘‘of all the qualities attributed to male and female characters, brave, rational, humane, respectable, cooperative, loving, clever, religious, active, advisor, industrious and responsible were the most frequently mentioned ones in a descending order y fewer women than men were depicted as possessing these qualities’’ as compared to this ‘‘women as portrayed in the textbooks y were the least likely to be learned, freedom fighters, leaders, patriots, rebels and genius’’. The only attribute in which women beat the men in terms of representation is in ‘being domesticated’ (Anwar, 1982, p. 46). While the study is commended for whistle blowing – and this too under the tyrannical regime of Zia ul Haq when such activities were considered subversive and even unIslamic – it suffers from two major shortcomings. One, it looks at gender categories in unitary singular terms. In other words, it proceeds from the assumption that man and woman are the only two analytical categories available to examine gender balance in textbook representation. Thus, by default it overlooks various sexual orientations and multiple identities of both men and women in the society. Second, by focusing on the quantitative characterization of males and females in textbooks the study falls into the positivistic trap of assuming that, unless there is a visible characterization (of males and females), there
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cannot be any discrimination. As Anwar (1982, p. 7) states in the beginning of the study, one of its guiding assumptions was that there is no gender bias in science textbooks since they are not ‘‘expected to depict social situations and [were] likely to contain only few human characters’’; hence, these were excluded from the study. Feminist scholarship has amply challenged this line of argument and has demonstrated the gendered nature of science itself (Haraway, 1991; Harding, 1990). Finally, the study (Anwar, 1982) does not analyze the social implications of this lopsided characterization of females in the textbooks. This conveys an impression that the only problem is one of textual and graphic representation and that once this problem is addressed and solved the gender imbalance can be corrected. This however has not proved to be the case. Both the textual and the graphic representations of females have improved in textbooks since Anwar’s study (e.g., in Urdu textbook for class 3 the female graphic representation is now at the ratio of 1:2; similarly, textual representation has also improved), and yet socially the condition of women has gone from bad to worse in the years since the study. While ideologically standing with Anwar (1982) we shift the focus of inquiry into gender imbalance by asking: Why is this imbalance present in the textbooks in the first place? Furthermore, what consequences does this imbalance have for the larger society, especially in terms of the production and reproduction of gender and power relations and the relationship of these relations to the state? A short answer to these questions is that such constructions by the curricula and the textbooks not only help reproduce the patriarchal state, but also by constructing nationalist identities divert public attention from real developmental issues. Let us very briefly comment on how such nationalistic constructions take place in the texts.
Homogenizing Theory, Explanation and Reality One of the major ways in which the texts cater to the nationalistic agenda of the post-colonial state and construct gendered nationalistic identities is through an across-the-board homogenization of theory and explanation. A prime example of this is the use of the totalizing notion of nation in the texts. Theoretically, such totalization is justified by drawing upon the religious notion of Ummah (the global Muslim community). The notion however is presented in a way that is both divisive and totalizing at the same time. It is divisive in that it separates Muslims from non-Muslims and totalizing in the sense that it obfuscates all cultural, linguistic, sectarian and
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linguistic differences within the larger Muslim community. On the level of explanation this totalization seeks to subsume all differences in the notion of national unity and nationalism. Anything that is not or cannot be made a part of the theoretical or explanatory unity of meaning is pushed out into what Laclau and Mouffe (2001, p. 111) call the ‘field of discursivity’. Urdu and Social Studies texts in Pakistan (CD+textbooks) strive to achieve this theoretical and explanatory unity in a number of ways. The CD for classes 1–3 (Government of Pakistan, Federal Ministry of Education (Curriculum Wing), 2002a; hereinafter referred to GoP, 2002a) that guides textbook writing and production lays down the following general and specific aims, the competencies to be built and content guidelines. For classes 1–3 one of the general aims (third in the list) is love of and familiarity with the Islamic faith and raising children with Islamic values. The corresponding specific aim is learning (read: rote learning) of Islamic values. The corresponding (proposed) content according to the CD should be comprised of learning the Arabic recitation of two verses of the Qur’an. Another general aim is to produce love of country and nation with respect to Pakistan. The specific aim corresponding to this overall general aim is to introduce to the child the concept of Watan (a masculine notion of country). The competency that the CD aims to develop is ‘‘love of Watan’’ and the way this should be done according to the CD is by ‘‘explaining the country’s name and people in such a way that children start to feel attracted to Watan’’ (GoP, 2002a, pp. 4–11). An earlier CD (GoP, 1994, quoted by Hasnain & Nayyar, 1997) aimed at building the following competencies in children through the teaching of Urdu as the ‘national’ language: 1. to be able to take pride in the Islamic way of life, and to try to acquire Islamic knowledge and to adopt it; 2. to read religious books in order to understand Quranic teachings; 3. to listen to events from Islamic history, and be able to derive pleasure from them (khushi mehsoos karen); 4. to know that national culture is not local culture or local customs, but a culture whose principles have been determined by Islam. The homogenization of all diversity and difference into a unitary reality – the Qaum or nation – has multiple effects. On the one hand, it obscures all differences for the sake of formalizing the imagined community (nation). On the other hand, it asks for all sorts of ‘sacrifices’ from the subject in order to
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achieve, maintain and defend this imagined community. Just as the colonial state extracted payments from its colonial subjects for its ‘civilizing’ mission, the post-colonial nationalist state extracts payments for providing security and defense. As Nandy (2003, p. 8) puts it, ‘‘they [are] not called payments though. They [are] called sacrifices for the future of one’s country y’’. True security, as the texts articulate, is to be found in the oneness of the Qaum (nation) or Ummah.
Nationalistic Articulation Through Exclusion One of the most common techniques of nationalistic articulation or meaning fixation is through inclusion and exclusion. Since subjects understand and relate to each other by means of meanings to which a sign, word or notion is assigned, only those who fulfill the criteria laid out by the articulation are included in the meaning of that sign. The rest are automatically excluded or in other words, ‘othered’. Articulation of the ‘other’ serves to order the subject positioning through mechanisms of classification and hierarchization. Such articulation is to a large extent based on the exclusion of women and minorities from the citizenship discourse. With respect to the minorities in Pakistan (religious, linguistic, ethnic) the exclusion is explicit and brazen. A general reading of the texts gives the clear impression that there are no minorities in Pakistan. For instance, in all chapters on the population of Pakistan in Social Studies texts, the population statistics and explanations of these statistics are given in terms of whole numbers (see PTB, 2002c, 2002d, 2002e). No breakdown of the minority population in Pakistan is ever given. In the explanation, while the Christian minority might get an occasional mention, the Hindu minority never makes an appearance. Parsis, Bohras, Khojas, Memons, etc. (religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan), only make it into the texts in the context of their support for the Pakistan movement. Sections on prominent personalities (mashaheer) do not include personalities such as Justices Cornelius and Dorab Patel, Sir Zafarullah Khan (the first foreign minister of Pakistan, who belonged to the Qadiani, aka, Ahmadi minority declared non-Muslim by Bhutto) or even the Nobel Laureate Dr. Abdul Salam (also a Qadiani). Similarly, the ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities belonging to other sects of Islam, such as the Shias and Ismailis, are also by and large excluded by way of not mentioning them at all. The overall picture that the texts paint is that of a homogeneous population.
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Normalizing Militarism Another feature of the nationalist articulation is through normalization of militarism. Militarism is normalized by the texts in many ways. At times it is conveyed in subtle ways through poems and isolated verses, mainly by figures such as Iqbal, Hali, etc., whose nationalist credentials have already been established by the text. At other times militarism is normalized through narratives of epic proportion from that period of early Islamic history known as the Ghazvat (literally battles but the reference is always to the battles that were fought either during the lifetime of the Prophet (PBH) or in the years following his death). The battles and wars of early Muslim adventurers (conquerors) in India such as Muhammad bin Qasim, Mahmood Ghaznavi, Ahmad Shah Abdali and Sultan Tughlaq are also used to this end. At yet other times militarism is normalized through stories from the three wars between India and Pakistan. The stories of the sacrifices by the valiant sons of Pakistan who were awarded the Nishan e Haider (the highest military award) also work to this end. Last but not least essays, poems and chapters on issues seemingly mundane and unrelated to war are peppered with articulations that normalize militarism and militancy. The textbooks to constitute subjects with militarist and often violent consciousness faithfully follow guidelines provided by the CD. Learning competencies that the CD for Social Studies for classes 1–5 (GoP, 2002b, p. 31) seeks to develop include: developing an understanding of Hindu–Muslim differences and the need for Pakistan; enhancing the understanding of the forces working against Pakistan; promoting realization about the Kashmir issue; evaluating the role of India with reference to aggression; and discussing the role of the present government in reestablishing the sound position of Pakistan and its freedom fighters before the international community. The text seeks to normalize nationalism based on religion, especially as manifested in the two-nation theory (the doctrine that Hindus and Muslims of India were two separate nations that could not live together formed the doctrinal basis for demand for partition of India into two separate states). It also seeks to normalize the Hindu–Muslim binary, the normalcy of war between India and Pakistan, the notion of Jihad (through reference to Kashmir) and the normalcy of the state as the ultimate protector. The textbooks produced according to these guidelines not only normalize militarism, but also gender it. For example, in an Urdu textbook from 1970s (PTB, 1974) a gendered and militarist explanation of Jihad is used to normalize militarism. In the handwritten comments and edits of the subject specialist (name withheld),
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the word ‘children’ in sentence ‘‘there cannot be any Muslim who has not heard of the word Jihad and Muslims know very well the meaning of this word but there may be some children who might not be clear about it’’ (p. 12) is struck out and is replaced by the word larkay (boys). The addressee of the text is gendered and the whole lesson then proceeds to explore the militaristic dimension of Jihad. Though war or military action in fact constitutes only one form of Jihad, the text presents it as the only one and it is boys who should understand this concept well. The essay on Minere Pakistan (The Pakistan Monument) in class 4 Urdu textbooks (PTB, 2002a) has a graphic representation of how militarism is inculcated as a normal value in children. The pictorial representation of Jinnah’s address to the Lahore crowd also includes a drawing of a boy holding a placard with inscription ‘‘seenay pay goli khayangai’’ (we will take a bullet on our chest) (PTB, 2002a, p. 39). The same textbook also has pictures of the Pakistan Army. Similarly the class 3 Urdu textbook (PTB, 2002b) shows battle scenes on the cover of the book. All references to the 1965 war between India and Pakistan start with the gendered assertion that Indian forces attacked Pakistan on September 6, 1965 in the dark of the night. The implications here are: Indians are not ‘man’ enough to attack in the light of day (as if military strategy, tactics and timing have no role in war planning); they did not officially declare war (the reference here is to the era of pre-mechanized warfare when men used to challenge men); and when confronted by the Pakistani armed forces they ran away like women. In comparison to this, when the Pakistani Air Force pilots attacked Pathankot (an Indian Air Force Base) in the dark of the night, the timing was evidence of sophisticated battle planning and sheer courage. It is interesting to see the metaphors used in the articulation of these heroes. First, as noted above, is the use of metaphors of animals of prey (lion, falcon, eagle, etc.). Then they are masculanized with metaphors of male sexuality. Mohammad Hussain Shaheed, for example, is described as having a sinewy body, big black eyes and thick brows (PTB, 2002b, p. 65). Then they are ascribed with Rambo-like superhuman qualities. In accounts of their martyrdom each one of them fought with multiple bullets in him and fought until the mission was accomplished. Take, for instance, the account of Lance Naik Muhammad Mahfooz. As the narrative goes ‘‘One of Mahfooz’s leg was injured by a cannon round. But he kept on crawling on his chest and jumped into the enemy bunker. The enemy sprayed fire at him and a bullet hit his chest. But even in this condition he locked the neck of an enemy soldier in the ‘vice’ of his hands. Meanwhile another soldier fired on him and
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a third one drove his bayonet into his body. Even when he ‘drank the cup of martyrdom’ the neck of the enemy was still in his grip. Even the enemy acknowledged his bravery’’ (PTB, 2002f, p. 83). Finally, these martyrs are included in the list of revered people by adding the suffix of rahmaatu’lla alaihi (May God have mercy upon him) which according to Metcalf (1990, p. xiv) usually follows ‘‘the names of saints, great religious authorities, and other deceased pious persons’’. The picture that emerges from this articulation is that of a masculine, brave, nationalist and revered person. This is the true citizen of Pakistan as articulated by the discourse through school texts. What it excludes is a majority of subjects (especially women) who have no chance of fulfilling the criteria laid down by such an articulation. The masculine subject is positioned by the discourse at the epitome of nationalist and religious authority. The feminine subject is excluded from this realm and can never hope to make it into the list of either nationalist or revered heroes and thus is relegated to the list of second-class citizen. Market and The School17 Like in many other developing countries the major players in defining educational policies in Pakistan are: (a) the state, (b) market and (c) international agencies such as the World Bank, IMF, etc. Globalization has had a direct impact on education in the developing countries through what can be described as ‘finance-driven’ reforms. The main force behind these reforms has been the international lending agencies such as the World Bank. Jones (1992) argues that it is not possible to understand World Bank’s educational policy independently of its position as a bank. Off lately World Bank has made its ideology of globalization central to its statements on educational policy. As such the Bank has established a set of preconditions for successful educational policy and practice. According to Jones: These preconditions are precisely the agenda of globalization, championed by a bank that seeks to consolidate its own role at the heart of an integrated world economy. For the first time there is unambiguous consonance between the bank’s economic, political and ideological goals and those of its education sector. Explicitly, the market is looked to for provision of accountability. Choice transcends democracy. Freedom is trivialized. (Jones, 2000, p. 39)
Carnoy (1999, pp. 42–43) summarizes the list of recommendations of the Bank as follows: (a) shift of public funding for education from higher to lower levels of education;
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(b) expansion of secondary and higher education through increased privatization; (c) reduction of public spending per pupil in countries with ‘high’ teacher pupil ratio in primary and secondary education (less than1:40) through increasing class size; (d) increase of the quality of education through relatively costless ‘efficiency’ reforms, such as decentralization. As a result of the above policies many developing countries have not been able to finance the expansion of secondary and higher education with the public funds that were available earlier, and now have to depend on families and private sources to finance secondary and higher education privately. That has been done mainly in two ways: one, by allowing the creation of accredited private secondary schools and universities in large numbers and two, by limiting the public assistance given to all schools, including public institutions, and by increasing the fees to cover the gap between cost per student and public assistance per student. Let us briefly examine some of the manifestations of the above policy that are already visible in Pakistan. There is, on one level, a mushrooming of institutes of higher learning, a new phenomenon that is very visible in many developing countries. Private universities owned by businessmen and based on strikingly Western entrepreneurial models in both ideology and agenda are a manifestation of this trend. The main aim of these universities is profit making with little concern about curriculum development or relevance. Thus, not surprisingly, the programs of education that these institutions offer are all market-oriented. There is hardly any such institution in the private sector that offers programs that prepares the population for citizenship. Our research in Pakistan shows that there are only a handful of institutions in the private sector that are engaged in teacher’s training. Even of these only two (The Agha Khan University and the Ali Institute of Education) have any meaningful teacher training programs. Furthermore, education faculties and teacher training programs in the public sector are almost on the bottom of the policy totem pole. In sum, either the public or the private sector does not consider any education that does not have the potential of leading to a money-oriented career worthy. A few private universities that can muster up enough resources and finances are able to establish links with prestigious foreign institutions and can assure the public of higher quality. These universities however charge fees that are out of reach of most of the population. On the other hand, publicly funded secondary schools and universities severely lack resources.
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There is little choice left for the general populations. Children of the elite get to attend private schools and universities; the gap between the rich and the poor widens as the conditions of public schooling deteriorates. In short, the net result is the negation of the spirit of EFA declarations. The repercussions of such finance-driven policies for the educational system of Pakistan are multilayered. For example, ‘for-profit’ philosophy affects the basic objectives of a mass-public education, curriculum, professionalism of the teachers and teacher–student relationships. Furthermore, philosophical dilemmas of tuition-based instructions undermine open access and healthy competition and increase the gap between rich and poor. As a result schooling becomes more stratified even at lower levels and the national economic competition on a global scale gets translated into sub-national competition in class access to educational resources. Parents who can afford can actually buy better future for their children, whereas the cost of education remains out of reach for the majority of poorest population. Thus, what apparently seems like an increase in access to education is not real. In reality the system perpetuates an educational system that is not accessible to all. Thus, we see that practices such as entrepreneurialism, managerialism and privatization are increasingly evident in education in Pakistan. More alarming is the fact that above-mentioned trend of privatization is not confined to secondary or tertiary education but is now being extended to primary education also. Lately under the banner of Social Action Program (SAP) primary public schools are being handed out to private parties under various initiatives like ‘adopt a school’, ‘community schools’, ‘setting of computer labs in public schools’, etc. Thus, on one hand, there is a rhetoric of providing free UPE to all Pakistani children; on the other hand, government is mediating with private parties to set up fees for delivery of primary education. Let us emphasize that it is important to keep in mind that private education does not always correspond with good quality education as is often though in the context of developed world. As mentioned earlier in Pakistan there is a multitier system within the private education sector. This is not surprising as many developing countries are marked by corruption, nepotism, low wages and other non-democratic practices that make it easy for business to bribe educational inspectors and continue to make profit without any fear of accountability. Our research indicates that many problems started appearing soon after the involvement of private parties in education during the phase one of SAP. It is also interesting to note that the underlying premise of the Social Action Program (SAP) was to improve access and effectiveness of basic social services as in elementary education, primary
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health care and population welfare services. However, when improvement is defined only in economic terms, through privatization the benefits are never distributed in equitable terms as the case of Pakistan’s efforts to improve education proves. As Berger and Luckman (1997) articulate, the positive or potentially positive aspects of finance-driven educational model are quickly complicated by the exigencies of education in ‘‘maintenance of the symbolic universe’’ (p. 124) particularly in a context in which diversity and the right ‘‘to be’’ are rhetorically being affirmed but are continually under threat from the unresolved issues of Western hegemony. Another anomaly in the current rhetoric is that although education is still spoken of in terms of national development, it has so far not been linked to the zones of intellectual struggles. As a matter of fact, the culture of the market dominant in educational institutions seeks to decanter and delegitimize the discourse of struggle.
CONCLUSIONS As the EFA movement enters into its 25th year it faces a new set of challenges. In the preceding discussion, using empirical and discursive data from Pakistan we point out two of the major challenges that the movement is and will be facing in what we call the era of globalization. This era is marked at the same time with homogenizing tendencies that are visible in the economic integration at the global level and the disintegrating tendencies that are only too apparent in the emergences of nationalist identities in many parts of the world. These tendencies are also apparent in the educational policy making in many developing countries. Tensions between the demands of the global capital and the nationalist agenda (at home) result in educational policies that rather than empowering the subjects create fissures along class, gender and ethnic dimensions. In the case of Pakistan, the finance-driven and forprofit educational initiatives are resulting in a further deepening of the class lines. Those who can afford receive an education that further strengthens their socio-economic advantage, while those who cannot afford private education face a double whammy. One, they are left behind in terms of socioeconomic mobility, and two, they are exposed to a nationalist agenda that results in the militarization of the society. There are but few examples of nations where nationalism has been used to achieve positive educational ends with considerable success. Cuba is one such example. However, in Pakistan as in a number of other developing societies nationalism has been
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used in/through educational discourses to constitute militaristic yet not questioning populations. In the final analysis any meaningful realization of the goals enshrined in the Jomtein and the Dakar declarations will have to put empowerment at the center of EFA-oriented educational reforms. Mere emphasis on access in numerical terms might result in a greater number of subjects who can read and write but will certainly not result in a population that is empowered to make life choices and decisions. Finally, in our opinion, defining educational quality in terms of empowerment is the only way in which militaristic nationalism in educational discourses can be countered and pushed back.
NOTES 1. These include instruments and declarations resulting from regional education conferences in 1960, the International Bill of Human rights in 1970s, the Jomtien Conference in 1990 and various others. For details see EFA global monitoring report 2005 (GMR-2005) available at http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ ID=35939&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. 2. For example, the 1993 Biennial Report of Institute for International Research identifies ~50 different definitions of educational quality (Adams, 1993 as cited in UNESCO 2005, p. 29). 3. GMR-2005, for instance, identifies humanism, behaviorism, critical pedagogy, post-colonialism and post-modernism/post-structuralism as some of the traditions from which such definitions of educational quality emanate (UNESCO 2005, p. 36). The report somehow leaves out feminist traditions, which provide an alternative paradigm for understanding and articulating education and quality of education. 4. GMR-2005 terms Cuba and South Korea as high achievers and places them with Canada and Finland among the high performance countries. The report terms following countries as ambitious countries in terms of their zeal to achieve high educational standards: Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. For details see UNESCO (2005, pp. 49–56). 5. For liberal feminist views on education please see Wollstonecraft, Martin, Noddings, Nussbaum and Greene. For critical feminist perspectives see Hooks and Lather. For post-structuralist perspectives see Gore, Nicholson, etc. 6. Some scholars working in post-foundational tradition however give due importance to social structure along with discursive formations. For example, see Bourdieu (1990), Fairclough (1995) and Laclau and Mouffe (2001). 7. Naseem (2004, 2006), for example, demonstrates that in the case of women in Pakistan the kind of education that is being imparted actually disempowers rather than empowering women. 8. We gathered information that forms the basis of evidence provided in the following section on several field trips to Pakistan between September 2002 and March 2004. Both of us would like to thank the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, for separate research awards that each of us were awarded to cover
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our research and travel expenses (Naseem, 2002–2003; Arshad-Ayaz, 2003–2004). The following sets of questions guided our research: How are subjects and subjectivities constituted discursively in the educational discourse in Pakistan? What are the nodal points of the discourse around which the meanings of most of the signs are fixed by the discourse? 9. Respondents in this respect included junior and senior bureaucrats at the Ministries of Education and Finance that we interviewed during our respective field trips to Pakistan (see footnote no. 8). In accordance with the tri-council ethics of research policy (Canada) the identities of these individuals are kept confidential. The purpose of interviews was to obtain information about the state of education in Pakistan. 10. Neither the Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan (http://www. statpak.gov.pk/depts/az/az.html), nor the Economic Survey of Pakistan (2002) gives the definition of literacy to explain their reported or projected estimates. 11. It is important to keep in mind the high dropout rates when we talk about enrollment rates. 12. With the exception of the Bhutto period (1972–1977) educational institutions in Pakistan have existed in both domains. 13. It is alleged that some of these school are also known to charge a premium known as ‘donation’ which can range from anywhere between Rs. 50,000 (C$ 1,000) to 150,000 (C$ 3,000) for admission of those students who do not qualify the entrance exam. 14. Although most scholars read this as Bhutto’s nationalist/populist/antiWestern rhetoric, there is more to it in my opinion. Taken into consideration in conjunction with the masculinist symbolism that was rampant in senior Bhutto’s self-characterization and the titles that he bestowed upon himself (Sher e Pakistan, i.e., the lion of Pakistan), his cabinet colleagues (he publicly used to call Hafiz Pirzada Sohna Munda: the pretty boy) and his opponent (words not suitable for an academic dissertation) and his playboy lifestyle, it clearly shows that it was not only his nationalist/populist rhetoric that mandated shalwar kameez as the nationalist dress. For an excellent exposition of Bhutto’s self-characterization see Syed (1978). For an equally good exposition of his life style see Taseer (1980). 15. The policy details the following steps in this respect: ‘‘Introduced English, Economics, Pakistan Studies and Maths at secondary level in 140 Madaris. English, Economics and Computer Science at Higher Secondary level are being offered in 200 Madaris. In compliance with the present policy 8000 Madaris are to be facilitated to teach formal subjects from primary to higher secondary levels. The policy aims: To facilitate integration of Deeni Madaris with the formal education system. To teach formal subjects in 8000 Deeni Madaris to bridge the gap between Madrassah Education and Formal Education System. To open the lines of communication with Ulama who run the Madaris to impart formal education in addition to religious education for spreading of Islamic values at national and international level. To improve and update knowledge of their teachers in formal subjects through workshops at different parts of the country’’ (Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, 2004, online). 16. CDs refer to the document titled ‘National Curriculum’ developed and produced by the CW of the Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad,
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2002. It is on the basis of these documents that the provinces develop their curricula and the textbooks. 17. This section draws on a much larger article by Arshad-Ayaz (2007a). Also see Arshad-Ayaz (2007b).
REFERENCES Anwar, M. (1982). Images of male and female roles in school and college textbooks. Islamabad: Women’s Division, Government of Pakistan. Arshad-Ayaz, A. (2007a). From producing citizens to producing managers: Education in a globalized world. In: C. Yeakey (Ed.), Schooling and education in global societies. Oxford: Elsevier Inc. Arshad-Ayaz, A. (2007b). Globalization and marginalization of higher education. In: K. Biraimah, W. Gaudelli, & J. Zajda (Eds), Education and social inequality in the global culture. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Aziz, K. (1993). The murder of history: A critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan. Lahore: Vanguard. Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1997). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. In: M. Featherstone (Ed.), Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity. London: Sage. Bourdieu, P. (1990). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology. M. Adamson (Trans). Oxford: Polity. Carnoy, M. (1999). Globalization and educational reform: What planners need to know. Paris: UNESCO. Dei, G. S., & Karumnachery, L. (2001). School reforms in Ontario: The marketization of education and the resulting silence on equity. In: J. P. Portelli & R. P. Solomon (Eds), The erosion of democracy in education: From critique to possibilities. Calgary, Canada: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. Economic Survey of Pakistan. (2002–2003). Islamabad: Government of Pakistan. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman. Fenstermacher, G., & Soltis, J. (2004). Approaches to teaching (4th ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Freire, P. (1990). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. GoP. (2003). National plan of action on education for all (2001–2015). Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, Pakistan. Available at http://72.14.207.104/search?q= cache:wxIIFEtMJNgJ:unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/ UNPAN018946.pdf+Pakistan+National+Plan+of+Action+on+Education+for+ All&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a GoP. (2004). Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education website. Available at www. moe,gov.pk Government of Pakistan. (1959). Report of the Commission on National Education. Ministry of Education, Pakistan. Government of Pakistan (1972). The education policy. Pakistan: Ministry of Education.
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Government of Pakistan, Federal Ministry of Education (Curriculum Wing) (2002a). English (compulsory) for classes 6–8. Islamabad: National Book Foundation. Government of Pakistan, Federal Ministry of Education (Curriculum Wing) (2002b). Early childhood education. Islamabad: National Book Foundation. Greene, M. (2003). Teaching as a possibility: A light in dark times. In: Josey-Bass reader on teaching. Haraway, D. (1991). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial presence. In: D. Haraway (Ed.), Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1990). Feminism, science, and the anti-enlightenment critiques. In: L. Nicholson (Ed.), Feminism/post-modernism. New York: Routledge. Hasnain, K., & Nayyar, A. H. (1997). Conflict and violence in the educational process. In: Z. Mian & I. Ahmad (Eds), Making enemies, creating conflict: Pakistan’s crises of state and society. Lahore: Mashal. Jones, P. W. (1992). World Bank financing of education: Lending, learning and development. London: Routledge. Jones, P. (2000). Globalization and internationalism: Democratic prospects for world education. In: N. Stromquist & K. Monkman (Eds), Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures. Lanham, MD: Towman & Littlefield Publishers. Kardar, S. (1998). The economics of education. In: P. Hoodbhoy (Ed.), Education and the state: Fifty years of Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso. Macaulay, L. (1995). Minute on Indian education. In: B. Ashcroft, G. Griffith & H. Tiffin (Eds), The post-colonial studies reader. London: Routledge. Martin, J. R. (1999). Women, schools and cultural wealth. In: C. Titone & K. Maloney (Eds), Women’s philosophies of education. Upper Saddle River, OH: Merril. McLaren, P. (1998). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (3rd ed.). New York: Longman. Metcalf, B. (1990). Perfecting women: Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi’s Bihishti zewar: A partial translation with commentary. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ministry of Education website. (2004). www.moe.gov.pk Nandy, A. (2003). The romance of the state and the fate of dissent in the tropics. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Naseem, M. A. (2004). Education, the state and subject: Constitution of gendered subjectivities in/ through school curricula in Pakistan; a post-structuralist analysis of social studies and Urdu textbooks for grades I–VIII. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Canada: Montreal. Naseem, M. A. (2006). The Soldier and the seductress: A post-structuralist analysis of gendered citizenship through inclusion in and exclusion from language and social studies textbooks in Pakistan. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10(4&5), 449–468. Noddings, N. (1995). Philosophy of education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. PIHS. (2002). http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/fbs/statistics/pihs2000-2001/pihs2000-2001.html Punjab Textbook Board (1974). Urdu ki aathween kitab. Lahore: Sh. Barkat Ali and Sons. Punjab Textbook Board (2002a). Urdu for class four. Lahore: Izhar Sons. Punjab Textbook Board (2002b). Urdu for class five. Lahore: Izhar Sons. Punjab Textbook Board (2002c). Social Studies for class four. Lahore: Izhar Sons.
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Punjab Textbook Board (2002d). Social Studies for class five. Lahore: Izhar Sons. Punjab Textbook Board (2002e). Social Studies for class six. Lahore: Izhar Sons. Punjab Textbook Board (2002f). Social Studies for class eight. Lahore: Izhar Sons. Rahman, F. (1953). New education in the making of Pakistan. London: Cassell and Co. Saigol, R. (1995). Knowledge and identity: Articulation of gender in educational discourse in Pakistan. Lahore, Pakistan: ASR Publications. Sleeter, C. (2004). Standardizing imperialism, rethinking schools. Available at http://www. rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_01/impe191.shtml, retrieved on February 10, 2006. Syed, A. (1978). Z. A. Bhutto’s self-characterization and Pakistani political culture. Asian Survey, XVIII(12), 1250–1266. Taseer, S. (1980). Bhutto: A political biography. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. UNDP. (2003). Human development report 2003. Oxford University Press, New York. UNESCO. (2003). Gender and education for all: The leap to equality. Available at http://portal. unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=23023&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION=201.html UNESCO. (2005). Available at www.unesco.org/education/efa/ed_for_all/background/ background_brochure_EFA.shtml#advance UNHCHR. (1990). Available at www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
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GROUNDS FOR PRIORITIZING EDUCATION FOR GIRLS: THE TELLING CASE OF LEFT-BEHIND RURAL CHINA Vilma Seeberg, Heidi Ross, Jinghuan Liu and Guangyu Tan ABSTRACT This chapter reviews the status of Education For All (EFA) in China and identifies four gaps: between rural and urban residents, between residents of geographic regions, between ethnicity groups, and between the genders. It turns to examine the educational situation and interests of girls weighed down by the crushing burden of multiple disadvantages in ‘‘left-behind’’ Western China. Based on analysis of macro-level socio-economic and educational conditions, along with rich micro-level data on girls’ vigorous pursuit of education, the authors argue that the changing conditions of rural girls’ lives and their education can best be understood from a critical empowerment perspective. Summarizing the global discourse and cross national evidence on the benefits of girls’ education, the chapter and looks beyond a utilitarian perspective and argues for the cogency of a critical empowerment framework. Filled with telling stories and case studies of Han Chinese, Tibetan, and Muslim girls, this chapter proposes that Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 109–154 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08004-2
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prioritizing girls’ education in Western China is crucial and required for achieving the MDG of gender parity. Even though girls are often stranded by family financial conditions, their actions and ideas seeing education as their future reflect a changing gender identity and role in the family and society. The fieldwork suggests that educating girls promotes localized development, reduces dangerous levels of economic gaps and social instability, but also advances hard to measure effects: personal and civil empowerment, and sustainable, harmonious cultural change – as well as MDG. Educating girls is a social development policy that works. It has immediate benefits for nutrition, health, savings and reinvestment at the family, community and ultimately country levelyIt is a long-term investment that yields an exceptionally high return. It is also, I would venture, a tool for preventing conflict and building peace. From generation to generation, women have passed on the culture of peace. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 2000, launching a 10-Year Initiative on Girls’ Education at the opening of The World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal.
Why would girls in remote, rural, village China, a largely non-literate world that favors boys, be clamoring for an education? There they were in our research, and there they were in Chinese and international headlines; in the French La Liberation (Haski, Feb. 2002), in China Daily (Bo, October 23, 2003); in the New York Times (Riding, 2004); Asia Times (asiatimes.com, 2003); and in the story that may have focused international attention on this phenomenon finally published in English as The Diary of Ma Yan (Haski, 2004). Trying to answer this question challenged us to understand the landscape of basic education for ‘‘left behind’’ girls in Western China.1 This chapter reviews findings of cross-national studies on prioritizing girls’ education and argues that the changing conditions of rural girls’ lives and engagement in schools, as well as their educational aspirations and expectations need to be reconceptualized with an integrated critical empowerment framework. It summarizes the socio-economic and educational conditions in Western China and provides rich micro-level data, including the voices of girls gathered on the ground by the two principal researchers. On the basis of these findings, we propose that prioritizing reconceptualized girls’ schooling in the marginal regions will be crucial to China’s efforts in not just meeting but moving beyond EFA gender parity goals of 2015. China’s official Education For All (EFA) figures represent a phenomenal increase in enrollment and survival rates at the primary school level due to expansion of nine-year compulsory education in the 1990s (UNESCO EFA Country Report, 2000; Kroeber & Miller, 2005). Likewise, between 1990
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and 2000, China experienced the sharpest decline in illiteracy rates (from 22.21 to 9.08%) of any E-9 country, by 30% for men and 18% for women (Mputu, 2001). China’s youth (15–24) literacy rate was particularly high, 99.2% for males and 98.5% for females. By 2000 the vast majority of Chinese parents were educated, the population of school age children had dropped, classroom space had increased, and the majority of classroom teachers met minimum national requirements. Primarily on the basis of 2000 census findings, the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China (2001) declared (prematurely) on New Year’s Day 2001 that China had met the goals of achieving the ‘‘two basics’’ of literacy, that is basically achieving nine-year compulsory education and eradicating illiteracy among youths and middle-aged adults.2 (Kroeber & Miller, 2005) Demographic, educational, and socio-economic trends at the turn of the millennium sustained upward movement in enrollment rates, although national reportage continued to be controversial.3 China reported basic education enrollment figures that were higher than those of most other similar income countries, showing more than 98.4% of the 6–11 age cohort enrolled in primary school and over 78.4% of the 12–15 age cohort in lower secondary school (Ross, 2005). On all international rankings China’s reported figures in school access, alleviating poverty, and success in raising the living standards of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens are extraordinary (UNDP, 2005). This success has led international organizations to conclude, perhaps overly enthusiastically, ‘‘China is right on track to achieve the 2005 and 2015 goals of gender parity in education’’ (Rima Salah, Xinhua News Agency, November 28, 2005b). Nonetheless, 25 years of breathless economic and human capital expansion have dramatically increased social inequalities in income and social provision (Study Group, 2005; Kroeber & Miller, 2005). Poverty reduction slowed in the second half of the 1990s and the number of Chinese citizens in poverty remained relatively constant, while the better off reaped the benefits of China’s robust economic growth rate. Chinese Premier Jiabao Wen at The Fifth High Level Group Meeting on EFA in Beijing in November, 2005, allowed that ‘‘there is still educational disparity between different regions and between rural and urban areas’’ (Xinhua News Agency, November 29, 2005c). Zhang Xinsheng, Vice-minister of Education (MOE), on the issuance of the ‘‘The National Report on China’s EFA’’ (November 10, 2005), likewise acknowledged that in rural and literacy education, China faced numerous problems. For example, China still had 87 million illiterate persons4 (Guan, 2005), and in Tibet more than half the population, 54.9%, was illiterate (State Statistical Bureau, 2005, Tables 4–12). Increased urban–rural
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disparities in income and resources negatively affected educational attainment and achievement for rural and migrant children jeopardizing full literacy and its social benefits.5 In this context, China faced four EFA gaps (in descending order of severity) between rural and urban residents, between residents of geographic regions, between ethnicities6, and between genders (UNDP, 2005; Subject Group, 2005).
THE SUSTAINING POWER OF GIRLS’ EDUCATION Keeping China’s larger education and development context in mind, we argue that supporting girls’ schooling in Western China addresses what the Asian Development Bank calls her biggest challenge, namely, extending development to its isolated, rural, and hard-to-reach citizens (Spohr, 2005). Educating girls at the margins strikes at the crux of so-called intractable poverty and has the potential to initiate transgenerational, sustainable development – particularly in declining regions. If reaching its hard-to-reach citizens remains China’s biggest development problem, and improving gender parity is the best predictor of progress toward EFA goals (UNESCO EDI, 2004, p. 113), then investing heavily and effectively in girls’ education in the isolated, rural West is a highly promising strategy to assure China’s real success (including expanded access to secondary as well as primary education) in reaching 2015 EFA goals on time. Given extensive crosscountry experience, we argue that a mixed model of increased state aid and on-the-ground non-governmental groups working from the beginning of policy conception in concert with blended international financing can provide appropriate, effective, sustainable, quality educational development that ‘‘goes to scale’’ in West China – by reaching girls first. Two important local considerations inform our analysis. First, rapid economic, demographic, and social transformation has created a new context for girls’ education which requires an agile and critical reframing of policy and implementation – as well as data collection and interpretation. Supporting this effort, we undertook qualitative case studies to provide needed data. Second and more significantly, girls in impoverished counties were showing up in anecdotal accounts aggressively seeking education, suggesting that striking changes in social relations may be taking place. Since 2000, economic, educational, and social contexts in such communities have been shifting markedly. For the first time in 2001 the absolute number of the agricultural population declined and by a considerable one million persons (Subject Group, 2005, p. 12). And the economic gap not only between urban
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and rural settings but also between social strata within each of the urban and rural settings increased markedly.7 In declining villages where subsistence farming was being abandoned, where fathers and often mothers left to find work for wages wherever they could, and where connecting highways, cell phones, motorcycles, and running water had yet to reach and make an impact on the local economy, paradoxically, daughters were freer to go to school than before – if those schools were affordable. Paradoxically, we argue, in remote communities of China it is the relative lack of development that propels girls into school, which surprisingly quickly reshapes how parents, communities, and school administrators think about schooling for girls. The needs of communities in China’s ‘‘left-behind’’ regions underscore the urgency in improving girls’ education. Evidence from our case study schools8 in these regions indicates remarkable availability and readiness of ‘‘left behind’’ girls (and their parents) to invest their energies in education and to persist in school – battling harsh environmental conditions and brazening out cultural constraints. The communities in China’s ‘‘left-behind’’ regions have been on the wrong side of severely unbalanced development policy for many decades. In these communities, structural conditions, such as lack of social services, transportation and energy infrastructure, erosion, soil depletion, and population density have combined to create excessive poverty and barriers to development. Yet, in just such locations we have found girls pressing for schooling so that they can take on unexpected responsibilities for their birth families and communities. These new roles of potential personal empowerment signal the possibility of significant cultural change. Bottom up pressures from rural families for increased access to effective schooling convinces us for the need to reevaluate China’s dominant ‘‘developmentalist’’ discourse on girls’ education. This discourse is the foundation for state policies that prioritize girls, particularly in marginal regions, and rests on a conceptualization of educated girls as ‘‘mothers of development’’ who often are seen as the ‘‘means’’ for reducing poverty, containing population growth, engendering public health, increasing educational attainment, improving human resources, and strengthening the nation. Rightly so, this assessment assigns girls and women roles as both recipients and agents of development, not its victims. However, this version of agency is built on a narrowly utilitarian assessment of female lives, rarely considered as ‘‘ends’’ in themselves. Our alternative critical empowerment framework incorporates this powerful element – girls seeking to become ‘‘partners in dialogue about’’ the opportunities in their lives and about becoming autonomous literate adults (Limage, 2005).
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As we discuss below, China’s developmentalist approach ironically overlooks girls who are taking educational initiative at the local level, who are transforming themselves into stakeholders in their birth-families and local community. At the micro level, critical psycho-social empowerment enables them to develop skills to express their creative energies, exercise new responsibilities, exert more control over their own affairs, and ultimately help find appropriate solutions to local problems.9 Critical empowerment thus extends to the macro level of socio-economic empowerment, the ‘‘mastery that people, organizations and communities acquire over their own affairs and the control that they are able to exercise on their environment’’ (Easton in Limage, 2005, p. 6). Without recognizing and supporting individual/micro and social/macro critical empowerment dimensions, developmentalist policies and programs can overlook changed female identities and raised expectations and engender distrust, lack of buy-in or demand, continued unbalanced development, and corruption (Martin, 2006; World Bank, 2005). They can also endanger social cohesion at the most fundamental level of the family and community. Programs must incorporate measures that enable the conditions wherein girls and women can realize more fully their potential over their lifetime, to improve their well being, to actualize their potential, and improve the lives of their families over several generations. Educational programs focused on girls and their potential will best be designed and carried out by governments working in close cooperation with NGO’s that have local expertise. International funding agencies as the third partner are needed to supplement government financing, enhance accountability, and to continually advocate learning from cross-national experience. Policy and organization based on the above principles are most likely to provide appropriate schooling10 that will be in demand locally and that will promote sustainable quality of life in West China. At the national level, they can ensure meeting EFA goals,11 and, more importantly, reduce dangerous levels of economic gaps and social instability.
GLOBAL DISCOURSE ON THE BENEFITS OF GIRLS’ EDUCATION: FROM DEVELOPMENTALISM TO CRITICAL EMPOWERMENT A flurry of recent international reports has highlighted the importance of girls’ education to global development, sustainability, and well-being.
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Drawing on the powerful developmentalist rhetoric of the importance of girls’ schooling, UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children Report (2003) calls girls’ education the ‘‘most effective means of combating many of the most profound challenges to human development.’’ Education for girls is a key to meeting people’s basic needs, but also contributes effectively to the interruption of the intergenerational cycle of poverty (Haller, 2002, p. 125). The respected State of Mothers annual report by Save the Children (SC) in 2005, The power and promise of girls’ education, was published under the banner, ‘‘educate girls today and it will create lasting change for the next generation y Where mothers do well, so do their children.’’ Educating girls will ‘‘enhance the well-being of children, reduce fertility in the midterm, and improve prospects for future generations.’’ (p. 17) The social benefits of educating girls have long been known. Econometric studies from the early 1980s have shown convincing evidence of the high social returns on investments in girls’ education (Caldwell, 1979; Cochrane, 1979; King & Hill, 1991). Education helps women marry later, have fewer children, reduces infant mortality rates, increases their earning power, improves family hygiene, nutrition, overall health care, children’s well being, and their daughters’ chances of enrolling in school by 40% or more. Yamarak and Ghosh’s (2003) econometric meta-study found that lower proportions of girls in school have a significant negative impact on economic growth (Abu-Ghaida & Klasen, 2004). Abu-Ghaida and Klasen (2004), based on an extensive review of cross-national quantitative studies, estimated that by 2005, the countries that are off track in educating girls to reach gender parity are likely to suffer 0.1–0.3% points lower per capita growth rates, will have 0.1–0.4 more children per woman, as well as resulting higher child under nutrition and mortality (p.1075). SC (2005) estimated that one year of female schooling leads to a 0.3–0.5 reduction in fertility per woman and reduces child death probability by 2%. On a larger scale, in a developing country with a population of 20 million, providing one additional year of female education may result in saving the lives of 60,000 children. And SC found what makes a most convincing argument for prioritizing female education, that educated mothers are more likely than fathers to invest their earnings in the health care, food, and education of their children. One study found that increases in child survival rates are 20% higher if the mother is educated instead of the father (SC, 2005). The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003/4, moving well beyond a developmentalist framework, offers strategies for national and micro policies that apply in the cases discussed here. The report includes broad frameworks like gender equality in property rights, as well as immediate impact
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policies more specifically targeting poverty reduction and sustainable development, which includes empowerment: lost-income replacement and school fees for families with girls in schools; school feeding or take-home rations,12 both of which offset opportunity costs; locating schools close to settlements; providing safe and sanitary physical conditions in the schools, particularly in areas where male dominance and sexual aggression is accepted practice; and empowerment strategies, such as anti-bias instruction along with training in practical and strategic life skills. In its report, The State of the World’s Children 2004, Girls, Education and Development, UNICEF urges leaders from all levels of society to take a number of steps to promote girls’ education as an essential component of development efforts, ensuring equality of outcome as well as equality of opportunity to obtain high-quality education by means of the following: creating a national ethos for girls’ education; abolition of all school fees for free, universal, and compulsory primary schooling; scaling up HIV/AIDS prevention programs13 and gender sensitive early childhood programs; improving water and sanitation in home and schools; and reducing violence to protect children from exploitation and abuse. Financial strategies include integrating the country’s programs at three levels – investment, policies, and institutions; service delivery; new conceptual frameworks; increasing international funding for education; and calling for all industrialized countries to direct 10% of official aid to basic education, with programs that benefit girls as the first priority (pp. 74–78).
Priority of Girls’ Education for Development In 2005, several multilateral and unilateral development agencies have heeded these calls and have prioritized investment in girls’ education as part of the Millennium Goals. The EFA Global Monitoring Report of 2003/4 already declared that improving girls’ education ‘‘should have first priority in all programs of expansion and qualitative improvement,’’ because it will not only increase ‘‘economic growth, increase farm output and incomes of the poorest, [and] nourish citizenship’’ (p. 2). UNICEF in its State of the World’s Children 2004, Girls, Education and Development, called on all industrialized countries to direct 10% of official aid to basic education, with programs that benefit girls as the first priority. The 2002 Asian Development Bank policy on poverty reduction defined as first among its three principal priorities improving the status of women and other marginalized groups (ADB, 2002), and more recently announced the introduction of gender
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equality strategies in every project and activity (Wang, 9/10–11/2005). This priority is also shared by the UK DFID, which directs its priority support to countries where nearly three-quarters of all girls do not have access to basic education, primarily it ‘‘underpins the achievement of all the other United Nations Millennium Development Goals’’ (UK DFID, 2005a, 2005b). Indeed, worldwide consensus has built around the notion that girls’ education is of primary urgency in educational development and for EFA. Save the Children noted ‘‘research has shown that education is a prerequisite for progress on each of the Millennium Development Goals, and that girls’ education is an especially powerful lever to move the world toward a better future’’ (Save the Children, 2005, p. 31). And specifically relevant to Western China, one recent study of rural poverty in the PRC found that public investment in education (compared to other investments) is associated with the highest level of poverty reduction in the Western Region (International Food Policy Research Institute, 2002).
Chinese Girls’ EFA Prospects in the Contexts of Global Strategies and National Policies In 1990 China became a high-profile player in female education as one of the world’s most populated countries with high illiteracy rates, two-thirds of which is contributed by women, which closely matched the worldwide experience.14 In 1996 the Ministry of Education proposed a 10-item integrated intervention initiative to enhance the provision of education for the schoolaged girls. Official statistics listed the number of girls with access to primary school increased from 96.31% in 1995 to nearly 99.1% by 2000; and the percentage of primary school age girls attending five years of school increased from 82.2% to over 94.5% (Ministry of Education, 2003). In 2004, national figures gave the total primary enrollment of boys as 98.97% and girls’ enrollment as having risen to 98.93%, showing a gender gap difference of only 0.04% points (Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2005, p. 14). Broader economic and social reforms have enhanced girls’ and women’s opportunities and have moved in the direction of reconfiguring barriers to girls’ and women’s participation in society. Educational and occupational opportunities for females have expanded and exploration of roles and identity, including femininity and sexuality, has found expression mostly in urban high and popular culture. The impact of market reforms, however, has been uneven and, due to sex discrimination, has had a negative impact
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on women’s places in the job market. Layoffs of ‘‘surplus’’ women, increasing the gender wage gap (with women’s wages dropping from 83 to 70% of men’s according to the World Bank, 2002), and poor female access to social services. In the rural areas, feminization of agriculture has been rapid, as has increased poverty, as well as new opportunities.15 Finally, China’s global ranking in women’s political participation slumped from 12th place in 1994 to 37th in 2004 (World Bank, 2002). Chinese national EFA policies hinge, as they do worldwide, on a primarily developmentalist discourse (Ross, 2006a, 2006b) embodied in Women in Development (WID) and to a lesser extent in Gender and Development (GAD) frameworks (Maslak, 2005). WID frameworks, developed in the late 1970s and 1980s to ‘‘mainstream’’ women in the development process, generally focus on the advancement of women’s productivity through female development projects and programs, especially income-generating ones (Heward, 1999). WID frameworks have been criticized for failing to address the political, economic, social, historical, and cultural norms and structures that sustain women’s subordinate positions (Visvanathan, 1997). In contrast, GAD frameworks move beyond inclusion of WID to emphasize empowerment through the restructuring of gendered institutions and social relations. GAD approaches to development, adopting (and sometimes co-opting) empowerment from activists, made empowerment one of the most salient themes in the international discourse on girls’ education and led to a worldwide consensus ‘‘that empowering women is the most effective tool for development and poverty reduction, and that remaining obstacles to gender equality can be overcome.’’ (Mayanja, 2004; see also EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003/4; FAO/UNESCO, 2002). Studies have focused on individual benefits relating to women’s empowerment and well-being through education, including hard to measure micro and macro benefits, such as raised status in the family; greater voice, sense of worth, bargaining power, ability to weather adverse economic and social instability, and participation in civic life; and increased likelihood of countries embracing democratic practices and increased protection of children in times of crisis and natural disaster (Wang, 2003; Spohr, 2002; Save the Children, 2005; World Bank, 2001). GAD frameworks, informed by feminist theorizing and structuralism, imply a more holistic approach to development and demand attention to political, economic, institutional, and organizational structures that have produced gendered patterns of discrimination in local communities (Vavrus, 2003). For example, the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action mandated gender mainstreaming, which is the application of gender perspectives
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to legal/social norms and standard development monitoring. GAD frameworks also conceptualize power not only as a tool for repression, but also as a force that can be appropriated and utilized to overturn oppressive systems and structures. Consequently, GAD frameworks stress the importance of holding the state (among other institutions) accountable for promoting women’s engagement in society, yet also conceptualize women as agents of change rather than recipients of development assistance. Furthermore, GAD frameworks emphasize women organizing themselves in the political arena (Visvanathan, 1997; Heward, 1999). China’s legislative and policy contexts explicitly support gender parity. The Compulsory Education Law asserts that every child at the age of 6, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, and race, should have the right to nine years of schooling. Guidelines for the 21st century associated with the 2001–2010 ‘‘Program for the Development of Chinese Women’’ (PDCW) (and the ‘‘Program for the Development of Chinese Children’’) established 2010 benchmarks for girls’ educational access and attainment, including a net enrollment rate of school-aged girls of 99%. PDCW 2001–2010 grew out of PDCW 1995–2000 (State Council, 2001, May 22), written primarily from a WID framework – with women conceptualized as beneficiaries of the development process and access to education as an end rather than a means. Gender as a conceptual relationship is much stronger in PDCW, 2001–2010, which presents a more holistic view of women’s development, including social, cultural, political, economic, environmental, and familial dimensions. PDCW, 2001–2010, also makes more explicit the conditions of rural and urban poor women, and it seems to direct development first toward women and then economic expansion. It acknowledges the importance of women agriculturalists in protecting the natural environment, and assumes the existence of gender biases in educational institutions. It mandates the incorporation of a gender perspective in teacher training programs ‘‘to further strengthen gender awareness among teachers and students.’’ These changes, which suggest that the developmental logic of Chinese EFA policies may be shifting gradually to a more emancipatory and less narrowly utilitarian conceptualization, are reflected in other state policies that are beginning to address structures of gender discrimination deeply embedded in society. For example, since 2003 the ‘‘Care-for-Girls Campaign’’ promoted in response to alarming imbalances in China’s sex ratio, called for the eradication of gender discrimination starting in the prenatal stage and emphasized in early childhood (Xinhua News Agency, October 25, 2003). Through wide and intensive publicity since then, the national movement has aimed at ‘‘changing the traditional preference for
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boys to girls, safeguarding girls’ legitimate rights and interests, and striving to enhance their status in the family’’ (State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Information Office, 2005). Most recently, the 10th anniversary of the Fourth World Congress on Women was commemorated in a White Paper (State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Information Office, 2005) on gender equality and women’s development. The White Paper outlines a number of policies addressing EFA, including national school access programs supported by non-governmental ‘‘social forces,’’ such as Project Hope and Spring Bud, subsidies to poor students for textbooks, food and board and other fees, and efforts to increase school participation of rural girls, students in impoverished and ethnic communities, and migrant children. A close analysis of the White Paper suggests how closely aligned China’s EFA initiatives are with those of the international development communities.
Empowerment: Conceptualizing Hard to Measure Effects of Girls’ Education In spite of the gradual shift in China’s girls’ education policy framework, the state continues to measure progress on female education almost solely by school access and participation ratios, and in most reports and certainly in local and regional projects girls’ education for development, not empowerment, is the paramount discourse on girls’ schooling. State policies define development as growth, good governance, and social cohesion; seek parity rather than equity; see educational access as a means rather than an ends; define gender as female; and view schools as a panacea for social problems such as poverty (zhi yu mian chong). Consequently achieving gender parity is commonly problematized as an issue of poverty alleviation, and therefore policy analysis regarding girls’ education is analysis of investment choices. Principals and teachers in girls’ education projects constantly remind their constituencies that ‘‘If you educate a boy you educate an individual; if you educate a girl you educate a nation.’’ When this WID-inspired ‘‘business as usual approach’’ becomes the endall of educational programs for girls, ‘‘more challenging dimensions of gender equality and equity are often not considered, analyzed, and monitored’’ (Aikman & Unterhalter, 2005, p. 3). Taken as a whole China’s constellation of policy assumptions might be called gender without feminism, in contrast to gender sensitive policy assumptions which would reflect, for example, the eight characteristics or qualities of gender mainstreaming outlined by
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UNESCO: recognition, diversity, and intersection; equality, equity, empowerment and agency, participation and parity; partnership, and social justice.16 By urging the adoption of a critical empowerment approach to rural girls’ education theory and practice we criticize the operationalization of education (in functionalist and human capital terms) as disciplining, assimilating, and urbanizing. A number of scholars have challenged predominant uses of ‘‘empowerment,’’ particularly as it has been conceptualized and measured by the development community17 and employed as a buzzword ‘‘to add glamour (rather than value) to interventions which actually seek to achieve a variety of economic and social outcomes’’ (Mosedale, 2003, p. 17). Oxfam identifies empowerment as ‘‘essentially concerned with analyzing and addressing the dynamics of oppression’’ and ‘‘explicitly rejects the notion that participation in development in donor-funded projects is a sign of empowerment (Oakley, 2001, p. 43). In a comprehensive overview of power and empowerment, Mosedale (2003) reminds us that any analysis of and struggle toward empowerment must involve an analysis of power, conceptualized (borrowing from Foucault) not as a possession but as a process of continual and differential exercise. Empowerment must be claimed, not given, and that agencies and NGOs at most can help people and communities create conditions favorable to women’s empowerment. Empowerment likewise implies decision making by people, through reflection, analysis, and action, about what matters most to them, and that this process is ongoing, not a product. Indeed, Batliwala conceptualizes empowerment as ‘‘a spiral, changing consciousness, identifying areas to target for change, planning strategies, acting for change, and analyzing activities and outcomes (1994, p. 132). Stromquist (1996) has likewise clarified how empowerment involves cognitive, psychological, economic, and political dimensions, and Kabeer (1999, p. 435) has argued that empowerment is ‘‘the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such ability.’’ These definitions approximate what we see happening among China’s left behind girls, that is redefining and extending what is possible for them to be and do in situations where they have been restrictedyfrom being and doing (Mosedale, 2003, p. 17). We draw primarily on Aikman and Unterhalter’s scholarship (2005) for helping us situate theoretically and practically key components of a critical empowerment framework, which include an appreciation of the relationship between structure and agency; practical needs and strategic interests; and education’s roles as both constructing and dismantling hierarchies. In their exploration of WID, GAD, post-structuralist/post-colonial, and human
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capabilities frameworks for girls’ education and development, Aikman and Unterhalter provide a useful conceptual summary of the linked theories and understandings of gender, development, education, and equality that accompany each framework. The authors advance an integrated framework borrowing across all four frameworks but anchored in Nussbaum’s (2001) and Sen’s (1999) ‘‘capabilities approach.’’ Sen argues that, While WID has been successful in generating simple messages and clear policy directives, the achievement of GAD has been to highlight the complexity of institutional change. GAD researchers and policy activists have demonstrated the importance of having appropriate processes in place to redress imbalances in gendered power in organizations. They reveal how much care and time needs to be allocated to redressing deeply entrenched and sometimes unacknowledged gender inequities in schools, education ministries, political decision making, families, and the labour market. (p. 26)
What is missing from both WID and GAD approaches is the recognition that central human functional capabilities are essential ‘‘to that of the human being as a dignified free being who shapes his/her own life’’ (Nussbaum, 1999, 2000). This reconceptualization of development defines development as freedom, education as a basic capability, and equality as equality of rights and capabilities. Its ‘‘stress on securing conditions for social justice sets this approach apart from WID, with its stress on political strategies, GAD with its focus on disempowering structures, and post-structuralism with its emphasis on identities’’(Aikman & Unterhalter, 2005, p. 245). Gender equality in education must be transformational education (viewed as one human right along with others, such as the right to be free of the indignities of poverty) that provides girls ‘‘the capabilities to achieve the freedoms and the kind of life that they have reason to value.’’18
DISPARITIES AFFECTING RURAL GIRLS China’s high national educational attainment figures hide much lower rates when disaggregated by region, ethnicity, gender, and disability. According to 2000 census data, 87 million Chinese adults were illiterate.19 Although illiteracy among women was reported to have fallen between 1990 and 2000 from 31.4 to 13.5%, the proportion of female illiterates increased. Female illiteracy as a proportion of total adult illiteracy had risen between 1990 and 1995 from 67.9 to 71.4%.20 Illiteracy was highest in the Western provinces. Looking at the intersection of gender, region, and ethnicity clarifies the picture further and moves us closer to the experiences of the girls in this study. Three quarters of China’s illiterates in 2000 lived in rural areas.
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The four provinces with the highest illiteracy rates21 were also homelands to the major minority nationalities, foremost among them the Tibetan and Hui Muslim peoples. The highest minority illiteracy rates in these regions coincided with the highest female illiteracy rates. In 2001 and 2002 in Tibet, Qinghai, Guizhou, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, the female illiteracy rates ranged from 28 to 53%, according to China Education and Research Network (2002).
EAST–WEST, URBAN–RURAL INCOME GAPS The Ministry of Education (2005) openly warned that unbalanced economic development, coupled with gaps left over from past inequalities in social service provision between rural and urban areas had created ever-widening gaps in accessibility to quality of education (Xinhua News Agency, May 31, 2005a). State funding accounts for 75% of compulsory education expenditure; however, it is insufficient to narrow the rural–urban gap. There are 3.2 times as many people with primary education or below in rural areas than in urban areas (Yardley, 2004). At the turn of this millennium China was still classified as a low-income, food-deficit country, with an estimated 34 million rural people living below the government set poverty line of RMB 635 per person per year (US $0.66 per day) (Haller, 2002, p. 133), and 45% live on less than US $2 per day (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2005). That reality is often obscured by China’s rapid economic growth and rising ranking on the human development index, where it stood at place 85 out of 177 countries in 2005, 20 places higher than in 1990. In 1985, the disposable income of urban citizens was on average 1.9 times higher than those of the rural population. By 2003, when the official media reported that as many as 27 million children (10% of China’s school-age children) were unable to attend various levels of compulsory schooling, the disparity had reached 3.1. Indications from recent reports at the county level indicate that the income gap between urban and rural residents may reach as high as 4 to 1 by 2020. China’s increased wealth has gone disproportionately to the well-off. Residents of the world city of Shanghai may have average living standards comparable to Portugal, but mountainous Guizhou province is comparable to Namibia, according to the UNDP (2005). International and domestic pressure, increasingly violent rural unrest (Panlong in Time, March 13, 2006), massive migration to urban areas,
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as well as an increasing ‘‘skills gap’’ (Kroeber & Tom, 2005) have pushed China’s national leaders to continually exhort local authorities to exempt all tuition fees for compulsory schooling in rural areas by 2007, as well as to propose a number of measures designed to boost village income, including lightening or eliminating agricultural tax burdens and increasing social services. Our case studies focus upon this ‘‘other side’’ of China’s rapid rise in productivity and wealth. The other side of heated development is the extreme marginalization and exclusion of landless, small tenant cultivators, as well as nomadic and indigenous peoples in rural areas (Deolalikar et al., 2002). In these marginalized zones, agriculturalists, increasingly women, cannot compete with international standards and prices. The results often are fallow fields, food-deficits, hunger, and malnutrition. The World Health Organization estimates that over 40% of children in such poor rural areas are stunted in their physical growth. Both domestic and international policy analysts have pointed to the necessity of creating the conditions for more balanced development and both social justice and cohesion as an urgent security issue (UNDP, 2005). That China ‘‘faces a new poverty context, with poverty increasingly concentrated in hard-to-reach groups’’ (Spohr, 2005) has alarmed the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, which identified China’s growing income gap as a likely ‘‘trigger’’ for social instability after 2010.22 Significantly, similar gaps are glaring even within rural communities, between better off and the poorest farmers. The average farmer earned 3.39 times as much as the poor23 farmer in 2004, up from 2.45 times in 1992 (The Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2005). The adverse effects of such inequality are ‘‘all the more damaging because the economic, social and political inequalities are reproduced time and time again across generations’’ (World Bank Development Report 2006, The Case for Equity (WB News, September 20, 2005). Tiedao Zhang of the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences and member of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Education, and Shuguo Gao of the National Research Center for Educational Development, assert that ‘‘it is now widely acknowledged that the equal distribution of educational investment determines the whole nation’s capacity in the reproduction of its human capital’’ (Zhang & Gao, 2005). Cross-national studies show that even small amounts of education have lead to significant gains in economic growth (Abu-Ghaida & Klasen, 2004, p. 1082). Deteriorating conditions and the bad end of unequal investment, however, prevail for Western China.
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WESTERN CHINA: GIRLS AND ‘‘NEW POVERTY’’ Western China residents, a disproportionate number of whom are members of national minority populations, represent nearly 9% of China’s overall population but make up over 40% of the absolute poor. Relative and absolute poverty has been increasing in western China. Almost half of all of China’s poor lived in the west in the late 1980s. A decade later the number had grown to more than two-thirds (World Bank, 2002, p. 17). Minority autonomous counties accounted for three-quarters of all nationally designated poor counties. Between 1995 and 2000 the Chinese government launched a massive education project with a total investment of 1.2 billion dollars for education in impoverished regions of Western China, which was the most intensive allocation of educational funding in the last 50 years. Then in 2000, the central government launched the ‘‘Open the West Campaign’’ to develop the 12 provinces which take up 71.4% of China’s land mass but only produce 17.0% of the GNP. The Campaign prioritized education aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty. According to the 1993 census, more than half of all of China’s outof-school girls, estimated at 2.61 million, resided in Western China. The 1990 census showed that in the least developed region, 59% of school-age and older women had completed only primary schooling (Rong & Shi, 2001, p. 119).24 The Asian Development Bank (ADB) (2002) identified access to quality Universal Compulsory Education, with a particular focus on minorities and girls in the remote regions of the Western Region as a major challenge to EFA in China. Clearly, prioritizing girls’ education in western China would address the largest single group holding back China’s progress in EFA and in MDG gender parity goals.
Environmental Degradation The Asian and Pacific Region in general and particularly huge regions in far Western China suffer from serious environmental degradation, including loss of farm and grasslands as well as forest areas. Pollution, overgrazing and over logging have led to erosion that has made much of the rural environment unproductive. The most direct impact of this disastrous loss of productive soil is reduced agricultural production. In 2000 it was reported that only 28.4% of the total area of West China was cultivated land, and the
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slope of 76.5% of this cultivated land slants by more than 251, making human habitation and cultivation unsuitable. Mountains, plateaus, hilly, and basin areas that are not well suited for highly productive agriculture are largely located in the West. China estimates that it lost about 50,000 square kilometers of its arable land from 1986 to 1995, the equivalent of the total agricultural land area of Japan (Parham, 2001).25 Coupled with on-going loss of land to development of new towns and other non-agricultural uses, China cannot afford to abandon potentially productive land, let alone lose more to erosion. Per capita arable land in China now is 0.1 hectare, only 47% of the world average. Rural Outmigration Urbanization has increased the imbalance between urban and rural areas. Since the implementation of market reforms and opening up policy in 1978, priority has been given to cities with favorable policies that boosted the economy and expanded economic opportunities in the urban areas while neglecting the rural areas. In access to health and education the urban–rural gap is large because local rural governments are mandated to provide such services but lack the fiscal revenues to pay for them. The uneven development of China’s economy has created a huge flow of human resources from underdeveloped areas, mainly the Western and rural areas, to the coastal, prosperous, economically vibrant eastern areas. Over 200 million workers26 in the reform period have left agricultural jobs for the service and manufacturing jobs in the cities. The macro effect of this shift in population is represented in demographics, such that in 1990, 73.59% of China’s population was classified as living in rural villages and by 2003 that figure had dropped to just under 60%. According to the China Economic Times (May 10, 2001), several years of falling agricultural prices, coupled with the lure of the big city, have increasingly resulted in the abandonment of potentially productive farmland. In 2000, the floating population was estimated at 100 million (Mancebo, 2002) and swelled to 140 million a few years later (National Working Committee on Women and Children and UNICEF in Xinhua Online, 2006, December 27; Luo, 2005). In the Yellow River valley in eastern Qinghai, in village after village, between 60 and 80% of the parent population had left.27 Some leave for good and find work or other income sources; some float from job to job and home again, never staying long. This leaves the ravaged
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rural areas depleted of the working age population and an age dichotomy of the very old and the very young, as well as unskilled youth (Mancebo, 2002), and young mothers bearing the family burden. A large international study conducted in central and Western provinces, found that in 82% of surveyed families someone, and usually the father, had left home for the cities or elsewhere to find paying work, and in 15.5% cases both parents had left their children behind. China Youth Daily (October 25) reported that in 2004, 90 million rural laborers migrated to China’s cities to look for jobs, and that they left behind more than 70 million children.28 Interviews conducted by one of the authors of this manuscript with children in the Western provinces indicate that when parents had found semi-stabile urban residence, they were much more likely to take the boys with them than girls (Interviews, September 2004), and girls were left behind in the villages. Duan and Zhou (2005)29 surveyed villages in Sichuan Province and found that 48% of 2,000 children whose parents had left home to work elsewhere performed poorly in their academics. These ‘‘left-behind children’’ [liushou ertong] were considered at risk for many other problems including personal safety, abuse, anxieties, and long-term disabilities. Most children were left in the care of their grandparents, who often were 44–70 years older than they. Luo (2005) found that over 60% of these types of grandparents were illiterate or semi-illiterate. Their poor education kept them from being involved in their grandchildren’s education, and their poor health kept them from supervising their grandchildren. Commonly mothers stayed in the village while the fathers left and, as mentioned above, the burden of the field work fell on the mothers, putting more pressure on the children to do household work. There are many reasons that children were being left behind. If their parents worked in cities, they might have wanted to bring their children to attend city schools; however, many barriers prevented this, such as long hours of work, the high costs of city living, high school fees, and the permanent residency registration system. The residential registration system [hukou] has made permanent mobility from rural areas to cities impractical. The villagers were formally blocked from urban social services, were vulnerable to exploitation, and were openly discriminated against (Zhang, 2002).30 For example, migrant children were either not allowed into urban schools, or were charged high extra fees; if they did attend, they often could not keep up in classes due to their weaker educational background. As a consequence, children tend to be either left behind or moved back and forth as finances allow (Xinhua News Agency, November 4, 2004a, December 19, 2004b).
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Young mothers were pulled in both directions, occupying the least stable positions in the floating population, on one hand, and having little time to raise their children, on the other hand. In these circumstances, migrant families found it difficult to support their children’s education either in their home villages or in their temporary urban stays. The left-behind children, however, carried a triple burden: the village schools were of much lower quality than the urban ones; the children did not have the family support or structure to support their learning; they had to do much more housework, and often the bigger boys were needed to work in the fields or with the animals (personal communication, 2004). Without massive infusions of assistance, the human resources of the Western regions will continue to diminish; the next generation will be worse off than the previous; the whole region will fall further behind.
CASE STUDIES OF HARD TO REACH GIRLS IN WESTERN CHINA China mandated compulsory ninth-grade education in 1985; however, in 2002 the Chinese government reported that illiteracy among young and middleaged women remained ‘‘excessively high.’’ The absolute number of female illiterates was increasing annually as was their proportion among all illiterates. Every year approximately one million new illiterates emerged throughout the country, the great majority of who were girls who had dropped out of school (Wang, 2003). Surveys of the four northwestern provinces found common factors associated with poverty that explained these gendered outcomes (Xiao, 2001; Zhou, Zhang, Liu, Ma, & Peng, 2001; Wang, 2005; Xinhua, 2005, September 20). The results indicated that women, who were taking on most agricultural work as men left the countryside seeking wagelabor, experienced less decision-making power at home, lower chances of receiving education, malnutrition and poor health care, longer work hours, and long-term illnesses. These are indicators of regression and further marginalization, rather than positive development. The author of one study reviewed here, however, was the recipient of information that pointed in a positive direction instead. A group of girls remote mountain hamlets of Shaanxi Province, who had received scholarships to reenter primary school, sent ardent letters of gratitude for letting them follow their sole wish to be in school.31 They told heart-wrenching stories of economic destitution, adversity, and infirmity in their families, and of being pressured to yield their place in school to a younger brother. Mostly
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they wrote of their suffering when they could not ‘‘be in school,’’ and how upon their readmission, they clung with unyielding determination to the chance to stay and excel in school despite it all. The girls’ stories revealed a resolute faith in value of schooling held together by a mere thread of hope that it would open new worlds, keep them from suffering the fate of their parents, and allow them to repay their parents for their sacrifices.
Han Girls in Shaanxi Shaanxi, one of the poorest inland provinces, is part of China’s ‘‘Open the West’’ development campaign. Shaanxi’s illiteracy rate has always been higher than the national level, ranking as China’s eighth most illiterate province or region in 2000 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2002). In the steep Qinling mountain of Shaanxi Province lies the village where the girls on the above-mentioned Guanlan scholarship live.32 In 1999 the average annual income per capita in the district was RMB 822 or US $100; however, some of the girls’ families had a family income of only RMB 380–405 ($47–$50) and elementary school fees ran around RMB 160 ($20) (ACWF Shangzhou, 2000). The Chinese tradition of boy preference for schooling still persisted in this area, particularly when finances dictated choosing but one child to go to school. The scholarship enables girls of officially designated families (see above) to return to school after dropping out by grade four. Their ages ranged from 9 to 15. The girls told in their letters of the harsh economic situation and how hard their parents worked on the land. Here follow some descriptions of their lives on the edge of survival. One girl had lost her mother and her father was chronically ill; another girl’s parents were both chronically ill, in and out of hospital, and the grandparents needed medicine they could not afford. Almost all of the families had constant illness in the house. Many of the girls’ fathers had borrowed repeatedly from relatives and neighbors to pay their school fees but had run out of credit. Some of the girls’ parents’ entire cash income went to the health care of a grand parent, leaving nothing for the other survival needs of the family. All of the families had several, often as many as five offspring. The primary school girls daily walked on foot over difficult terrain during all seasons for over an hour to get to school. Every one of the Guanlan girls wrote that she had argued fiercely and tearfully usually with her father to be allowed to stay in school, despite the seemingly hopeless health and financial problems in their families. When they did attend school, the girls themselves went hungry and had persistent health problems. In the
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end when they had been forced to drop out of school in third or fourth grade, they said they did it out of concern for their parents and siblings’ suffering. They saw dropping out as accepting defeat. For example, E. was a 10-year-old girl, whose parents were classified as poor farmers (social class label) with an annual income of 380 RMB. Her father, age 30, was disabled. Both parents were often ill. The family ‘‘had no economic resources,’’ and hence was listed as a severe poverty household. E also had a sibling. Without assistance, this family could not survive. It can be assumed that alone the opportunity cost and most certainly the fees of the daughter’s schooling would be too burdensome for the family to bear. Another 14-year-old girl wrote, My home is in a mountain village that is hard to reach, we don’t know from one day to the next what our financial situation is. I am a fifth grader and, although we are poor, my daddy used to borrow money from the neighbors so I could go to school. But in the end, because we three sisters were all in school, farming our field could not support us any more and even the borrowed money wasn’t enough. In the end, no one would lend dad any more money, so he didn’t let me go to school anymore. He said I was grown now, I should stop and let my little sister go to school for a while. I also knew that dad and mom had many burdens and the pressure was really great, so I dropped out of school. But then, Guanlan’s mother heard of our difficulties and you made it possible for me to return to school. I will never forget you, ... if it wasn’t for your support; I would now be at home grazing the cow.
After having received the scholarship, they continued in their letters that they did not know how to describe their happiness at being back in school. It was their greatest wish that come true. They planned to finish school and then take care of their families, to pay for a younger sibling’s schooling, to buy medicines for grandfather, to take the burden of heavy work off their parents’ shoulders, and to bring them comfort in their old age. They longed to demonstrate their filial piety toward their birth family – a duty formerly owned by sons only (Letters from nine Guanlan Scholarship to Professor Seeberg, 2003, 2005). Thinking back on my time out of school, I would wish upon wish that I could grab my book bag, and go to school. How I longed for knowledge, how many times I dreamed I was back in the classroom listening excitedly to the teacher’s lecture. After waking up, I would cry and cry. One time, I said to my father, ‘Let me go to school’ and father just shook his head. Now, I can once again sit in the classroom and study! I treasure this opportunity to go to school, to study well, and learn well the skills and strive diligently to make our local economy advance rapidly.33
Fong (2004), writing about urban singleton Han children in the 2000s, noted the gender shift in filial expectations as well. In the many families she interviewed, both the younger and parental urban generations, particularly
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the women, were certain that their daughters would provide better longterm care to their parents than their sons.34 Two of the Guanlan girls wrote how their brothers had gone away to find work – for good, never to be heard from again. They had not sent money home; their efforts had brought no benefit to the family – they were, said the girl, a loss to the family. In contrast, the girls were set on staying in school and then getting steady work to help their family. After receiving three years of scholarship, 12 of the 20 Guanlan girls persisted in school despite the enormous burdens for their families, and they were even advancing through junior and into senior secondary school. The stories they wrote and told might have differed in detail, but a cultural shift in favor of girls’ education was evident throughout. For the Guanlan Scholarship girls and for their parents, education was the only path out of the hazardous life circumstances of their families. They saw it as the only way to change the fate of ancestral [fubei] destiny. They knew that the better and longer they stayed in school, the better their chances of getting a stable place in the modern economy. As Peng wrote, ‘‘I know that nowadays, a person should possess knowledge before she is able to change her fate. I’m hungry for knowledge. I’m longing for a better tomorrow filled with sunshine. I hope and wish that I too will be able to give back and to help those in need’’ (Letter from Peng, LN, 2005). The letters showed that the scholarship stimulated their desire to do well in school and boosted their confidence. Guanlan Mom, I thank you very much. But I feel so shameful and sorry to you because my study is not very good. I’m already in Grade Three. I can’t face the scholarship you gave me. When I felt discouraged because of my poor scores, your letter encouraged me again. I can’t let you down. I’m determined to work hard. I decide to work hard toward my dream and never fear difficulties. So don’t worry about me. I hope you can believe me that I will work very hard. I want to continue school and try to get admitted into a good high school. I’ll let you know next year. I will work hard for high school. Now our study is very intense and busy.
The girls had been raised to believe that they were not good at studies, but they were proving to themselves as well as others the opposite. They expressed curiosity about life in the outside world, such as C (letter, 2006). I love to learn English. I like to discover. I’m always curious. I have a strong motivation to learn. I take my time studying, trying to learn as much as I can. I want to equip myself with knowledge in every day I spend. I have a learning heart and I want to be a contributing person in the world. ‘‘A thousand mile journey starts with the first step.’’ I know if I want to change my fate, I have to study hard and get out of the isolated area. I want to follow the development of my
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country and follow the times. I believe that you can create your own situation and your fate. I can’t let poverty stand on my way to my dream. Don’t worry. I will work very hard. When I grow up, I hope I could be like you, helping poor girls in the villages and let them feel the sunshine of your love.
In adjacent administrative regions, Shangluo and Ankang,35 where in 2000 per capita income in the villages was similar to Shangzhou, ranging from under US $100 to $125, 1,000 girls from impoverished and in most cases remote mountainous villages were selected to receive Spring Bud scholarships, which were funded by a US-based NGO,36 to return to school. From 1989, the China Children’s Fund, administered by the national All China Women’s Federation, launched a national Spring Bud Plan to raise ‘‘social funds’’ to help out-of-school girls to return to school. These girls, whose lives were as bitter as the Guanlan Scholarship girls, wrote, I was born into a poor farming family. I have several sisters, and my parents are aging and weakened by years of hard work. Three years ago we had a most unfortunate shock. Father’s liver had hardened to an advanced stage. This added substantially to the family’s burden. Mother bravely hid her constant tears, but we knew things needed to change. Older sister quit school to earn money to help pay for father’s treatments. To lessen the financial strain on the family, I also left school to help out at home. The instant I stepped out of the schoolyard for what I thought was forever, tears streamed down my face. – A Spring Bud girl. yIt was a hot summer day three years ago, unusually hot. Suddenly dark clouds rolled in, thunder struck and lightning streaked. Rain poured, driven by strong winds. In an instant one could not distinguish where the sky ended and the earth began. Water was everywhere. In that engulfing darkness, our home swayed as if it was ready to crumble. At father’s command, we ran out to seek safe refuge. But then father remembered that the ginger which mother and I had crisscrossed mountains and valleys to dig up over many days were still in the house. That ginger was to pay for the fees of my next school term. The moment father went back into the house, it collapsed. The rain gush washed away our home. It carried away father. – A Spring Bud girl
The girls’ lives had been beset by material and social hardships. In descending order of importance, the factors most responsible for lack of school fees and/or perceived need for the female child to stay at home included devastation of land and home by flooding, severe parental illness and resulting lack of income and/or means of support, the decline of agriculture and being ‘‘left behind’’ by one or two parents, the presence of large numbers of siblings in the household, and the deaths of parents. When the project began each of the 1,000 Spring Bud girls, aged from 10 to 16, were out of school in primary grade three or four, and were to return to fourth grade in the autumn of 2001. In the autumn of 2004 the girls were promoted to junior secondary school.
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Poverty was a curse I was destined to suffer. While the neighboring children would be wearing new clothes and shoes, I would be in rags, torn hand-me-downs from sister. In the summer other children would be eating ice cream, drinking soft drinks. My dry, scratchy throat had never tasted anything cooler or sweeter than tap water. While all these did not amount to much, they were silent blows to a child. Life’s unfairness led easily to despair and resignation. I thought about quitting school many times. I resented pity. With pity came so frequently that look of despise. But when I thought about the hopes that my poor parents had placed upon me, I did not dare vent my feelings. In reality, I liked to learn, I did not want to quit. – A Spring Bud girl.
Spring Bud and Guanlan girls were painfully earnest, yearning for acknowledgment, articulate about the costs of market socialism and truly grateful to attend school. They were also aware of the opportunity costs of schooling, which they described as adding to the intense demands rural life makes on their parents. School fees meant sacrificing family welfare and parental health. They and their parents perceived ‘‘success in school’’ as an overwhelmingly positive yet contradictory resource, one that would produce skills, desires, and associations that would both complicate and enhance their future identities, family relationships, and career opportunities. One of the findings from the Spring Bud program is that fathers and mothers as well as the girls perceive their daughters’ schooling as a sound investment for the family’s future. My father was a quintessential farmer. He never attended school. He seldom inquired about what my two sisters and I might be learning. He used to say that his biggest regret in life was not having a son. After hearing his lament so many times, even we began to believe that being girls was not something to be proud ofyBut in the last two years father’s thinking has been drastically transformed. He began to care about our education. He even tells people regularly now that girls are just as good as boysyNow whenever he talks to other people about the three of us, his face lights up with a feeling of good fortune. Our livelihood is improving every day. I am so grateful that so many people care about us. Their love transformed father’s dated mindset. – A Spring Bud girl.
The parental change in attitude allowing themselves to rely on their Spring Bud daughters for visions of a brighter future comes out in letters like the above. Further, the girls gave evidence of their own change in attitude toward seeing themselves and not their brothers as supporting their siblings. These changes illustrate the cultural change observed in the Guanlan scholarship girls’ stories. Unfortunately, all around us, there are still many students who cannot afford schooling. I have thought about this a great deal, and I have made a vow. When I grow up I will work very hard and help those who have lost the opportunity to learn because of their poverty, so that like us they will care-freely swim in the ocean of knowledge. – A Spring Bud girl.
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The girls’ initial application forms to the Spring Bud program provide a stark lesson about the dangers of agricultural life and the precariousness of children in an environment of poverty and inadequate health care and social support. The girls had overcome tremendous loss and hardship on their way to school. And once in school they felt tremendous pressure to do well in their new importance to the family. I don’t do very well at school. My family hopes that I work hard. They all work very hard, and they care about my studies a great deal. They work so hard to get me school supplies, just so I can focus on my studiesy. Every week when I go back home, they will say to me, ‘Study hard when you go to school.’ My little brother doesn’t do very well at school. They say I’m the only hope for the family. They have pinned all their hopes on me. – A Spring Bud girl.
Because rural women in China were concentrated in agriculture and/or relatively unskilled temporary jobs, it is widely accepted that perceived lower returns to female education influence parental decisions regarding boys and girls. Yet most recent research on rural schooling in China concludes that parents want education for both boys and girls, though they continue to believe it is more useful for boys (Hannum, 2003). Most studies likewise suggest that son preference persists in the face of sweeping economic and social change, and that urbanization, female education, and employment only slowly change incentives for sending girls to school (Li & Tsang, 2002; Ross, 2005). Parental responses to the Spring Bud program indicate that ‘‘traditional’’ attitudes no longer erected severe barriers to girls’ access to education, and placing too much weight on ‘‘culture’’ may obscure equally or more important material obstacles with which girls and their families contend (Ross, 2004a, 2004b). In fact, our research of the Guanlan (see also Seeberg & Zhao, 2002) and Spring Bud scholarship programs suggests strongly that Chinese educators and parents in the countryside were desperate for their daughters to attend school, because in the many extremely poor villages there was little alternative.
TIBETAN GIRLS In fieldwork done in primary schools in Tibetan areas and autonomous districts in Gansu and Qinghai provinces in the fall of 2004, Seeberg (2006) observed that girls were present in numbers almost equal to boys, although both decreased over the elementary school years. Rural elementary school teachers and principals often stated that Tibetan girls would finish elementary education; but that junior high entrance was the ‘‘gate’’ they could not
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pass through. Town elementary school teachers placed the impassable gate at senior high school. In Tibetan primary schools, whether rural or town, instruction was held in the Tibetan language. In town there were sometimes a Han Chinese and Tibetan language secondary schools, with the Han Chinese holding higher status, and students coming from higher status families. Charts posted in the lobby of a town Tibetan primary school showed total enrollment rising from 606 in 2000 to 682 in 2003. Among students, 47–53% of whom were registered poor, 47% were girls. Overall enrollment declined rapidly from first and second grades with 143 to sixth grade with 76 students (personal observation, 2004). At least half of the students were said to have settled in town only recently, coming down from the high grassland plains (Interview, 2004). Yet it is probable that many families still moved back and forth from the grasslands to the town. Since no population figures were available, it is hard to judge what proportion of school age youth actually attended. A few Tibetan girls in the town school told their stories, and alluded to family circumstances reminiscent of the Shaanxi girls. More fortunate girl students in the sixth grade Tibetan language track were either only children or had but one sibling. In these cases the mother was illiterate and stayed at home, but the father usually was a government official with a high school education. They intended to complete Tibetan language senior secondary school and wanted to go on to university, although they admitted it would be difficult for the family to afford it. A 12-year-old Tibetan girl in sixth grade was in the Chinese track. Her father, age 50, was a government official and her mother was illiterate and stayed at home. Her brother had just graduated from the Tibetan senior secondary normal school [xiaoshu minzu shefan xuexiao], and her older sister was married, illiterate, and stayed at home. Her parents wanted her to attend university to study medicine, a higher goal than her brother’s. Here is an example where aspirations for the daughter are higher than for her elder brother. A young female fifth grade head teacher of Tibetan ethnicity had graduated 10 years earlier from Tibetan language senior secondary normal school but had become certified as a Chinese language teacher at the Lanzhou Ethnic Studies Institute in the distant province capital. She was an only child. She told of her mother, ‘‘Ma was forward thinking when I was young. Girls didn’t go to school when I did.’’ Even though her mother was illiterate, she had insisted on her daughter attending school. Mother had gone away to work for money [dagong], doing back-breaking construction work, so she could pay the school tuition and fees. This self-sacrifice was brought for a girl so that she could escape the hard life of her mother.
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Her father had a job as a local official [ganbu], yet that was not enough or he was not willing to pay her school costs. She and other teachers commented on the near-parity of girls and boys in school by saying that over the past 20 years, due to economic development and the success of population control, gender preference in schooling had disappeared. Parents, even who are illiterate themselves, now wanted both girls and boys to go to university. There was extreme poverty as well among town children. Only women were left in households, sometimes the younger mothers were away working [da gong], in hospital, had no particular job, or held one of the few remaining and badly paid manufacturing jobs, sold bits of things on the street. When the school could award a fee-waiver, the children attended. The elders in the family insisted that the children continue in school, so that one day they could get a better-paying job and help their sick mother or grandmother. The children were passionate about wanting to get a good education so they could pay back their mothers or grandmothers for all their sacrifices, and to pay for their younger siblings to go to school. Only in two Tibetan villages where settled agriculture was practiced did teachers and family members appear content with their living standard. In one Tibetan farming village located at the end of washed out roads in the remote mountains of Qinghai, teachers felt that the families expected the boys also to remain in the village, farm, and take in wives. Teachers and family members clearly expected their girl children to stop schooling around grade four, help in the home, get married young, and work the fields at their future husband’s side. According to the teachers, the villagers used the school as a baby-sitter for their children until they were big and strong enough to work in the fields. They did not expect their children to use education to further their future. Only two students had gone on to junior secondary school, and only one had persisted to graduate from senior secondary normal school. Both, interestingly, were girls. Every one of the children, both boys and girls, when asked, said they planned to graduate and go to university, because they wanted to become teachers or doctors. They did not want to leave school and did not want to stay on the family farm. A generational conflict was brewing. On the high plains of the Tibetan Qinghai plateau large-scale herding had become less productive and severely constrained by erosion. As a result, the traditionally rigid gender division of labor had broken down, according to Professor He of Qinghai Normal University (Professor He Bo, interview by author, 2004). The degradation of the land had put the Tibetan male herder out of work, unable to provide for his family. Together with the meteoric rise of the ‘‘gold’’ coast of China, the indigenous, nomadic peoples of the
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Western provinces had been pushed further and further to the margins, as had happened in Africa (Deolalikar et al., 2002). In the high plains of Qinghai and Gansu, schooling was sparser, distances greater, and enrollment rates lower. Difficulties in going to school increased: Out-of school factors included widespread extreme poverty, severe illnesses; endless chores associated with being nomadic herders [mumin], the rigors of seasonal tending of animals resulting in the absence of men and school-age boys while herding for months at a time, as well as a general lack of adult presence due to migrant labor; parental illiteracy; and the custom of early betrothal or pregnancy for girls. An additional burden spoken of in hushed tones was the cost of maintaining the temple and monks in the winter semipermanent settlements. School factors presented steep barriers: direct and in-kind school fees, harsh and unsafe living and sleeping conditions as well as lack of food, and insufficient oversight in boarding schools (personal communications, Interview, 2004). In a central primary boarding school28 on a rutted dirt path junction lying at the edge of a high-altitude grasslands, 234 students from semi-nomadic herding families [mumin] studied for 200 odd days a year. They slept 12 in a room by village of origin, recently gender-segregated for safety, and were minimally cared for by older women from the villages. On top of the fees of RMB 60 per semester, the students were asked to bring in additional resources, two sacks of sheep dung for cooking and occasional heat, food, soap, as well as cash for electricity and books, and the ‘‘grandmotherservice’’. The dorm rooms were close to collapse, the latrines dangerous, the single hand-drawn well had no cover. A glass case of books constituted the library, donated years earlier by a distant patron, was locked up in one of the storerooms along with the teachers’ motorcycles (personal observation, 2004). Since 2001, enrollments had been increasing according to the head teacher and a graduate student researcher from Northwest Normal University (Huang, 2004). The head teacher stated that 77% of the age group was enrolled in school, and that 60% of primary school graduates were promoted to junior high in the county seat town in 2003 (Interview, 2004). Personal observation (2004) could not corroborate these figures and they seemed unlikely. Girls did not start school before age 9 as was tradition here. Forty-eight students were on national compulsory education tuition scholarship; another 111 attended on tuition-waiver, and 40% were girls (Interview, 2004). Boys predominated numerically in classrooms but girls were well represented; rather evenly in the lower grades. The overall high enrollment,
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particularly girls, in grades one and two supports the contention of many educators that the families used the schools as babysitters as long as the children were too small to be of substantial help around the homestead. Girls’ proportion of students declined from a high of nearly 60% in grades one and two to 40% in grade six. In this region girls did not make the jump to junior secondary school easily. First of all, it was far away in the county seat town. Second, tuition and fees were higher, preventing both boys and girls from going. Most girls were married sometime between the ages of 12–15 to men nearly 20 years of age difference. Here girls faced difficulties presented by the interaction of material with historic cultural factors; yet, their eyes were raised beyond these horizons. A 15-year-old girl in grade six, the oldest of three children, was set on going to college in Beijing Central National Minority University. Her younger sister was in grade four, but her 11-year-old younger brother was out herding the sheep. He wanted to go to school, so she was faced with the likelihood that either she or her sister would have to drop out. The previous summer she had heard the young lama in the Bon temple in her village admonish the villagers to send their children to school, girls included, so they could meet the challenges of the future. The young lama had returned for the summer from his graduate studies at Beijing University. She had started school late and had already had to drop out in between, yet she held on to her dream. Another15-year-old sixth grade female student loved to study both Tibetan and Chinese language. She had had to drop out during the previous spring semester due to lack of money and resources, but was receiving financial help this fall. In this school, absolute and excessive poverty was the major obstacle for both boys and girls to go to school. Although boys outnumbered girls in enrollment, both boys and girls dropped out at similar rates. In these remote high mountain plains, economic need trumped gender as a determinant of who would get schooling. However, there existed barriers specific to girls’ schooling, and some advantages as well. Until recently girls had suffered from an additional barrier to schooling. The school used to board boys and girls from one village in one room, under the ‘‘supervision’’ of unmarried young girl. At that time, girls were dropping out of school in large numbers because, as Huang (2004) observed, the schoolboys were successfully demanding all the food. Girls were returning home half starved. The young unmarried women caretakers did not have the status to overrule the boys nor could they keep outside men
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from roaming the school grounds at will. Mothers worried about the safety of their daughters sleeping unprotected in the dorms (interview Professor Wang, September, 2004; Huang, 2004). Huang (2004) convinced the principal to segregate the dorm rooms by gender and to bring in older married women as caretakers who had the necessary authority. The male abuses stopped and girl students returned to the school. These changes in cultural tradition promoted girls schooling, and this demonstrates how schooling itself can have that impact, can deconstruct patriarchal privilege, and educate girls. The advantage that girls have over boys in school can be observed internationally wherever a critical mass of girls attends school. Girls are more eager and pliable students than boys. In Tibetan schools, teachers, boys, and girls described girls as the more conscientious students and boys as more ‘‘naughty’’ [tiaopi], not on task, not as engaged. Teachers uniformly praised girls as more dedicated and persistent than boys. The ‘‘good girl’’ advantage did buy girls leverage for staying in school (Interview, 2004). Teachers repeatedly committed themselves to promoting girls, helping them overcome difficulties with studies at home, even paying their way through secondary school. Though parents want both boys and girls to be schooled and get a job, and may see boys’ ultimate career achievement more favorably, in the process of schooling itself, girls’ achievements proved to be more convincing for school success. In another instance of role reversal, girls benefited from another boypreference bias in the Tibetan highlands. Families who were reluctant to send a child to school faced the threat of a fine by law. Some sent their girls but would hide a son. Some families paid other families to send a substitute, who was more likely to be a girl. Girls were preferred as long as they were not strong enough to do the herding work, nor was it culturally appropriate to send girls out to the pastures (Interview, 2004). The utility cost was higher for boys than girls, especially in families where the older men had left for cash jobs. The decline and relative backwardness of the local economy had laid the groundwork by draining males from the local economy, but the schools provided the vehicle for girls to take advantage of the new alignment of social relationships. The ideas of new opportunities had not escaped the quiet and extremely shy girl students in rural schools. In the remoter rural schools, girls almost exclusively listed their career goals as becoming a teacher and some a doctor. Upon gentle prodding, they admitted that they would like to go to university. Girls mentioned often that they wanted to stay near parents. In
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contrast, boys wanted to become scientists, doctors, teachers and officials, and many wanted to live in a city. Girls in remoter rural schools and some of the girls from poor families in town schools mentioned wanting to help parents build a house, when they grew up, ‘‘because their life is too hard;’’ some mentioned that they did not want to live like their parents (Interview, 2004). In town and nearby rural schools, girls uniformly wanted to go to university. They listed future careers such as TV host, foreign language teacher, boss, secretary or teacher (Interview, 2004). In the answers of the rural girls, we can see the power of models. The girls knew women teachers and had heard of women doctors in nearby clinics. The more urban girl students had a wider choice of models and could aim for more far-flung goals. Tibetan mothers and Chinese parents Seeberg interviewed (personal communications, Interview, 2004) also went to great lengths to raise money for the cost of schooling. Mothers joined seasonal cotton-picking crews in Xinjiang. Husbands might work for months on the Tibet-Qinghai railroadconstruction crews – leaving the children at boarding school and home under minimal care. They borrowed from family, friends and neighbors, and begged, just to be able to ‘‘buy’’ one more semester of schooling. In the mountains, the men might get lucky in an odd year and find highly valued medicinal herbs and mushrooms that could bring in incomparable earnings. The poor students and families often did not know where the money would come from, especially for the lean spring months, yet they were desperate to keep their children in school. Culturally women and daughters were becoming more essential to the survival of the family. Along with their mothers, girls were in process of redefining their identity. New roles, largely forced on them by transitions in the macro environment, opened new spaces, and opportunities (see also Seeberg, 2005). We argue that the context had shifted the meaning of education for girls, encouraging an improvement in girls’ self-image. Just as the Han girls’ letters and conversations showed, Tibetan girls showed by their eagerness in school and in interviews that they saw themselves as able to become educated. They showed that they wanted desperately to grasp that opportunity – for as long as possible, to propel themselves into another world, but without losing their ties to their birth families. The Tibetan girls provide further evidence to the cross-cultural studies on the benefits of education to women, that when women gain greater bargaining power in the home, they use it to benefit their children, including sending their daughters to school (Wang, 2003). The socio-economic change engendered the cultural change, which in turn affected the daughters’ expectations to become educated.
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Muslim Girls Often Chinese reports indicate that in Muslim areas, girls are more likely not to be allowed to go to school for long (Peng, 1999). Seeberg’s observations in 2004 in Muslim areas and Muslim schools in Gansu corroborated that view in a general sense. However, women teachers of the Muslim faith whom I interviewed remarked that the numbers and proportions of girls in primary school were increasing; though they were more sanguine about increases at the secondary school level. The fifth and sixth grade girl students whom I interviewed, however, were just as ambitious in their future plans as the Tibetan and Han Chinese girls (Interview, 2004). The economic situation in the Muslim areas of Gansu was perhaps not as drastic as in the high plains Tibetan grasslands. Educators were more connected to the educational system; teacher training was more developed, language issues not as severe, and the economic infrastructure in general more developed. The wealth gap between families and between town and village was more striking. Absolute poverty was still pervasive in both town and village, and fathers were largely absent, doing seasonal labor elsewhere. Here too educators emphasized that education was the only way to a stable future rather than continuing local agriculture. Yet teachers were discouraged about girls’ participation in school, mentioning early marriage and strong objections on the part of the mothers. They reported that mothers worked to marry off their daughters at a young age; bride prices were involved, and by fourth grade withdrew their daughters so they would learn how to work a household, and not ‘‘waste’’ their time in school. Female teachers told of classmates and former girl pupils who had dropped out early during primary school, got married, and were attending Koran classes in the mornings. According to the above-mentioned cross-cultural research, the cultural transition empowering women in the household had not affected role definitions here as in the Tibetan regions. Apparently mothers, though often they had newly taken on the role of the acting head of the custodial household, continued to enforce traditional girl roles (Interview, 2004). In these Muslim regions the cross-cultural female transition had not proceeded in the same fashion or as markedly as in the Tibetan regions. The female teachers reported their own background differentiated them from most of their classmates. Their fathers were local officials and had pushed them through secondary and tertiary teacher training institutes. Teachers reported that it was the fathers who had supported the female pupils who were eager to stay in school through secondary and further. It was the fathers who sent back money from their cash labor jobs to spend on
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schooling for their daughters, often over the objections of mothers (Interview, 2004). It could be argued that given the slightly better economic and educational conditions in these agricultural areas, enough families might be experiencing less pressure on resources and therefore be able to afford educating their daughters along with their sons. However, the traditional cultural norms seemed more salient in the decision making regarding daughters in these Muslim regions. In Ningxia Autonomous Province, scholarship girls who reentered school had shown high levels of assertiveness in vocally opposing their father’s wishes to drop out and come home. And yet one of the primary reasons for wanting to return to school was to help the family and to repay them for their kindness. Ma Yan, one of the Muslim girls in a Ningxia village, wrote in her diary she hoped that if she studied hard she would get ‘‘good work and give back some happiness in the second half of the life of my parents’’ (Haski, 2002).
Summary of Evidence These stories of Han Chinese, Tibetan, and Muslim girls attest to the strength of girls in their desire to go to school. The girls also shared the desire to help their families and to be near them. Boy preference for schooling certainly influenced parental educational expectations and resources (if not aspirations) and many attributed overriding power to it in forced choice situations. But new important factors weighed into these decisions, and the value position of schooling as the way out of poverty had shifted. Schooling was seen as the long slow road out of poverty with the required term of preparation and acquisition of a diploma taking longer still. Families saw the possibility of making money fast in the cash economy in cities or commercial farming, such as cotton fields in Xinjiang Province. Young boys and men sooner threw themselves into the ‘‘floating population’’ labor market to take advantage of the opportunity to ‘‘make money now.’’ In the marginal regions visited by the authors of these studies, this had become the preferred way for men to advance the welfare of their family. That option, on the other hand, was not equally open to girls, for whom tradition dictated a life’s work in the home. Traditional cultural constraints against girls going out to find work were equally pervasive and strong as was boy preference. Macro-economics and the expansion of compulsory schooling offered young women a chance to adopt a strategy for their future that had
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previously been closed to them, schooling, which they saw as a long-term opportunity for advancement. Thus schooling became a primary path of hope for girls and a path that kept them relatively near their homes and relatively safe in the eyes of their parents. The evidence regarding girls’ empowerment to become educated was mixed. Muslim girls in poor regions and from poor households were not benefiting from a transition in the role of their mothers due to the absence of the fathers. Traditional expectations for the future of Muslim girls held sway, reinforced by their mothers. In the Muslim regions in the present study, the cross-cultural female identity transformation had not proceeded in the same fashion or as markedly as in the Tibetan regions. It is possible that the revitalization of Islam and its institutions played a stronger role to the greater advantage of males than traditional Buddhism in Tibetan regions. There is also evidence that in the Tibetan religion suppression of the independence of females is not as salient. It is close to a truism that girls and women would develop self-confidence through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, as well as that they would be able to fulfill their potential more capably. And yet, policy makers whose interests are in the sphere of social impact often overlook this benefit of education. Our fieldwork illustrates that gains of personal worth have important social impact in particular through the contribution of women’s efforts in favor of their family’s welfare. This orientation is a fundamentally localized one, which is essential to development of left-behind regions, as others have found in Mexico for example (Martin, 2006).
CONCLUSION Achieving gender equality entails developing the freedoms of all individuals, irrespective of gender or other markers of discrimination, to choose actions, aspirations and attributes that they have reason to value. Gender equity entails putting in place the social and institutional arrangements that would secure these freedoms. An education system would lack key dimensions of equality in this sense if it was discriminatory or did not develop capabilities in children to achieve an education that was personally and socially attuned to developing freedoms. Some aspects of this equality are the freedom to attend school, to learn and participate there in safety and security, to develop identities that tolerate others, and to enjoy economic, political, and cultural opportunitiesy.We believe that gender equality in education cannot be separated as a goal from gender equality in society as a whole (Aikman & Unterhalter, 2005, pp. 3–4).
The MDG clock for gender parity struck midnight some time ago (UNICEF ‘‘Gender Achievements and Prospects in Education: The Gap Report,
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UNICEF, 2005). While China missed reaching its MDG of gender parity goals for primary and secondary school, the question looming in the wings for girls in China, even left-behind girls, is not how to attend and stay in school, but to attend for what purpose. The projects described above engaged participants constantly in such questions, and in doing so offered students, teachers, and local leaders what we perceive as critical opportunities to reflect upon and debate the gendered nature of schooling and expectations and aspirations for girls. It is no longer debatable that the girls’ education is the most effective tool for development and poverty eradication. For girls to fully participate not only in their own lives and those of their future families, but also in their countries’ development, the barriers limiting their full participation in education must be removed. For that to occur a reconceptualization of the role of girls and women must be anchored in the local experiences of girls in schools. Directing educational interventions accordingly will assist girls in deconstructing deep-seated, gendered values and barriers to education often cited in international reports, sometimes rather simplistically, as barriers to girls’ flourishing. The majority of the girls in this chapter embodied the early stages of what we have called critical empowerment, enacting a script they are writing in response to changed circumstances, combining traditional expectations with new insights. They act with courage and in the process upset deterministic developmentalist predictions. Many of their acts can be interpreted as direct assaults on patriarchy and poverty. The girls demonstrate a capacity to envision a new path or future alone enabling girls to complete their schooling will change local culture. Enabling them to graduate with some secondary schooling, according to cross-cultural studies summarized by UNESCO EFA, may indeed decrease material poverty in the mid-term. We suggest that in the long term, attending to the purpose of girls’ schooling will lay the foundation for its success in liberating girls and contributing to local and national development. One of the chief barriers to truly empowering education in schools can be attitudes of teachers and principals. ‘‘If the content of the educational curriculum and the attitude of teachers serve merely to reinforce prevalent stereotypes and injustices, then the mere fact of literacy and education does not, in and of itself, close the gender gap; schooling as a catalyst for change in gender relations will be more effective only if appropriate attention is also given to curriculum content and the retraining of those who deliver it’’ (Lopez-Claros & Zahidi, 2005, p. 5). For schools to lead to greater gender equity and to empower girls to harness their full capabilities schooling must be driven by a strong theory of gender equitable education. Teachers need
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access to relevant training and a supportive administration in order to address critical issues facing students’ lives, including gender and ethnic biases. These conditions must be present for a positive learning environment for girls to be created and sustained. The stories of the girls above show only a part of the phenomena of change gripping the hinterlands of China. We argue that they represent a new force, a new trend even. Yet qualitative work cannot speak of numbers or proportions, critical mass, or magnitude, and magnitudes of change are needed to turn around the direction of marginalization of the western regions of China. We argue that changes in the agency and role of girls associated with schooling exercised at the local level are the hook to which to attach investments in education the results will follow quickly and have the anticipated multiplier effect. The Chinese government has set a goal of free compulsory education in all rural areas by 2010 and for the whole nation by 2015. It encourages enterprises, all social sectors and individuals to donate to public education in various forms, for organizations and individuals at home and abroad to establish funds to finance education in poverty-stricken families. We argue that prioritizing girls’ education will provide the means to break the cycle of poverty in declining regions. We argue that a policy prioritizing girls’ education will have the most beneficial impact on the development of marginalized regions that, under present policy, show little potential for economic growth in the mid-term. We argue that girls’ education in Western China will favorably affect the welfare of the country and stability of society as a whole – and will be essential for reaching the MDG for gender parity in education in 2015.
NOTES 1. 2000 Chinese Census data defines ‘‘children left behind’’ (liuxiu ertong) as aged 14 or younger and not residing with at least one parent, who has migrated to an urban area for wage-paying work. In this chapter ‘‘left behind’’ refers both to regions not benefiting from economic reform and the parental out-migration phenomenon. The left behind girls in this study are studying at all levels of compulsory education, and are as old as 17, a result of their disrupted school experiences. 2. The metropolitan areas of Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin plus nine other eastern coastal provinces have achieved universal compulsory education, but even this assessment ignores the lack of education of tens of millions of migrant children (Kroeber & Miller, 2005). 3. The EFA Committee of China (2000) admitted that no statistics exist, in the census data or elsewhere, that would allow for an accurate assessment of either gross
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or net primary school intake rates, not to mention disaggregated data by gender. Gross and net enrollment figures are a volatile topic in the PRC, because of the strict population control and Compulsory Education Law enforcement, and ideological pressures. 4. Among the 87 million illiterates, 23 million were youths and middle-aged individuals. 5. See Adams and Hannum (2005), regarding the influence of poverty on education and health in rural China. 6. Official statistics report that 8.5% of minority youths had never attended formal schooling compared to 2% of Han Chinese. 7. One artifact of this demographic shift was an ‘‘improvement’’ in the national gap between urban and rural educational opportunities; the educational gap between different social strata also widened in urban areas and county seats. 8. Research presented in this chapter is part of two longitudinal studies of school girls in two adjacent prefectures of Shaanxi Province, designed to answer whether, how, and in what ways schooling improves girls’ lives and futures and by extension the lives and futures of their family members and communities. The two principal investigators, Seeberg and Ross, are involved in independent scholarship projects, and collaborating in the research aspects. 9. The development of the concept of critical empowerment relied heavily on the excellent capsule analysis provided by Peter B. Easton in Leslie Limage’s (2005) Literacy and empowerment background and issues paper for the EFA Working Group held at UNESCO headquarters. Easton cites illustrative evidence provided by Freire (1970), Vella (1994), Easton et al. (1998, 2004), and the World Bank (2005) among others. 10. Easton et al. (1998, 2004) have provided evidence from Africa advocated for this type of policy in their research on local capacity building. Limage uses the terms coordinated partnerships (2005). The World Bank (2005) has developed these ideas under the heading community-driven development. 11. Although China and UNESCO have expressed certainty that China will meet EFA goals on time, evidence gathered in the problematic marginal regions raises doubt in the mind of these authors. 12. These are typical ‘‘Food for Education (FFE) programs [which] help get poor children into school, help them stay in school and help them learn while they are there’’ (Mancebo, 2002, p. 129). 13. Schools have been proven to be the most efficient and cost-effective means of protecting children and youth from HIV infection and other hazards. Thus, schools must become the center of efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and the threats to the survival of children and young people. 14. The proportion of Chinese children and youth between 10 and 18 years of age who were in school in 1990 ranged from 73.6% for urban boys, 72.0% for urban girls, 54.6% for rural boys, and 44.4% for rural girls. 15. Contradictory research findings both support and refute that women as a group are overrepresented in China’s impoverished population. See the World Bank (2002). 16. For one example where such qualities are used see http://www.ncet.edu.cn/cida/ en/cct_intro.html. For UNESCO gender mainstreaming, see: http://portal.unesco.org/ en/ev.php-URL_ID=31253&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
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17. See Aikman and Unterhalter (2005), Batliwala (1994), Lopez-Claros and Zahidi (2005). Kabeer (1999) argues that measures for empowerment must take into consideration choice regarding access to resources; agency in decision making and negotiation of power; and outcomes that are of value to individuals. For girls’ schooling this minimally entails measuring attainment and achievement at least through the end of compulsory schooling; for agency how decisions about education are made (in households, village councils, and so on), and for outcomes what achievements flow from education – not just literacy, basic skills or improved GDP per capita, but broader measures of well being, such as meaningful participation in cultural, social, and political life. A baseline quantitative measurement for approximating the conditions of critical empowerment would include Unterhalter’s gender equality in education index (GEEI) which includes net attendance rate at primary school; girls’ survival rate over 5 years; girls’ net secondary enrollment ratio and a country gender development index. By this measure China has improved steadily in the last 12 years but will have to increase its energy to reach levels considered equal. 18. Aikman and Unterhalter (p. 246). The two authors define equality as ‘‘removal of deeply embedded obstacles and structures of power and exclusion, such as discriminatory laws, customs, practices, and institutional processes’’ (p. 3). 19. Twenty-one million of female illiterates were adults of working age between 15 and 50 years old. Census Literacy has been measured in China primarily according to the quantity of characters recognized (known) by an individual, normally 1,500 characters for rural dwellers and 2,000 characters for urban residents and rural leaders. These measures are not verified directly during a national census. Rather, survey teams note educational attainment and check illiteracy-eradication certificates, which are awarded by county level education departments or work units [danwei] to individuals who have not completed the fourth grade of 6-year primary school, the third grade of 5-year primary school, or an intensive primary school. Pressures to meet county, provincial and national literacy quotas are strong (State Statistical Bureau, 2005). 20. Subsequent female illiteracy proportions were not broken out in the Chinese Statistical Yearbook 2004 (State Statistical Bureau (2005)). To put these figures into comparative perspective, China’s disparities in illiteracy rates were less than those of three E-9 countries including India, Indonesia, and Pakistan (Mputu, 2001). 21. National Bureau of Statistics of China [Guojia Tongji Ju] (2002) reported that the top four provinces are in descending order, Tibet, Qinghai, Yunnan, and fourth is Gansu. 22. Income gap urban to rural stands $800–$350 reports the National Bureau of Statistics of China (US $8.29 ¼ 1 RMB). 23. Official government designation. 24. In the most developed regions 27.2% of schooled women completed only primary schooling and most of the remainder had secondary schooling at least. 25. Interview notes in Journals no. 1–3 are stored at Dr. Seeberg, EFSS, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA.
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26. Frequently estimates go as high as 400,000. One country in the province of Auhui is said to have sent 200,000 to the Beijing metropolitan area since the first 10 years of the reforms. 27. Only a small fraction of migrant rural laborers could afford to take their children with them to big cities where they work. 28. Other recent estimates, however, suggest that as many as 20 million migrants were under 18 years of age and even in Beijing 25% received no schooling at all (Kroeber & Miller, 2005). 29. The survey was conducted by education authorities in Tenshou country, Sichuan, as reported by Duan and Zhou (2005). 30. In Beijing, until 2000, more than 100 kinds of jobs were not open to migrant labor. Only jobs, which many Beijing residents are unwilling to take, such as street sweeping or garbage collecting, are open to migrants reports Zhang (2002). Zhang He is China country director at the Asia Foundation, Beijing. This paper was originally presented at the China Supplier Workshop on Labor Practices and Corporate Social Responsibility, October 22–23, in Shenzhen, China. 31. The villages in the studies reviewed in this chapter are located in the Prefectures of Ankang and Shangluo Cities in Shaanxi Province. Shangluo is a city and prefecture with 2.4 million residents spread across 7 counties and 2,800 villages. Each county supports an average of 7 high schools and 28 junior middle schools. Approximately 30% of Shangluo’s ninth grade graduates can enter senior high school, 10% lower than the provincial average. Ankang is home to 1,000 of the 25,000 primary school girls out of school in Shaanxi Province. 32. The Guanlan Scholarship is distributed in Shangzhou City, Shangluo Prefecture, Shaanxi Province, China, and was funded by V. Seeberg in the name of her daughter. The Scholarship has helped more than 35 girls reenter school and remain in primary and secondary education. Letters from the recipients and from the leaders of the All China Women’s Foundation (ACWF) of Shangzhou, as well as interviews with participants, their teachers, principals, and an associated university professor are one part of the data collected by Seeberg for the studies reported on in this chapter. 33. This language, ‘‘struggling to advance the local economy’’ is part of the political rhetoric found several times in officials’ letters and reports to the Guanlan Scholarship. 34. The proximity of the two scholarship regions is completely accidental and should not indicate any density of outside private or other scholarship assistance. The authors of these studies are as surprised as any reader familiar with the poverty of school funding in village China. 35. Ross collected school achievement data, teacher assessments, and student essays, as well as interviews during the first 3 years of the Spring Bud program, parts of which provide the data for the study on which this chapter reports. 36. By the end of 2003 US $65 million had been raised and 1,350,000 drop-out girls had been sponsored to go back to school. The ACWF also organized the ‘‘Girls’ Priority Rights Project,’’ providing skills training for elder girls dropping out of school in Western China and enhancing the awareness of local governors, officials, parents, children, and the general public on problems facing girls, making efforts to reduce and eliminate discrimination against girls and safeguard the rights of the girl child.
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INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AS A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING EDUCATION FOR ALL: PERSPECTIVES FROM THREE ASIAN SOCIETIES Vivian Heung and David Grossman ABSTRACT This study aims to make explicit fundamental challenges, which includes children with disabilities and special educational needs in education in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia under the current conceptions of Inclusion and Education for All (EFA). Based on extensive research and staff development work in these places, this chapter argues for uniting the aims of inclusive education and EFA in order to realize the goal of EFA in all countries. Such a transformative agenda will require a new model of looking at difficulties in learning and the concept of diversity in education. Unless a conscious effort is made to move our thinking and planning from EFA to Inclusive EFA, we will not achieve true universal education.
Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 155–180 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08005-4
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INTRODUCTION Can all learners benefit from the EFA movement? This chapter raises a fundamental question regarding EFA, which represents a major challenge for many countries. The global drive toward EFA has made significant contributions in improving education provision for children. Yet, despite the implication of its title, EFA in many countries, however, is not about all learners. Policy and provision for some students identified as ‘‘having special educational needs (SEN)’’ often remain separate. In fact, when progress in EFA was reviewed at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, a key challenge was ‘‘to ensure that the broad vision of EFA as an inclusive concept is reflected in national government and funding agency policies’’ (UNESCO, 2000, Para 19). Many developed countries, particularly the United States, have taken the lead to review education opportunities for children with disabilities and the concept of SEN. This trend started as early as the 1950s and has continued into the new century. These countries saw the limitations of special education and its focus on the deficits of individuals. The persistence of special education encourages the lack of access to mainstream provision for students with special needs and even when they are in the mainstream, their participation within it. Effort to move toward inclusive education has gained unparalleled momentum in the United States and other developed countries (Brantlinger, 1997; Villa & Thousand, 2000). The mandate of The Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975 (P.L. 94–142, reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, IDEA) (Meyen & Skrtic, 1998), the philosophy of ‘‘zero reject’’ (Taylor, Sternberg, & Richards, 1995), ‘‘Least Restrictive Environment’’ all have profound influence on education opportunity for students with disabilities (Zigmond, 1995) and the legal impetus for inclusive education (Villa & Thousand, 1995). Even in countries in which it first emerged, the implementation of inclusive education still remains a serious challenge. Citing reports from different sources, Vlachou (2004) revealed that disabled children have often been denied access to public education, or, when given access, have received an education that is not equal to that given to other children (Fulcher, 1989). Moreover, for many countries in Asia, even the concept of inclusive education is rather alien, something borrowed from the West. When imported to the East, it may not suit the dominant cultural values and education goals of these countries. This leads us to the reasons for writing this chapter. A major reason is the relative scarcity of published literature related to inclusive education that
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focused on countries in Asia. The paucity of accessible published literature on southern contexts in general has been a concern (e.g., Stubbs, 1995; Peters, 1993). The recent published literature is mostly country reports, often written by authors from northern countries and heavily influenced by northern perspectives (Stubbs, 1999). The reports published by international agencies tend to provide relatively oversimplified accounts (e.g., UNESCO, 1995, 2001a, 2001b). There is also a tendency for practitioners in southern countries to look to the literature in English-speaking nations for knowledge and information about inclusive education (Muthukrishna, 2003). We hope to widen the literature with Asian examples, and in this way hope to inspire practitioners to think about their own contexts and challenge unstated assumptions that inform existing practice. Based on almost 8 years of fieldwork and research into inclusion and exclusion in Hong Kong and China and a short period in Indonesia, this chapter attempts to highlight the major barriers to inclusive education in these three Asian societies. These barriers have resulted in the exclusion of many learners from mainstream education. Unless efforts are made to confront the underlying tensions and barriers, achieving EFA in these societies does not necessarily mean inclusive quality education for all children. This chapter will attempt to argue for a transformed agenda for EFA, the need to bring together EFA and inclusive education in a common central task in order to take forward the EFA task of providing quality basic EFA. EFA must be transformed into a concern for all learners. At the same time, inclusive education must be about the inclusion of all in education. This transformative agenda has significant implications as it will affect the way problems are analyzed, how policies are conceived and responsibilities allocated.
PURPOSE OF STUDY This study is informed by the efforts in three places – China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia – to move toward inclusive schooling. The choice of the three societies is sample of convenience based on the experience of the authors. China and Indonesia are not often thought of in the EFA context while in Hong Kong EFA is already been in place. Despite distinct differences, there are interesting common themes about culture and practice in these societies that warrant a more in-depth review. Mainland China, the world’s most populous country (approximately 1.3 billion people) and still under a
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one-party and at least technically socialist regime, has a rich reservoir of Chinese philosophical and social thought. Hong Kong, a highly famed capitalist city of seven million people sitting on China’s southern coast, is heir to two very different civilization traditions – that of China and Britain. These two heritages have undergirded education and development in Hong Kong. Beneath the sharp ideological divide between China and Hong Kong, there is a shared civilization going back for several millennia, a shared language and culture, a shared history and ways of thinking. In recent years, both China and Hong Kong have felt a need to overhaul their educational systems to keep pace with the world including an increased emphasis on inclusive schooling. Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country (approximately 233 million) and home to the world’s largest Muslim population, has many different ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups. These include the Javanese (45%), Sundanese (14%), Madurese (7.5%), Coastal Malays (7.5%), and others (26%). Indonesia’s population and its geography which encompasses thousands of islands presents serious challenge in getting to the out-of-reach children, mostly with disabilities and from disadvantaged homes. The information for this study comes from several research and staff development projects undertaken in Hong Kong and China from 1997 to 2005, and a pilot project on inclusive education in Indonesia in 2005 sponsored by the World Bank. In the three places, the work also included lesson observations, school visits, meetings with government officials, disabled people’s organizations, parent groups, and national and international non-government organizations. The accounts of policies and practices are followed by a set of discussion issues drawing out implications for crosscultural development of inclusive education. The study does not claim to be comprehensive in its coverage or to claim that the examples given are representative or appropriate for all systems. Rather it offers descriptions and analyses that can illustrate policy options for decision and policy-makers. In sum, the study provides an overview of: (a) (b) (c) (d)
Progress in the development of an inclusive concept of education. Major cultural biases and barriers. Difficulties of mainstream schools in responding to diversity. Implications for EFA.
It is important to state at the beginning some caveats in constructing generalizations from a comparative study of three highly complex and diverse societies. As Peters (1993) points out, the assumption that a country is
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a homogenous unit should be avoided and that a historical perspective is vital to a deeper analysis of an educational context. Fuller and Clarke (1994) further stated that local meanings have to be taken into account by researchers when working internationally. In regard to inclusive education research, Booth and Ainscow (1998) warned against the idea that there is a single national perspective on inclusion or exclusion. They rejected the notion that practice can be generalized across countries without attention to local contexts and meanings as it is likely to distort reality. In this chapter, we have tried to base discussion on continuous research and views that are triangulated from different sources and perspectives to avoid the danger of generalized explanations. This chapter will begin with a discussion of the concept of inclusive education and its relationship with EFA. Followed by a brief account of the challenges in implementing inclusive education in each of the three places, the chapter will then critically review the implications for achieving EFA. It will further analyze the link between inclusive education and EFA and the need for a transformed agenda of EFA. The main goal is to further the EFA agenda by drawing on lessons from three Asian societies.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: RATIONALE AND DEFINITION To facilitate an understanding of the underlying issues, it may be useful to briefly review some related notions and terminology. Over the last 30 years, many educators and professionals have attempted to alter traditional approaches to SEN through revised notions of special needs education, normalization, integration, mainstreaming, inclusion, and inclusive education (Vislie, 2003). In this context the traditional term ‘‘special educational needs’’ is seen as concerned with a small group of learners categorized as ‘‘handicapped’’ or ‘‘disabled’’ who were often placed in special schools. The change from SEN to special needs education signaled a shift in emphasis away from the assessment, categorization, and educational placement of learners according to their defects or disabilities toward an examination of what each learner might require in overcoming his or her educational difficulties. It expressed a broadening of concern to a wider group of students who experienced difficulties in learning inside or outside the mainstream. Despite the positive connotation of the revised terminology, special needs education still focuses on learner deficit, requiring a variety of experts
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specializing in particular categories of learners. Such an approach deflects attention from the learning environment, curricula, and teaching methods that might have contributed to the creation of difficulties. Besides, special needs education in many countries is often defined as something additional to general education. It encourages the assumption that most students form a homogeneous ‘‘normality’’ and implies that others are ‘‘less than normal’’. The label ‘‘special’’ has become a repository for various groups, such as ethnic minority learners, who suffer other forms of discrimination in society. When new groups of learners and their needs have been recognized, such as those with language difficulties, new sets of structures and professionals have to be established to support such learners. Concerns over stigmatization and discrimination have aroused many around the world to initiate attempts to ‘include’ learners who have been excluded from the mainstream through mainstreaming, integration, and inclusion. Different approaches to inclusion initiated at various stages of development indicated that there are different interpretations or models of inclusion (Ainscow, Dyson, & Booth, 2006). One model that has been frequently adopted by many societies including China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, focused solely on including learners with SEN in the mainstream. This approach to inclusion has found to be problematic (Ainscow et al., 2006). In this view disabled students and those with SEN, often known as ‘integrators’ or ‘inclusion students’, are different from mainstream students. They sometimes experience relative isolation within the mainstream. This approach may, in fact, help to reinforce the distinctiveness of these students from others. At the same time, it ignores students who are vulnerable to other sorts of exclusionary pressures within education. In short, this approach fails to recognize the diversity of interests, background, knowledge, and skills within all learners. This way, it can be said that it still retains most of the difficulties of the traditional SEN agenda. With reference to the development of inclusive education in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, this study will advocate another approach to inclusion. It is based on the belief that differences in learners is an essential aspect of reality and that education is about supporting and extending this diversity through a transformation of pedagogy. In essence, this approach to inclusion replaces concerns with the identification of children as ‘‘having learning difficulties’’ or ‘‘SEN’’ with the identification of barriers to learning for all children and the mobilization of resources within learners, teachers, communities, and governments. Hence, this transformative inclusion agenda will coincide with the task of EFA; it is vital for the development of quality basic EFA.
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INCLUSIVE EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA, HONG KONG, AND INDONESIA China China is a vast country with 56 national minorities who are geographically, economically, and educationally dissimilar. Any in-depth review or discussion should take into account the huge differences that exist across China. For a long time, China has had to struggle with historical, political, and economic factors that are not favorable for the development of education for children with disabilities. More recently China has shown interest in following the worldwide trend of inclusion and introduced some initiatives (e.g., Potts, 2000) but development clearly lags behind that in most developed countries. The first national survey on disability in 1987 (Office of the National Sampling Survey of the Handicapped and State Statistics Bureau, 1987) indicated that nearly 5% (51.64 million) of China’s population had disabilities. Children with disabilities constituted 2.66% of the total number of children. Based on these figures, it was calculated that the number of children with disabilities for the age range 0–14 and 15–18 was 8.17 million and 2.57 million, respectively. The numbers for the various categories of disabilities were estimated to be approximately 5.3 million intellectual disabilities (mental retardation), 0.86 million with hearing impairment, 0.29 with speechlanguage disorders, 0.80 million with multiple disabilities, 0.62 million with physical disabilities, 0.18 with visual impairment, and 0.01 with mental illness (Piao, 1991). As late as 1991, the majority of these children, particularly those living in isolated rural areas (90%), did not attend school (Guo, Zhao, & Wang, 1993). Chen (1996) estimated that in 1987 less than 1% of children with disabilities receiving education enrolled in special schools and 54.3% enrolled in regular schools. An investigation of adult literacy showed that 20.6% of the whole population was illiterate, and 66.37% or two thirds of those with disabilities were illiterate (cited in Chen, 1996). Another study found that in 1988, 66.4% of persons with disabilities in the country were illiterate, while the percentage for those without disabilities was 22.6% (Deng, 1990). Clearly, as late as in the 1980s, the majority of children with disabilities in China did not receive education. What were the barriers? Early effort to educate children with disabilities in China mainly focused on segregated special schools. The first special school was built by European missionaries, William Moon, in 1874 for the blind. Later, the government also established special schools. By 1949, there were 42 special schools but
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they were confined to serving a total of 2,000 blind, deaf, or mute students (Yang & Wang, 1994). Though continuous efforts have been made, the number of special schools built was far too few to meet service need. When the People’s Republic of China was founded in October 1949, the primary aim of education was switched to promoting political ideologies and educating laborers with socialism (Lee, 1995). The new government took over all the special schools sponsored by foreign organizations. The first education policy document published by the Communist government in 1951 also encouraged building more special schools. It was believed that even people with disabilities could be trained to be socialist laborers (Piao, 1994). Inspired by the economic ‘‘Great Leap Forward’’ movement in 1958, more special schools were established and by 1960, the number of special schools was increased to 479. Unfortunately, political turmoil during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) affected all education in China including special education, which suffered greatly. Services shrunk and the delivery model was restricted to special schools based on the deficit model of the Soviet Union (Piao, 1998). In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping ushered in a new era of reform and opening to the outside world that brought an increased emphasis on a market economy, professional expertise, and international cooperation. Deng’s ‘‘open door’’ and reform policies shifted the national focus from ideological class struggle to economic reconstruction, and education was seen as the pathway for advancement (Dual & Cheng, 1990). Consistent with these reforms, the educational rights of persons with disabilities were acknowledged, and were given higher profile by legislation in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1982, the newly revised Constitution stated that ‘‘the nation is responsible for providing citizens with blindness, deaf, mute, and other disabilities with opportunities to work, live, and be educated’’ (The National People’s Congress, 1982, Article 45). The Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China (The National People’s Congress, 1986) was passed a year later, and it mandated that schools accept children with disabilities. Since then, school entrance rates of students with disabilities have become important criteria for evaluating educational performance during official district inspections (Liang, 1990). The practice of calculating school enrolment based on the total number of children who could be in school has been changed by adding the number of those with disabilities. In fact, the entrance rates of these students increased drastically from 6% to 60% between 1987 and 1996 (Gu, 1992; Xiao, 1996), and the majority of these students were in mainstream classrooms. For the first time, children with disabilities have the right to be educated in public schools.
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Prior to the 1990s children with disabilities had often been denied access to education. But after the introduction of compulsory education in 1986, China faced the problem of how to educate these children. It seems that the old model of special schools could not be adopted as the number of children with disabilities was huge. It was estimated that, just for children with mental retardation, at least 210,000 special schools would be required as the total number of these children was 5 million (Liu, 1991), not to mention related resources and teacher training. These economic and practical constraints have forced China to explore other options. A new model termed the ‘‘Learning in Regular Classrooms Movement’’ (LRC) was considered viable by professional and government officials. Unfortunately the LRC model has not been very well-defined, nor have the procedures for its implementation been clearly described (Piao, 1989a). Only the main aim has been made explicit, that is, to give children previously excluded from education the opportunity to attend school (State Council of China, 1989). Because of the ambiguity in definition, when districts attempted to apply LRC, various approaches have been adopted and as a result, thus adding more confusion to the exact meaning of LRC. Similar to mainstreaming or inclusion, LRC represents effort to educate students with disabilities in neighborhood schools with their peers. The first attempt at inclusion was the Gold-Key Education Project in which 1,000 children with visual impairments were included in regular classes within 1 year (Xu, 1992). The success of this project provided further impetus for developing LRC. Touching stories of the joy of learning in LRC were publicized. One story told of a girl whose hair had turned white due to the frustration of being forced to leave school because of eye injury. Because of LRC, she could attend school and her hair turned black again (cited in Deng & Manset, 2000). Some researchers have argued that China was influenced by the Western concept of mainstreaming in initiating LRC (e.g., Chen, 1990, 1996, 1997; Deng & Poon McBrayer, 2004). In this view the Western concept was brought in to China as a result of the open policy of Deng and through international exchanges. Some local and overseas researchers (e.g., Chen, 1990, 1996, 1997; Mu, Yang, & Armfield, 1993; Potts, 2000) have identified the LRC program as mainstreaming and used the terms ‘‘mainstreaming’’ or ‘‘inclusion’’ to describe the LRC program in China. UNESCO (1998) also used the title China: Inclusion in Practice to summarize progress of China’s special education in its annual EFA report. Other researchers have a different view, however. They claim that LRC arises more from practical constraints related to China’s social and educational conditions, such as shortage of personnel, limited fiscal resources and
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facilities, than from allegiance to the concept of mainstreaming or inclusion (Piao, 1991; Zhang, 1992). These researchers also highlight the differences between LRC and mainstreaming or inclusion. LRC appears to emphasize access rather than children’s right to an appropriate education (Piao, 1989b; Tang, 1993; Xiao, 1996). It is not concerned about parental involvement or Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Piao (1992) insists that LRC was the only option for general class placement and not an application of a Western model. In any case, China has used LRC as the main strategy to universalize compulsory education for students with disabilities. In 1988 following the National Conference on Special Education, the State Education Commission announced that though separate schools would still be a part of the special education system, they would only constitute the ‘‘backbone’’ of the system, and ‘‘a large number of LRC and special classes will serve as the body’’ (Gu, 1991, p. 7). In 1989 the State Council endorsed LRC as an official policy for special education (State Council of China, 1989). Further, the right of individuals with disabilities to education was guaranteed by the Protection of Disabled Persons Act of 1990 (The National People’s Congress, 1991). This Act mandated the LRC model based on the principles of equality, participation, and mutual enjoyment (Yang & Wang, 1994). Specific regulations and details for implementing LRC were provided in the ‘‘Pilot Project on Implementing Learning in Regular Classrooms for Children and Adolescents with Disabilities’’ (Ministry of Education of China, 1994). In 2000, the LRC program served approximately 69% of students with disabilities (Information Division of the Ministry of Education, 2000). The launch of LRC and the sharp increase in school enrolment of students with disabilities may likely lead to the conclusion that China has made a great stride in achieving EFA. This assumption must be challenged. The question is: Are children with disabilities in LRC really engaged in learning? In some LRCs students with disabilities have been observed sitting alone, neglected, and isolated from classroom activities (Deng, 1994; Piao, 1992; Tang, 1993; Yu, 1993). Since LRC has not made any explicit effort to adapt existing curricula and instruction for children with disabilities, much has to depend on the capacity and inclusiveness of mainstream schools to respond to the increased diversity of the student body. Unfortunately, many educators and researchers have found the mainstream schools unprepared and ineffectual in providing inclusive education. Hence, the provision of LRC is not equal to the provision of quality education if mainstream schools are not inclusive. China still faces the challenge of achieving quality inclusive education for all children.
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Hong Kong In 1972 Hong Kong introduced 6 years’ compulsory education for all children, and in 1978 it was extended to 9 years. In this sense it can be said that for nearly the last 30 years Hong Kong has achieved EFA as all children receive education. But even now Hong Kong is still struggling with policies and practices for educating children with disabilities and learning difficulties. It has been the practice of Hong Kong’s government to make a clear distinction between children defined as ‘‘handicapped’’ and ‘‘nonhandicapped’’ (Board of Education, 1996). Such clear differentiation is required as students are educated in two different school systems – regular schools for the ‘‘non-handicapped’’ and special schools for the ‘‘handicapped’’. Until very recently this dual-track system was considered necessary, though undesirable, as the needs of the two groups of students were perceived as different. In Hong Kong special schools as a form of segregated education provision were first built by philanthropic organizations and missionaries and the focus was on care-giving. The first home for the blind was built by the Catholic Canossian sisters in 1863 and the first school for the deaf by other missionaries in 1935. Between 1960s and 1980s, the number of special schools increased rapidly; at the same time, more and more labels for special education were created for the students. The labels included students with sensory and physical impairments – blind, deaf, and other physical handicaps – as well as those who are mentally impaired in varying degrees, mild, moderate, and severe grades, those who have to be hospitalized, and the socially deprived. In the 1990s, other labels such as ‘‘children who are unmotivated toward academic studies’’ and ‘‘children with learning difficulties’’ were added; however the special schools assigned for these categories were integrated in 2000. There are currently 62 special schools classified according to the categories of children they serve, viz. visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically disabled, social development, mildly mentally handicapped, moderately mentally handicapped, severely mentally handicapped, mildly and moderately mentally handicapped, and hospital schools. The special schools are separated into a distinctive sector within the school system, often with little collaboration with their counterparts in the mainstream of schooling. At present there are around 28,000 students with SEN and 9,000 students with disabilities out of a total of 930,000 students in Hong Kong (Education and Manpower Bureau, 2006). The number of students enrolled in special schools is currently 8,403, around 0.9%. The majority of students with SEN
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are students with learning difficulties (approximately 19,000). Most of them are enrolled in ordinary schools, supported by a range of services including special classes, pull-out resource classes in general primary schools (currently, some resource classes have been replaced by the Intensive Remedial Teaching Programme), resource teaching centers, and remedial classes in general secondary schools. To integrate or include such a small percentage of students with disabilities and learning difficulties should not, in principle, pose serious challenge. But the past 8-year effort indicated that it is really difficult to implement integrated or inclusive education in Hong Kong. In 1997 after Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of China under the policy of ‘‘one country, two systems,’’ the new Hong Kong government made education reform a priority. Within the reform agenda, a policy of Integrated Education (IE) for children with disabilities was launched. The long established dual-track system was subjected to criticism as it differentiated schools by students’ learning ability or disability based predominantly on academic performance. The reform on IE began with the launch of a 2-year pilot project in 1997. However, 9 years later Hong Kong still faces great resistance in integrating students with diverse learning needs. What are the barriers? The mainstream regular schools in Hong Kong are highly competitive and selective. Following largely the British model, education in Hong Kong is divided into preschool (aged 4–6), primary (aged 6–12), and secondary education (aged 12–17). Students entering secondary education at the age of 12 or 13 will be assessed and assigned to one of three bands (formerly five) of secondary schools based on the assessment results. This system of banding was based on the belief that homogeneous groupings of students would facilitate teaching and learning. This tracking of students has far-reaching impact on the ecology of schools, classroom life, and the self-image of students. In 1997 the new Hong Kong government launched a 2-year pilot project on IE for integrating students with five types of disabilities: mild mental handicap, visual or hearing impairments, physical disabilities, and autism with average intelligence. Only 9 schools out of 1,200 were willing to participate in the IE pilot project, and 49 children with SEN were integrated. The pilot schools were resourced with an additional teacher, a learning support assistant where appropriate, and a grant from the government. Besides establishing a school integration policy, schools were encouraged to use collaborative teaching, IEPs, assistive technology, peer support, and parental participation. After the 2-year pilot project, the number of schools joining IE has increased to a current total of 117.
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In 2004, the government initiated a new funding mode to replace the integration project. This funding mode provides schools with flexible funding to coordinate support services for all students in the school, including those with SEN. By 2005 a total of 334 schools were using this new mode. In terms of the number of schools joining IE, it can be said that Hong Kong has made good progress. But signs of dissatisfaction have accumulated as more and more schools are moving toward inclusive schooling. Many teachers and parents complain about the lack of training, inadequate preparation, and resources. Our previous research work and activities provide us with an ‘insider’ view of the perspectives of schools and teachers.1 In the initial stages many Hong Kong schools perceived integrating students with disabilities as a ‘‘crisis,’’ as a change that would upset the status quo. It was often accompanied by questions and comments such as
Why should the school change to take in students with SEN? We do not know the special methods to teach these children. They will cause us a lot of problems. I do not think they can learn.
There was considerable concern about additional workload. It was also argued that integration would lower the academic results of the school. Thus, in a competitive educational environment like that of Hong Kong, the reluctance of schools to integrate should not be surprising. The fact that only 9 out of a total of 1,200 schools were willing to join the initial pilot project is already quite revealing. At that time, there was good cause to be pessimistic about the future prospect of integration in Hong Kong because of the system barriers and the pressures on schools. However, later developments proved to be different from what we anticipated. There are both favorable and unfavorable factors for inclusion in Hong Kong. Unfortunately the system barriers and countervailing pressures are strong. The positive factors included the strong commitment to integration shown by the nine pilot schools, which served as a model for other schools. Besides, teachers and parents were positive about the benefits they observed in the social interaction of students integrated (Crawford, Heung, Yip, & Yuen, 1999; Dowson et al., 2003). Because Hong Kong has adopted a whole-school approach to integration, some schools found that integration has helped the schools to create a receptive and collaborative culture and they can benefit from it. Local research showed that most schools in Hong Kong have a strong caring culture and supportive ethos that are conducive for inclusive school development (e.g., Crawford et al., 1999; Dowson et al.,
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2003). Many schools have been innovative in implementing peer-support programs, such as the ‘‘Good Heart Ambassador Scheme’’, the ‘‘Love and Care Scheme’’, and the ‘‘Buddy system’’. Despite these positive factors, integration proved to be a stressful burden for teachers (Wong, Pearson, & Lo, 2004). The real challenge lies in the tension between inclusive education value and the prevalent emphasis on excellence and academic achievement in Hong Kong schools. It appears that teachers have to struggle with two rather conflicting philosophies: the philosophy of accommodating differences in class on the one hand and the stress on academic achievement of students in a high stakes examination-based competitive educational system on the other. The challenge for Hong Kong is that the philosophy underlying inclusion is not in congruent with the philosophy that informs approaches to curriculum design, student and teacher assessment in schools. Indonesia 2 Over the past 20 years Indonesia has made great progress in increasing enrolment in basic education. The net enrolment rate for primary education, however, has remained stagnant at 92% for the past 10 years. Out of 47 million school-aged children at primary and junior secondary levels, approximately 3.7 million children are out of school. The dropouts at primary and junior secondary are 0.7 and 0.3 million, respectively. Though there is a lack of accurate data, it has been estimated that 30–50% of the out-of-school children have special needs and disabilities (Chang et al., 2005). Like other countries Indonesia experiences persistent difficulty in reaching the last 10% of children out of school. A review of the legislation shows that the Indonesian government is committed to the principle of equity and equality in education. At the national level, Article 31 Section (1) of the revised Constitution states that each and every citizen shall have the fundamental right to education. This constitutional imperative has been further elaborated in the Act of the Republic of Indonesia on the National Education System (Act No. 20/2003). Act No. 4/1997 guarantees people with disabilities the right to equal opportunities in all aspects of life and living (Article 5) and the right to education, work, equal treatment, accessibility, rehabilitation, and equal opportunity for self-development (Article 6). Decree No. 468/1998 of the Minister of Public Works requires that all public buildings and environments (including educational facilities) are accessible. In addition, Law No. 25/2000 of the National Development Program 2000–2004 specifically
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mentions basic education including pre-school for disabled children, disadvantaged children, children living in remote areas, urban shanties, areas of conflict, and poor communities as one of its objectives. In addition to these national laws Indonesia and the governments of other countries in the Asian and Pacific region declared 1993–2002 to be the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons. Guidelines were set out in an Agenda of Action called the Biwako Millennium Framework, which has as one of its targets early detection, early intervention, and education (Action Target 3). The Government of Indonesia also ratified the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and established targets under EFA to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. In order to practice inclusive schooling, Indonesia began IE from 1978 to 1984 based on the collaborative effort of the Government and a voluntary organization, Helen Keller International. Several elementary schools in Yogyakarta province joined as pilot. It was later expanded to include junior and senior secondary schools. But over the years there was a decline in the number of integrated schools from 286 to 119, the chief reason being that students in the integrated schools had to follow the mainstream curriculum, which had not been adapted to accommodate their needs. Many students found it hard to cope with the mainstream curriculum and had to return to special schools. In 1986 this pilot implementation was decreed as policy by the Minister. IE only served four types of disabilities: visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical disability (polio), and mild intellectual disability. In 1998–2002 the move toward inclusive education was accelerated by the cooperation between the Indonesian and Norwegian Government through Braillo Norway project activities. Activities included seminars, workshops, training, and the establishment of nine regional centers. Each center would nurture one model school, which was replicated to the neighboring schools. The pilot project was scaled up to the national level by the Director of Special Education. In 2002–2003, 504 primary, junior secondary and secondary schools joined this effort. They focused on socialization, building infrastructure, capacity building, and itinerant teachers for regular schools. Besides, Indonesia follows the ‘Child Friendly School’ concept with approximately 100 such schools. Despite these efforts, there are still a significant number of school-age children in Indonesia who are not in school. There is also a question as to the quality of existing inclusive schools in view of reports of high dropout rates in such schools. The picture is actually quite complex because of the variety of school programs. One reason that accounts for such diversity in
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approaches is simply the large number of special interest groups and international organizations that support Indonesia to establish inclusive education. However, the work among these organizations is rather fragmented and there is a lack of any cohesive framework. Also, various stakeholders may not have a clear understanding of inclusive education and their capacity to develop it effectively is doubtful. So far much has been done in campaigning for inclusive education, preparing teachers and schools, but the focus should now lay more on supporting in-school children with learning disabilities. The reality is that most programs cannot reach the children who are not in schools; many of them are with disabilities or come from disadvantaged homes. The resources are simply not available.
DISCUSSION: MAJOR BARRIERS Several common themes emanate from this background review of inclusive education development in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia despite their different political, historical, social, and economic situations. One theme that is clearly reflected, whatever the background or context, is that children with disabilities and learning difficulties are often considered as a distinct group of learners. They are not included in the overall planning for education. They appear to be an ‘appendix’ to be tackled when provision for the more able learners has been guaranteed. It is distressing to note that even when these children are given access to education through the launch of inclusive education, they will find great difficulty participating in mainstream education as it has not been designed for ‘including’ them. The approach to inclusion adopted by these places seeks to make students fit in with an unchanged inflexible education system. Under such circumstances, these children cannot benefit from EFA or inclusive education. Why should the educational needs of these children be considered of low priority? Why cannot mainstream education accommodate them? What are the barriers? The major difficulties will be reviewed under four themes.
Cultural Perspectives of Disabilities An important barrier to inclusion identified in this study is cultural factors and attitudes toward disabilities. In Indonesia, the ‘root problem’ in terms of access, attendance, and participation of children with disabilities is traditional societal attitudes and parental attitudes toward disability.
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Acceptance is a prerequisite to involvement. Often additional resources provided to support the family do not enhance the conditions needed for school-readiness and attendance of children with disabilities. In Indonesia factors such as the parents’ shame of having a disabled child, over-protection, parents’ perception that their children’s learning is unworthy, and parents’ belief that education is the responsibility of the school or government are still prevailing issues. In China, inclusive education is undermined by negative societal attitudes (Potts, 2003) as well as perhaps by Confucian ideas that form the foundation of Chinese culture. Order and harmony are crucial for a country, according to Confucius, and they should be achieved through education (Lee, 1995). The emphasis on education in Chinese culture is evident from the high regard and high status given to educated scholars in traditional society. Through passing public examination, scholars could attain high positions in the government. Though society has changed over time, the aspiration to highly educated is deeply rooted in most Chinese people as it is seen as the way to success, prosperity, and fame. This aspiration has passed from generation to generation. Even today most Chinese parents in China as well as in Hong Kong strive to give the best education possible to their children and make every effort to ensure that they thrive for academic achievement (Lee, 1991). The best way is to find a prestigious school for them and hence elite schools are highly valued. Influenced by the Confucian legacy, the notion that education is to cultivate elites, good officials and citizens is embedded in the Chinese culture (Lee, 1995). The aim of ‘‘excellence’’ is central to education with its implied structure of competitive selection. Coupled with the highly competitive public examination system in Hong Kong, it fosters strong competition among schools. Teaching becomes focused and narrowly focused on the acquisition of knowledge and the reproduction of it in high stakes examinations. There is little space or interest for responding to individual needs or cultivating a receptive and inclusive culture in Chinese or Hong Kong schools. In this cultural context it is difficult to see how children with disabilities could achieve academic excellence in schools in either Hong Kong or China. For children with disabilities, the prevailing culture is that of sympathy and care rather than the provision of education or the adaptation of the educational system to meet diverse learning needs (Yang & Wang, 1994; Ye & Piao, 1995). In China even some parents of children with disabilities do not support the notion that their children should be educated (Liu, 1992). Many doubt the learning potentials of children with disabilities (Chen, 1996). Some parents questioned the energy and expenses devoted to educating a child such as theirs.
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The ideology of submission to national and family needs is also in keeping with the traditional culture. The country, the community, and the family are far more important than individuals. In traditional Chinese societies, individuals are part of a social hierarchy; each should act according to his or her own positions in the social configuration. Reflecting on imperialist and later Maoist cultural values, Cheng (1994) remarked that the notions of individual needs and individual choice which are fundamental to educational ideas in the West were simply absent in China. Individualism is constantly a word for criticism. Education in the Chinese socialist ideology was to eliminate individualism rather than to cater for individual needs. In line with Confucian teachings, most Chinese in Hong Kong are inclined to believe that achievement is often possible if children work hard. They do not deny differences in innate endowment, but rather they de-emphasize its importance as a controlling factor in people’s lives. They surmise that ‘diligence can compensate for dullness’, and ‘the slow bird’ says another Chinese proverb, ‘must start out early’. Whereas western students consider ability to be a major cause of academic success, Chinese people are far more likely to ascribe their performance to effort and study methods. Success achieved through hard work is likely to be valued more highly than that gained by high ability in Confucian heritage. Behind the individual’s striving for academic success is the image of the family and society collectively, which is more important in Confucian term. The success of the individual would give face to their family and society. Invariably, children feel these pressures themselves. In a nutshell, it can be said that the value placed on individualism, selfadvocacy, and diversity by many western educators may not find an equivalent in China or Hong Kong. The core values of inclusion, such as equity, normalization, and pluralism have not been given enough emphasis. Traditional commitments to fixed social roles and collective identities provide a contrasting framework for moves toward a more inclusive system in China (Potts, 2003).
Culture of Changing the Child to Fit the System Another common barrier we can cite is the expectation that all learners have to aspire to a single standard of culture and educational fitness. Observation of lessons delivered in some mainstream schools in the three places gives the impression that, in general, students with disabilities are warmly welcomed and well-accepted by teachers, but often support is directed toward helping them to catch up to fit the system. Subject teachers may provide extra help
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outside the classroom or in resource rooms, before or after school, but there are no explicit changes in the school system through curriculum differentiation or assessment procedures to accommodate differences. In China, many teachers are hampered by a lack of knowledge and experience in teaching children with disabilities (Cheng & Wang, 1990; Deng, 1992; Na, 1993). The most common remark from teachers is, ‘It is very difficult for children who are not clever to study. They find it hard’. They tend to place the responsibility on the children to change themselves. There appears to be a lack of effort in catering to individual learning style or needs. In most lessons, children work on the same tasks at the same time. It is difficult to see student-initiated activity or learning. In Hong Kong, there have been massive campaigns for teacher training for inclusion. The focus is often on ‘special methods’ for the particular categories of learners rather than the pedagogies and organizational strategies to reduce educational difficulties. Research has shown that in general teachers in Hong Kong are not confident in using research supported teaching methods, such as cooperative learning, collaborative teaching, curricular, and assessment accommodation for inclusion though they have such knowledge (Crawford et al., 1999). Indonesia sees an urgent need to upgrade teachers’ skills on child-centered, active pedagogy, and instruction, as well as to make the curriculum more functional. Often, there is a lack of congruity between children’s lives and the school context, in particular daily, weekly and annual schedules, language and culture. There is a need to match the curriculum, preferably with a focus on functional life-skills, with cultural beliefs and priorities. More innovative, student-centered, and inclusive approaches are found in some schools for particular lessons in each of the three places. However, the attempt to be flexible and innovative delivered in a hierarchical and rigid system is likely to create tension. Unless there is a reform in the basic framework of curriculum and assessment, changing the approach for particular lesson is not likely to make schooling more inclusive for children, particularly if the problem posed by greater heterogeneity tend to be seen as belonging to the children rather than arising from the system.
Culture of Homogeneity in Teaching A tendency to use ability grouping of students and homogeneity in teaching is noted in the three places and is considered an important barrier in this study. This practice is often based on the belief that teaching students in
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ability groups will help to raise standard. Mixed ability teaching, on the other hand, is viewed as difficult by many teachers. In general, teachers are faced with the challenge of getting a large proportion of their students promoted to the next grade, while at the same time addressing the needs of students with disabilities. The problem was intensified by the practice of large class size, ranging from 40 to 75, a uniform curriculum, standard textbooks, and formal teaching styles. Most teachers just lack the time, energy, and knowledge to respond to diverse learners and their needs. As reflected in policy documents in China, there seems to be a belief that homogenous teaching will help to stretch children’s potential and raise standards. Potts (2003) has challenged this view by citing research carried out in Europe, the United States, and the Far East, which shows that teaching students in ability groups does not raise standards. Those in the top stream, according to research, often suffer from excessive pressure to succeed whereas students in the lower stream become depressed and disruptive. Differentiating the curriculum rather than the students was seen as more likely to increase students’ motivation and self-determination (see Hallam, 2002).
Culture of Collaborative Teaching The development of teaching approaches responsive to difference depends on the resource to support learning that is contained in diversity. In the three places in general, there is an apparent lack of effort to mobilize inclusionary resources within learners, teachers, and communities. Collaboration among special and general education teachers, other professionals, and parents are not commonly practiced in schools. The development of approaches to learning that involves child-to-child support is rather limited. They can be effective in creating classrooms that encourage the participation and learning of all students. In short, there is a lack of appreciation of diversity and the potential energy in difference in developing teaching approaches. In summary, this study has demonstrated that cultural attitudes, the culture of teaching, and ability grouping of students have acted as countervailing pressures against inclusion of students with special needs in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia in the mainstream school system. While there are other barriers that have not been discussed here, including the lack of clear policies, ambiguity in the concept of inclusion and lack of sufficient resources, here we have focused on a selection of issues and pervasive cultural factors that have called for a rethink of the concept of EFA.
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CONCLUSION: PUTTING INCLUSION INTO THE EDUCATION FOR ALL AGENDA EFA the world’s children forms the backbone of international human rights law but it does not shape global educational strategies. A different definition of what education is and a distinct vision of its design characterizes each of them (Tomasevski, 2006). Hopefully this study, by examining explicit the approaches to inclusive education in three places in Asia can inform global strategies for inclusive EFA. Today classrooms in China, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, as well as many other societies, are becoming increasingly diverse. The school population is bulging with cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, familiar affiliations, disabilities and abilities, individual learning styles, dispositions, behavioral demonstrations, and a host of other diversities. There is a great risk of discrimination in classifying any group of children as ‘‘special’’ or different from ‘‘normal’’. We should learn from the experience in these three places that conventional thinking about normality should be challenged. Instead, diversity should be viewed as the norm rather than the exception. Diversity within education is an aspect of reality. It should be welcomed, not only as a reality but also as a key resource for learning. It follows that EFA in any country should be about all learners with different interests, background, ability, and disability. For countries to accept this transformative agenda of EFA, a different way or model of understanding and responding to difficulties in learning is required. Conventional thinking that disability is a deficiency of an individual tends to reinforce difference. Disability should be recognized as arising out of an interaction between the learner and the environment. This, what may be called a social model of disability helps to remove the focus on learner deficit. It sees difficulties in learning as arising out of an interaction between the learner and the human and material resources available to support learning. It urges for efforts to help remove the barriers to participation so that children from whatever background, ability, or interest can participate in learning. A central task in education for this transformative inclusive agenda is to maximize participation for all through minimizing barriers to learning. This is to be achieved through the development of pedagogy of inclusion and mobilizing inclusionary resources. Institutions or schools that respond to this new agenda will have to significantly change the way they are organized. A concern with overcoming all exclusionary pressures in education should permeate throughout the organization. Those responsible for special needs
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education or for other oppressed groups have a special role in ensuring that all forms of exclusion are identified and inclusionary forces mobilized. It should also be recognized that the obstacles to achieve this united, transformative EFA are formidable. However, the task can be assisted if those working to achieve it separately can be brought together under a common set of principles and strategies for implementation.
NOTES 1. The chapter’s lead author, Dr. Heung, was involved in an evaluation study of the 2-year pilot project on integration (1997–1999). She had the opportunity to observe the journey of the nine pilot schools in moving toward integrated education (Crawford et al., 1999 Crawford, Heung, Yip, & Yuen, 1999). After the pilot project, Dr. Heung also participated in a study of four integrated schools in a 2-year research project (2001–2003) (Dowson et al., 2003). Her experience was further enhanced by consultancy work and staff development activities delivered to over 100 schools joining the integration project in the past 3 years (2002–2005). 2. Recently the chapter’s lead author, Dr. Heung, had the opportunity to work in a World Bank project on inclusive education in Indonesia. While the authors do not have as extensive experience in Indonesia as in China and Hong Kong, the following section provides a brief and instructive case study worthy of inclusion in this chapter.
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IN PURSUIT OF EFA: EXPANDING AND ENHANCING MULTIGRADE SCHOOLING IN BHUTAN Peter Ninnes, T. W. Maxwell, Wangchuck Rabten and Karchung Karchung ABSTRACT The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan was a signatory to the Jomtien Education for All agreement. Pursuing EFA in Bhutan presents a number of unique geographical, systemic, linguistic and other challenges, and the Royal Government of Bhutan has adopted multigrade school development as one major strategy in moving towards EFA. This adoption can be considered a form of policy borrowing. In this chapter we explore how multigrade schooling has been enhanced and expanded in Bhutan to achieve EFA goals, and in particular, the conditions under which multigrade teaching has become an accepted and important form of educational delivery in Bhutan. We trace the development of multigrade teaching to a set of partly planned and partly coincidental events and contexts. We review the geographical setting of Bhutan, local and global political events, teacher training issues, teacher upgrade programmes, contemporary discourses of education, development and modernization, and local initiatives to promote and strengthen multigrade teaching as a key strategy in providing access to school for children in remote areas. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 181–199 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08006-6
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We also identify a number of challenges facing multigrade teaching, including the linguistic context, local reservations about the desirability of multigrade classes and resource issues.
1. INTRODUCTION Bhutan was a signatory to the Jomtien agreement on Education for All in 1990. Signatories undertook to attempt to achieve universal primary education by 2000. This provided a major impetus to expand education into remote parts of the country, using multigrade schools as a key strategy for delivering primary education. The global promise, and promises of education for Bhutan’s national development, created tensions within Bhutan’s educational system primarily due to a lack of resources (material and human) and related issues. In this chapter we examine current moves to expand and enhance multigrade schools, using the Himalayan nation of Bhutan as a case study. In particular, we explore these questions: 1. In the context of EFA, why and how has multigrade teaching become a prominent discourse and practice in Bhutan? 2. What competing discourses and practices impact on the further development and institutionalization of multigrade teaching in Bhutan? 3. What generalizable issues arise for the expansion and enhancement of multigrade teaching elsewhere?
2. WIDER DISCOURSES OF EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT AND ‘MODERNIZATION’ The wider Bhutanese policy context contributes to the ways in which EFA goals are being pursued through the expansion of multigrade schooling in Bhutan. The present King’s desire to extend ‘gross national happiness’ is more than a catch cry. For example, the future-oriented document Bhutan 2020 (RGoB, 1999, p. 47) enshrines this idea in its aim ‘‘to maximise the happiness of all Bhutanese and to enable them to achieve their full and innate potential as human beings’’ (RGoB, 1999, p. 47). The Ministry of Education has articulated this vision in its Education Sector Strategy: Realising the Vision 2020 – Policy and Strategy (RGoB, 2003).
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Bhutanese leaders are interested in development but not at the expense of their own culture (RGoB, 1999). Thus, at the heart of the modernization debate in Bhutan is the demand for expansion of services, especially in education and health, and the achievement of economic self-sufficiency. Bhutan’s cultural heritage, especially its Buddhist base, is closely guarded, expressed and maintained symbolically through Dzongkha as the official language, and through ceremony, dress and architecture. More recently overt moves towards democracy have speeded up such that the first democratic elections will take place in 2008 (see Maxwell, 2007). There exists a strong belief in Bhutan about the importance of education for the modernization of Bhutan (see Wiseman & Baker, 2005). Implied here also is the need for an educated citizenry in order to build a strong democracy. The Planning Commission’s Bhutan 2020 (RGoB, 1999) sets out parameters for the development of broad sectors of Bhutanese life over 20 years. That document presents the tension between cultural traditions and development in this way: We have built unity out of diversity; y We take quiet pride in our independence; y Unity and development would have been impossible without the continuity and vision that have been bestowed upon our nation by the institution of a hereditary monarchy y Our approach to development has been shaped by the beliefs and values of the faith we have held for more than 1,000 years. Firmly rooted in our rich tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, the approach stresses, not material rewards, but individual development, sanctity of life, compassion for others, respect for nature, social harmony, and the importance of compromise. y Our approach to development has led us to emphasize the importance of institutions that are able to guide and manage the process of development as well as foster participation. y The values underlying our approach to development have meant that we, unlike many of other developing countries, stand on the threshold of a new century with our natural environment largely intact. y We have been assisted by others in our efforts to modernize and transform our nation. (RGoB, 1999, pp. 20–24)
In terms of education a key decision was taken, during the reign of the third king, to make English a language of instruction. This was clearly a modernizing influence. However, Dzongkha was made the official language of Bhutan and this is also taught, and used to teach, in schools. Also, staffing of these schools creates difficulties not only in their remoteness, but also because the teachers often lack knowledge of local languages and customs, which impacts on the effectiveness of teaching in all schools, including multigrade schools.
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3. POLICY BORROWING CASE STUDY In Bhutan, the policy of expansion of basic formal education into previously unserviced, sparsely populated and relatively remote locations directly followed the Jomtien promise. The expansion has usually involved creating one- or two-teacher primary schools covering all year levels, thus necessitating the use of multigrade classes. Such contexts present particular challenges in terms of teaching methods, curriculum development, resources and classroom organization. To accommodate the classes, Bhutan has developed the concept of the community school (see below). We discuss these challenges and Bhutan’s responses to them in this chapter. The educational changes occurring in Bhutan, particularly the expansion of basic education and the increased use of multigrade schools, can be conceptualized in a number of ways. For example, it could be viewed as the result solely of rational, planned developments implemented by entirely rational actors. However, the case of Bhutan indicates that these changes are only in part the result of rational, planned change. However, the adoption of multigrade schooling by Bhutan can perhaps best be described as a clear example of policy borrowing (Phillips, 2000; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004) or what has also been called institutional isomorphism (Wiseman & Baker, 2005). Policy borrowing is a useful though not uncontested concept. A clear difficulty is the lack of precision of the term ‘policy’. ‘Policy’ has multiple meanings. For example, it can be the formal articulation of government intention or it can refer to custom and practice or a particular process. Policy borrowing in this chapter means the adoption of multigrade schooling practices used in rural and remote parts of Australia for use in rural and remote parts of Bhutan. Multigrade education was first seen in Australia by Bhutanese Educational Ministry officials in 1992. Funds were quickly obtained from UNICEF and others such that the first multigrade teacher development programme was in place within a year (see below). In this chapter, we work from the perspective of policy borrowing being the result of a combination of planned and accidental, related and sometimes apparently unrelated events.1 We trace these events and explore how their coalescence contributed to or inhibited the expansion and enhancement of multigrade teaching in Bhutan. We draw on a range of sources of information to construct our arguments about this case study. First, we use our own experience of working and with multigrade teachers and education officials over a number of years. Each of the authors of this paper has had extensive experience in this regard. Ninnes has been involved in the Bhutan Multigrade Attachment Program (BMAP) run jointly by the University of
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New England and the Ministry of Education in Bhutan (and discussed below) as a lecturer (from 1999) and coordinator (since 2002). Maxwell has been involved in BMAP as coordinator (from 1998) and director (since 2002). Wangchuck Rabten is the current chair of the Multigrade Coordinating Committee in the Ministry of Education in Bhutan, while Karchung has been heavily involved in multigrade teaching development in the district of Zhemghang in central Bhutan for six years, and is currently involved in supporting and monitoring remote schools. Second, we draw on discussions about the current state and future directions of multigrade schooling in Bhutan that the authors held with a range of education officials during April 2003 and again in April 2004. These officials included the previous and current Secretary to the Ministry of Education; the Head of the Personnel Section in the Ministry of Education; the Director and other staff at each of the two national Colleges of Education (CoEs), which are the teacher training facilities in Bhutan; and members of the Multigrade Coordinating Committee in Bhutan. To begin we first need to explore the nature of multigrade schooling and the claims and counter-claims made for it.
4. MULTIGRADE EDUCATION In this section we briefly set out the nature of multigrade schooling and the main contestations associated with this form of education. Multigrade schools teach more than one grade level within a single classroom, or have more than one grade taught under the guidance of one teacher sometimes in more than one classroom (see Cornish, 2006). These classroom arrangements are generally undertaken for administrative or economic reasons, although, like multiage classrooms, they are also used by choice (Little, 2001a). Multigrade schooling is often a necessity in remote, rural locations where communities are small, teachers are in short supply and/or education systems face major resource and funding constraints. This is precisely the situation in rural and remote Bhutan. Multigrade teaching is taking on increased importance in a wide variety of countries around the world (Cornish, 2006) as these countries strive to provide basic education for all, such as in Vietnam (Aikman & Pridmore, 2001), Peru and Sri Lanka (Hargreaves, Montera, Chau, Sibli, & Thanh, 2001), Turks and Caicos Islands (Berry, 2001) and Columbia (McEwan, 1998), to mention a few. In addition, multigrade classes are to be found in countries with well-established formal education systems, such as Australia (Maxwell, 2002; Lloyd, 1999), the United States (Mason & Burns, 1998) and
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Canada (Brown & Martin, 1989). Furthermore, multigrade education also has potential benefit in refugee camps and similar extreme circumstances (Cornish, 2006). For Bhutan, multigrade schooling was essentially a necessity. Although there are many established benefits gained from multigrade classes, debate remains concerning the learning outcomes of multigrade teaching (see Veenman, 1995, 1996; Mason & Burns, 1998). For example, multigrade schools can have pedagogical benefits as a result of older and younger students learning together (Veenman, 1995; Lloyd, 1999). These benefits can extend into social benefits as well. Lack of competition and resources has been among the reasons for criticism of multigrade schools. Moreover, as Little (2001b) has pointed out, one of the paradoxes of multigrade teaching is that it is often implemented in contexts in which the required teacher skills and attitudes, as well as resources, are lacking. Again, this is the situation of teachers in rural and remote Bhutan which, to some extent, is explained by the following synopsis of the development of the institution of education in Bhutan.
5. FORMAL EDUCATION IN BHUTAN Formal education, in the form of the Buddhist monastic system of education, has a very long history in Bhutan. However, Bhutan’s secular education system only commenced in the 1950s (Bray, 1996) although recent scholarship puts this at least 50 years earlier (Tshering Tashi, personal communication, 6 September 2006). Some wealthy families continue to send their children to schools outside of the country, notably in India. Although in the early years the secular system grew slowly and teachers had to implore parents to send their children to school (Jagar Dorji, personal communication, 1998), participation in schooling up to Class VI for boys and girls reached 81% by 2002 (RGoB, 2005) and is projected to reach universal primary enrolment by 2007 (RGoB, 2003). This is clearly a remarkable achievement by a country that has been one of the poorest countries in the world (see Maxwell, 2007). Bhutan has benefited considerably from support of the international community in its development including in education. Institutions such as the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank and NGOs such as UNICEF, DANIDA and Save the Children (US) have been instrumental in the development of education in Bhutan and thus contributed greatly to Bhutan’s EFA goals. International contributions are firmly managed by the Ministries of the Government, including education. The growth of the education system has
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provided major challenges and required choices to be made. Foremost among these was the concentration on proving schools where there were concentrations of children. Thus, dispersed rural and remote communities did not get early attention. Furthermore, teacher shortages and a lack of appropriate curricula meant that initially teachers were mainly obtained from India. Bhutanese-trained teachers came to take their places over time, particularly in primary schools. Nevertheless, in 2001 there were 3,000 teachers in Bhutan (RGoB, 2002, p. 7) for 116,778 students in pre-primary (PP) to Class 12, which represented a shortage of 652 teachers for that year (RGoB, 2002, p. 1). Some teachers are still recruited from India but mainly for secondary schools and thus they are not found in multigrade schools. Several developments have been designed to rectify the relatively little training based on relatively little formal education (Laird, Maxwell, Tenzin, & Jamtsho, 1999) that Bhutanese teachers have received. Some Primary Teacher Certificate recipients have been upgraded to Bachelor of Education using distance education over the last decade (Maxwell et al., 2006). There are now multigrade elective subjects available to these teachers (see below). An In-Service Education for Teachers (INSET) system has been established for approximately two decades so that local pre-service training can be supplemented by annual training camps. In recent years, INSET has been strengthened by being placed under the control of the Teacher Development Division in the Department of School Education, within the Ministry of Education, along with other forms of teacher development. As well as the centralized National-Based In-Service Programme (NBIP), in recent years Cluster-Based In-Service Programmes (CBIP) have begun (RGoB, 2002, p. 16). Furthermore, the inspectorial system, which in 2004 employed nine officers, has shifted over the last five or so years to supporting, rather than inspecting, schools and teachers. As was the case with the teaching force, Bhutan initially relied on Indian curricula (Thinley, 1999). An attempt to install a progressive-style primary curriculum in the late 1980s was only partially successful (Dorji, 1999). By the mid- to late 1990s, local Bhutanese curricula had been developed and implemented for all year levels up to Class 10. Similarly, Class XII curricula had been constructed by Bhutanese educators for 2005. The comprehensive system of examinations is now entirely controlled by the Bhutan Board of Examiners. More than one-third of the current teaching force work in rural or remote parts of Bhutan (Laird et al., 1999, p. 39). This indicates the effects of policy, as schools become education centers reaching out to rural and remote communities. However, teaching in most areas in rural and remote Bhutan
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is quite challenging and is not often the first choice for teachers. For example, the walk for teachers to remote schools, typically multigrade schools, from the nearest ‘road head’ to the school can take from a half to several days or more. Classrooms are often small and may have limited supplies of resources such as paper and copying equipment. Many remote schools do not have electricity, though the number of sites with solar panels for electricity is increasing. Despite the advent of INSET, access to in-service education is restricted by transport constraints and so consequently is not as available to multigrade teachers. Teachers often work with large class sizes; classes with more than 45 students comprise 35% of all classes (Laird et al., 1999, p. 42). If the children do not board at the school or live nearby, then they walk substantial distances to get to school each day. In Bhutan this usually means walking across rugged mountainous terrain. This can be particularly demanding in the rainy season, or in winter, especially for small children. There are many local languages (Van Driem, 1994) but Dzongkha and English are both official languages and both are taught in primary schools. Both are used as languages of instruction. A majority of Bhutanese are Buddhists but there is a large minority of Hindus, of Nepalese extraction, who mainly live in the southern foothills of the Himalayas. They generally speak Lhotshamkha (Nepali), whereas Dzongkha is more prevalent in the west and Sarshop is widely spoken in the east. Given these and other linguistic differences, formal education can be seen as not only more than a modernizing influence, but also as a mechanism to unite the citizenry with two common languages. These effects are no better seen than in multigrade schools.
6. CONDITIONS FOR MULTIGRADE SCHOOLING EXPANSION AND ENHANCEMENT There are a number of contemporary and historical conditions contributing to attempts to achieve EFA, through the expansion and enhancement of multigrade teaching in Bhutan, and a number of key challenges. The positive conditions include geographical settings; local and global political developments, including the government’s continued, planned, rapid expansion of schooling, for example, from the 2001 enrolment of 113,875 to a projected enrolment level of 190,577 in 2007 (RGoB, 2002, p. 7); teacher supply and training levels; collaborations with external partners; local initiatives by the Ministry of Education; initiatives by the local teacher
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training institute; modernization and schooling. The challenges that we have identified include the structure of the curriculum; languages in schools and communities; discourses that marginalize or subjugate multigrade teaching and valorize single grade teaching; resource levels; and the structure of initial teacher education programmes. We now turn to a discussion of each of these issues in turn. 6.1. The Geographical Setting Bhutan is situated in the eastern Himalaya region of south Asia. Most of the country consists of steep valleys separated by high mountain ridges and fast flowing rivers. Although there are a few rapidly growing urban areas, such as the capital Thimpu, Paro, Gelephu, Samdrup Jonkkhar and Phuentsholing, a large proportion of the Bhutanese population live in small, isolated villages or dispersed settlements. Due to their isolation, the generally mountainous terrain and the low level of existing transport infrastructure, there are limited opportunities to move isolated students to larger centres on a daily basis for education, particularly at the primary level. As a result, Bhutan has many small primary schools catering to local populations. It is not unusual for primary schools to serve only one or a few nearby villages or communities, while only having one or two classes catering for students from PP to Class VI. As a result, multigrade teaching is very common in the more isolated areas of the country. Even then education has not reached all children yet. Boarding is considered neither a suitable nor a desirable option (Pema Thinley, personal communication, 2004) except at the Junior High and High School levels. Some families, desiring an education for their primary-aged child(ren), construct a very basic dwelling close to the school. In this way a key family member, usually the mother, will be available to look after the child. 6.2. Resource Constraints It is widely acknowledged that limited resources continue to impact on the effectiveness of teaching in schools in Bhutan and this is particularly the case for multigrade schools. These resource constraints are not surprising in a system that only started in the middle of the 20th century and has already attained 80–85% coverage for primary-aged children in the Kingdom. Simply providing buildings and furniture together with the teachers to teach has been a major undertaking. The lack of materials, notably manuals and texts as well as teacher shortages, has plagued the development of the system
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(Laird et al., 1999, pp. 69–72, 76ff) where the priority has been to create systemic infrastructure in the towns. Such shortages are often more evident in rural and remote schools where staffing difficulties create clear problems. However, some rural and remote communities have bonded together and created community schools. This is a Ministry of Education initiative and is supported by such NGOs as UNICEF. Dispersed communities can express an interest in having a school for their primary-aged children. Where the case is made and sufficient interest is evident the Ministry finds the funds for materials. These are provided for local communities to assemble a basic teaching block, usually of one or two classrooms, and also a basic dwelling for the teacher. The creation of community schools indicates not only the interest in education in these remote situations, but also the ability for the education system to successfully collaborate with local communities. The advent of community schools in Bhutan has been an important mechanism in contributing to Bhutan’s EFA goals. Community schools follow the curriculum documents (English, Dzongkha, mathematics and environmental science). As we have indicated, however, the major restraint suffered in Bhutan’s schools has been the availability of suitably qualified Bhutanese teachers and teaching resources that are useful in multigrade contexts. 6.3. Teacher Training Levels As we noted above, the Bhutan’s formal secular education system is relatively young. One consequence is that the level of formal training of teachers is, on average, quite low. Laird et al. (1999, p. 39) showed that 69% were two-year trained, only 13% had a Bachelor of Education degree, 3% had the Postgraduate Certificate of Education following a first degree and a further 14% had ‘other’ qualifications (which includes untrained teachers and those undertaking induction programmes). Furthermore, teacher education programmes historically have provided little or no training in multigrade teaching. As a result, a number of initiatives have been undertaken that seek to upgrade the multigrade teaching skills of existing and trainee teachers. These initiatives include the BMAP, the Zhemghang Multigrade Program, elements within the NBIPs and curriculum developments at the two national CoEs. 6.4. The Bhutan Multigrade Attachment Program (BMAP) BMAP is a collaborative programme between the Royal Government of Bhutan Ministry of Education and the School of Education at the
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University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia (Ninnes, 2006). The programme commenced in 1993 under serendipitous circumstances. The UNICEF education officer for Bhutan, who was based in Thimphu, was a former academic at the University of New England. He knew of Bhutan’s EFA goals and noticed the similarity in problems faced by small isolated schools in Bhutan and schools in the part of northern New South Wales in which the University of New England is located. As a result, the BMAP scheme was born following a visit of a delegation to UNE in 1992. In its early manifestations, it consisted of the placement of four to six Bhutanese teachers in multigrade schools in northern New South Wales for a period of a few weeks. During the mid- to late 1990s, the number of Bhutanese teachers involved each year increased to 12, and they undertook placements of about eight working days each in two different schools in the region. The programme has seen three major shifts since 1997 as a result of our experience with the Bhutanese teachers over the first few years of the programme, and cognizant of current trends in development that focus on participation and partnerships, eschew assumptions of cultural superiority of the ‘West’, and reflexively problematize the development ‘industry’ (Makuwira, 2003; Peet & Hartwick, 1999; Escobar, 1995; Nederveen Pieterse, 2000). First, we recognized that despite the similarities in school sizes and the existence of multigrade settings, there were substantial differences between the school systems (such as class sizes and level of resources) that tended to command the Bhutanese teachers’ attention and restrict their ability to identify transferable practices. As a result, in 1999 we further refined the basic training in social and cultural analysis for the teachers, and emphasized the need to identify multigrade teaching practices that could be appropriately and productively adapted to Bhutanese social contexts. Second, we recognized from our reading of teacher professional development literature (Fullan, 1991; Maxwell, 1993), and recent work on in-service training of teachers in Bhutan (Laird et al., 1999), that a mechanism was required to assist teachers adapt their new knowledge to their own situation. Considering these developments, from 1998, we now require BMAP attendees to undertake a second phase of the programme in Bhutan. This second phase comprises an action research project in which BMAP attendees adapt techniques observed in Australia to their own teaching, and report on their findings to the Ministry of Education and the University of New England. Third, following the evaluation of the BMAP programme by UNICEF, one of the main funding agents of the programme, we have begun to provide the BMAP programme to senior education officials in Bhutan, such as
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Assistant District Education Officers (who generally have responsibility for primary schools in their districts), officers in the Evaluation, Monitoring and Support Service Division of the Ministry of Education and lecturers at the National Institute of Education. The aim of this development is to provide structural support to multigrade teachers through in-service and other kinds of assistance in-country. The ongoing nature of the BMAP programme and its new directions is partly the result of the continuing willingness to fund it. In the case of UNICEF, ongoing support was provided because the aims of the programme coincided with the emphasis on the current UNICEF five-year plan on developing and enhancing multigrade teaching (Pawan Kucita, UNICEF education officer, personal communication, 8 April 2003). More recently UNICEF has withdrawn after 10 years of funding and Save the Children (US) has taken its place. Without this timely coincidence of interests, the programme would either cease or continue in a much truncated form. Similarly, the programme depends on the willingness of schools and their communities in the New England region of northern New South Wales to host participants. This willingness is a result, in part, of the fact that participating schools find the programme provides their students and community members with an important cross-cultural learning experience (see Maxwell, 2002). This represents another example of a convergence of interests that helps maintain the programme. Until 2006, 132 teachers from rural and remote Bhutan have taken part.
6.5. The Master Teacher Programme in Zhemghang This project is run by the University of New Brunswick with support from the Canadian International Development Agency. It aims to enhance reading, writing and mathematics teaching at the primary level. Each year, four teachers travel to Fredericton, NB, where they are paired with local teachers. Approximately 20 Bhutanese teachers from the Zhemghang district in central Bhutan have taken part in the programme. On their arrival home from the attachment course in Canada each group of four teachers conducts a District-Based In-Service Program (DBIP) for at least one teacher in every primary school in Zhemghang. The four share their ideas and skills about multigrade teaching with 30–40 teachers over three days. Following the four teachers’ return to their schools it is expected that each of these ‘master’ teachers will act as a resource person to schools in their cluster. These DBIPs and clustering arrangements provide an important forum for
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interaction between multigrade teachers. Further, the clustering provides an avenue for teachers to visit other schools to share experience and learn by observation of how things are done in other schools.
6.6. Local Multigrade Initiatives The expansion of BMAP to include senior education officials, and the longterm involvement of local District Education Officers in the Zhemghang multigrade project, has enhanced at least three local multigrade initiatives in Bhutan. First, the Ministry of Education has set up a Multigrade Coordinating Committee within the Evaluation, Monitoring and Support Division. This committee is chaired by the head of that division, who attended BMAP in 2002. At least two other members of the committee have also attended BMAP. The head of the Personnel Division, who is responsible for coordinating the identification of BMAP participants, is also on the committee. The committee has a variety of functions related to the enhancement and expansion of multigrade teaching in Bhutan. It provides a forum for evaluating and developing the formal international exchange programmes (BMAP and ZMP). During Maxwell’s visit to Bhutan in 2002, and Maxwell’s and Ninnes’ visit to Bhutan in 2003, a number of meetings occurred with this group in which BMAP and related multigrade issues were discussed. In 2004, Maxwell and key Bhutanese counterparts, including Wanchuk Rabten, further refined some multigrade projects, notably the multigrade curriculum alignment project (see below). In addition, the committee coordinates the multigrade component of the NBIP within Bhutan. Members of the Multigrade Committee have been influential in organizing and running major workshops on multigrade teaching as part of the NBIP. For example, in January 2003, over 60 teachers attended the multigrade workshops held at Phuentsholing. In 2004, there were 68 participants at the NBIP in Paro. NBIPs are facilitated by CoE staff, former participants in BMAP and ZMP, Education Monitoring Officers and experienced multigrade teachers. Second, there are two initiatives in teacher education in Bhutan that are designed to increase pre-service and in-service teacher trainees’ understanding of multigrade teaching issues and techniques. Although the pre-service Bachelor of Education Program for internal students run by the CoE at Paro has an already crowded curriculum, one of the lecturers, who attended BMAP in 2001 and 2003, has recently been able to increase from two to six the number of sessions dealing with multigrade teaching within the teaching
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skills module. Topics covered include organizational skills, rationales for multigrade teaching and reconceptualizing multigrade teaching (Tshering Wangmo, lecturer, personal communication, 5 April 2003). Another current initiative involves developing four 60-h modules on multigrade teaching in the distance education version of the Bachelor of Education offered through the CoE at Samtse. This course, mentioned above, is usually undertaken by practising teachers who wish to upgrade their qualifications. The four modules resulted from a joint project between the University of New England and the Royal University of Bhutan. One ongoing point of debate concerns whether all primary teacher education students need to learn about multigrade teaching, given that many of them will only teach in single grade classes and similarly, whether these students should have one practicum at least in a multigrade school. Third, local attempts have been made to restructure the PP to Class VI syllabus documents to facilitate the planning of learning activities in multigrade classrooms. The problem derives from the fact that there are separate documents for each of the six primary-grade levels in four subjects. Furthermore, the topics allocated to each week of the teaching sessions at each grade level are often unrelated. The relevant manuals are often specific, even scripted. There are two major impacts of these arrangements even for teachers who wish to use standard multigrade learning strategies. First, teachers in multigrade classes are required to juggle many documents simultaneously and this is difficult to achieve. Second, previously, many if not most teachers in multigrade classes ended up using a strategy that involves a cycle of addressing one year group and then setting them work, then going on to address the next year group and setting them work and so on. This process requires considerable planning skills and resources that often are not available. The strategy, although understandable given the training and custom and practice in Bhutan, is a weak form of teaching multigrade as it combines none of the advantages attributed to that form of teaching/learning, such as group work and peer tutoring. The realignment of the curriculum specifically for multigrade situations has involved identifying common topics across the syllabus and rearranging the teaching programme so that similar topics are taught to different grades in the same weeks of the teaching session.
6.7. Languages in Schools and Communities In many multigrade classrooms, the issue of first language use is an issue that is not recognized in Bhutan. Dzongkha is the national language and is
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taught as a separate subject. It is also the medium of instruction for Environmental Studies (EVS) in primary schools. As mentioned, English is also a language of instruction. There is a strong government belief in the use of Dzongkha nor English and their importance in national identity development and progress towards self-sufficiency. However, English and Dzongkha are both foreign to most students as they begin school, perhaps at least 60% of them across the country. This is especially the case in multigrade schools. Lack of knowledge of either language makes learning in these multigrade classrooms difficult simply because the instructions and materials are not understood. In practical terms multigrade teachers who know the local language do make us of it though this is largely an unofficial practice. Although similar problems occur in monograde schools in which neither Dzongkha and English is the first language of the students, the linguistic situation in Bhutanese primary schools compounds the other constraints on effective multigrade teaching created by low teacher training levels, low levels of resources and inappropriately structured curriculum. It is most likely that teaching these languages as second languages may assist students learning greatly. This notion has important implications for policy and teacher education that have yet to be officially recognized. However, some interest is developing in the CoEs and two students from Paro CoE will take a Masters degree in second language learning from 2007.
6.8. Discourses of Multigrade Teaching Although multigrade schooling is perceived in Bhutan as a major component of pursuing EFA, there remains a certain ambivalence about multigrade schools. This ambivalence is revealed in two sets of discourses about multigrade schools, one of which is notable for its relative absence in Bhutan. First, there is a discourse of multigrade being subordinate to single grade schools. Single grade schooling is seen by educators as normal and is preferred by parents. This should not be surprising given Bhutan’s educational history, including its monastic education tradition, where class-based teaching is de rigeur. This kind of idea was revealed in discussion we had about the current review of the primary syllabus. When it was suggested that the new syllabus might be structured in such a way that it facilitated teaching in multigrade schools, the response was that the integrity of teaching in single grade schools needed to be assured. We would suggest, however, that rather than thinking of multigrade and single grade teaching as competing opposites, it is possible to structure syllabi so that they facilitate teaching in
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both single and multigrade schools. Second, in contrast to the idea of multigrade simply being an administrative necessity, there is the discourse of multigrade as a beneficial teaching strategy. This discourse is relatively rare among most education officials and teachers in Bhutan, although more common among officials closely involved with multigrade, and certainly present in the wider literature on multigrade teaching (see Lloyd 1999; Little, 2001a). Again this should not be surprising given Bhutan’s education background and influences. However, the educational benefits of multigrade schooling are beginning to be recognized in addition to the administrative importance of multigrade schooling for rural and remote Bhutanese children. 6.9. Local and Global Political Moves Although authors such as Beeby (1966, 1980) have written about national school systems as if they are relatively autonomous systems that inevitably progress along specific developmental paths, the Bhutan education system, like many others, has been impacted by events outside the nation’s boundaries. In particular, the government’s decision to draw on Indian practices and expertise had important ramifications for the development of education in Bhutan. Here the process was more than policy borrowing. Curricula and examinations were adopted wholesale. As well as the primary and secondary teaching force and curricula influences noted above, Sherubtse College in the eastern part of the country was formed as an affiliate to an Indian university. As was the case in may other countries, Indian pedagogy inclined to be teacher centred and whole-class oriented. These practices can be useful at times, but they are less useful in multigrade teaching contexts, which rely more on student centred learning group work and a strong resource base. Bhutan was elected to the United Nations in the early 1970s. This then meant that support was available from various UN agencies for the expansion of Bhutan’s education system. It has also meant that NGOs have also become influential in Bhutan (see Maxwell, 2007) and this is also evident in the education sector as illustrated by the case of the community schools. In the context of multigrade schooling, one of the main contributors has been UNICEF, and in recent years, Save the Children (US).
7. CONCLUSIONS In this chapter we have set out some of the major events and circumstances that have contributed to the expansion of multigrade schools in Bhutan.
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The expansion followed the promise made by Bhutan to pursue EFA goals. We have argued on the basis that the factors that have contributed to the expansion and enhancement of multigrade schools were neither entirely rational nor entirely planned but nevertheless rested on the idea of policy borrowing. Borrowing multigrade from Australia had the distinct advantage that EFA goals were more likely to be achieved provided this also was implemented alongside the community school idea. At the same time the implementation of the multigrade policy created difficulties for teachers who were ill prepared for the complexities of multigrade planning and teaching. Most important was the lack of resources of all kinds that the Ministry of Education faced in its desire to extend education to rural and remote places in Bhutan. Other factors included the unique history of its secular education system; the integration of Bhutan into the international community; the place of multigrade schooling in the wider development objectives of Bhutan; and the appearance (sometimes coincidental) of partners such as the UNICEF, the University of New Brunswick and the University of New England. The government’s willingness to provide resources for in-servicing, monitoring and supporting multigrade schools and teachers provides evidence for the ongoing support of the borrowed policy and practices. While challenges remain, including the level and kinds of resources, teacher training levels, students’ and teachers’ language backgrounds, and attitudes towards multigrade, all of these are now being addressed in a climate in which multigrade schooling is increasingly seen as both an administrative and a pedagogical means for achieving Bhutan’s EFA and development goals.
NOTE 1. Or what Gutting (1994) refers to a ‘‘congeries of petty causes’’.
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Bray, M. (1996). Educational reform in a small state: Bhutan’s new approach to primary education. International Journal of Educational Reform, 5(1), 15–25. Brown, K. G., & Martin, A. B. (1989). Student achievement in multigrade and single grade classes. Education Canada, 29(2), 10. Cornish, L. (2006). Reaching EFA through multigrade teaching: Issues, contexts and practices. Armidale, NSW, Australia: Kardoorair Press. Dorji, J. (1999). Curriculum review. Seminar presented at youth, guidance and cultural services meeting, Thimphu, 28 September. Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fullan, M. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. London: Cassell. Gutting, G. (1994). Introduction – Michel Foucault: A user’s manual. In: G. Gutting (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Foucault (pp. 1–27). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hargreaves, E., Montera, C., Chau, N., Sibli, M., & Thanh, T. (2001). Multigrade teaching in Peru, Sri Lanka and Vietnam: An overview. International Journal of Educational Development, 21(6), 499–520. Laird, D. J., Maxwell, T. W., Tenzin, W., & Jamtsho, S. (1999). INSET within Bhutan, 1996–1998 and the INSET framework with Bhutan 2000–2004/6. Thimphu, Bhutan: Education Division, Royal Government of Bhutan. Little, A. (2001a). Multigrade teaching: Towards an international research and policy agenda. International Journal of Educational Development, 21(6), 481–497. Little, A. (2001b). Editorial. International Journal of Educational Development, 21(6), 477–479. Lloyd, L. (1999). Multi-age classes and high ability students. Review of Educational Research, 69(2), 187–212. Makuwira, J. (2003). Participation, partnerships, NGOs and basic education in Malawi. Ph.D. thesis, University of New England, NSW, Australia. Mason, D. A., & Burns, R. B. (1998). ‘Simply no worse and simply no better’ may simply be wrong: A critique of Veenman’s conclusion about multigrade classes. Review of Educational Research, 66(3), 307–322. Maxwell, T. W. (1993). Staff development processes: The central place of strategic plans. Unicorn, 19(1), 54–65. Maxwell, T. W. (2002). International in-service collaboration. The Bhutanese Multigrade Attachment Program. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 29(3), 289–296. Maxwell, T. W. (2007). The important issues facing children in the Kingdom of Bhutan. In: J. Pattnaik (Ed.), Greenwood encyclopaedia for children. New York: Greenwood. Maxwell, T. W., Laird, D. J., Namgay, Reid, J. M., Laird, J. M., & Gyamtso, D. (2006). Focus on student learning outcomes: report of the review of the Bachelor of Education (Primary) in distance education mode in-service programme. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education, RGoB and the Royal University of Bhutan, Samtse College of Education, RUB (241 pp.). McEwan, P. (1998). The effectiveness of multigrade schools in Columbia. International Journal of Educational Development, 18(6), 435–452. Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2000). After post-development. Third World Quarterly, 21(2), 175–191. Ninnes, P. (2006). The Bhutanese Multigrade Attachment Program. In: L. Cornish (Ed.), Reaching EFA through multigrade teaching: Issues, contexts and practices. Armidale, NSW, Australia: Kardoorair Press.
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Peet, R., & Hartwick, E. (1999). Theories of development. New York: The Guildford Press. Phillips, D. (2000). Learning from elsewhere in education: Some perennial problems revisited with reference to British interest in Germany. Comparative Education, 36(3), 297–307. RGoB. (1999). Bhutan 2020: A vision for peace, prosperity and happiness. Thimphu, Bhutan: Planning Commission, Royal Government of Bhutan. RGoB. (2002). Human Resource Development Master Plan (2002–2012). Thimphu, Bhutan: Ministry of Health and Education, Royal Government of Bhutan. RGoB. (2003). Education sector strategy: Realising the vision 2020 – Policy and strategy. Thimphu, Bhutan: Education Ministry. RGoB. (2005). National Human Development Report 2005: The challenge of youth employment. Finance Ministry, RGoB, Thimphu, Bhutan (pp. 62–66). Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Ed.). (2004). The global politics of educational borrowing and lending. New York: Teachers College Press. Thinley, P. (1999). The efficiency of ‘intervision’ as a school level change process: A descriptive analysis of the experiences of four participating schools in Bhutan. Unpublished M.Curr.Stud. (Hons.) thesis, University of New England, NSW, Australia. Van Driem, G. (1994). Language policy in Bhutan. In: M. Aris & M. Hutt (Eds), Bhutan: Aspects of culture and development (pp. 87–105). Gartmore, UK: Kiscadale Publications. Veenman, S. (1995). Cognitive and noncognitive effects of multigrade and multi-age classes: A best-evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 65(4), 319–318. Veenman, S. (1996). Effects of multigrade and multigrade classes reconsidered. Review of Educational Research, 66(3), 323–380. Wiseman, A. W., & Baker, D. P. (2005). The worldwide explosion of internationalized education policy. In: D. P. Baker & A. W. Wiseman (Eds), Global trends in educational policy (international perspectives on education and society) (pp. 11–38). Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.
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EVERY CHILD IN SCHOOL: THE CHALLENGES OF ATTAINING AND FINANCING EDUCATION FOR ALL IN INDIA P. Geetha Rani
ABSTRACT The paper critically examines the program on Education for All (EFA) in India, namely Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in a financing and development framework. In doing so, the paper identifies a number of policy and implementation gaps in the program. A fine-tuning of the existing matching shares by discriminating the matching shares in terms of need for, ability to provide matching shares and to strengthen the absorptive capacity could go a long way in attaining the horizontal equity in terms of every child completing elementary schooling in India. This would also ensure the other desirable principles of intergovernmental transfers such as predictability, transparency, and incentive mechanism besides improving utilization. Further, it clearly emerges that only after ensuring the basic minimum levels in terms of physical and human infrastructure, and ensuring equal access to all the child population of age group of 6–14, quality is given priority. Thus, the challenge is both improving the qualitative and Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 201–256 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08007-8
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quantitative targets of UEE with enhanced resource allocation to education. Hence, Center is to ensure release of funding for SSA through special efforts as the program requires enormous funding and serious commitment of both central and state governments. On the developmental aspects, the scheme not only widens social inequity but also perpetuates the declining quality of public provision by encouraging alternate schools and para teachers, besides the financing norms. These low-cost options will result in serious ramifications on equity, quality, balance, and sustainability of the basic education structure.
BACKGROUND At the international level, in Article 26 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1950); Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) and Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)1; Human capital revolution around 1960s, etc. well-established the significance of education in social, economic, and political development of a nation. The significance was reinvigorated with a pledge to achieve universal primary education by 2000 at World Conference on Education for All (EFA) in 1990 held at Jomtien, World Education Forum at Dakar in 2000, culminated in the adoption of the Dakar Framework for Action, which embodies a revitalized collective commitment to achieve EFA by 2015. Many of the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) relating to education like eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015, reaffirm the global commitments. These global promises made by various participating Governments at international forums in the 1990s combined with domestic pressures accelerated the impetus toward adoption of national strategies to achieve EFA by a number of developing countries including India. The first national strategy to attain EFA in India was to provide free and compulsory education upto the age of 14 within a period of 10 years under the Indian Constitution (1950), Article (45). Increased attention to it after the adoption of National Policy on Education – 1986 (MHRD, 1986), Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyan (SSA) in 2001, the 86th amendment making elementary education a Fundamental Right in 2002, etc. have resulted in significant improvement in the gross enrollment ratios, but the goal still eludes.
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FUNDING EDUCATION: THE FEDERAL ARRANGEMENTS In India, fiscal transfers between the Central and the State governments2 via a complex system take place in two main channels – one, Finance Commission, the Constitutional authority to ‘decide’ center–state transfers, mainly through tax-sharing and two, Planning Commission, a regular body makes grants and loans for ‘development’ purposes. In addition, the Central Ministries provide project-based, specific purpose grants to states. Hence, resource availability for education sector in a state depends on:
The state’s own receipts (tax and non-tax revenues). The plan assistance from the Planning Commission in the plan account. The transfers from the Finance Commission in the non-plan account. Discretionary Transfers through the centrally sponsored scheme via the line ministries, in education the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). Other Capital receipts and borrowings. In India, education particularly elementary education is financed by the state (central and state governments). State governments own the major responsibility of financing elementary education that, more than 95% of total expenditure on elementary education is met out by the states during 1980s (see Chart 1). The expenditure on elementary education by the Center that includes external financing (under District Primary Education Project, SSA, etc.) steadily increased from 1994 to 1995. By 2004–2005, the central government’s interest in elementary education is reflected in its increasing share to 14% of total expenditure on elementary education. It is argued that increase in center’s share is not actually (entirely) a contribution by the center but a change in policy to accept external funding by Government of India (GoI) (Varghese, 1996). However, in the recent periods, the Center is also contributing increasingly besides the pre-determined external funds. Expenditure on any activity, whether economic or social, is to be looked at in plan and non-plan expenditures in the Indian context. Plan expenditures financed through Planning Commission transfers by and large refer to the developmental expenditures resulting in new initiatives, innovations, building infrastructure, etc. While non-plan expenditures met out from the Finance Commission transfers refer to the non-developmental/committed expenditures, which are in the nature of maintenance expenditures. The plan
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90% 80% 70% 60% 50%
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Chart 1. Role of Center and States in Financing Elementary Education in India. Note: Total (Center and States) Expenditure on Elementary Education (Rs. in 10 millions). Source: Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, MHRD, Various Issues.
expenditures in elementary education would include, new school buildings, infrastructure, etc. The non-plan expenditure is almost salary expenditures of teachers and other staff, which are the liability of state governments. During 1980s, less than 10% of the plan expenditures were financed by the center (see Chart 2). However in the later part of 1990s, the center with external aid has been contributing more than 50% of the elementary expenditures in the plan account resulting in a continuously lesser share by states. The present paper deals primarily with Plan allocations under SSA (meaning EFA) which, is a portion of plan assistance by the federal government to states accounting for a very small share in the total resources invested in elementary education by states. The present paper primarily attempts to critically examine SSA within a framework of financing and development. Accordingly, Part I begins with a brief discussion on CSS on education prior to SSA and subsequently discusses the important aspects of financing, viz., resource allocation, mobilization, and utilization. Part II examines how far there has been an
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Chart 2. Share of Central and State Governments in the Plan Expenditures on Elementary Education in India. Source: Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, MHRD, Various Issues.
adherence of the priorities envisaged in budgetary allocation is realized in the actual expenditures by various thematic components across group of states. Part III of the paper critically examines the overall impact of the scheme on education development in a broader perspective. Part IV brings out the policy imperatives.
PART I: CENTRALLY SPONSORED SCHEMES: PRIOR TO SSA The central government plays an advisory role in matters relating to education. However, the role of central government assumes greater significance when education was shifted to the concurrent list in 19763 and later the 86th Amendment of the Constitution in 2002 making education a fundamental right. Its role in the development of education is manifested by way of centrally sponsored schemes. These schemes are designed by the line ministry, MHRD, and implemented by the State Government Education Departments. The first centrally sponsored scheme to achieve universal
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elementary education, namely non-formal education to cover the nonschool going children of the age group 6–14, was initiated in 19784 in nine educationally backward states – Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Around the same time, Literacy Mission was also initiated to improve adult literacy across states in the country. The momentum of interest in universalizing elementary education in the country began with the National Policy on Education, 1986. Operation Blackboard was an offshoot of this, as the National Policy on Education identified that the state of educational infrastructure in elementary schools was dismal to achieve universal elementary education. The first nation-wide centrally sponsored scheme specifically in elementary education called Operation Blackboard was initiated in 1987 to improve the educational infrastructure in primary schools all over the country. It aimed at three critical components of educational development, viz. class rooms, teachers, and teaching–learning equipment. Around the same time another important nation wide centrally sponsored scheme was initiated, on teacher education – establishing District Institutes of Education and Training. External assistance for primary education as a funding mode came into existence for the first time in India through state specific schemes such as Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project (1989), Bihar Education Project (1991), and Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Project (1993). In 1994, external funding for primary education came in a big way through the District5 Primary Education Programme (DPEP) as a social safety net measure to offset the adverse impact of structural adjustment policies adopted since 1990s. It is the largest externally funded program in education covering 270 districts in 18 out of 28 states of India in three different phases focusing on districts with below female literacy rates as per the census 1991 national average. Indeed, the decentralized planning got operationalized in India with the endeavors under DPEP (see Varghese, 1994, 1996; Tilak, 2002). So, the decentralized plan at the district level ought to vary depending on the level of development of primary education on access, retention, achievement, etc. But DPEP districts almost adhered to a uniform format including detailed procedures and guidelines to be followed at each stage prepared by MHRD, which boils down to decentralized implementation of the program, leaving limited scope for any innovation. For instance, the experience in Karnataka shows that there is no evidence of any planning that takes into consideration the particular features of districts to design specific interventions under DPEP. Modules produced at State Project Office are simply applied depending only on the numbers of
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schools and teachers to be covered (Sarangapani & Vasavi, 2003). Indeed, this is the case in many of the districts. Even though the local level bodies like panchayats, parent–teacher associations, school management committees, and village education committees (VECs) are established under DPEP, they are not involved in the process of planning. Instead, of being a participatory process of planning, it has become a participatory process of implementing. Similarly, uniform financing norms (ceiling) such as limits on availability of resources and their broad pattern of allocation between different major items of expenditure despite variations in size and scale of problems across districts have further made the program decentralized only at the implementation level. For instance, the ceiling on civil works (initially 24% and later raised to 33% of the budget) and to focus on special groups and the enhancement of pedagogic quality (above 50% of the budget) were prescribed in view of the lessons learnt from the earlier programs like Operation Blackboard. That if no such ceiling is indicated, perhaps all resources would have been spent on construction and nothing or meager resources would have been left for quality improvement. But it is also counter argued that districts are not free to reallocate resources between various heads depending on local specific requirements. Even with district planning, lack of local specificity could not be circumvented which is inherent in the designing of a centrally sponsored scheme. The problem persists under SSA. Despite these problems, DPEP provided a better coordination between the three partners viz., GoI, state governments, and funding agencies. Conflicting policies, procedures, approaches, and plans of action leading to a piecemeal approach prevail in many African countries but not in a geographically vast country like India. This could partially be attributable to the creation of an independent society known as state implementing societies (SIS), to make the program more efficient and promote local initiative (MHRD, 1995). The SIS, the structure created under DPEP, operate outside the normal bureaucratic and administrative norms, the financial and decision-making efficiency, and flexibility of an independent society was found to be more advantageous but at the cost of creating parallel structures having serious long-term institutional implications (see Bashir & Ayyar, 2003) (discussed in Part III). Another significant development DPEP brought into the primary education in India was the sub-sector wide approach (Jagannathan & Karikorpi, 2000), which later developed into a sector wide approach covering 8 years of schooling of elementary education in SSA. In the pretext of DPEP base line studies were conducted which improved the information system at the district level. The same initiative has strengthened as the District Information
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System of Education (DISE) covering all elementary schools in India under SSA. In 1995, the central government launched a national scheme of midday meals to improve enrollment and attendance called the National Programme of Nutritional Support or the mid day meal scheme.
FINANCING THE SCHEME SSA The centrally sponsored scheme, SSA is designed to operate in a large federal system wherein states are responsible for the provision and financing of elementary education.
Salient Features SSA builds on but differs from DPEP that SSA has nationwide coverage, encompassing most of the previous CSSs under a single program6 launched in 2001. Unlike the EFA target year of 2015, SSA spans over a 10-year period up to 2010. However, SSA has evolved from the recommendations of the State Education Ministers’ Conference in 1998 for pursuing Universal Elementary Education. It extends universal enrollment from primary to upper primary education and focuses on school completion at both levels. The program combines centrally set, time-bound targets and norms for costing, with bottom-up planning and decentralized implementation. The features that SSA builds on DPEP are preparation of District Annual Work Plans as the basis for resource allocation, almost similar channel of fund flow and program implementation; and focus on girls and other disadvantaged groups (socially deprived children and children with disabilities). SSA claims that it is a framework and a program in a mission mode7 (p. 3, MHRD, undated). The scheme is based on the premise that financing of elementary education interventions has to be sustainable with budget provision for strengthening vital areas to achieve universal elementary education. Indeed, it is one of the important components (Item No. 4 of Dakar Framework for Action, para. 16) of national EFA plan to establish a sustainable financial framework (UNESCO, 2000b). In order to allocate resources, each district needs to prepare a perspective plan and an annual plan (p. 18, MHRD, undated) reflecting all investments being made and required in elementary education sector (p. 5, MHRD, undated). Indeed, the planning process is to begin at the habitation level and move upwards to block, district and state level and then to national level.
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In principle, budgetary outlay of the states based on District Elementary Education Plans is approved based on certain criterion such as, commitment of the state with regard to the State share; performance of state government regarding resources made available earlier; reports of supervision teams regarding the quality of program implementation; and availability of financial resources in a particular year (p. 20, MHRD, undated). An appraisal mission consisting of experts in education, civil works, management, budget and costing, appraise state, and district plans. Eventually, the Project Approval Boards convened by MHRD approve the plan and sanction the budget to the SIS. Channel of Fund Flow under SSA In a three tier fiscal federal structure, fund flow under SSA (which is almost the same as DPEP) is decentralized upto the school level (see Flow Chart in Fig. 1). Funds for SSA flow from the Central Government to MHRD. MHRD then allocates the resources that is, the central shares to the SIS. MHRD Channel of Fund Flow under SSA Central Government MHRD State Implementing Societies 75% share from MHRD (including external assistance) and 25% share from state governments During 10th Plan (2002-2007)
State Governments
District Education Offices
CRC
BRC
Block Education Offices
DIET
Gram Panchayats VEC
Schools
Fig. 1.
Channel of Fund Flow under SSA.
NGOs
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releases funds based on the approved annual plans of the states and districts. The releases are to be in two installments. The first release is to be made soon after the approval of annual plan. The matching share under SSA between center and states was 85:15 during 9th 5-year plan (1997–2001), which was the same in DPEP. However, during the 10th 5-year plan (2002–2007), the matching share is 75:25. Considering a 75:25 sharing arrangement between GoI and state governments, the first installment is half of GoI’s share (i.e., 37.5%). In this 75% of GoI’s share, 30% of the resources come from external assistance. An equal share of 50:50 is envisaged during 11th plan (pp. 5–6, MHRD, undated). Concomitantly, state governments are to transfer their states’ matching shares to the SIS. The second installment will be released based on demand from the state (usually 6 months after the first release) and also only after the state government has contributed its matching shares to the SIS. Additionally, this release takes into account the expenditure incurred (based on the utilization certificates issued by the states) and a forecast of cash requirements for the next half-year. After the release of the first installment, the pooled resources from the center and states at the SIS are transferred to districts within 15 days of its receipt. The SIS will release funds to the districts periodically based on the approved annual plan, statements of expenditures, and performance of districts in periodic installment. The releases also take into account the expenditure incurred till the date of release. Further down in the channel, the District Education Offices release the funds to the Block Resource Centers (BRCs), Cluster Resource Centers (CRCs), the Block Education Offices (BEOs), the DIETS, and the NGOs (who run the EGS and Alternative Education centers). Between 65 and 85% of the expenditure is incurred at the sub-district level. The release is based on their fund requirement and reporting of expenditures out of the money advanced in the past. The BEOs transfer the resources to the VECs and in turn, VECs transfer the money to schools.
Intergovernmental Transfers: Resource Allocation The basic economic case for horizontal equalization (in the present case achieving Universal Elementary Education across all states and UTs) is that such a transfer is needed to enable poorer8 sub-national governments to respond adequately to central transfers which are intended to generate the appropriate (or the minimum) level of public goods (Shah, 1991). Certain useful policy suggestions on designing intergovernmental fiscal transfers are
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developed based on the theoretical and practical literature, which possess the following desirable qualities, such as Predictability – intergovernmental fiscal transfer mechanisms should ensure predictability of sub-national government shares from year to year to permit strategic planning. Transparency – the basis on which transfers are made; which is ensured when the transfer system is driven by rules or a formula (Parker, 1995, pp. 29–30). In addition to the above-mentioned characteristics, ability to provide matching grants is examined in terms of the capacity of the states in adhering to the matching shares. Absorptive capacity – capacity of the states to absorb and utilize the transfers. Incentive mechanisms – adequate built-in-arrangements for encouraging resource mobilization and proper utilization and penalizing uneconomic utilization of resources. In this section, the intergovernmental transfers via SSA are evaluated against these standard principles such as predictability, transparency, ability to provide matching shares, absorptive capacity, and incentive mechanism. Predictability and Transparency The resource allocation mechanism need to ensure that how much of resources are allocated (amount sanctioned) under the scheme to state governments and on what basis the resources are sanctioned and when will it be available (whether sanctioned resources reach states within the specific time period). These three important questions are examined by looking at the actual resource allocation from GoI to MHRD and the funds released by MHRD to SIS (see Table 1). Table 1 highlights a number of insights, besides bringing out the divergence between the envisaged SSA framework and actual practice. First, the external contribution under SSA to GoI is a total of Rs. 7,330 millions with the contribution from International Development Agency (Rs. 3,520 millions); DfID (Rs. 2,420 millions); and European Commission (Rs. 1,390 million). This was distributed from 2003–2004 to 2006–2007 i.e., during the last 4 years of the 10th 5-year plan. So, the external assistance to SSA is a mere 4% of the total expenditures on SSA by Center and States put together from 2001–2002 to 2005–2006. Second, on the positive note, allocations under SSA by GoI have been increasing over the last 6 years since its inception. The increase is more
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Table 1. Share of GoI’s Budgetary Allocation to MHRD and Funds Released by MHRD to State Implementing Societies under SSA (Rs. in 10 millions).
2000–2001 2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006
GoI’s Allocationa
Approved Outlay by MHRD under SSA
Funds Released by MHRD under SSA
Funds Released as % of Approved Outlay of MHRD
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
325 500 1567 2732 4754b 7156
– 1,138 3,080 8,335 11,019 13,608
– 500 1,558 2,431 5,051 7,440
– 43.9 50.6 29.2 45.8 54.7
Source: Based on Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, various issues; http:// www.education.nic (downloaded on 17.3.06); MHRD (2005b); MHRD (2006b). a Includes external assistance. b Rs. 3,075 million enhanced to Rs. 4,754 millions during 2004–2005.
pronounced since 2004–2005 with revenues flowing from Education Cess earmarked for SSA via Parambika Shiksha Kosh (Elementary Education Fund). Third, the approved outlay by MHRD under SSA has been increasing exponentially over the last 5 years (column 2). It could be possible that in the initial years number of district that prepared their plans were low and as States gained experience in the preparation of plans, more and more plans were submitted resulting in higher level of approved outlay in the subsequent years. But the actual funds released by MHRD are in consonance with the GoI’s allocations (refer column 1 and 3 of Table 1). However, in the year 2003–2004, the gap between GoI’s budget allocation and fund released by MHRD was Rs. 301 millions, which has been reflected in higher fund release than budget allocation in the next year, i.e., 2004–2005. So, the approval outlay by MHRD may be as per the SSA norms. But the actual fund release is determined by availability of financial resources in a year, negating the principle of predictability on the amount of resources that the states are further reallocated. Last, funds released, as a percent of approved outlay of MHRD was just at the margin of either 50% or less than the approved outlay. In 2003–2004, it plummeted to 29% of the approved outlay. This clearly suggests that more resources for the Scheme are required from the GoI. Low allocations
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could be due to the factors such as lack of an objective criterion for allocation; low priority given to education; and lack of political will to reprioritize the expenditures as compared to other sectors. Another important aspect is how this limited allocation under SSA has been distributed across states. Fund released in 2001–2002 seem to have adopted uniform ceiling of an arbitrary 42% of the approved outlay across majority of the states (see Table 2). On the whole, in 2003–2004 there was a drastic decline in the shares of funds released as only 29.16% of approved outlay was sanctioned. If 2002–2003 shares of fund release is looked at in comparison to 2004–2005, in as many as 15 states, the fund release percentage has declined compared to only 13 states where there has been marginal improvement over 2002–2003. In only 14 states, more than 50% of approved outlay is sanctioned in 2004–2005. However, the situation has improved substantially during 2005–2006 that almost all the states have obtained more than 50% of their approved outlays except few states. Over a period of 5 years from 2001–2002 to 2005–2006, only 10 states have obtained more than 50% of their approved outlays. Why the share of fund release has declined in majority of the states? Why only approximately 50% of approved outlay is sanctioned in majority of the states? It may, however, be noted that release of funds would be based on the utilization in the previous year (under utilization leading to spillover) as well as the new plans sanctioned. Further, this information across individual states do not suggest that few states either well performing or educationally backward states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh could get consistently higher share of funds released in their approved outlay. As noted earlier, the entire exercise of preparing the annual plans, appraisal of those annual plans (DEEP); performance of state government regarding resources made available earlier; reports of supervision teams regarding the quality of program implementation, etc., seem to be elusive. Hence, a grouping of states based on a priori information on their educational and economic development into four categories and their relative share is examined here. This might throw some additional insight into the rationale in the GoI’s allocation. (See appendix for the states falling under various category and an explanatory note on rationale for classifying them under such category.) Table 3 reports the share of funds released by GOI under category of states. While the economically developed states did get one fifth of resources in the beginning but their share drastically reduced in the later years. The educationally medium developed or improving states are to be allocated still
States
2001–2002
2002–2003
2003–2004
2004–2005
2005–2006
2001–2002 to 2005–2006
42.50 42.50 42.50 42.51 40.34 42.49 42.50 42.49 – 42.50 42.49 42.50 41.85 42.01 – 42.50 42.50 – 42.50 42.50 42.50 42.40 42.50 42.50 42.47 42.07 41.18 43.94
48.42 60.55 67.66 33.14 53.81 108.08 33.62 59.10 37.85 33.92 79.03 25.92 66.68 29.76 0.00 157.73 56.38 49.38 16.51 48.94 57.33 73.19 73.43 102.76 52.66 43.23 49.07 50.59
25.27 13.98 26.25 25.43 37.50 51.20 45.68 49.71 32.73 35.43 36.69 38.97 0.00 26.84 15.82 27.41 37.50 13.10 30.51 32.29 34.70 22.30 42.29 53.79 31.09 28.07 30.97 29.16
49.11 46.99 53.07 36.13 52.76 48.22 55.40 50.54 33.37 37.07 60.37 53.24 34.59 42.03 53.91 69.70 34.07 15.26 36.67 37.50 61.20 65.41 54.70 70.16 52.44 45.48 49.11 45.81
52.27 62.40 64.66 35.52 53.00 50.39 41.55 63.66 68.55 47.04 65.48 33.86 54.24 56.95 26.46 85.26 69.41 68.62 50.11 65.02 70.66 50.27 72.42 84.13 69.19 59.37 52.27 54.73
45.09 45.61 48.67 32.92 48.87 56.72 45.96 54.55 47.47 40.46 55.30 39.74 45.20 41.02 51.18 58.97 37.18 40.40 51.62 42.47 56.24 71.30 56.30 51.83 38.66 46.44 45.09 45.61
Source: Based on MHRD, (2005b) (2003–2004 and 2004–2005); MHRD (2006b) (2005–2006); Report of CAG (2006) (2001–2002 to 2004– 2005); http://www.eduction.nic (downloaded on 17.3.06) (2001–2002 and 2002–2003).
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Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal West Bengal India
Funds Released as % of Approved Outlay under SSA in Selected States in India.
214
Table 2.
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Table 3.
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Share of Fund Released by GoI under Category of States in SSA (Rs. in 10 millions).
States Group Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories All
2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 9.23 23.77 18.32 32.07 10.28 6.34 100
10.85 20.22 24.54 31.05 9.78 3.55 100
11.33 18.74 16.91 44.80 7.15 1.06 100
8.24 13.04 25.79 45.93 6.71 0.29 100
6.51 12.06 28.47 47.29 5.2 0.3 100
Source: Computed based on MHRD (2005b) (2003–2004 and 2004–2005); MHRD (2006b) (2005–2006); http://www.eduction.nic (downloaded on 17.3.06) (2001–2002 and 2002–2003).
a higher share as their efforts are to be rewarded to boost further improvement. States are allocated funds based on the district plans submitted and the financial norms of SSA. However, appropriate parameters to be identified for rewarding those better performing states (discussed under incentive mechanism). North-eastern states, the special category states, get approximately 6–10%, is relatively low. However, these states get overall higher transfer of resources both from Planning as well as Finance Commissions. Even though the distribution of shares appears to be reasonable, the point still remains that fund released is less than 50% of the approved outlays. Another important aspect of predictability and also transparency is availability of resources in the specified time. As per the Budget Calendar, appraisal of the plans at the national level to be done by 1st April by the Appraisal Mission and plans were to be approved by 15th April. The manual of ‘Financial Management and Procurement’ stipulated that the release of funds to SIS in two installments in April and September every year (MHRD, 2004b). However, Report of CAG (2006) found that the delay ranged from 2 to 10 months during 2001–2002 to 2004–2005 (see Table 4). During the period, 2001–2002 to 2004–2005, in as many as 66 cases first installment of the grant was released in the month of September when the second installment should have been released. In almost half of the cases, the grant was released in the month of March, the fag-end of the financial year, which obviously could not allow expenditure to be incurred in the same year. Indeed, the starting point of the problem in low utilization of resources is the long delay in getting the resources. On the states part as well, there were delays in the preparation and consequent approval of Annual Work Plans and Budgets9. The problem of unpredictability and the procedural norms attached to it make many states rarely get the second
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Table 4.
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Timing of Resources Released from MHRD to States (SIS) 2001–2002 and 2004–2005.
2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2001–2002 to 2004–2005
First Installment Released in the Month of September and after (No. of States)
Second Installment Released in the Month of March (No. of States)
19 22 13 12 66
5 10 5 11 31
Source: Report of CAG (2006).
installment. Release of bulk money in the last few months of the financial year would also result in compromised quality of expenditure. Besides the delayed release, fragmented release by both MHRD and states make the SIS unable to adhere to the schedule of releasing funds within 15 days of their receipt. For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, during 2003–2004 funds received in September 2003 were released to districts over next 5 months. While, this has improved in 2004–2005, funds received in October 2004 were released in several installments over next 2 months. Such transfers not only mean that senior officers at the SIS are constantly busy with releases but it also increases the load on accounting system manifold and also delays the transfers at districts. While, funds transfer to sub-districts is also efficient (by using credit advices instead of checks), there are delays in actual release. These delays are partly on account of lack of pre-planning and partly due to lack of clarity of instructions and effective monitoring by the District Project Officers (MHRD, 2005a). This also reflects the lack of autonomy over decentralized implementation. Flow of funds through the multiple layers of the program is not always timely. The fund transfer to sub-district level is effected with delays from the districts and as a result there are substantial balances at the district level. For example in the districts of Uttar Pradesh, closing balance in a district, Kheri was Rs. 29.5 million and in Unnao was Rs. 13.5 million on 31st December 2004. The delay is occasioned by accounting details of the sub-district entities. Details of the requirement for specific schemes are obtained from sub-district levels and hence delays the transfers further (MHRD, 2005a). This also reflects the extent of reliance on fund utilization on specific head identified by the state or the central level, which reflects the lack of flexibility in reallocating the funds under different heads. The resource allocation mechanism
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neither seem to ensure both predictability and transparency that how much of resources and on what basis the resources are sanctioned to state governments nor sanctions the available resources within the stipulated time period. Ability to Provide Matching Grants Ability to provide matching grants is examined in terms of the capacity of the states in adhering to the matching shares stipulated under SSA. Matching grants require sub-national (state) governments to contribute funds of their own if they are to obtain access to counterpart funding from central government. Matching grant in principle have important economic and fiscal advantages in terms of both allocative efficiency (spillovers) and the efficient use of scarce central government resources to attain desired levels of certain services. It may also have the advantages of local involvement, commitment, accountability, and responsibility for the aided activities (Wiseman, 1981). Categorically, a successful implementation of any centrally sponsored scheme, like SSA, requires the states’ full commitment. For instance, as reported in Table 5, the matching shares by both GoI’s and state governments’ from 2003–2004 to 2005–2006 and for the period 2001–2002 to 2004–2004 is adhered to only in few states viz., Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarnachal. Majority of the states are not able to ensure the stipulated share even during the second year of the 10th plan i.e., 2003–2004. Those states, which are sanctioned more than 75% of GoI share are Jharkhand, Karnataka, Mizoram, Orissa, Haryana, Gujarat, and Tripura. These states get the higher share at the cost of the states getting less than the stipulated share like Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, and Nagaland. The states, which are sanctioned with lower share are doubly disadvantaged in terms of economical and educational development except the economically prosperous states viz., Maharashtra and Punjab and educationally better off Himachal Pradesh (see Table 5). However, during the third year of the 10th 5-year plan, the situation seems to have improved with many states adhering to the share such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, and Haryana. States getting more than 75% of GoI share viz., Kerala, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, and West Bengal are at the cost of disadvantaged states like Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Orissa, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, except Gujarat and Punjab. Even in the fourth year of the 10th 5-year plan, the situation is not better that only six states adhere to the matching shares, viz., Andhra Pradesh,
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Table 5.
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Share of GoI and State Governments in Total Released Fund under SSA in Selected States under SSA (in %).
States
Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal West Bengal India
2003–2004
2004–2005
2005–2006
2001–2002 to 2004–2005
GoI
States
GoI
States
GoI
States
GoI
States
68.6 79.2 72 70.6 83.5 87.5 69.3 58.9 89.1 88.5 75.5 – 69.6 88.4 43.6 88.4 67.7 71.4 64.5 75 83 75 75 74.7 75.6
31.4 20.8 28 29.4 16.5 12.5 30.7 41.1 10.9 11.5 24.5 – 30.4 11.6 56.4 11.6 32.3 28.6 35.5 25 17 25 25 25.3 24.4
75.5 73.5 75.1 75.1 65.9 74.7 75.1 71.6 67.3 71.2 92.5 73.1 80.8 80.1 78.3 69.5 53.3 68.1 75 75 79.9 75 75 76.9 74.2
24.5 26.5 24.9 24.9 34.1 25.3 24.9 28.4 32.7 28.8 7.5 26.9 19.2 19.9 21.7 30.5 46.7 31.9 25 25 20.1 25 25 23.1 25.8
75.1 65.7 70.7 73.7 64.2 75.3 69.3 77.6 72.4 67 61.9 67.9 77.6 72.1 88.6 78.1 75 78 90.9 75 78.4 75 75 72.4 73.4
24.9 34.3 29.3 26.3 35.8 24.7 30.7 22.4 27.6 33 38.1 32.1 22.4 27.9 11.4 21.9 25 22 9.1 25 21.6 25 25 27.6 26.6
74.7 83.1 82.7 75.7 74.8 77.7 75.2 79.1 76.3 69.3 76.8 83.5 75.4 78.8 83.3 78.1 83.9 74.4 76.6 74.9 70.5 80.8 75.4 79.1 76.1
25.3 16.9 17.3 24.3 25.2 22.3 24.8 20.9 23.7 30.7 23.2 16.5 24.6 21.2 16.7 21.9 16.1 25.6 23.4 25.1 29.5 19.2 24.6 20.9 23.9
Source: Based on MHRD (2005b); MHRD (2006b) (2005–2006); Report of CAG (2006) (2001– 2002 to 2004–2005)
Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarnachal. Another six states, namely Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, and Tripura, contribute less than the stipulated share of 25%. It is to be noted that Maharashtra an economically prosperous state did not contribute its state share along with north-eastern states, small states like Sikkim and the economically backward states like Orissa and Rajasthan. This is at the cost of states like Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, and West Bengal. It is because the overall share at the all India level is maintained at the prescribed ratio during both the years
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2003–2004 and 2004–2005. However in 2005–2006, the GoI share itself has declined marginally. Over a period of 4 years, seven states, namely Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Uttranchal have maintained the stipulated share. The rest of the states except Tripura contributed less than the stipulated 25% share. The problem of inability of states to provide full 25% share of funds in SSA may not have been reflected adequately in poor states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, etc. as the magnitude of funds released from Center to these states was quite low in comparison to what was needed in these states (see Table 5). On the contrary some other states have provided more than the stipulated share of 25%. The mid-term review of the 10th 5-year plan also noted that many of the states are not adhering to the matching shares (Planning Commission, 2006). This also distorts the SSA perspective plans and leads to problems like holding up infrastructure projects, etc. In addition, the problem of States with matching grants is twofold that either late releasing of funds and/or not releasing the prescribed share of the matching grant. Even though Government of Uttar Pradesh has been releasing its share of funds in all the years but releases have not been timely and not followed the calendar prescribed in the manual (MHRD, 2005a). Same is the situation in Himachal Pradesh even during 2005–2006 that the first installment of the state reached in November 2005 and the second installment outstanding even in December 2005. Government of West Bengal has made available its 25% share, with a lag of between 3 and 4 months (MHRD, 2005a). For instance, in Andhra Pradesh the state’s share of receipts were not in time till 2003–2004. But the situation has improved during 2005–2006 (MHRD, 2006a). However, this needs to be sustained in the coming years as well. As evidenced, the sharing pattern varies within states between the years as it is found in majority of the states. Indeed, the uniform matching shares irrespective of the states’ economic development place the economically backward states at a disadvantage vis-a`-vis the economically better off states. The educationally backward states with an additional handicap of economic backwardness are further vulnerable even to get their eligible assistance from GoI through SSA. Equal matching shares in principle are designed based on some notion of horizontal equity. Pigou (1928) in discussing equal treatment of equals defined it as the principle that ‘‘different persons should be treated similarly unless they are dissimilar in some relevant respects’’. The moot question is whether all the states irrespective of educational and economic development should be treated equally? Will these states be able to bear the additional financial pressures under the scheme during the 11th plan?
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In the light of these, the mid-term review of 10th 5-year plan has recommended to continue the same 75:25 sharing pattern during the 11th plan. The matching share of special category north-eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir has been reduced from 25 to 10% matching share since 2005–2006 onwards (Planning Commission, 2006). Ministry of Department of NorthEastern Region will release 15% out of 25% state share for north-eastern states for 2005–2006 and 2006–2007. When the north-eastern states are to provide a 10% matching share why not the economically and educationally poor state be included in the special category states or a different sharing ratio or even a full central support for such states like Bihar. Some of the educationally backward states require more resources and further economically poor states may not be able to adhere to the said sharing pattern. Backward states are to be allocated still a higher share from the GoI based on their need in terms of number of out-of-school children to be covered, retention and transition rates, etc. Hence, varying sharing arrangements taking into account both the need for funds and their ability to provide funds from their own budgets need to be evolved. Plan expenditures by the states further need to be examined in constant prices, one of the stipulations under SSA is that states have to maintain allocation in real terms on the base year 1999–2000 and hence matching share of states to be higher than base year allocations (p. 6, MHRD, undated)10. However, this plan allocation viewing it in a particular scheme may not be appropriate even if one looks at it in 1999–2000 prices. Instead, it needs to be examined in terms of the total allocation to elementary education by the states as a percent of State Domestic Product. As Table 6 reports the share of expenditure on elementary education either remained stagnant (Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Punjab) or declined in majority of the states (Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Haryana). In only two states Bihar and Assam, the shares have increased. It is a paradox that an economically backward state Bihar exhibiting a higher share of SDP and the economically prosperous state Punjab displaying a lower share of SDP. One plausible reason could be income of Bihar is less while a higher expenditure in elementary education shows a high share of SDP while the reverse is true for Punjab. In addition, the expenditure on elementary education would be predominant in the total resources available for education as a whole in a state like Bihar. It could be observed that states, which are allocating a lower share of their expenditure on elementary education are also allocating lower state share
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Share of Expenditure on Elementary Education as Percent of State Domestic Product in Select States in India.
Madhya Pradesh Bihar Himachal Pradesh Assam Meghalaya Jammu & Kashmir Orissa Karnataka Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Maharashtra West Bengal Chhattisgarh Gujarat Tamil Nadu Kerala Haryana Andhra Pradesh Punjab
2001–2002
2002–2003
2003–2004 (R)
2004–2005 (B)
4.97 3.99 3.25 3.10 2.99 2.33 2.30 2.29 2.11 1.98 1.84 1.64 1.44 1.29 1.28 1.23 1.09 1.06 0.65
4.62 2.52 3.14 2.83 2.82 2.09 2.36 2.21 2.19 1.69 1.38 0.88 1.33 1.29 1.07 1.97 1.02 0.96 0.79
3.82 4.07 3.08 3.49 2.70 2.08 2.06 2.28 2.11 1.64 1.26 0.83 1.73 1.09 1.14 1.75 0.98 1.11 0.74
2.38 4.11 2.85 4.29 2.63 1.99 1.89 2.47 2.10 1.50 1.21 0.88 1.67 1.13 1.08 1.89 0.95 1.10 0.77
Source: Based on Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, various issues and Central Statistical Organization, New Delhi. Note: (R) – revised estimates; (B) – budget estimates.
under SSA. For instance, states like Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Orissa, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Gujarat, and Punjab are the states, which have allocated lower state share during 2003–2004 and 2004–2005. These are the states in which their share of expenditure on elementary education has either stagnated or declined during the program period (see Tables 5 and 6). This is one of the major hindering factors in fully utilizing the available resources as discussed later. Even under DPEP, the problem identified was that state funds are not forthcoming (see Bashir, 2000; Tilak, 2002). The funds allocated under DPEP and under SSA now are to be seen as additionalities and not substitutable for existing programs (p. 21, MHRD, undated). SSA funding had to be viewed as a mechanism to reduce the financial pressure on the district and state rather than as sufficient allocations to achieve the targets. In this sense, SSA has created a dependency syndrome among all states and districts for central government assistance. Similarly, central government in
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turn, is looking for external fund for elementary education, even though it is a small share in the total resources available under SSA. It is found that state’s own plan resources grew slowly and stagnated or declined in real terms. So, in this sense, SSA has not promoted significant additional resources for education within states and not catalyzed significant additional resources within states. SSA funds need to be viewed only as an additionality and not a substitute and state resource mobilization for education is critical for development. Absorptive Capacity Absorptive capacity indicates the capacity of the states to absorb and utilize the transfers. Indeed, the CSS by design favor the economically better off states, since such states find less difficult not only to contribute the matching shares but also have better institutional capacity to implement the schemes and utilize the resources in time. On the contrary, the poorer states, because of their inability to provide matching grants as also their relatively lower capacity to utilize resources in time, might suffer from non-release or delayed releases of center’s share. The utilization rate as percent of released funds seems to have improved from 2003–2004 to 2004–2005 but declined in 2005–2006 at the national level (see Table 7). As many as in eight states viz., Mizoram, Tripura, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Sikkim, Bihar, and West Bengal, utilization rate was less than 60%. Almost all of these low utilizing states are also educationally backward states. However, the situation has improved except Sikkim where there is less than 60% utilization rate in 2004–2005. Much of the success has been due to improvements in spending by slow moving states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Punjab, Sikkim, and West Bengal. These states had utilization rates ranging from as low as 15% (West Bengal) to 37% (Jharkhand) during 2003–2004. However, increased spending is not sustained during 2005–2006. Indeed, Bihar spent only 19% of its total resources in 2003–2004. Low utilization rate of the funds is not something new under SSA, even in DPEP it persisted (Varghese, Agarwal, Pripathi, & Josephine, 1999, Karan & Pushpendra, 2005). For instance, Bihar spent a mere 30% of its budget allocation in 2000–2001 under DPEP or the Bihar Education Project. However, the utilization rates are approximately 60% under SSA compared to 30–40% rates under DPEP in Madhya Pradesh and Kerala (Varghese et al., 1999). It is really important to explore some of the important issues like whether the districts really require the resources they demanded for or do they simply overestimate the resources; or do not able to utilize because of
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Table 7. Percent Utilized on Released Fundsa in Selected States under SSA (in %). States Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal West Bengal India
2003–2004
2004–2005
2005–2006
2001–2002 to 2004–2005
74.0 98.8 19.3 37.8 86.3 101.0 70.1 37.6 41.7 88.3 79.6 – 89.7 58.7 76.1 76.4 35.7 80.5 33.3 90.6 55.6 80.4 90.2 14.5 70.7
77.8 98.0 60.9 90.7 66.5 62.0 87.5 81.7 88.4 87.3 76.6 88.2 80.5 94.3 90.5 77.1 74.1 91.5 59.0 96.9 99.7 96.7 74.5 82.8 83.7
45.3 45.3 34.1 45.0 44.3 51.2 78.7 68.7 59.9 79.9 80.0 69.2 74.0 62.1 99.8 74.1 81.1 94.2 55.1 97.5 65.3 89.9 87.5 82.0 77.3
84.80 46.34 87.93 55.28 87.83 86.25 75.86 96.66 61.70 87.89 96.54 90.07 80.85 95.13 61.51 50.07 86.60 93.73 87.70 84.08 94.80 49.77 100.32 72.94 85.75
Source: Based on MHRD (2005b); MHRD (2006b) (2005–2006); and Report of CAG (2006) (2001–2002 to 2004–2005) a Released funds plus total outstanding balance.
their inadequate capacity and governance to pursue the required activities. It may be noted that weak governance and inadequate capacity can divert and waste resources. Indeed, the additional resources coming from the center for development of education can have a positive influence on states only after the states have achieved a certain threshold level of absorptive capacities. Incentive Mechanism Adequate incentive mechanisms are to be built-in for encouraging resource mobilization and proper utilization of resources. The funding mechanism under SSA envisages providing incentives. For instance, matching shares
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P. GEETHA RANI
between the Central Government and the states is expected to provide a built-in incentive for states to make maximum use of centrally provided grants. But the way in which the operation of matching shares has been discussed in the preceding section suggest the reverse of it. The norms under SSA attempt to ensure that the districts (and hence states) with the greatest needs will receive the largest amount of resources. But what is observed is the educationally backward states with greater needs face an additional handicap of economic backwardness to obtain their eligible assistance from GoI through SSA. Incentive mechanisms are therefore to reward states especially the performing educationally medium developed (improving) states, which would boost further improvement. The incentive mechanism can be in terms of performance-based incentives in terms of additional resources from the GoI. Incentive mechanisms can further be in terms of rewarding those districts and states adopting cost effective measures; focusing on effective delivery need to be given serious consideration. It may be noted that the ‘Carrot and Stick’ policy is also envisaged in SSA. That states (districts) will only get additional resources after having utilized 50% of the first tranche and after states have provided the matching funds. Procedural norms are such that ‘Funds are to be released only after the previous allocations are transferred to state implementation society within 30 days’. There was to be no further release if utilization certificates were not submitted as per the schedule (MHRD, 2004b). In fact, both the release of the second installment by the center and its magnitude depend on the level of expenditure and the quality of implementation of the installment as also the time left in the financial year. So, the release of funds to the States/UTs in the second installment can happen only after ensuring these stipulations. State- level implementation society is to certify that the level of investments is being maintained by states for further allocation of resources’ (p. 25, MHRD, undated). Frequent delays on account of audit reports and the issue of utilization certificates affect the resource availability to a greater extent. The combined effect of these procedural delays along with the absorptive capacity of states leads to spillover. As Mooij and Dev (2004) lament that there can be a deliberately created or unintentional delay in the central bureaucracy, with spillover effects for the next year’s allocation (which is partly based on spending figures of the previous year). It is also true that the financial guidelines of SSA are restrictive and are not based on need-based planning. A number of decisions are based on administrative ease rather on issues of appropriateness and need (Kainath, 2006), hence leading to spillover. Indeed, spillover of
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Table 8. Annual Spillover of Unspent Funds as Percent of Total Released Funds under SSA.
Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Mizoram Nagaland Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal West Bengal India
2003–2004
2004–2005
2005–2006
44.4 36.5 53.3 21.8 22.1 14.6 14.7 5.8 32.0 29.7 16.1 – 26.1 11.6 50.5 25.0 22.6 20.7 53.1 14.4 39.0 30.5 57.3 102.8 34.0
17.0 0.9 31.6 17.8 31.2 7.8 17.6 3.6 34.5 6.8 26.9 15.9 8.6 16.8 13.9 15.9 120.4 25.4 53.3 7.0 0.2 10.6 6.7 2.8 15.5
10.3 14.1 35.7 26.7 19.1 18.0 12.8 19.1 38.7 16.5 26.4 24.4 20.7 38.8 9.1 19.1 27.5 3.9 31.7 4.2 19.0 1.9 20.5 27.1 20.9
Source: MHRD (2005b); MHRD (2006b) (2005–2006)
unspent funds as percent of total expenditures was very high during 2003–2004 (see Table 8). States, which were showing more than 50% spillover, are West Bengal, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Sikkim, and Nagaland. It is to be noted that these are almost the same set of states depicting low spending rates (see Tables 7 and 8). It clearly suggests that in these states even after 2 years of the implementation of the program, the work has not really begun in full swing. The situation seems to have improved during 2004–2005 and 2005–2006. Yet, the concern here is, the spillover is considered as savings by the GoI. That in a particular year, if approved outlay for the district (states) is not spent fully, the same becomes outlay saved. The outlay saved under non-recurrent heads is taken as spillover activities for the forthcoming year (p. 35, MHRD,
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P. GEETHA RANI
2004b). Instead of viewing this unspent outlay as a curse it is recognized as a boon, as outlay saved. It is a saving for the center as it enables the center to reduce the central release of funds to states in the forthcoming year. Even this provision of spillover is not permissible under recurrent expenditures. However, unspent balance with SIS from the state governments’ share of funds is carried forward in the next year with the approval of the state government. To sum up: The federal financial assistance through the centrally sponsored scheme SSA, despite its small share in total expenditure on elementary education, influences the state governments in planning for the new initiatives and programs in terms of school infrastructure, teacher improvement, incentives, etc., at the district level. Indeed, almost all districts prepare District Elementary Education Plans for the GoI’s plan assistance under SSA, on the appraisal of which, budget of the states under SSA is approved. However, the actual fund sanction depends on the total availability of funds under SSA. Another important point to be noted is in the entire process of fund flow from MHRD to SIS makes the approved outlay of the states by MHRD based on the appraisal of District Elementary Education Plans only notional, and not used as a base for resource allocation neither by the center nor by the states. So, any objective allocation criteria are absent, leading to ad hoc grant distribution that is at considerable variance with the principles of transparency, predictability, ability to provide matching shares, absorptive capacity and incentive mechanism.
Resource Mobilization All types of resources (financial, material, and human) and through all possible sources of support (government, private sector, communities, international donors, and agencies) are being tapped under SSA. Indeed, this is an important agenda under the EFA forum’s resource mobilization strategy. Nationally, the alternative resource mobilization strategies followed under SSA are mobilizing material and human resources from the community and private sector participation, besides, the governmental (center and states) resources with external assistance. This section attempts to critically review the community resource mobilization and the private sector participation. Community Resource Mobilization Indeed, as early as in 1986 with the National Policy on Education and its Programme of Action in 1992, the GoI resolves to promote
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non-governmental or community financing for elementary education. National Policy on Education (1986) states that ‘‘Resources, to the extent possible, will be raised by mobilizing donations, asking the beneficiary communities to maintain school buildings and supplies of some consumables, y’’ (MHRD, 1986, p. 28). Since, the beginning of 1990s, community resource mobilization has been viewed as one of the favored sources of incomes for the Governments even in elementary education. The Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) is an important endeavor in this direction. Government of Madhya Pradesh initiated alternate schools under the EGS in 1997. Habitations not having a primary school within 1 km radius, with 40 children (25–30 in tribal areas) will be entitled to have an EGS type school. The poor local community needs to identify teachers (Guruji) who would be then trained by the Education Department. The scheme presumes that a full formal school with all the required basic facilities is not necessary, and hence qualified trained teachers are dispensable. The community to provide land/space for schools, manage mid-day meal through the Panchayat, and participate through VECs and Parents Teacher Association. The premise of EGS is that a community must demand a school facility, rather than receive as an entitlement/a right from the government, implies shifting the responsibility of opening schools from the government to those of people themselves. It is further assumed that it is unviable for the government to run a school in such contexts but would be viable for community (see Tilak, 2006). Hence, the cost of establishing an EGS is at a fraction of a establishing a regular school (see Panchamuki, 2005). As a low-cost strategy, many states have adopted the EGS type schools. In 1999–2000, it became the national strategy to provide universal physical access to children living in small habitation. As against the National Policies on Education, 1968 and 1986, which envisaged formal schools, the program SSA (to implement policies) encourage alternative schools in various forms. EGS and Alternative and Innovative Education scheme is part of the SSA framework, which will provide planning and management support to operationalization of the EGS and AIE scheme (p. 31, MHRD, undated). Under SSA, any individual who has passed grade X or XII can start a school. It need not be a formal, full-time school and can be located anywhere. The problem here is that communities that have not been able to mobilize funds/resources such as land/buildings or impress on significant political influence, continue to be either without schools or have very inadequate structures. Most often, communities located in the most deprived areas do not have the capacity to mobilize resources on a big scale as the additional requirements are huge. Further, the community financing may likely to
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P. GEETHA RANI
exacerbate inequalities in the educational provision, rather community initiatives need to be envisaged in strengthening to monitor the effective functioning of schools. Private Sector Participation SSA presumes that 15% of the total enrollment in elementary education is taken care of by private unaided schools. This as a policy option in view of the target group11 in educationally and economically poor states would be regressive. Indeed, low efficiency and effectiveness of the public schooling system, coupled with inadequate financial resource allocation to the existing schools has tended to push more and more people to seek even primary education through private institutions. Hence, the parents are indirectly forced to move away from the public system. For instance, Karan and Pushpendra (2005) observed in Bihar that growing number and share of socially deprived children in government schools. Locally powerful groups have no interest (including teachers in the upper caste as observed by Karan and Pushpendra (2005) that ‘Dalitization (socially deprived community in India) of government schools is taking place only in terms of studentsyGovernment schools are dominated by nonDalit teachers, who use all their social capital for remaining absent from schools up to maximum manageable periods. This has implications not only for the students enrolledybut also for their overall functioning (Karan & Pushpendra, 2005, p. 115). There are vested interests in the social status quo, and education is perceived as a threat to this social order. This fear also means there is no interest in spending money on education (Mooij & Dev, 2004). For instance the Uttar Pradesh government, ‘has taken little interest in the Total Literacy Campaign, even after the considerable potential of that campaign had been well demonstrated in several other states. Under utilization of large grants earmarked for the promotion of elementary education (y) is yet another symptomatic indication of low priority given to basic education by state government’ (Dreze & Gazdar, 1996, p. 88). Poor and disadvantaged go to government schools while those who can afford to pay send their children to private schools. Perhaps, in urban areas this divided system of school education has contributed to a vertical division in the society on the basis of economic status of the parents. It is to be realized that these deprived groups would require the states’ own and full responsibility of commitment in governance and funding for achieving the target of completing 8 years of schooling. In the long run this would not only jeopardize genuine democratic processes and structures but also unjustifiable from the equity and human rights perspectives.
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Resource Utilization Low resource utilization has been a major lacuna under social sector expenditures per se and also under SSA and DPEP, even though these programs seek to build cost-effective and sustainable systems. On the one hand, there is hue and cry over lack of resources and on the other, the state is unable to spend whatever meager but precious resources that has at its disposal. In many instances central grants have been returned largely unutilized and also states have failed to even obtain the grants (Mooij & Dev, 2004). Besides looking at aggregate utilization rates (in Table 7), additional insights could be inferred by examining utilization rates by components. For this purpose, a detailed account of information on allocation and expenditure about 16 activities during 2004–2005 across states and union territories given in the second report of Joint Review Mission (JRM) of SSA is used. The states and union territories have been classified into six categories (as in Table 3 and explained in appendix table with an explanatory note). The 16 activities under SSA have been grouped into six major components for a meaningful analysis (see note below Table 9 for grouping of activities)12. Table 9 reports utilization rates by components and by category of states in India. Across components, utilization rate in building is the highest, then quality and incentives and so on. The least utilization rates (40%) are reported on the component equity and access all over India. The pattern varies by components across category of states except in case of buildings. The component buildings across educationally developed and backward states indicate similar spending rates, where the utilization rates are above and approximately 80%, respectively. However, as expected, buildings report a highest spending rate across components only among educationally backward states. In educationally developed states the highest spending rate is reported in equity and access components. It could be because it is the last 10–20% of the out-of-school children are yet to be covered in these states. These children would comprise of the most difficult section to be reachable like nomads, the poorest of the poor, etc. While in other category of states, II, III, and V, it ranges between 55 and 60%. Why these states were not able to utilize almost half of their allocation even on buildings need to be further explored at a microlevel. Utilization rates in teachers’ salary were above 65% in category I, IV, and V states, while category II and III states spending rate is only 45–50%. Indeed, it is the same story on recruiting teachers from Operation Blackboard to DPEP especially in educationally backward states (Bashir, 2000). ‘States that did not utilize the support under Operation Blackboard for a third teacher in
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Table 9.
Utilization Ratesa by Components by Category of States in 2004–200512 in India.
Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories All
Buildings
Teachers Salary
Other Variable Expenditures
Equity and Accessa
Quality
Incentives (Students)
Total
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
82.31
78.36
50.86
89.84
64.12
77.51
74.61
59.57
47.64
65.15
31.37
48.15
39.00
49.82
57.12
46.64
59.52
41.58
68.67b
67.02
60.81
79.48
65.14
60.65
36.30
33.30
66.45
60.39
58.46 27.16 68.95
84.16 10.16 58.99
49.83 36.73 59.49
54.43 12.91 39.58
74.09 33.17 61.15
57.27 81.04 60.74
63.34 24.49 59.84
P. GEETHA RANI
Note: Capital expenditure refers to civil works; other variable expenditure includes maintenance, management cost, and SIEMAT; Equity and access includes IED, EGA/AIE, and NPEGEL. Quality includes School Grant, Teacher Grant, Teacher’s training, Community training, Innovative activities, Total Research Evaluation Management Systems, BRC, and CRC (other than civil work), and Incentives consists of textbooks and TLE. Source: Computed based on MHRD (2005b). a Utilization rates reported here are independent. b Rajasthan on BRC and CRC alone spent Rs. 18,825 lakhs against the budgetary allocation on the same component of Rs. 1,201 lakhs, which was taken as the expenditure.
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primary or an additional teacher in upper primary will be eligible for assistance for new posts created to meet the rising enrollment of pupils. Assistance will not be available for filling up existing vacancies that have arisen on account of attrition’ (p. 56, MHRD, undated). It is because teachers’ salary brings in additional recurring liabilities to the states. State governments while implementing the activities are more concerned with the recurring liabilities and hence allocation under those activities exhibit low spending rates. On the component quality, educationally improving states have overspent. On the contrary, category II – low and IV – least spending rates are reported. Approximately 65–75% of the allocations are spent in category V and I states. Even on equity and access, except category I states, the spending rates are not satisfactory. However, the spending rates are relatively better on incentives except in category II states. Across category of states (column 7 of Table 9), three fourth of the allocation has been utilized by category I, on the contrary, one fourth of the allocation being utilized in UTs. Approximately 60% utilitization rates are reported in category III, IV, and V states. While in category II states only half of the allocations were utilized. Similar findings are observed under DPEP as well in Assam, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh that civil work has been progressing while non-civil work is not improving at an expected pace. Programs requiring very little investment are given low priority in implementation. Programs which, require financial commitment from the part of the state governments for sustainability is not adequately forthcoming (Varghese, et al., 1999). Several reasons can be put forward to explain this underutilization, which may include initial administrative hurdles, GoI not releasing adequate funds and also transferring the funds to states not in time, delayed release of matching grants and/or not releasing the prescribed share of the matching grant; delays in preparation, submission, and approval of Annual Work Plan and Budgets; procedural delays; inadequate provisions in the budget; low utilization of funds in the previous quarter, etc. As noted earlier, the low utilization rate by components like quality, equity, and access brings out their inadequate institutional and administrative capacity and governance to pursue the required activities. Another problem among the districts (states) is that almost all of the districts wanted to get the highest sanction irrespective of their capacity to absorb and utilize. However, this aspect further needs to be explored at the microlevel. As observed by Mooij and Dev (2004) there are conflicting interests in the process of allocation, but also in the process between allocation and implementation. The final expenditure is a result of both. To sum up, states/districts getting the resources by the end of the financial year are hardly left with any time to utilize the money. In addition, the
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financial rules stipulate that the states are supposed to utilize the money in the same financial year for which it has been allocated. The unutilized money is a major hurdle for further development in a number of ways. For instance, the current years’ allocation normally depends on the previous years expenditures, more specifically the preparation of annul work plan and budgets. If unspent amount is shown then the implication is that states/ districts are not in a position to spend the resources or not able to absorb the resources even though they require resources because they did not have adequate time to plan for the developmental activities. The delayed flow of funds has affected planning at the State Implementing Society level and eventually the pace of implementation of the program. Further, the delays at various stages of the system, including at the sub-district level where transfers are reported as taking up to 8 weeks is clearly slowing down the utilization rates. Indeed, a vicious cycle is getting formed beginning from the delay in getting the fund – low utilization – unspent funds – spillover to next year – reduction in the coming years’ budget, etc. Indeed, deficiency in the design of the resource allocation itself, result in low utilization rates. However, few ways are suggested here to improve utilization. Carefully assess the requirements of funds before releasing to SIS. Approved outlay needs to be released at the beginning of the financial year (in April) or at the most in two installments and the center should avoid release of funds at the fag-end of the financial year. Fund flow procedure to be further streamlined to ensure timely availability of funds at all the levels by simplifying rigid finance and accounting rules and regulations; to be made more user-friendly. From district to the sub-district level, funds could be transferred through banking channel rather than through issue of large number of checks and drafts. Electronic transfer of funds has eliminated the time lag substantially and needs to be adopted by all the states. The present procedure of Utilization Certificate is not at all meaningful in achieving the set target. Instead, if it relates to outcomes, it will be a great leap forward to achieve the targets in real terms. Adopting cost effective measures; focus on effective delivery to be given serious consideration and as discussed earlier could be built-in as an incentive mechanism. Unutilized amount or the spillover is not to be adjusted in the forthcoming year but give a grace period to utilize it effectively both in recurring and non-recurring expenditures.
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Absorptive capacity of the educationally and economically backward states is to be improved by strengthening administrative capacity at the district and sub-district level.
PART II: PRIORITIES OF BUDGETARY ALLOCATION VS. ACTUAL EXPENDITURES It is pertinent to examine whether the priorities envisaged in budgetary allocation is maintained while spending. As shown in Chart 3a and 3b, the priorities envisaged in allocation are not adhered to expenditures incurred on various items. For instance, quality components constitute 16% in the allocation, while the expenditure incurred on this item is 11%. Similarly, equity and access occupied a 13% share in the allocation, which got reduced to 9% in actual expenditures. While priorities of capital expenditures, teacher salary, etc., have shown a higher proportion than envisaged in budgetary allocation. Even though, the national pattern is suggestive of the variations between allocation and expenditures, it is equally important to examine whether the same holds good across states in a vast country like India. A detailed account of both allocation and expenditures about 16 activities during 2004–2005 across states and union territories have been analyzed both vertically and horizontally13. (a)
Budget Allocation under SSA in 2005-06 incentives (students) 7% quality 16%
capital exp 34%
equity and access 3% other variable expr 6%
Chart 3.
teachers salary 24%
(b)
Expenditure under SSA in 2005-06 incentives (students) 9% capital expr 35%
quality 11% equity and access 9% other variable expr 10% teachers salary 26%
(a) Budgetary Allocation vs. (b) Actual Expenditures in 2005–2006. Source: MHRD (2006a).
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How vertical integration in education in a federal set up like India is attended to is examined in terms of the total GoI resources available under the scheme, i.e., how much each category of states are allocated and expenditures incurred on different components. Table 10 presents the share of distribution of budgetary allocation and actual expenditures by components across various categories of states. This table is structured to know the order of priority of category of states across various components. In terms of budgetary allocation under the scheme, the order of priority is educationally backward (IV), educationally improving (III), economically developed (II), and north-eastern (V) and educationally developed (I) states. Allocation under buildings adheres to the same order. As far as teachers’ salary is concerned, the first and second order of priority remains the same that of category IV and III states being allocated higher shares and the order then changes to category I, II, and north-eastern states. As far as the other three components are concerned, quality, equity and access, and other variable expenditure the first and second order remains the same. There is some interchange between the other three category of states that is educationally developed (I), economically developed (II), and north-eastern (V) states. The same order of allocation envisaged is maintained in terms of expenditure that educationally backward (IV) and educationally improving (III) states are the most needy states, except some minor interchange between category III and IV states in quality component. But still in terms of building, category IV states and I overspent than the allocation while in other category of states it is a decline in the share than in the allocation. As far as teachers’ salary is concerned, except educationally improving (III) states, all others spent higher than the allocation. In terms of equity and access, the expenditures are more than the allocation in educationally developed (I), educationally backward (IV), and north-eastern (V) states while in quality, it is educationally developed (I), educationally improving (III), and north-eastern (V) states. Variations are bound to be there between allocation and expenditures. For instance the priority changed in terms of expenditure, which is almost doubled on quality components in category III states could be a welcoming trend but not on either teachers’ salary or other variable expenditures. On similar lines, horizontal integration is examined by analyzing the distribution of similar levels of either economic or/and educational development of states across components. Unlike the earlier table, the present framework is to be viewed in relation to the scheme’s postulates for example that the ceiling on buildings as 33% of the total allocation, etc. However, this uniform upper limit of 33% on civil works across districts and states is
Share of Distribution of Allocation and Expenditures by Componentsb across States by Category.
Budgetary allocation Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories All Actual expenditure Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories All
Buildings
Teachers Salary
Other Variable Expenditures
Equity and Accessa
Quality
Total
7.32 15.57 27.64
3.86 2.77 35.64
7.11 17.31 27.75
4.39 17.23 20.68
11.55 19.04 22.58
6.62 14.32 26.58
43.32 5.62 0.53 100
54.23 3.16 0.34 100
40.15 6.94 0.73 100
50.82 5.91 0.98 100
36.79 8.76 1.28 100
45.89 5.85 0.74 100
8.74 13.45 22.90
5.13 2.24 28.18
6.08 18.96 27.77
6.08 13.29 18.15
12.11 14.99 41.55
8.26 11.92 27.01
49.94 4.76 0.21 100
59.89 4.51 0.06 100
40.93 5.82 0.45 100
55.45 6.88 0.15 100
20.04 10.62 0.70 100
46.32 6.19 0.30 100
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Table 10.
Source: Computed based on MHRD (2005b). a Includes incentives. b Same grouping of Components as in note below Table 8.
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highly irrational given the varying requirements of school buildings and classrooms. For instance, the states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where more than 40% of the total out-of-school children would obviously require more classrooms, school buildings than Kerala or Tamil Nadu, which have almost achieved universal elementary enrollment rates. Table 11 reports the share of distribution of allocation and actual expenditures by category of states by various components. Overall the share indicated under allocation is maintained at expenditures as well except on buildings, which is at the cost of the reduction in expenditures on equity and access. It may be noted that all other components, the shares under allocation is adhered to at the shares of expenditures. As far as budgetary allocation is concerned, highest share is found in buildings across category of states. Second higher share of allocation is under quality component in category I states, while it is equity and access in category II, IV, and V states. On the contrary, in category III states, teachers’ salary occupies the second highest share. Third priority is the quality components that too only in category II states while it is teachers’ salary in category IV states. Even though, SSA claims to provide quality elementary education (p. 1, MHRD, undated), quality aspects are yet to get into the priority in category III and IV states where, it is the last or fourth priority. Building, teachers’ salary, equity, and access are the most immediate concerns than on quality even in terms of budgetary allocation itself. As far as expenditure is concerned, across the components and category of states, the rationale of shares envisaged in allocation is not adhered to. By all means, building is the first priority in terms of expenditure irrespective of the developmental status of category of states. Quality is the second priority in educationally developed (I), economically developed (II), educationally improving (III), and north-eastern (V) states (in category II almost equal share between quality and equity and access), except in category educationally backward (IV) states where teachers’ salary is the second priority while quality is relegated to fourth rank. Either equity and access or teachers’ salary occupies the third order in category IV and V states. Emerging trend is that quality is the fourth priority in the category of educationally improving (III) and educationally backward (IV) states. It is evident that both in allocation and expenditures, only after ensuring the basic minimum levels in terms of physical and human infrastructure, and ensuring equal access to all the child age population of 6–14, quality is given priority. Thus, the challenge is both improving the qualitative and quantitative targets of UEE with enhanced resource allocation to education.
Share of Distribution of Allocation and Expenditures by Category of States by Componentsb.
Budgetary allocation Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories Total Actual expenditure Category I (educationally developed) Category II (economically developed) Category III (educationally improving) Category IV (educationally backward) Category V (north eastern) Union territories Total
Buildings
Teachers Salary
Other Variable Expenditures
Equity and Accessa
Quality
Total
36.51 35.91 34.37
10.72 3.56 24.66
8.15 9.18 7.93
16.46 29.85 19.31
28.16 21.49 13.73
100 100 100
31.19 31.74 23.78 33.04
21.73 9.94 8.31 18.39
6.64 9.02 7.48 7.59
27.49 25.08 32.56 24.82
12.95 24.22 27.87 16.16
100 100 100 100
40.28 42.94 32.29
11.26 3.41 18.91
5.56 12.01 7.76
18.70 20.88 15.63
24.20 20.77 25.40
100 100 100
41.05 29.30 26.36 38.07
23.44 13.20 3.45 18.13
6.67 7.10 11.22 7.55
21.70 22.07 21.24 19.74
7.14 28.33 37.73 16.51
100 100 100 100
Every Child in School
Table 11.
Source: Same as in Table 10. a Includes incentives. b Same grouping of components as in note below Table 8.
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PART III: EMERGING CHALLENGES This part of the paper attempts to bring out the emerging challenges in the development of education per se and elementary education in particular in a wider perspective. Issues focusing on norms adopted under SSA, have not only financial implications but also have an effect on the access, equity, and quality aspects; management-related issues having an impact on the functioning of the system and the overall development of education.
Education Sector Related Issues: Sub-sectoral Approach It is often viewed that channeling more resources to elementary education may require shifting resources away from other levels of education (secondary and higher education). As the 10th plan document indicates a clear shift of resources from higher and secondary to primary education ‘‘Since budget resources are limited, and such resources as are available, need to be allocated to expanding primary education.y’’, (Planning Commission, 2003, p. 17). It can be noticed from Chart 4 that since 7th plan onwards there is a hike in allocation for elementary education. In the 10th plan almost three-fourth of the central plan outlay is envisaged for elementary education. It becomes clear that most part of resources are tuned toward accomplishing the goal of universal elementary education in the recent 80 70
66
60 56 50 40
68
47 35
34
30
35
30
30
34
23
20
Elementary
secondary
X plan &
IX plan
VIII plan
VII plan
VI plan
V plan
IV plan
Annual
III plan
II plan
0
I plan
10
higher
Chart 4. Intrasectoral Plan Allocation of Education Expenditures in Total Education under 5-Year Plans in India. Source: Planning Commission (2003).
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plans. However, it is to be noted that this higher allocation is at the cost of the growth of other levels of education (see Rani, 2003). Sub-sector development projects seek additional funds from the government for that sector, without a broader analysis on education financing. This could lead to a ‘Rob Peter to pay Paul’ syndrome or reallocation across subsectors leading to compartmentalizing of different levels of education without realizing the long-term impacts. It is to be realized that while elementary education is fundamental to the nation, higher education determines its economic and technological progress in the globalized era, which are the necessary and sufficient conditions for growth and development, respectively.
Elementary Education Time Horizon Time-horizon of the EFA goal and also the program SSA needs to be viewed given the experience of the Europe, Japan, and USA. For instance, United States exceeded school enrollment rates by the mid-nineteenth century than any other nation in the world and by the early twentieth century it had accomplished mass education at all levels. US education was spurred by a set of ‘‘virtues,’’ the most important ones were public provision and public funding, besides gender neutrality, open access, and an academic curriculum (Goldin & Katz, 2003). It is true with many OECD countries and in India, the experience of Kerala stand as a testimony to public provision and public funding of education and took a century. Given the world experience, the time-horizon under SSA needs to be reexamined, especially in the case of educationally and economically backward states. Given a very short-term orientation of the program, it is a further worry that more than 50% of the total expenditure on elementary education by GoI is accounted for SSA (see Chart 5). Over the years, elementary education is getting operationalized through SSA in a project mode rather in a short-term perspective. The impact of which, may have serious implications over the growth of the education system now itself and also in the years to come as discussed subsequently. Resource Availability SSA is based on the premise that financing of elementary education interventions has to be sustainable. This calls for a long-term perspective on financial partnership between the central and state governments. It clearly emerges from the analyses that public expenditure for universalization of elementary education has been inadequate. It is to be noted that the approved
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P. GEETHA RANI 64
70 60
52
50 37
40 30 20
15 9
2004-05(B)
2003-04®
2002-03
2001-02
0
2000-01
10
Chart 5. Fund Released by MHRD under SSA as a % of Expenditure on Elementary Education by GoI in India. Source: Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, MHRD, Various Issues.
outlay of the districts and states by MHRD is arrived at following the norms of SSA, which are the most conservative financial requirements. Given the inadequacies in the system and the large number of out-of-school children, the recent estimates to achieve UEE and fill the existing inadequacies in elementary education, the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) suggest that the allocation to elementary education needs to be nearly doubled as a proportion of national income (CABE, 2005). Adequacies of resources given the objectives of the program are to be adhered to in designing the intergovernmental transfers in a federal set up. Many problems of universalization of elementary education like access to and expansion of schooling, quality of education have exacerbated by inadequate financing. Though adequate financing may not solve all the problems of universalization of elementary education, it could have certainly addressed at least the quantitative pressures. Indeed, it is a long over due, which persists under SSA. Financial Sustainability of States The fiscal posture of many Indian states has become highly vulnerable during the second generation of economic reforms being percolated down at the state level to curb fiscal deficit and state expenditures. In addition, the finance commission transfers, constitutional binding for the Center, shows a fall in the decade of 1990s. Whereas the non-finance commission (Planning Commission and Central Government Ministries) for a large part of which the center is not committed constitutionally registers a rise (Rangarajan,
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2004). Further, the incentive structure for cutting down the revenue deficit put in place by the Twelfth Finance Commission might push the states toward reducing their spending on education. In the era of deepening of economic reforms, states are increasingly constrained by fiscal crisis. In these circumstances, states are forced to rely more on centrally sponsored schemes on education for central transfers for elementary education in addition to adopting the low-cost alternatives14. The pressure on states is further built up as SSA eventually transfers either full or substantial part of the funds for recurring expenditures like salary of new teachers recruited under the scheme, is only upto the end of the plan period after which the recurring expenditure commitments fall completely on the states. After completion of the project in 2010, if the states want to continue the recurring interventions in primary and upper primary schools, then many of these would become non-plan expenditures items for the state, which include school grants, grants for teaching learning materials, teachers’ salary, etc. The finances available to states under SSA are only for a transitory period. Later, the states will have to bear the full responsibility. The growing fiscal crisis in the states have left the states to adopt for on the one hand growing reliance on centrally sponsored schemes and on the other low-cost alternatives (Dreze & Sen, 2002). Given the fiscal vulnerability of states, the moot question is whether SSA could therefore be financially sustainable in the long run, especially, in those few states having higher fiscal deficits and large numbers of out-of-school children. Given the resource position of state governments, central intervention is necessary at least for some time. In a similar vein, CABE (2005) recommends that the very substantial financial implications of this provision of ‘Right to Education’ should be borne almost entirely by the Central government as the financial condition of nearly all state governments is precarious – more so the economically backwards states with huge outof-school children and huge drop out rates.
Financial Norms of SSA A careful look at the financial norms under SSA (MHRD, 2004b) brings in several concerns on these norms and their likely impact on the quality of public provision of elementary education not only in the long run even at the present juncture. The norms on unit costs of the different components are of mixed categories that (i) ceiling or upper limit of unit cost; (ii) fixed unit costs, and (iii) no unit costs for some interventions, etc. For instance
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P. GEETHA RANI
both in non-recurring capital expenditures like buildings and also recurring expenditures like grants for maintenance and repair of school buildings (per year); are given an upper ceiling. Same is the case for incentives like free text books to girls, and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) students, and integrating disabled students. Similar upper limits of per unit costs are specified in case of quality components like research, supervision, monitoring activities, innovative projects for girls, and SC/ST. Fixed unit costs have been specified for Teaching Learning Material; replacement of nonfunctional equipment; grants for teachers; provision for teacher training; provision for training of community leaders, provisions for SIEMAT. There is no discernible criterion in the financial norms in terms of any thematic components, like equity, quality, incentives, buildings, and recurring expenditures. In addition these financial norms constrain the decentralized planning, which is extremely straight jacketed. That the habitation plans are to be prepared following the norms given in the SSA framework for those interventions covered by SSA and following the state specific norms for those that are funded by the State Government. Hence, the financial norms have an important bearing in determining the adequacy, equity, and quality of both physical and human resources under SSA, indeed, the entire elementary education sector in the country.
Norms on Access and Equity Alternate schools/Para schools EGS15 as low-cost alternate schools increase in number and also in proportions at a faster rate than the formal schools (see Table 12). The increase in alternate schools over the last 4 years accounted for 60% while formal schools accounted for 40%. The growth of EGS centers has been faster than formal schools as Panchamukhi (2005) observes that the cost of setting up an EGS center is one-tenth of a regular school. The enrollment in these EGS centers also increased rapidly from 6.8 million children in 2001–2002 to 33 million by 2003–2004. A further concern is EGS centers are now upgraded to primary schools by adding one more classroom without additional facilities. It aimed at ‘providing an opportunity to the rural poor, especially those belonging to SC/ST and other backward classes to secure education for their children’ (see Gopalakrishnan & Sharma, 1998; Ramachandran, 2004). This would further marginalize the children from these deprived communities, as the government directly creates such segregation by creating special schools
Every Child in School
Table 12.
2000–2001 2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 Total increase
243
Growth of Formal and Alternate Schools in India (in Numbers).
Formal Elementary Schools
Increase over the Previous Year
EGS/Alternative Schools/Bridge Course Centers
Enrolment in EGS Centers (in millions)
845,007 883,667 897,109 974,520 – 246,791
– 38,660 13,442 77,411 – 129,513 (40)
– – – –
– 6.8 18.8 17.3 33.0
194,689a (60)
Note: –, not available. Source: Based on MHRD (2004a); Selected Educational Statistics, various issues. a Total alternative schools during the period 2000–2001 to 2003–2004. Within brackets indicate percentage increase in formal and alternate schools in the total increase in all type of schools.
exclusively for children belonging to these communities. The hope of providing the fundamental right to education got operationalized under SSA, which to a large extent replaced formal schools with such ‘alternative education’. This in turn creates a system of ‘multiple tracks’ providing different types of schooling opportunities to different sections of the population. Para Teachers The appointment of ‘para teachers’ in the school system began under DPEP and continues under SSA constituting a clear signal of shift in State policy. Para teachers are recruited on a contractual basis with a bare minimum qualification with a training ranging from 10 days to 1 month. The decision on salary amount of para teachers is in the states’ domain. Hence, the salary of the para teachers ranges from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 3,000 across various states, which is the salary of one fifth of the regular teachers. The appointment of Shiksha Karmi or ‘barefoot teachers’ began in Rajasthan in 1987 and many other states followed the suit. These contract-teachers were given a variety of names – such as ‘Vidya Sahayak’ in Gujarat, ‘Vidya Volunteers’ in Andhra Pradesh, ‘Guruji’ and ‘Shiksha Karmi’ in Madhya Pradesh, and ‘Shiksha Mitra’ in Uttar Pradesh. Many educationally backward states such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and West Bengal appointed large number of para teachers. States having large proportions of out-of-school children especially the educationally and economically backward states viz., Andhra Pradesh,
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Table 13. Share of Para Teachers in Total: Teaches at Primary and Upper Primary Levels in Selected Statesa in India in 2002.
Gujarat Arunachal Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Orissa Jammu & Kashmir Uttaranchal All India Total teachers (in numbers)
Primary
Upper Primary
Elementary
33.49 14.05 12.61 11.62 11.37 10.36 10.32 8.82 6.70 1,939,646
26.53 10.17 5.38 17.89 5.76 6.56 7.08 2.42 8.17 1,608,222
27.13 12.22 10.59 13.99 9.92 8.99 8.44 6.96 7.37 3,547,868
Source: Based on 7th AIES (2002), http://gov.ua.nic.in/aises a States where the share is above national average has been reported in the table.
Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Bihar, etc., except Gujarat are increasingly adopting the low-cost strategy of recruiting para teachers. If this trend continues, these para teachers would form a substantial proportion in the total number of teachers (see Table 13). In fact, the appointments of regular teachers had been frozen in many states so much so that since 1997–1998 the number of regular teachers posted in most recent years had declined in absolute terms in most States (Dreze & Sen, 2002). According to Annual Reports of MHRD, 403,390 and 210,431 para teachers were sanctioned at elementary level during 2003–2004 and 2004–2005, respectively. The 10th 5-year plan document states that ‘Steps would have to be initiated to fill up all the existing vacancies of the teachers, though in a time-bound manner, with defined responsibility to local bodies and communities, and to remove legal impediments in the recruitment of para teachers’ (Planning Commission, 2003, p. 41). It offers an enormous possibility of financial saving, hence the policy shift toward appointing ‘para teachers’ in place of regular teachers. As Kumar, Priyam, and Saxena (2002) noted, ‘‘this would lead to rapid weakening and general dismantling of the structure of primary education’’. These less qualified, untrained and ad hoc teachers in the system will seriously hamper the already poor quality of elementary education. And further widens the inequity in the system and creating tension among the teacher community as Govinda (2005) laments that placing the evolution and strengthening of a professional community of teachers in serious jeopardy.
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Norms on Incentives Government investment on incentives for education will be more influential for the children from low-income families to enroll in schools. Under SSA, National Nutritional Support to Primary Education, initiated in 1995 (Midday meal) would remain as a distinct intervention with food grains and specified transportation costs being met by the Center and the cost of cooked meals being met by the states (p. 6, MHRD, undated). However, using household data Viswanathan, (2006) found that except children in the age group of 7–9 years in Tamil Nadu, a large majority of children do not have access to the meal schemes in 1999–2000. Free textbooks are to be provided to all girls/SC/ST children at primary and upper primary within an upper ceiling of Rs. 150 per child. States are to continue to fund free textbooks under state plans. Other incentives viz., distribution of scholarships and uniforms will be funded under the state plan on the basis of state norms and not funded by SSA (pp. 6–7, MHRD, undated). These incentives would be part of SSA framework but not be funded under SSA. But, incentives for children at elementary level in terms of uniforms, scholarships, etc. are inadequate in many of the educationally backward states. Crucial ingredients of SSA such as textbooks, classrooms, teachers, and learning equipment were either missing or seriously lacking (Report of CAG, 2006).
Governance-Related Issues Coordination among Different Partners In order to reduce the time lapse, the channel of fund flow (see Fig. 1) would bypass the state treasury, so that, the fund could directly flow to the SIS. It has been easier to create new structures and institutions than reform and improve existing ones. But the parallel structures create risk unless the regular educational administration absorbs the main features of the program in the long run. This structure in addition to creation of parallel structures, especially in the DPEP states and districts led to creation and simultaneous operation of two societies – one for implementing the district primary education and another for district upper primary education. Two societies for implementing the same program SSA at the district level would create chaos rather than facilitate the implementing activities. DPEP was operational in 270 districts in 18 states in all three phases, had such potential of creating commotion. For instance in West Bengal, there are a number of institutions like the West Bengal Board of Primary Education,
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and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education which covers Upper Primary level. Both Boards have an SSA cell which gives direction and support to the program in addition to State Council of Educational Research and Training and state implementing society. There is a need to ensure that all pull in the same direction to work coherently (MHRD, 2005a). Further, the dichotomy between regular and contractual staff in the administrative set up reflects on poor coordination among officials dealing with SSA. Yet another factor is lack of continuity of staff dealing with SSA in a district. Feeling of Ownership The state and district administrations perceive the centrally sponsored schemes as separate programs and are in operation in a piecemeal fashion. Further, it was found that states have enormous difficulties in taking on a centrally sponsored scheme as in Operation Blackboard in addition to its regular workload. This in turn got reflected in slow implementation and lack of response (Dyer, 2000). In addition, while implementing the CSS, states are rarely permitted to amend the norms/guidelines for expenditure. For instance, in states like Maharashtra and Jharkhand, despite the felt need to distribute free textbooks under SSA to boys from other social categories, apart from girls and SC/ST students, the states could not amend the norm. The additional expenditure needs to be financed from the State plan only. With such rigid guidelines, it is quite possible that states implement them without any sense of ownership for the program. Despite, it is important that States needs to realize and accept a centrally initiated scheme and should consider it as a part of its own policy, when the scheme also reflects the plan priorities, i.e., Minimum Needs Programmes of the states. Monitoring SSA has a community-based monitoring system and is subject to independent research and supervision by autonomous research institutions at the state level, with 93% of monitoring resources targeted at sub-national institutions. Key indicators identified for monitoring are (i) the number of children in and out of school; (ii) the number of children in and out of school by gender and social groups; (iii) transition rate from primary to upper primary; and (iv) student achievement in language and mathematics in Grades 3, 5, and 7/8. Approximately 40 national- and state-level Resource Institutions have been identified, which will monitor progress in up to 25 districts against the key indicators. In addition, the JRM is a modality that provides information about the progress across states. It is to review
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project implementation semi-annually in January and July, as per terms of reference agreed between the GoI and the Partners. In January, the JRM would (i) review district plan approvals and GoI budget allocations; (ii) visit selected districts in 8–10 weak states to review progress in overall implementation including financial management, procurement, and safeguard issues; and (iii) identify studies to be undertaken in the following 6 months. The July mission would carry out a comprehensive review of information received on (i) annual progress on agreed indicators in terms of compiled EMIS data and other data sources; (ii) audited accounts and GoI budget allocations for SSA against expenditures; and (iii) implementation of safeguard policies; issues related to state and district implementation capacity and agree on actions taken to support weaker states. However, the very nature of the review missions does not allow an indepth analysis of the issues and constraints, rather the missions rely on studies undertaken by others. Availability and use of good-quality information on the program is a pre-requisite. SSA has produced vast amount of information. However the tendency is to collect and use data for reporting purposes and less for introspection and improvement. One of crucial monitoring indicators, out-of-school children, according to census 2001, were nearly 58 million children in the age group of 6–13 years (see Table 14). Between the years 2002–2003 and 2004–2005, there has been a large reduction in the number of out-of-school children in India. Two recent surveys during 2005 indicate that approximately 93–94% children are enrolled in schools/alternative education centers. One, by SRI-IMRB in 2005 estimated that approximately 13.4 million children in the 6–14 year age group are out of school (6.94%) (as quoted in report of CAG). A similar finding was also reported by ASER (2006). The 6% non-enrollment of children in the 6–13 years age-group may be due to the fact that these are number of children whose names were entered in the school rolls. But, the number of students who are actually attending schools would be much lower. A very low figure as ‘out of school’ is disturbing and indeed detracts attention from
Table 14.
Out of School Children in the Age Group 6–13 Years in India since 2001 (in million).
Source MHRD and JRM (2nd and 4th)
2001 58 (28%)
2002–2003
2003–2004
32.0(18.9%) 24.9(15.1%)
2004–2005
2005–2006
13.5(7%)
10.4 (6%)
Source: Census (2001); MHRD (2005b; 2006b). Within brackets indicates the percent of children out of school in the total age group children of 6–13.
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the need for addressing a much larger number of children who may not be really in schools. Indeed, the calculation of out-of-school children has itself become a contentious and a political issue. As evidenced, availability of funds under SSA was highly inadequate and utilization rates were not satisfactory. If that being the case, what was achieved was only a short-term increase in huge enrollment of large number of out-of-school children, without any corresponding improvement in physical and human infrastructure. It was found that supervision and monitoring of the scheme was ineffective both at the national and state levels. In cases where some monitoring was undertaken, monitoring reports were either not submitted or not analyzed and follow-up action was not initiated. Interventions by the project implementing agencies were deficient to a large extent, leading to substantial gaps between planned and actual achievements in key areas such as classrooms, textbook distribution, provision of teachers, their training, and other infrastructure (Report of CAG, 2006).
PART IV: POLICY IMPERATIVES The federal financial assistance through the centrally sponsored scheme SSA, despite its small share in total expenditure on elementary education, influences the state governments in preparing the District Elementary Education Plans. However, the actual fund sanction depends on the total availability of funds under SSA. In this entire process of fund flow from MHRD to SIS, the approved outlay by the MHRD based on the appraisal of District Elementary Education Plans has become notional. In the absence of any objective allocation criteria, ad hoc grant distribution negates the principles of transparency, predictability, ability to provide matching shares, absorptive capacity, and incentive mechanism. A fine-tuning of the existing matching shares by following discriminatory matching shares in terms of need and ability to provide matching shares and to strengthen the absorptive capacity could go a long way in attaining the horizontal equity in terms of every child completing elementary schooling in India. This would also ensure the other desirable principles of intergovernmental transfers such as predictability, transparency, and incentive mechanism, besides improving utilization. Community financing may likely to exacerbate inequalities in the educational provision, rather community initiatives need to be envisaged in strengthening to monitor the effective functioning of schools. It is to be realized that the deprived groups would require the states’ own and full
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responsibility of commitment in governance and funding for achieving the target of completing 8 years of schooling. In the long run this would not only jeopardize genuine democratic processes and structures but also unjustifiable from the equity and human rights perspectives. Utilization rates even though appear to be improving in the latest years, is a major concern. It appears and is claimed that there will be at least adequate budget provision available for universal elementary education. But often argued that when states are not able to utilize the resources under various centrally sponsored schemes including, SSA, why ask for more resources? But, the challenge here is how to make the states and districts to augment the spending rates across various components. In addition to capacities, states/ districts getting the resources during the end of the financial year are hardly left with any time to utilize the money. Indeed, a vicious cycle is getting formed beginning from the delay in getting the fund – low utilization – unspent funds – spillover to next year – reduction in the coming years’ budget, etc. Further, it clearly emerges that only after ensuring the basic minimum levels in terms of physical and human infrastructure, and ensuring equal access to all the child age population of 6–14, quality is given priority. Thus, the challenge is both improving the qualitative and quantitative targets of UEE with enhanced resource allocation to education. Resource requirements to attain universal elementary education are quite huge because of huge number of out-of-school children and still increasing child population in the educationally backward northern states and also due to the huge existing inadequacies in the system. The centrally sponsored scheme, SSA provides a very small share of resources to fill this gap besides suggesting low-cost alternatives. Adopting cheaper and short-term alternatives viz., para schools, para teachers, etc. might defer the cost burden of the government for some years but will result in serious ramifications on the equity, quality, balance, and sustainability of the elementary education system. This short-term benefit would seriously damage the development of the system in long run, which is irreversible. As evident from the analysis that this minimum shares from GoI (even with external assistance) is inadequate given the approved outlays under SSA. More resources ought to flow from center to states. Even though the 12th Finance Commission has recommended an additional flow of funds to eight educationally backward states (Government of India, 2004) (many of them fall in the category III and IV states), which is grossly inadequate given their huge financial requirements. Hence, in an intergovernmental transfer system, the Center should take full responsibility for financing SSA. Center is to ensure release of funding for SSA through special efforts as the program requires
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enormous funding and serious commitment of both central and state governments. And also the role of center is crucial for the states especially the economically and educationally backward states to finance additional resource requirements to achieve universal elementary education.
NOTES 1. As quoted in UNESCO (2000a). 2. India consists of 28 states and 7 union territories as per Census, 2001. 3. Both center and state governments are to share responsibility in the subject education. However, prior to 1976, education was a state subject. 4. Just after 2 years, when education became concurrent subject. 5. District is an administrative unit under states. 6. All existing centrally sponsored schemes of elementary education (except Mahila Samakhya, National Bal Bhawan) were to converge after the IX plan (under SSA) (p. 6, GoI, undated). But, new components under SSA like girls education under National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) is simultaneously ongoing since 2003. Apart from NPEGEL, a new scheme called Kasthurbha Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas is approved for launching during 2004–2005 for setting up 750 residential schools for girls belonging to SC/ST and other backward castes and minorities in different areas. 7. The term mission mode indicating the sense of urgency, may also induce impatience in the process and creates the need to see results quickly, is often at the cost of sustainability of efforts. Indeed, it is one of the important components (Item No. 5) of national EFA plan to include – time-bound and action-oriented (emphasis added) strategies of achieving EFA goals (see, Dakar Framework for Action, para. 16). 8. Poorer in terms of their capacity to raise resources out of own resources. 9. It takes time before the state governments/districts are fully aware of these new scheme brings new guidelines and require new procedures and able to fulfill the new criteria. But, this is only a bottleneck at initial stages and should not continue. 10. As in DPEP that state are required to maintain its elementary expenditure at 1991–1992 level. 11. Those outside the school system are mostly girls, SC/ST children, working children, urban deprived children, disabled children, and children in difficult circumstance (Planning Commission, 2003). 12. Unfortunately such information is not available from neither any JRM reports nor from the MHRD website for the later periods. 13. The states and union territories have been classified into six categories (as in Table 6 and explained in appendix table with an explanatory note). The 16 activities under SSA have been grouped into 5 major components for the analysis (see note on Table 9 for grouping of activities). 14. As Govinda (2005) argues that the consequences of recruiting thousands of para teachers indeed hides the real magnitude of financial requirements. In addition, it distorts the budgetary planning or resource requirement as teacher salary is included in the plan account, which should have been under non-plan account.
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15. The norms of EGS are extensively discussed in the perspective of EGS as a resource mobilization strategy. Here, it is viewed in terms of access and equity perspective.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank the referee for critical comments and suggestions, which broadened the scope of the paper; Dr. N.V. Varghese for his incisive comments on the earlier version of the paper.
REFERENCES ASER. (2006). Annual statistics of education report, Pratham, New Delhi. Available at http:// www.pratham.org Bashir, S. (2000). Financing elementary education expenditures in the 1990s. New Delhi: European Commission. Bashir, S., & Ayyar, R. V. V. (2003). ‘‘District Primary Education Programme’’ in encyclopedia of Indian education. New Delhi: NCERT. CABE. (2005). Report of the CABE Committee on free and compulsory education bill and other issues related to elementary education. Government of India, June 2004. Available at http://www.education.nic Dreze, J., & Gazdar, H. (1996). Uttar Pradesh: The burden of inertia. In: J. Dreze & A. Sen (Eds), Indian development: Selected regional perspectives. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (2002). India: Development and participation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dyer, C. (2000). Operation Blackboard: Policy implementation in Indian Elementary education. In: Monographs in international education. Oxford: Symposium Books. Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2003). The ‘‘virtues’’ of the past: Education in the first hundred years of the New Republic. NBER Working Paper No. 9958, Cambride, MA. Gopalakrishnan, R., & Sharma, A. (1998). Education guarantee scheme in Madhya Pradesh: Innovative step to universalise education. Economic and Political Weekly, 26(September), 2546–2551. Government of India. (2004). Report of the twelfth finance commission. Finance Commission, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi. Govinda, R. (2005). Background paper on ‘‘building and sustaining a quality education system. In: Government of India (2005), Report of Committee on National Common Minimum Programmes Commitment of Six Per cent of GDP to Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Available at http://www.niepa.org Jagannathan, S., & Karikorpi, M. (2000). EC – India collaboration in primary education: Sector – Wide approaches to development co-operation. Prospects, 30(4), 409–422. Kainath, G. S. (2006). A mission approach to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(30), 3288–3290. Karan, A. K., & Pushpendra (2005). Bihar: Including the excluded and addressing the failures of public provision in elementary education. In: S. Mehrotra (Ed.), The economics of
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elementary education in India: The challenge of public finance, private provision and household costs. New Delhi: Sage. Kumar, K., Priyam, M., & Saxena, S. (2002). Looking beyond smokescreen: DPEP and primary education in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 36(17), 560–568. MHRD. (1986). National policy on education. New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India. MHRD. (1995). DPEP guidelines. New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. MHRD. (2004a). Education for All: India marches ahead. New Delhi: Department of Elementary Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. MHRD. (2004b). Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan a programme for universal elementary education; manual on financial management and procurement. New Delhi: Department of Elementary Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. MHRD. (2005a). Report of first Joint Review Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Government of India, 26th January to 3rd February 2005, New Delhi. MHRD. (2005b). Report of second Joint Review Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Government of India, 18–27th July 2005, New Delhi. MHRD. (2006a). Report of third Joint Review Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and 22nd Joint Review Mission of District Primary Education Programme. Government of India, 11–24, January 2006, New Delhi. MHRD. (2006b). Report of fourth Joint Review Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Government of India, 17–27th July, 2006, New Delhi. MHRD. (Undated). Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan a programme for universal elementary education; framework for implementation. Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India, New Delhi. Mooij, J., & Dev, S. M. (2004). Social sector priorities: An analysis of budgets and expenditures in India in the 1990s. Development Policy Review, 22(1). Panchamukhi, P. R. (2005). Universalising elementary education in Madhya Pradesh: Can the success of decentralised governance offset the problems of public finance, private provision and private cost. In: S. Mehrotra (Ed.), Economics of elementary education in India: The challenges of public finance, private provision and household costs. New Delhi: Sage. Parker, A. N. (1995). Decentralisation: The way forward for rural development? Policy Research Working Paper No. 1475, World Bank, Washington, DC. Pigou, C. (1928). A study in public finance. London: Macmillan. Planning Commission. (2003). Tenth five-year plan: 2002–2007, Vol. I–III. New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India. Planning Commission. (2006). Mid-term appraisal of the tenth five-year plan (2002–2007). New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India. Ramachandran, V. (2004). Education Guarantee Scheme: A community-government partnership that goes millions into schools in Madhya Pradesh. Paper presented in scaling up poverty reduction: A global learning process conference, Shanghai, May 25–27, 2004. Rangarajan, C. (2004). Issues before twelfth finance commission. Economic and Political Weekly, 39(26), 2707–2711 June 26–July 2.
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Rani, G. (2003). Financing education in India in the economic reform period: Focus on intrasectoral allocation of resources to education. In: Globalisation and challenges of education (Ed.), National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, 2003. Report of CAG. (2006). Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on performance audit of Sarva Shiksha Abhian, MHRD, Report No. 15, August. Available at http:// www.cag.nic.in Sarangapani, P. M., & Vasavi, A. R. (2003). Aided programmes or guided policies? DPEP in Karnataka. Economic and Political Weekly, 38(32), 3401–3408. Shah, A. (1991). Perspectives on the design of intergovernmental fiscal relations. Policy, Research and External Affairs Working Papers No. 726, World Bank, Washington, DC. Tilak, J. B. G. (2002). Financing of elementary education in India. In: R. Govinda (Ed.), India Education Report. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Tilak, J. B. G. (2006). ‘‘Education: A saga of spectacular achievements and conspicuous failures’’, in India social development report, Oxford University Press, Council For Social Development, New Delhi. UNESCO. (2000a). World Education Report. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2000b). Education for all: Education for all preparation of National Plans of Action. Paris: Country Guidelines. Varghese, N. V. (1994). DPEP: Logic and logistics. Journal of Educational Planning and Administration, 8(4), 449–455. Varghese, N. V. (1996). Decentralisation of educational planning in India: The case of the district primary education programme. International Journal of Educational Development, 16(4), 355–365. Varghese, N. V., Agarwal, R., Pripathi, A., & Josephine, J. (1999). Trends and activities in utilisation of financial resources under the DPEP: A study of Assam, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, mimeo, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Viswanathan, B. (2006). Access to Nutritious Meal Programmes: Evidence from 1999–2000 NSS data. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(6), 497–506. Wiseman, J. (1981). Revenue sharing between central and local governments in a developing country with a unitary system of government. Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of York.
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APPENDIX A Table A. Category I (Educationally Developed) Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu
Category II (Economically Developed) Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra
Note on Classification of States.
Category III (Educationally Improving) Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal
Category IV (Educationally Backward) Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir
Category V (North Eastern)
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim
Union Territories (UT)
Andaman & Nicobar, Chandigarh, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Lakshadweep, Pondicherry
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a
Category of States Based on Educational and Economic Developmenta.
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Linking with a priori information on the educational and economic development of the major states in the country, four broad patterns of financing education could be observed based on the indicators of share of education expenditure in SDP and state budget expenditure in addition to the north-eastern states and the union territories (see Table A). The basis for categorization of States is broadly on the indictors such as percent of education expenditure to SDP and state budget expenditures in addition to the strength of the state economy; the state not making educational progress and the state not committed to making progress. The first category of states includes the ones, which allocated a higher share for education even though their SDP or economy is not very strong (Kerala and Himachal Pradesh above 6% of SDP). Tamil Nadu can be included in this category by considering the rapid progress of educational development in Tamil Nadu, even though not much higher resources (approximately 4% of SDP) are allocated. Even though, Bihar’s expenditure on elementary education at percentage of SDP is the second highest in India, and double that of Kerala, it cannot be said that Bihar’s economy ‘‘is strong’’, and hence its non-inclusion in the first category besides its commitment and progress toward educational development. The second category consists of states with almost the reverse position that is higher income or economic growth but a lesser allocation to education (Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, and Maharashtra). Though, Punjab and Haryana are prosperous with their fertile agriculture, they have not allocated a higher share for education consistently for long periods of time. The third category comprises of educationally medium developed but making serious efforts in the recent decades. The states such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh; Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttranchal would come under this category. The states Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are making serious efforts to improve their education systems in consonance with their economic progress under globalization. Indeed, these two states have been the pioneers in implementing many of the state reforms from power sector to e-governance. However, their education levels and development are at a disadvantageous position but the states are making serious endeavors. The economic progress or efforts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are almost reverse of the situation found in either Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. But these two states have made some efforts (Lok Jumbish in Rajasthan and EGS in Madhya Pradesh) in improving their education and have tried to allocate a higher share for education. The fourth category of states includes educationally and economically backward states that do not seem to show any commitment toward
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improving education. The states that would fall under this category are Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Jammu & Kashmir. Fifth category covers the seven north-eastern states Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, along with Sikkim. Sixth category includes all union territories, Andaman & Nicobar, Chandigarh, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Lakshadweep, Pondicherry.
STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY RESPONSE TO EDUCATION FOR ALL: LINKING GLOBAL DREAMS TO NATIONAL REALITIES IN PERU Nelly P. Stromquist ABSTRACT Just how influential are global policies in national education systems? A case study focusing on Peru’s response to EFA provides insights pertinent to behaviors of countries with weak economies, sizable ethnic minorities, and a still undefined national project. Convergence of ideals of universal basic education access and good quality of schooling abound in policy discourse yet commitment to specific targets lags. While Peru became one of the few countries to produce an EFA national plan, it exists only on the margin of political action. This study probes domestic and exogenous factors affecting state behavior and concludes that the world of democratic ideas finds much easier acceptance among decision-makers than the resolution of relations of economic, political, and cultural domination within and between countries – forces embodying powerful dynamics that determine the likelihood of an adequate national response to either domestic problems or global proposals.
Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 257–278 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08008-X
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This chapter examines how a global policy, exogenous in origin, is translated into a national response and the extent to which it is integrated with ongoing national plans and priorities. To this end, I focus on the response by the Peruvian state to its EFA commitments from the time of signing the global agreement in Dakar in 2000 up to events in 2006. The Peruvian EFA operational plan will be content-analyzed, with an emphasis on exploring its objectives regarding social equity for girls and women, rural residents, and indigenous populations. Peru is selected for several reasons: it is a country with a small economy, highly dependent on international investment, particularly from the US. Peru does not have a solid national educational project, as indicated by its small share of the country’s budget, and marked disparities continues to exist between rural and urban areas.1 With a sizable indigenous population that comprises most of the poor and nearly all the extremely poor people, and poverty levels that have not decreased in recent years (Hall & Patrinos, 2005), the country’s indigenous population has the largest rate of illiteracy, with women at 28% rate – about three times that of men. On the other hand, according to official statistics, Peru has achieved close to universal access to primary education as well as gender parity at that level (MED, 2005a). This context raises two key questions: Does economic dependence make Peru susceptible to international influences toward ‘‘world standards’’ in education and the prevailing model of ‘‘modern schooling?’’ And does its response to global policies result in the dismissal of the local? Examination of Peru’s response to EFA objectives – a global policy – offers a particular opportunity to answer this question. The analysis that follows considers from a conceptual perspective the extent to which economic and political forces move national educational systems toward convergence. It considers also how local context functions to modify global policies or to establish a distinction between policies as discourse and policies as mandates for action. Global educational policies facilitate convergence, which occurs through the circulation of ideas present in those policies and ultimately, it is hoped, through the universal application of their common objectives with little modification. Global policies further promote convergence with their endorsement by international development agencies, which exert considerable influence over developing countries through their loans and grants. Convergence along structural, organizational, and content aspects of formal education has been predicted on the basis of world-system theory (e.g., Ramirez & Meyer, 2002; Ramirez, 2003); it is equally predicted by globalization theories, which consider that technological and economical developments are pushing countries toward
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increasing forms of homogenization, i.e., a similarity in functioning of social institutions, including formal education. While homogenization appears to exist at the global level – many countries will declare that they commit themselves to a given set of objectives – countries may behave differently in terms of actual implementation of global policies. This may create a distance between what Ball (1994) terms policy as text and policy as discourse or what Buenfil (2000) calls a ‘‘resignification’’ of such policies. According to Ball, policy as text reflects the condensations of negotiation and efforts to achieve certain objectives, while policy as discourse manifests itself in a series of contradictions and omissions. Buenfil employs resignification to describe the distance between the enacted policy and the form it takes as people at lower levels of the bureaucracy act upon it. For various reasons, which include limited resources, lack of political will, changing political leadership, poorly trained personnel, resistance by key actors in the educational system (especially, teachers), and particular adaptations to local circumstances, global policies may undergo considerable modification at the national level. Also, some international agencies in the education arena base their influence on normative power rather than financial might. The influence of international agencies such as UNESCO and UNICEF, for instance, result in greater endorsement at the symbolic, discursive level than at the operational level. Agencies with stronger leverage, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which can impose conditionalities on future largescale loans, are more closely obeyed (as Buenfil (2000), shows in the case of Mexico’s educational reform). One prediction emerges from these conditions is that global policies may be receiving attention because they provide legitimacy to the countries adopting them but that this adoption may function more as a promise than an actual commitment. In such cases, ‘‘policy discourse becomes part of a discourse policy,’’ which uses the media and gives policies great visibility in an effort to show the government’s ‘‘capacity to recognize social problems, impose their legitimate definition and solutions, which will in turn contribute to structure the way people, as well as other economic and political actors, think of those problems and define their actions’’ (Preteceille, cited in Lipman, 2002, p. 410). Since the Peruvian EFA plan is still far from implementation, attention will center on the specific actions being proposed to achieve the stated objectives and the kinds of financial and human resource commitments the plan anticipates. Because there already exist several national education laws and major proposals in existence (notably the General Education Law of 2003, the National Education Project of 2005, and the Law to Foment Rural
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Girls’ Education of 2001), this chapter will also examine the degree of EFA integration into these laws and proposals. In addition to documentary data, public statements by Ministry of Education officials and others active in education within civil society were considered. Their views and information are used herein to develop a comprehensive picture of how global policies become incorporated (or not) into national priorities and what role such global policies have in a still unjust and under-funded educational system. My examination of these policies utilizes a critical policy analysis, i.e., paying attention to what is said as well as what is absent, being attentive how problems are defined, and considering the extent to which solutions are precise or vague. In all, critical policy analysis also recognizes that policies may play rhetorical roles, independent of what the objectives may indicate.
GLOBAL POLICIES The Jomtien World Conference on Education for All in 1990 represented a ‘‘watershed’’ for the international community because its educational goals were shared by both external agencies and national partners and accompanied by an agreed-upon process of planning, follow-up, and reporting at both the national and international levels (Freeman & Faure, 2003). The restatement of EFA in Dakar in 2000 constituted both recognition of the imperative to continue such objectives and a powerful reminder that a more solid effort to make EFA objectives a reality was indispensable. EFA is considered by UNESCO leaders as the ‘‘most ambitious educational promise ever made,’’ as it is founded on the ‘‘fundamental premise that education is central to the promotion of human rights, social equality, democracy and economic growth in each country’’ (Smith, 2006). On the other hand, other observers consider that EFA has been ‘‘essentially a process of national and international elites, with scarce information and participation of citizens, including teachers and specialists in education. National EFA plans were, generally, made and discussed behind doors between national and international technical staff. The global, regional, and national followup meetings were also meetings of few persons, the same known faces’’ (Torres, 2001, p. 21). Whether or not specific EFA policies have influenced education in developing countries, one major effect has been the wide dissemination of the principle of equality of educational opportunity. Another global effort, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also enacted in 2000, has two goals that match EFA objectives: universal primary education and the achievement of gender parity in primary education
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by 2005 and secondary education by 2015. Since the MDGs carry the explicit commitment of financial development agencies – which play a major role in the adoption of innovations and reform measures in Latin America’s education – this support should provide a major leverage for EFA policy implementation. Freeman and Faure (2003) and others have observed that, unfortunately, some MDGs goals discourage support for other EFA goals, such as its support for early childhood education, youth and adult life skills education, and adult literacy, which are not identified among the MDG strategies.
THE EFA NATIONAL PLAN As part of their commitments to EFA objectives, EFA signatories (virtually all nations) agreed to design their own national operational plans and undertake corresponding actions. Although EFA documents indicate that all countries should produce an EFA plan by 2002 ‘‘at the latest,’’ Peru set up its first EFA Commission (Comisio´n Impulsora del Plan EPT)2 only in 2002; this commission comprised representatives from the government, civil society, and international organizations. The elaboration of the plan was supported by the UN agencies UNESCO, PNUD, UNFPA, UNICEF, and by the World Bank. Following Dakar recommendations for ‘‘direct and systematic participation of civil society,’’ the EFA plans produced by the Ministry of Education have relied on ample consultation, primarily in the form of an EFA National Forum, which held a large number of weekly meetings and plenary sessions with the participation of educational experts and external consultants. The EFA plan went through three phases before reaching final form: the first plan was a ‘‘first installment,’’ the second was said to be the ‘‘foundational document’’ (comprising 145 pages; MED, 2003), and the third was the definitive one (comprising 156 pages, MED, 2005a). Specific reasons for the slow process in producing the EFA plan remain unclear, though apparently this delay was not unique: in 2005 Peru became one of only 41 countries to have such plans (Vexler, 2005). The first plan emphasized the objective of reducing the gap in educational access between urban and rural areas. Gender was considered but defined only in terms of educational access by rural women, so in this plan gender was equated with sex. The second plan (MED, 2003) identified six objectives, including the concept of equity as a cross-cutting theme at the primary level and the diminution of the urban–rural gap. Equity was defined as ‘‘attention to diversity,
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guaranteeing equality of opportunity and access in the educational system and reducing exclusion, inequities, and poverty’’ (MED, 2003, p. 21). The third and final EFA plan (2005a) identifies nine areas of action (early childhood education, quality and completion of primary and secondary education, literacy, opportunities for those not enrolled in formal education, bilingual education, teacher performance, educational infrastructure, administration, and increases in the educational budget), thus going beyond Dakar by incorporating attention to rural areas, educational infrastructure, and teacher preparation and training. The plan establishes quantitative indicators by which to measure the attainment of objectives. These indicators are defined in terms of proportions (e.g., percentage of schools receiving awards for innovative pedagogical process, percentage of schools with adequate infrastructure, percentage of schools with the appropriate number of teachers). For some unexplained reason, these indicators are not assigned specific targets, resources, or timelines to attain their respective objectives. However, a separate document called Monitoring Plan, consisting of six pages, does mention targets to be reached by 2015: 72% of all children enrolling in pre-school and total parity by region and sex, 90% of all children completing primary education, 70% of all students completing secondary school, a literacy rate of 100% for those 15–24 years of age and 94% for all adults, 100% of all primary school students and 30% of all high school students having access to bilingual/intercultural education, 100% of all teacher training institutes being accredited, and no less than 6% of the GNP assigned to education (MED, 2005b). The final EFA plan makes no reference to the current MDG operationalization of complete basic education as ‘‘survival to grade 5’’ (UN, 2006). Were this indicator be applied to Peru – meaning in effect fourth grade completion – it represents a rather regressive measure since the Peruvian government itself claims that the country is already close to universal access at the primary school level, defined as six years of schooling. Moreover, this definition – which really refers to quantity not quality – seriously weakens any attempt to work on a solid definition of educational quality. The plan does seek to serve the indigenous population by helping them to have access to primary and secondary education, to complete their studies, and to achieve adequate levels of academic performance. This is a welcome measure, since in Peru being indigenous increases the possibility of being poor by 11% in Peru, even after controlling for other common predictors of poverty (Hall & Patrinos, 2005). The EFA plan establishes a body in charge of monitoring its implementation. On the part of the state, it is composed of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for Women and Social
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Development (MIMDES), the National Decentralization Council and the Municipality of Lima. On the part of civil society, it comprises SUTEP (the national teachers’ labor union), and three NGOs with distinguished trajectory in the field of education (Foro Educativo, Fe y Alegrı´a, and TAREA), and two other educational groups (the National Confederation of Parents Associations and the Consortium of Catholic Schools). However, while EFA targets are now identified and agencies are appointed to verify the status of the targets, the plan does not indicate the means or strategies by which the targets will be reached. Some targets would seem to take too long for something that is almost achieved at present (e.g., a high degree of access to primary education, the achievement of gender parity in primary and secondary, the extent of completion of primary and secondary schooling). Others would seem to require considerable effort (e.g., the full literacy rate among the 15–24 age group, the universal provision of bilingual/intercultural education at all levels, the universal accreditation of teacher training institutes). The absence of a critical link between objective and outcome casts a skeptical shadow over the seriousness of the plan. And, by seeing gender only in terms of numerical parity, the document is oblivious to the crucial need to intervene in educational systems to modify gender ideologies.
A PLETHORA OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS The implementation of the EFA Plan has been termed by one EFA Commission’s member ‘‘a task that can no longer be postponed and that must be considered in government plans and action during the next decade’’ (Vexler, 2005). To this effect, the EFA plan seeks to work within the framework of two major existing policy documents, the General Law of Education and the National Education Project, both of which were elaborated almost simultaneously with Peru’s response to the Dakar objectives.
General Education Law of 2003 (Ley General de Educacio´n, LGE 2003) This law has been hailed for its sensitivity to poverty and its proposal to provide comprehensive services to students (including nutrition and health). LGE aims at equality of opportunity and to ‘‘reverse all situations of inequality due to gender, ethnicity, language, economic condition, religion, age, or any other reason’’ (Diario Oficial El Peruano, 2003). The law seeks to guarantee access especially to primary education and sets the target of an
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annual increase in the educational budget equivalent to 0.25% of the GNP until the budget reaches 6% annually. This objective had been established originally in the National Accord (2002), a document that represented a milestone in Peruvian history as it meant to be a ‘‘state’’ policy, i.e., a longterm commitment not tied to the vagaries of different ruling parties. The National Accord identified as two of its core policies universal access to public education for girls and boys and equality of opportunity for all without discrimination, with particular reference to women. A document produced by the National Education Council (Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n, CNE) following the National Accord is the only one that identifies clear targets. This document, Social Pact for Reciprocal Commitments to Education (CNE, 2004), establishes, among several other objectives, the provision of a minimum of 1,000 classroom hours per year,3 salary increases and permanent training for teachers, and the design of a strategy to reach the allocation of 6% of the GNP per year.
The National Education Project (Proyecto Educativo Nacional; PEN) This is a 15-year plan proposed by the National Education Council, a semiautonomous body whose function it is to provide advice to the government on educational matters. Enacted in 2005, PEN seeks six strategic objectives: equality of opportunity and results for all, educational institutions that ensure quality learning, well-trained teachers, transparent and efficient financing of education, a higher education system that contributes to national development and competitiveness, and a society that educates its citizens and engages them in their community (CNE, 2005). PEN proposes ‘‘13 years of good schooling for all’’ (p. 54) and ‘‘the eradication of exclusion, discrimination, and the inequality of opportunity due to socioeconomic, ethnic, physical, mental, age, or gender conditions’’ (p. 19). PEN has been hailed as a ‘‘positive step toward making education a state policy’’ (Chiroque, 2005, p. 12). In addition to the LGE and PEN, Peru’s educational system has two other legal referents: a specific law addressing rural girls and a comprehensive national accord (which includes attention to education). The Law to Foment Rural Girls’ Education (Ley de Fomento de la Educacio´n de las Nin˜as y Adolescentes Rurales, 2001) was heavily supported by USAID. This law seeks universal access to and good quality of primary education for rural girls, including the provision of a personalized and respectful treatment by teachers.4 At the present time (2006), the law has yet to be translated into specific regulations and thus in effect has not been implemented.
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For its part, the National Accord reiterates the principle of universal access to a free and good quality public education (Policy No. 10th) and the principle of equity between men and women (Policy No. 11th). The four existing laws and documents cited above recognize the value of education and pay attention to rural and inter-cultural issues. Since greater educational access is sought for women, gender is reduced to sex, and since the women for whom education is recognized as a pressing need are peasant women and those of Andean or Amazonic origin, sex is further delimited to a special group of women, albeit a highly vulnerable group. A major feature of policy discourse involves the framing of problems in particular ways. This framing can occur through commission (i.e., how the problem is defined) or by omission (i.e., what is left out). In this respect, the existing laws and documents and the EFA plan in particular leave out the issue of resources, rendering the laws as mere declarations of intentions.
IRRESOLUTION AT A TIME FOR ACTION It was observed that the EFA Plan has been characterized by very slow development and that it emerges within a set of additional priorities for Peru’s education. In addition, it can be observed there is a visible distance between the national reform laws and EFA. The former does not make reference to the latter although the latter in its operational plans tends to say that it is in full compliance with LGE. As a whole, public education receives low consideration, a condition evident during the presidential and congressional elections of 2006. In the electoral campaign, the four main parties made direct references to the PEN and to the need to have a public education of good quality (Lo´pez de Castilla & Miranda, 2006), but, as noted by a candidate of the Socialist Party (Lynch, 2006a), these references were completely either devoid of any financial commitment or failed to discuss where the additional resources would come from. Terming the problem as ‘‘political,’’ Lynch elaborated: When we say that the problem of education is political, we are referring to the fact that there has not been a political will among those who rule in this country to make drastic, profound and lasting changes in the tragic course of our educational system. There is no political will because education simply and plainly does not interest them.
Lynch, a former Peruvian minister of education, maintains that the only way to improve public education resides in increasing the budget from 3 to 6% of the GNP. He further maintains that such an increase will not be
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attained through international cooperation or through efforts to swap the external debt for educational investments – both of which are likely to generate minor funds. Lynch’s proposal to increase the budget would require increases in taxes, particularly those related to the exploitation of Peru’s natural resources, so that the extractive power of the state moves from 14 to 17% of the GNP (Lynch, 2006b). This measure would be particularly unpopular within the economic elite. At present, Peruvian macroeconomic policies exonerate many large companies from income taxes and levy low taxes paid on the exploitation of natural resources, particularly those regarding mining, gas, and oil royalties. In the Peruvian context, many educational policies – whether global such as EFA and the MDGs or national such as the LGE and the Law to Foster Rural Girls’ Education – function at a rhetorical level, in the sense that very little action transpires following their enactment. It is true that laws, even if not implemented, can play an important role. Educational laws serve to reinforce the social charter given to the schools. They make schools appear as important for personal and social improvement. Both the National Accord and the Social Pact for Reciprocal Commitments to Education were published as inserts in El Comercio, the most prestigious journal and the one with the highest circulation in the country. Global policies publicly affirm education as a means to achieve national development and social inclusion. Governments often endorse such declarations to demonstrate support for their economic and social objectives. Yet, limited action follows: broad objectives are not translated into concrete action, responsibilities to be assumed by the various public offices are not identified, no specific timelines for delivery are established, and the educational budget does not register the allocations or increases necessary for task accomplishment. While it is possible that tangible action will follow, the EFA plans have so far functioned as rituals that signal the importance of education in economic development and in social and economic personal mobility. Sociologist Ball observes that, ‘‘Policies are both systems of values and symbolic systems; ways of representing, accounting for and legitimating political decisions. Policies are articulated both to achieve material effects and to manufacture support for those effects’’ (1998, p. 124). Policies can also function exclusively at the symbolic level, independent of any material consequences. The intention to address crucial education needs in itself seems to satisfy the urgency to count on public education. As several observers have remarked, discourses accomplish real tasks: they redistribute voices and in the process some voices will gain authority and legitimacy.
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ACCOUNTING FOR SLOW ACTION AND IMPLEMENTATION Countries are given poor evaluations in the international scene when they sign agreements and then do not follow up on them. What then is the logic for engaging in this behavior? Are the benefits perhaps greater than the cost? Two sets of factors emerge as I try to produce a complete picture: those related to the national context and those linked to the international environment. Domestic Factors Limited Social Solidarity Educational laws require the participation of their stakeholders, but stakeholders have different interests and different leverage. As Peruvian sociologist Henrı´ quez observes, ‘‘A political community exists when we recognize ourselves as active members of a given polity but also when the public authority and citizenship develop a notion of common good not only for some but for all people’’ (2001). A sense of the collective is very weak in Peru. The notion of the Peruvian nation becomes activated primarily in measures to protect the country against imaginary threats emanating from Chile or Ecuador. Responses to the indigenous people are modest to non-existent, even though they constitute 40% of the population and suffered extreme hardship during the civil conflict that affected Peru from 1980 to 2000. There is consensus that the poor quality of Peru’s public education makes it a mechanism of exclusion (Lynch, 2006c) and that social policies are seen as residuals to be utilized only in cases of emergency (Henrı´ quez, 2001; Ruiz Caro, 2006). While public education remains poorly funded, with a low budget that does not register significant increases over time, the elite – and increasingly middle classes – refuse to advocate improvements. To a considerable extent, this occurs because the members of the wealthy and the middle classes can afford to send their children to private schools and are satisfied with this provision. This is well worded by Lynch, who states: The members of successive governments and varying opposing parties are indifferent to the drama of education, especially that of public education, which brings 85 percent of all educational services to Peruvian, because they resolve their educational needs elsewhere, be this in private institutions or abroad. Public education is seen therefore as a
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charitable institution to which resources left over from the national budget are allocated and not, as it should be, a substantial part of it (Lynch, 2006b).
During the 2006 presidential elections, all candidates addressed education and reiterated the need to invest in public schooling, teacher training and higher teacher salaries, and the infrastructure of schools in rural communities (El Comercio, 29 January, 2006). But none identified an economic program to finance such efforts (Lynch, 2006a). In Peru poverty affects about half of its population and half of the poor are defined as being extremely poor. Much of this poverty is a result of low social solidarity, which makes it possible the continuous existence of social injustice. The economic conditions of Peru have not improved in ways that make the eradication of poverty possible in the near future. For example, data for a household survey comparing the evolution of the structuring of employment from 1975 to 1997 found that the city of Lima (by far the largest urban center in Peru) shows a sharp reduction in public servants from 21.3% of the labor force to 7.5% today. The number of factory workers has remained stable but their number of non-unionized members has doubled. The largest growth in the economy has occurred in the informal sector, which has increased from 17. 6% to 30.8% over those 22 years (Henrı´ quez, 2001). It is well known that the informal sector functions mostly to enable survival rather than to generate capital and new investments. Overall, the country has witnessed a reduction in the size of the middle class and the entire society has become poorer over time. Despite the considerable poverty affecting Peruvians, there is a sharp division between social policies and economic action. Indigenous populations are the poorest and with lowest levels of formal education. In the larger context, it is well recognized that any redress of social inequality would require not only greater access to schooling and at higher levels of schooling but also a better distribution of income and welfare. This would mean implementing income policies to shift resources to citizens with the lowest income to give them access to medical attention, land ownership, housing, capital, and education (Carnoy, 2004). A condition that does not promote such redistribution of resources in Peru is the persistent racism of its society, expressed in the indifference of government to indigenous populations and rural areas in general. This indifference is further reflected in the state and social response to the report of the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (CVR, 2003). This report clearly identifies the various measures to be taken to compensate the victims as well as to move the country toward a unified nation. Yet, very little action has followed.
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Persistent Lack of Financial Resources It is estimated that to attain significant changes in educational inputs (i.e., teacher salaries and training, infrastructure, curriculum, textbooks), the educational sector budget needs to go from 9.5 million sales ($2.7 billion) in 2006 to 24,000 million sales ($6.8 billion) by 2011 (Lynch, 2006b). Despite promises made by President Alejandro Toledo at the beginning of his mandate in 2000 and the principle expressed in the National Accord that the educational budget would be increased 0.25 of the GNP per year, increases have been minimal and the educational budget remains well below 6%. Consequently, it is quite likely that the situation of poor infrastructure, limited access to schooling in rural areas, and overall poor quality of public education will continue. There have been improvements in many public schools, particularly those at the primary level. In fact, much of the popularity won by former President Alberto Fujimori during the 1990s was due to his vigorous school building. Recent improvements have included the delivery of free books at the primary school level and to a lesser extent at the secondary school level for distant rural schools. During 2005, some 22 textbooks, guides, notebooks, and other materials were distributed to some 14 million students (Dı´ az & Ele´spuru, 2006).5 These positive measures are acknowledged. At the same time, it must be recognized that educational investments need to be more comprehensive and long lasting.
EXOGENOUS FACTORS Global and international relations have changed considerably in the past 20 years. Parallel with the transformations in communications, there have been significant changes in trade, finances, and commercial processes (Hart, 2006; Steinberg, 2006; Stiglitz, 2002).6 These revolutions are having major consequences for what states are able to do, including the roles government can play in education policy. An important feature of states today is their reduced intervention in the economic arena, which implies less revenue for them and consequently fewer resources for public policies (Steinberg, 2006). Below I review the role of four institutions that heavily impact on the possibilities and limits of the Peruvian state. The influence of these organizations, particularly the international financial institutions, is not always recognized by UNESCO, which is more likely to identify the presence of ‘‘civil conflict, natural disasters, HIV/AIDS, and high fertility’’ as external factors affecting education (Smith, 2006) than to recognize the more central
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political issues such as the continuous external debt and the imposition of trade agreements that liberalize the economies of developing countries. The World Bank As one influential Peruvian educator, reflecting a widely shared view, has commented, ‘‘the ideas contained in the reports and documents of the World Bank many times, in the case of Peru, become guidelines for educational policy.’’ The importance of the World Bank resides not in its official policy pronouncements or direct advice to governments in developing countries but in its informal recommendations at the moment of providing loans – which are major means for educational improvement in poorly funded public educational systems. The World Bank has come to dominate the policy debate through the extensive use of conditionality attached to external financing of education (Orivel & Shaw, 1994; Marphatia & Archer, 2005; Welmond, 2002).7 Regarding the implementation of EFA, UNESCO has moved to a more aggressive stance and is now coordinating a ‘‘Global Action Plan’’ to Achieve EFA goals (UNESCO, 2006). Peter Smith, Assistant DirectorGeneral for Education at UNESCO, recognizes the need for international assistance, and asks contributions from ‘‘key international stakeholders, particularly the World Bank, UNICEF, and UNFPA, to agree on the specific roles, responsibilities and contributions of each stakeholder’’ (Smith, 2006). In contrast to this suggestion, Nicolas Lynch (2006b), a former minister of education in Peru, considers ‘‘ingenuous’’ the various proposals to improve the quality of Peru’s education through international cooperation or swapping the debt for educational investments. Lynch recalls that such measures would cover ‘‘only minimal amounts of the required total,’’ noting that in the best of years international assistance to Peru did not reach $50 million (Lynch, 2006b). Moreover, international organizations generally cover only some kinds of educational investment. For instance, these organizations have been found to: y categorically refuse to finance teachers’ salaries, unless these teachers are not civil servants. Many agencies tend to emphasize quality and equitable access as the desired outcomes of their assistance, as compared with simple increases in enrollment capacity. Under these circumstances, it appears contradictory to steer clear of the most important part of the education bill – teacher salaries (Welmond, 2002, p. 64).
Several observers maintain that there has been ‘‘an increase in the leadership role of the World Bank in coordinating dialogue on policies in education’’
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and that this in turn has ‘‘caused some re-alignment in the technical and policy support role of other agencies in developing countries’’ (Freeman & Faure, 2003, pp. 14–15). Today, the World Bank supports sector-wide approaches (SWAPs), which means that there has been a shift from project to program support. Freeman and Faure (2003) consider that SWAPs represent one of the most significant trends in the provision and use of external support to basic education. This, however, seems to affect African much more than Asian or Latin American countries. Placing the actions of the World Bank in an increasingly globalized and competitive world, Ball remarks that although equity appears in the discourse of the World Bank, it emerges as a ‘‘residual concern,’’ adding that ‘‘... as a part of the logic of the new orthodoxy the social and welfare purposes of education are systematically played down directly (as in the World Bank) or, in effect, education is increasingly subject to exchange value criteria’’ (Ball, 1998, p. 126).
External Debt Obligations The burden of the external debt is being felt deeply in a number of countries. Sub-Saharan African countries unquestionably face the more critical conditions. Yet, several countries in other regions are also facing dismal prospects. In 2000 Peru was paying annual interest in its external debt equivalent to 2.1% of its GNP; the same year its public expenditures on pre-school, primary, and secondary education were slightly greater than that payment at 2.24% (UIS, 2003). Obviously, the amount given to education is insufficient and not likely to increase given unavoidable external obligations. To facilitate the reconstruction of economies in developing countries, but even more, to facilitate the payment of their external debt, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank required the adoption of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) in a large number of developing countries. Confronted with negative consequences, or mixed progress at best, IMF and the World Bank adopted instead a strategy they labeled Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). According to several observers, both SAPs and PRSPs share the objective of allowing very low allocations in national budget for social services, including education. Marphatia and Archer conducted case studies of IMF’s practices and consequences in a number of developing countries. They concluded that, ‘‘IMF’s stringent monetary and fiscal policies, which are attached as binding conditions for loans and agreed upon and implemented by Finance Ministries and Central Banks, present
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serious challenges for the ability of countries to generate more revenues, and correspondingly increase spending on education, health and HIV/AIDS’’ (2005, p. 3). They further argued that ‘‘PRGF (Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility) conditions frequently follow standard prescriptions of liberalization and deregulation, with little attempt to link those to poverty reduction’’ (Marphatia & Archer, 2005, p. 27). Recognizing that low-income countries collect most of their revenue from import and export taxes, these authors concluded that unless countries are able to develop alternative sources of revenue, trade liberalization could only affect them negatively. Like the World Bank, the IMF has recommended against an increase of teachers in developing countries. This is a serious measure as a number of educators consider it tantamount to reducing the capacity and freedom of government to expand budgetary allocations to meet their national plans for education and other social sectors (Marphatia & Archer, 2005). Presenting a parallel conclusion, economist Jeffrey Sachs has criticized IMF for not considering a country’s budget or macroeconomic framework when advocating social objectives such as those proposed by the MDGs (cited in Marphatia & Archer, 2005). The growing importance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in advancing a liberalized world is beyond debate. For export-oriented countries, the removal of tariffs means that the national income has to depend on the taxation of individual revenues rather than that on corporations, and countries willing to attract foreign direct investment manifest a strong reluctance to tax their guest corporations (Lynch, 2006b). In countries with high informal employment, the tax base is low; further, a substantial proportion of state revenues in poor countries goes toward the payment of the external debt. A recent analysis of the consequences of WTO on state power found that the organization to have created a shift in decision-making from the legislative to the executive, not only in the area of trade but also in education (Steinberg, 2006). While the role of the executive in policy-making increases the speed of decisions, it also insulates the state from the concerns of civil society. The salient influence of a global market and the decreased power of the state signify a decline in sovereignty. In turn, the decline of sovereignty implies a decline of democracy at national and local levels, and thus of the ability to conduct social and economic policy-making (Chomsky, 2006). WTO regulations make education a commodity to be bought and sold among other services. This redefinition of education will affect primarily higher education but it will contribute to the creation of an ethos based on profit rather than entitlements, one that will see education as no longer a
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privileged social sector. The consequences of WTO regulations on EFA are not yet clear although the trends are increasingly toward a vision of education as private good rather than a public entitlement.
World Education Forums Since 2001, civil society has been mobilizing at the global level, organizing increasingly large world social forums, which have been accompanied by world forums on education. By 2006, four such educational forums had taken place. All four have sought a public education of good quality, transformative, with equality of gender, race and social class, and wide participation in the elaboration of national educational policies. The latest statement of organized civil society in education (Foro Mundial de Educacio´n Tema´tico, 2006), while underscoring the importance of a public education of high quality and the resolve by civil society to defend it, does not acknowledge the existence of EFA, thus contributing to the marginalization of EFA from the global debate. The increased engagement of civil society in education is a positive development. The leverage of nongovernmental and civic organizations on educational policy, however, is still incipient.
CONCLUSIONS EFA is a global policy carrying the explicit imperative of education for all. Prior to this global policy, social and educational legislation in Peru was in harmony with that objective and in such areas as access to primary education, this country was already close to reaching universal enrollment. Conditions in Peru also pointed to parity between girls and boys, except in rural areas. Applied to Peru, EFA represented a major challenge particularly in the dimension of quality, as not only the infrastructure and availability of adequate educational materials were poor, but the quality of teaching required marked improvement. Other major challenges facing Peru’s education are the severe disparities between urban and rural populations and the still traditional content of education that does not substantially modify ideologies that reproduce racism and sexism in society. The response of the Peruvian state to EFA requires many layers of explanation. The formulation of its EFA plan took an inordinate amount of time and yet the final product did not identify specific measures to be
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undertaken nor assigned resources to the various objectives it sought to accomplish. In analyzing the local response, much effort must be spent trying to explain what did not take place. What explains the lack of commitment to specific targets? What accounts for the persistent declarations of good intentions side by side with a reluctance to invest and seriously examine and distinguish the areas of progress from the areas of stagnation? EFA and other educational laws show intriguing signs of convergence with one another and with global trends. There is positive convergence, for instance, in recognizing equity as a lofty and crucial objective and in demanding quality for the public education system. There is also negative convergence when the national plans declare intentions to improve the system yet do not integrate those plans into prevailing actions. In my effort to account for the slow and weak implementation of EFA in Peru, I identified a number of tangible economic, political, and social forces. But they may explain only part of the picture. Under globalization, many ideas and concepts circulate and, at national levels, governments are eager to adopt them to demonstrate awareness and become part of the international community. Concepts such as equity, quality, gender parity, accountability, and decentralization have substantial discursive currency today. Thus, their adoption is a valuable signal and symbol of the country’s membership in the international community. On the other hand, actual implementation of these objectives is more problematic, as they enter a terrain of conflict, recognition of the (subordinate) other, and material redistribution. Not unexpectedly, a gap tends to emerge between discursive policies and committed action. Even in the absence of implementation, EFA serves a useful role for the Peruvian state. For one thing, attention to public education increases state legitimacy (Weiler, 1984). Further, by emphasizing universal access to basic education, the state, through its EFA Plan, can demonstrate its interest in the sector and thereby minimize the tremendous differentiations of school provision in the public consciousness. Symbolic benefits – linked to the belief that schools are equal for everybody and schooling can only benefit – accrue from an emphasis on school access. Recognizing the importance of early childhood education and adult literacy in the EFA Plan also conveys assurance that the state is concerned with those issues and with the conditions of populations that are not fully served. According to Subrahmanian (2005), the current global approach to national development is characterized by ambivalence, as on one hand industrialized countries proceed toward market-led development and, on the other, developing countries aggregate demands for greater rights and
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democratization. In this context, EFA and the MDGs absorb the language of equality and empowerment, but the growing levels of income inequality leads to dismal social services for the poor and constrains the ability of the poor to exercise substantial political leverage in the shaping, implementation, and monitoring of public policy. With the increasing liberalization of the economy fostered by globalization, states have a reduced extractive capacity. Without additional resources, Peru, as many other states, can do little on the plane of social policies, of which education is an important part. However, regardless of the burden caused by the external debt, Peru has demonstrated a weak will to act on behalf of the downtrodden and thus to make a reality of its stated objectives to reduce the imbalances of the urban/rural and indigenous/non-indigenous populations. The most striking evidence of this is its political inability to bring the educational budget to the targeted 6% of the national budget identified in the National Accord (2002). In the mainstream Peruvian public media EFA is not given much salience by either government officials or feminist writers. For the latter, international frameworks of importance are mostly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Plan for Action derived from the International Conference on Population and Development, the Platform for Action agreed upon at the Fourth World Conference on Women, and the MDGs (see, for instance, Salazar Herrera, 2006; Grupo por la Equidad Educativa de la Mujer, 2005). It can be asserted, therefore, that EFA exists at the margins of the political debate in Peru and is used mostly for external consumption. Educational policies must answer challenges issuing from socioeconomic and political conditions. This is a persistent observation whose validity cannot be contested. Material conditions operate strongly and combine with an elite disdain for the education of the poor. The best hope for Peru’s social and economic advancement lies in the formation of a truly solid alliance of political forces to transform personal interests in favor of the common good of the nation. This hope, at a moment when the state has a reduced role and when competitiveness and individualism are the preferred values, flickers persistently in hostile winds.
NOTES 1. In Peru rural is almost synonymous with poverty as 82% of rural people are poor (MED, 2005a, 2005b).
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2. EFA plans were to be developed with ‘‘the engagement and participation of civil society in the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of strategies for educational development.’’ 3. In Peru, as well as in the rest of the Latin American countries, the length of the academic year varies tremendously. In private schools children typically receive 1,200 h of class per year, while those in public urban and public rural receive 800 and 400 h, respectively (Macedo, Katzkowicz, & Adriazola, 2005 Macedo et al., 2005). 4. Research studies conducted in Peru and throughout the world do show that educated women perform better or obtain better outcomes than uneducated women in a large number of social dimensions. A key problem for formal schooling is that notions of femininity and masculinity are deeply inscribed in it and therefore social change in the relations of gender are occurring slower than they could were schools to provide non-sexist and anti-sexist curricula. 5. Reportedly, the main problem centers now on the ‘‘late distribution and obscure bidding process for selecting and printing the textbooks’’ (Dı´ az & Ele´spuru, 2006). 6. These changes have been accomplished through intense promotion of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. 7. The study by Welmond is a rare case study of teacher identity in Benin (a Francophone country) and how foreign assistance – primarily that of the World Bank – powerfully shapes educational policy and dismisses teachers as central actors in educational reform efforts.
REFERENCES Acuerdo Nacional. (2005). www.acuerdonacional.gob.pe (2002). Accessed 2 June 2005. Ball, S. (1994). Education reform. Buckingham: Open University Press. Ball, S. (1998). Big Policies/Small World: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34(2), 119–130. Buenfil, R. N. (2000). Globalization and educational policies in Mexico, 1988–1994: A meeting of the universal and the particular. In: N. P. Stromquist & K. Monkman (Eds), Globalization and education. Integration and contestation across cultures (pp. 207–275). Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Carnoy, M. (2004). La bu´squeda de la igualdad a trave´s de las polı´ ticas educativas: alcances y lı´ mites. In: J. E. Garcı´ a Huidobro (Ed.), Polı´ticas Educativas y Equidad. Reflexiones del Seminario Internacional. Santiago de Chile: Ford Foundation, UNESCO, UNICEF, Universidad Alberto Hurtado October. Chiroque, S. (2005). El Proyecto Educativo Nacional. Tarea, 61, 10–12. Chomsky, N. (2006). Privatizacio´n de servicios pu´blicos le hace dan˜o a las democracias. La Repu´blica, 11 March. CNE. (2004). Pacto Social de Compromisos Recı´procos por la Educacio´n. Lima: Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n 29 May. CNE. (2005). Hacia un Proyecto Educativo Nacional 2006–2021. Propuesta Nacional del Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n. Lima: Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n August. CVR. (2003). Informe Final de la Comisio´n de la Verdad y Reconciliacio´n. Lima: Comisio´n de la Verdad y Reconciliacio´n.
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Diario Oficial El Peruano. (2003). Ley General de Educacio´n (Ley No. 288044). Lima: Diario Oficial El Peruano 29 July. Dı´ az, H., & Elespuru, O. (2006). Adquisicio´n de textos escolares. Informe de Educacio´n, 15(2) February. El Comercio. (2006). Las recetas de los que aspiran a ocupar el sillo´n presidencial. El Comercio, 29 January. Foro Mundial de Educacio´n Tema´tico. (2006). Carta de Nova Iguac- u. Rio de Janeiro, 23–26 March. Freeman, T., & Faure, S. (2003). Local solutions to global challenges: Towards effective partnership in basic education. The Hague, Netherlands: The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Grupo por la Equidad Educativa de la Mujer. (2005). Resumen Reunio´n Equidad de Ge´nero y PEN. Lima: Grupo por la Equidad Educativa de la Mujer, documento de trabajo 10 November. Hall, G., & Patrinos, H. (Eds) (2005). Indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in Latin America: 1994–2004. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Hart, G. (2006). A new age of national security. San Jose Mercury News, 12(March), 7P. Henrı´ quez, N. (2001). La Polı´ tica de las Polı´ ticas Sociales. Un balance con desafı´ os o los desafı´ os del balance. Paper presented at the Colegio de Socio´logos, Chiclayo, Peru, December 2001. Ley de Fomento de la Educacio´n de las Nin˜as y Adolescentes Rurales (Ley No. 27558). (2001). Diario Oficial El Peruano, 22 November. Lipman, P. (2002). Making the global city, making inequality: The political economy and cultural politics of Chicago school policy. American Educational Research Journal, 39(2), 279–419. Lo´pez de Castilla, M., & Miranda, A. Peru´ – Elecciones 2006: La Educacio´n en los Planes de Gobierno. Informe No. 49. Lima: Instituto de Pedagogı´ a Popular, March–April 2006. Lynch, N. (2006a). Amor por la educacio´n. La Repu´blica, 22 February 2006a. Lynch, N. (2006b). Educacio´n y reforma tributaria. La Repu´blica, 28 February 2006b. Lynch, N. (2006c). Sobre la escuela pu´blica. La Repu´blica, 7 March 2006c. Macedo, B., Katzkowicz, R., & Adriazola, F. (2005). Secondary education in rural areas. Relevance of the study of this issue. Santiago: OREALC/UNESCO Draft document, November. Marphatia, A., & Archer, D. (2005). Contradicting commitments. How the achievement of Education For All is being undermined by the International Monetary Fund. London: ActionAid, September. MED. (2003). Plan Nacional de Educacio´n para Todos. Documento Base. Lima: Ministerio de Educacio´n April. MED. (2005a). Plan Nacional de Educacio´n para Todos, 2005–2015. Hacia una Educacio´n de Calidad con Equidad. Lima: Ministerio de Educacio´n September. MED. (2005b). Matrix de Vigilancia. Lima: Ministerio de Educacio´n. http://www.minedu. gob.pe. Accessed 20 September 2006. Orivel, F., & Shaw, C. (1994). Education Policy Formation in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa. In: D. Evans (Ed.), Education Policy Formation in Africa. A comparative study of five countries. Washington, DC: USAID. Ramirez, F. (2003). The global model and national legacies. In: K. Anderson-Levitt (Ed.), Local meaning, global schooling. Anthropology and world culture theory (pp. 239–254). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Ramirez, F., & Meyer, J. (2002). National curricula: World models and national historical legacies. In: M. Carudo & H. Tenorth (Eds), Internationlisierung – Internationalisation (pp. 91–107). Frankfurt/M: Lang. Ruiz Caro, A. (2006). Reforma neoliberal, TLC y educacio´n en el Peru´. La Repu´blica, 19 January 2006. Salazar Herrera, C. (2006). Acumulaciones y elecciones: una propuesta para inspirar planes de gobierno con perspectiva de ge´nero. Lima: Draft document. Smith, P. (2006). Building a World of Learning for All.
[email protected], 22 February 2006. Steinberg, R. (2006). The formation, transformation, and deformation of trading states. Paper presented at the Center for International Studies, University of Southern California, 8 March. Stiglitz, J. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton. Subrahmanian, R. (2005). Gender equity in education: A perspective from development. In: L. Chisholm & J. September (Eds), Gender equity in South African education 1994–2004 (pp. 27–39). Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. Torres, R. M. (2001). Que´ paso´ en el Foro Mundial de la Educacio´n? Nodos y Nudos. Bogota: Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 11–21. UIS. (2003). Compendio Mundial de la Education. Comparacio´n de las Estadı´sticas de Educacio´n en el Mundo. Montreal: UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UNESCO. (2006). Draft Global Action Plan for EFA. Paris: UNESCO 3 March. Vexler, I. (2005). Una educacio´n para todos. La Repu´blica, 11 November. Weiler, H. (1984). The political economy of international cooperation in educational development. In: R. Garrett (Ed.), Education and development. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Welmond, M. (2002). Globalization viewed from the periphery: The dynamics of teacher identity in the Republic of Benin. Comparative Education Review, 46(1), 37–65.
THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH AND ADULTS IN MEXICO MORE THAN 15 YEARS AFTER JOMTIEN: GLOBAL PROMISES, NATIONAL CHALLENGES Teresa Bracho and Arcelia Martı´ nez ABSTRACT Among the compromises raised at the Education for All Conference held at Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990, and signed by Mexico and the rest of the countries that attended this Conference, were the reduction of the adult illiteracy rate by the year 2000, with sufficient emphasis on female literacy; and the expansion of provisions of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults, with program effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioral changes and impacts on health, employment and productivity. Based on a general revision of the things that the National Institute for Adult Education (INEA) reports have been its main policies and programs in the last few years, and on the results of a formative evaluation of the so-called ‘‘Programa Cero Rezago Educativo’’ (Zero Educational Delay Program), this chapter discusses some of the main strengths, weaknesses and challenges faced by INEA in order to address the compromises acquired more than 15 years ago. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 279–304 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08009-1
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1. INTRODUCTION In March 1990, the international community – delegates from 155 countries and representatives from 150 organizations – placed education on the global agenda. During the World Conference on Education for All, held at Jomtien, Thailand, the Mexican government, as many other governments from all around the world, set the challenge of meeting the basic learning needs of all children, youth and adults, through achieving universal primary education and massively reducing illiteracy by the year 2000. Two out of the six goals agreed upon at Jomtien were focused on giving a big push to the education of youth and adults: (1) the reduction of the adult illiteracy rate (i.e., the appropriate age group was going to be determined in each country) to one-half of its 1990 level by the year 2000, with sufficient emphasis on female literacy to significantly reduce the disparity between male and female illiteracy rates; and (2) the expansion of provisions of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults, with program effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioral changes and impacts on health, employment and productivity. Ten years later, before attending the EFA 2000 Assessment, held in Dakar, Senegal, intended to find out what had been achieved and what had enabled and obstructed progress toward the goals of Jomtien, many countries made a diagnosis of the general advancement they had presented in achieving the Jomtien goals. The general report of Mexico and the Latin American and Caribbean countries indicated that the goals, in general, have not been meet. In regard to the education of youth and adults, the report showed that literacy and the general education of these people have not been a priority (OCE, 2000a). Indeed, within the Mexican diagnosis the education of youth and adults did not receive any special attention and the report devoted only a few pages to present some data about the number of youth and adults who are illiterate, distinguishing different percentages by sex (Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica (SEP), 2000) but with no mention at all of the programs and/or actions oriented to improve their literacy and school levels. Because of the lack of information regarding the Mexican case and the magnitude of the problem – more than 30 million people are still in a situation of education delay (i.e., in Mexico, the people who are considered to be in a situation of educational delay are those youth and adults 15 years and older who have not initiated or completed their basic education) – it may be inferred that very few things, if any, have been done in the last few years in order to improve the educational level of the youth and adults.
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However, as we will see in this chapter, a more accurate assessment is that, since Jomtien, there have been some important changes in Mexico, particularly in the design of strategies and programs to fight educational delay. The objective of this chapter, therefore, is to summarize the main things done by the National Institute for Adult Education (INEA) since the decade of the 1990s as well as the findings of an external evaluation of the ‘‘Programa Cero Rezago Educativo’’, to later address the challenges that the INEA still faces in order to accomplish the compromises subscribed to at the Education for All Conferences of Jomtien and Dakar. In order to do so, the chapter is divided into several sections. Section 2 addresses the problematic nature of adult education in Mexico. Two main issues are presented in the section: the number of youth and adults who are in a situation of educational delay, on the one hand, and the general strategies and policies that have been implemented by the INEA in the last few years in order to help these people, on the other. Section 3 presents the Program Cero Rezago’s objectives as well as the main findings of an external evaluation of this Program that reveal some of the principal strengths and weaknesses of ‘‘Cero Rezago’’, in particular, and of INEA, in general, in helping people to successfully conclude basic education. In the last part, after setting out, in Section 4, a balance of the positive things that have been achieved and the challenges faced by INEA, the chapter presents some final comments. It is important to stress that the Dakar Conference was a reaffirmation of the goals set out in the World Declaration on Education for All celebrated in Jomtien, but with a new deadline: 2015. Thus, the new, or better say, ‘‘reframed’’ goals of Dakar in regard to the education of youth and adults are: (1) ‘‘to ensure that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skill programs’’; and (2) ‘‘to achieve a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults’’.
2. THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH AND ADULTS IN MEXICO This section discusses, as mentioned above, the situation of adult education in Mexico. It presents some numbers that illustrate the magnitude of the problem of educational delay, as well as the general strategies and programs that have been implemented by INEA in the last few years. Before
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presenting this, we must say that the educational delay is the situation that faces those youth and adults aged 15 and older who have not began or concluded compulsory basic education, which in the case of Mexico are 9 years of school (i.e., 6 years of primary school and 3 years of secondary school).1 It is also important to stress that although education is a constitutional right, the people who are in a situation of educational delay do not usually demand the educational services they have the right to, given, among other things, problems related with the educational supply, as well their socio-economic, work and cultural conditions (Bracho, 2000).
2.1. The Problem in Numbers As Table 1 indicates the percentage of people aged 15 years and older who are both illiterate and did not complete primary and secondary schools has been decreasing in the last 15 years, passing from 63% in 1990 to 46% in 2005. In absolute terms, however, there have not been substantial changes: for both periods of time, the people in a situation of education delay sum up almost 32 millions. While the number of illiterate people did decrease from 1990 to 2005 in 1 million (passing from 13.7 to 8.5%) (see Table 1), the number of people who did not complete primary or secondary education increased more than 1 million, passing from 24.6 millions, in 1990, to 25.7 millions, in 2005. Moreover, since 1993, and as a result of the educational reforms of the 1990s that increased the number of years of the so-called basic (and compulsory) education, those people who did not complete the three years of secondary school level are now considered to be also Table 1. Percentage of People 15 Years and Older by Their School Level.
People aged 15 and older Without any school level With incomplete primary school level With primary school level With incomplete secondary school level With secondary level With high school level With tertiary education or more Source: INEGI (online).
1990
2005
50,103,141 13.7 23.2 19.7 6.3 14.0 3.9 8.5
68,802,564 8.5 14.6 17.9 4.9 21.5 19.5 13.1
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in a situation of educational delay. Thus, for 2005, 32 million people, 30% of the total population of Mexico, were considered to face a situation of educational delay. While the illiterate people accounted for 6 millions, those who did not finish primary and secondary school levels summed up 10 millions and 16 millions, respectively. In spite of these numbers, and in evident contrast with the formal education system that meets the needs of more than 29 million students, the non-formal school system, which includes what is known as ‘‘training for work’’ and the semi-school modalities of initial, special and adult education, only caters for a total of 4.7 million people.
2.2. Policies and Programs to Fight Educational Delay Since 1981, the main policies and programs set up to tackle the educational delay problem have been implemented by the INEA. Besides the INEA, other agencies that offer basic education to adults are the Post-Primary Communitarian Project of the Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo (National Council for Educational Advancement, or CONAFE), launched in 1996, and the Adult Distance Learning Secondary, launched in 2000. The INEA, however, is the most important governmental institution for adult education in the country, given not only its human and financial resources, but also the number of adults it attends. In the last few years, on the other hand, there have been important changes not only in regard to the concept of adult education, but also in the strategies that have been followed to operate the adult education programs. With the ‘‘Programa de Desarrollo Educativo 1995–2000’’ (Program of Educational Development 1995–2000) the INEA began a process of redefinition of the concepts and fundamentals of adult education. The idea was not just to provide literacy and education, but also to promote the development of fundamental capacities among those adults with a low schooling level. As part of this new stage, there was a major emphasis placed on adult training for work. In the ‘‘Programa Nacional de Educacio´n 2001–2006’’ (National Education Program 2001–2006) (SEP, 2001), adult education was conceptualized as a permanent process that continues throughout a person’s life, includes different dimensions, and recognizes and validates new spaces of learning and, in particular, those things that are learned beyond the school. In 2002, and in line with this new framework, the ‘‘Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n para la Vida y el Trabajo’’ (National Council for Lifelong Learning and Training, or CONEVyT) came into being, with the aim of
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coordinating, encouraging, regulating and evaluating the actions of different public and private organisms, and the civil society. INEA, however, is still the principal institution in this field, since according to the ‘‘Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n’’ (Citizen Observatory of Education, or OCE), an organization of the civil society that is continuously helping to generate debate on educational topics and problems in Mexico, the CONEVyT has not been able to articulate and encourage the different activities related to adult education.
2.3. The Educational Models of INEA INEA works with three educational models: the so-called ‘‘Modelo de Transicio´n’’ (Transition Model), the ‘‘Modelo de Educacio´n para la Vida y el Trabajo’’ (Lifelong Learning and Training Model, or MEVyT) and the model ‘‘Nuevo Enfoque para la Educacio´n Ba´sica para la Primaria de Jo´venes 10–14’’ (New Approach for Basic Education for Primary School of Youth of 10–14 Years Old, or NEEBA 10–14). The ‘‘NEEBA 10–14’’ attends the youth, aged 10–14, who never attended or did not finish primary school in the formal education system. This model/ program, that has been operating since 1990, is organized by subjects and divided into three phases – each one corresponding to two grades – that make it possible to study primary school in a more flexible and pertinent way. The model/program uses, among other materials, the free textbooks provided by the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) (i.e., the ones that are used in the formal education system). The ‘‘Modelo de Transicio´n’’, on the other hand, replaced both the ‘‘Modelo Pedago´gico de Educacio´n Primaria para Adultos’’ (Pedagogical Model of Primary School for Adults, or MPEPA) and the ‘‘Secundaria Abierta’’ (Open Secondary School, or SECAB). This ‘‘Modelo de Transicio´n’’, however, is going to disappear eventually, giving priority to the ‘‘MEVyT’’, which was launched in January 2000.2 It is important to stress that the MEVyT model represents a substantial change in pedagogical and curricular terms, with regard to the traditional ways in which INEA was operating.3 The new model, which offers different ‘‘mo´dulos’’ (‘‘modules’’) instead of fixed school-subjects, aims to recognize or give credits to the knowledge and the things that youth and adults are competent at (e.g., the things they have learned in different jobs and/or trainings programs). Thus, people enrolled at INEA do not have to take any longer a fixed educational program, but different modules – whose types and number depend on their age, experience and interests. The idea is that
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people can increase their knowledge with new elements that are useful and significant for them, at the time they strengthen their reading, writing, numerical and oral expression skills. The three distinct types into which the MEVyT modules can be categorized are ‘‘diversified or optional’’, ‘‘basic’’ and ‘‘alternative’’. The ‘‘diversified or optional’’ modules do not have any sequential order and enable adults to develop topics and specific competences, depending on the different interests of participants. Some examples of these are: ‘‘We are Mexicans’’, ‘‘Being young’’, ‘‘The education of our sons and daughters’’, ‘‘Youth sexuality’’, ‘‘My business’’, ‘‘Be careful with addictions’’ and ‘‘A place without violence’’. The ‘‘basic’’ modules, on the other hand, are those focused on the basic learning needs; thus, these are grouped into three main areas: language and communication, mathematics and sciences. Finally, the ‘‘alternative’’ modules are designed to help people to develop the same competences as some basic modules, but applying the fundamental contents of a given discipline in specific aspects of life (e.g., mathematics or literacy applied to the field or the household). The youth and adults enrolled at INEA can take all the ‘‘optional’’ modules they want, but in order to obtain the diploma or primary school certificate they need to pass a total of 10 ‘‘basic’’ modules and 2 ‘‘optional’’ modules. To obtain the secondary school certificate, on the other hand, they have to take a total of eight ‘‘basic’’ and four ‘‘optional’’ modules. In regard to the process of certification, it is important to mention that to obtain the school diploma/certificate, the youth and adults do not necessarily have to take and/or pass the corresponding exams of each 1 of the 12 modules comprised in both school levels (i.e., 12 in primary and 12 in secondary school levels). After showing the official documents that validate the grades that youth and adults have passed in the formal education system, they can present a ‘‘diagnosis exam’’ that also helps to determine the school grades in which people need to be enrolled to. According to some of the INEA’s civil servants interviewed during the formative evaluation that is quoted in this chapter (Bracho & Mendieta, 2004), a person who only studied one or two years of primary school in the formal school system could be asked to study only a few modules more in order to obtain the primary school certificate. In the view of these informants, this is possible thanks to the diagnosis exam, which can be seen as the guarantee that INEA is not only taking into account the adults’ previous studies – i.e., the school grades they have taken – but also their experiences and the knowledge they have acquired throughout their lives, that is to say, outside formal school. Indeed, such an exam is, along with the modules and printed materials, the ‘‘fifth essence’’ of the MEVyT model.
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2.4. The Population Targeted by INEA In the last few years the INEA has also redefined its policy of attention to give priority to those youth and adults who have already completed primary school, but still need to complete secondary school. As we mentioned above, with the Education Law of 1993 the new minimum ‘‘basic education’’ in Mexico not only includes the primary level, but also the secondary level. Thus, since 1993 to reduce the official educational delay, the INEA suddenly had to attend to more people and partially shift the focus to secondary education. According to INEA (2005), for 2004, the total number of people in situation of educational delay was formed by 17% of illiterate people, 33% of people without primary school and 50% of people without secondary school. It is very likely that another reason to shift the INEA’s attention to the people who did not complete secondary education is that the ‘‘potential’’ demand for secondary adult education is not only bigger, but also easier to provide; thus, it is more likely for INEA, if they focus their policy of attention on these people, to get visible results in a shorter time. Most of the people who did not finish secondary level are youth and adults whose ages oscillate between 18 and 29, which means that they abandoned school not many years ago (i.e., they represent the so-called ‘‘fresh educational delay’’). The majority of these people are also economically active; thus, it is more likely that they will demand the educational services that INEA offers. Moreover, as some data of the INEA indicate, the majority of people who did finish primary school but are still in educational delay because they did not complete secondary school live in urban areas bigger than 50,000 inhabitants. This means that it can be easier for INEA to find these people.
2.5. The State Level Institutes for Adult Education As a result of the process of decentralization, since 1999, 24 out of the 32 INEA Delegations have been transformed into State Level Institutes for Adult Education, which are not dependent anymore, for their operation, on the Direction of Delegations at the national level.4 The new decentralized organisms from the public administration and under the tutelage of the state Governors are now responsible for promoting and organizing the programs oriented to certify the literacy, primary and secondary education of those people who are 15 years and older. The INEA central body, on the other
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Table 2. Operational Structure of INEA. Level
Offices or Agents that Work at the Different Levels and Their Responsibilities
National
The central offices of INEA. Located in Mexico City, they have the responsibility of, among other things, designing the models, contents and educational policies that are going to be followed at the national level; evaluating the certification of the studies; planning innovations; and programming the budget State Level Institutes for Adult Education and Delegations. The first ones, as mentioned above, have the responsibility of organizing, supervising, coordinating and controlling the operation of the educational services in the states. The operation of the Delegations still depends on the central INEA Regional/zone and municipal coordinations. These, located in the principal municipalities, cities, localities and neighborhoods, are responsible for coordinating and operating the educational services, as well as for the training of different agents Te´cnicos Docentes (teachers–technicians). They are responsible for enrolling voluntary advisors and adults; promoting the participation of different social sectors; and coordinating the operation of the programs
State
Regional/zone and municipal
Micro-regional
Source: INEA (online).
hand, is still in charge of organizing, supervising, coordinating and controlling the operation of the educational services as well as the certification of the studies. Although most of the financial resources to operate the State Level Institutes for Adult Education come from the federal level, some institutes also receive economic and other types of help from the state level governments; thus, the state level audit units are the ones responsible for supervising the correct application of the resources. Table 2 briefly summarizes how the operational structure of INEA works at the national, state and local levels.
2.6. The ‘‘Solidarity Figures’’ of INEA Besides the offices and figures mentioned above, there is also a ‘‘Red Solidaria’’ (‘‘solidarity network’’) at the local level, which is integrated by agents and social organizations that promote the educational services of
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Table 3.
Functions of Some of the ‘‘Solidarity Figures’’.
Figure Advisors
Responsible for the ‘‘Punto de Encuentro’’ (‘‘meeting point’’) Community promoter
Linking promoter
Functions Encourages the adults to study, by promoting the educational activities that are required for them and helps them constantly (as tutors or facilitators) Provides the physical places for the educational services, coordinates the functioning of these at the ‘‘meeting points’’ and works as a link to provide the modules and didactic material of INEA Promotes the educational services of INEA and incorporates both advisors and adults in a situation of educational delay Provides help in administrative tasks (integration of the adults’ files, etc.)
Source: Bracho and Mendieta (2004, p. 21).
INEA. They are in charge of not only enrolling the youth and adults, but also ‘‘supervising’’ the process of people’s education in the communities, and within the firms and the public and private institutions (Instituto Nacional para la Educacio´n de los Adultos (INEA), online). Although there are some specific tasks that, in principle, each one of the ‘‘solidarity figures’’ has to develop, as is indicated in Table 3, in practice all these figures do different tasks or a mixture of the specific tasks assigned to each one of these. It is important to mention that INEA gives to these agents a ‘‘symbolic payment’’ called ‘‘gratificacio´n’’ (‘‘gratification’’) for their work. Because there is not a national criterion for calculating this payment, which in principle is based on results or productivity, this is different in each state.
3. THE EVALUATION OF THE PROGRAM ‘‘CERO REZAGO EDUCATIVO’’ In this section we present the main findings of an external evaluation of the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago Educativo’’, conducted from September 2004 to January 2005. Although the evaluation is a formative one, it was focused more on the innovative strategies, successful experiences and problems found in the six states where the Program had been launched as a pilot experience – Madero, Zapata, Calles, Obrego´n, Carranza and Villa5 – than on the impact of the program and its effectiveness; the results of the evaluation can help to throw some light into the INEA’s black box.
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3.1. The Program’s Objectives The Program ‘‘Cero Rezago Educativo’’ was launched by INEA in 2003–2004 with the objective of helping youth and adults, between the ages of 15 and 34, to complete and certify secondary school (grades six to nine of what is called ‘‘basic education’’). The people targeted by the Program are those who have either completed primary school or one or two grades of secondary school, but, as mentioned, have not completed the secondary school level. The main idea behind the targeting of these people – youth and adults between 15 and 34 years old – is that it is easier to reach them (most of these people abandoned school not many years ago) and certify them in a shorter time (they do not need to study the primary schools’ modules). It is important to mention that because there are no basic operation rules at the national level, the State Level Institutes for Adult Education have relative freedom to operate the Programs. This, in turn, makes it difficult to talk about one single ‘‘Cero Rezago Educativo’’ Program. As the evaluation found, each state has made adaptations to the original one, designing its own strategies to operate it. In regard to the resources for the operation of the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago Educativo’’, there are others agents involved, besides the INEA. While the state level governments help the operation of the Program financially, with 20% of the budget, the municipal governments lend the physical places where the classes or meetings with the youth and adults take place. Moreover, although the federal level is the one responsible for promoting the Program in the media, the state level governments also help this promotion (i.e., in the newspapers, etc.). Another very important aspect that must be highlighted is that INEA does not have enough economic resources to hire full time and ‘formal teachers’ (i.e., people who have specifically studied to be teachers), and the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ is not the exception. Thus, a fundamental strategy of this and the other INEA’s Programs (this strategy is called ‘‘social solidarity’’) is to convince people who have completed as a minimum basic education to be ‘‘tutors’’ or ‘‘advisors’’ of at least one adult in a situation of educational delay. Indeed, at least in theory, the three key figures in the implementation of the Program are the ‘‘tutor’’, the ‘‘tutor–advisor’’ and the so-called ‘‘voluntary-advisor’’. Although both ‘‘tutors’’ and ‘‘tutors– advisors’’ are said to be only responsible of enrolling people at the INEA because they, in contrast with the so-called ‘‘voluntary-advisors’’, have not necessarily completed their basic education, the evaluation found that in
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practice there is a lack of people to develop the tasks of these three figures. Thus, most of the people who work as tutors or advisors of the youth and adults are very young people with no teaching experience at all, who have only completed either basic education or the equivalent to high school. The evaluation coordinated by Bracho and Mendieta (2004) found that in one of the states visited the majority of tutors–advisors were teenagers, aged 13–14, who were still studying secondary school level in the formal education system.
3.2. Methods and Informants The evaluation, as mentioned before, was conducted in the six states where the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ had been launched as a pilot experience. The three main research methods that were used for collecting the data were documentary analysis, structured and semi-structured interviews, and faceto-face questionnaires. At the federal level, the evaluation team conducted semi-structured interviews with the principal agents who are in charge of the planning and operation of the Program: the General Director of the INEA and the Director of Planning and Evaluation, and with both the Director and the Sub-Director of Delegations. At the state level, on the other hand, structured interviews were conducted with the administrative staff of the State Level Institutes for Adult Education (the Director or Delegate of the local institutes, and the State and Zone Coordinators of the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’). Although the face-to-face questionnaires were not applied to representative samples – it would be very difficult to contact the people sampled, i.e., we asked, indeed, the INEA authorities at the local level to help us contact both the people working at the State Level Institutes for Adult Education and the youth and adults enrolled in the Institute – in the six states where the Program had been launched as a pilot experience a considerable number of questionnaires were applied to both the people working at the State Level Institutes and the youth and adults enrolled in the Institute. The main idea was to take into consideration the voices of different actors involved in the teaching–learning process within INEA. Thus, a total of 2,675 questionnaires were applied to ‘‘te´cnicos docentes’’ (the ‘‘teachers–technicians’’ who are in the middle of the local structures of INEA, between the Coordinators of the Program and the advisors), the so-called ‘‘figuras solidarias’’ (the ‘‘helping agents or facilitators’’ that operate the Program, i.e., promoters, advisors and tutors) and the youth and adults enrolled at INEA. The
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questionnaires with the youth and adults were applied to a total of 1,463 people who were at that time enrolled at INEA, specifically in the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’, 261 people who had already finished their secondary school studies (although not necessarily have obtained their certificates or diplomas yet) and 69 people who had quit the Program.
3.3. The Main Findings of the Evaluation Although the evaluation revealed that the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ does help people who had not completed secondary school to finish and certify this educational level, it also highlighted, however, some key aspects that need to be revised by INEA in order to increase the potential success of ‘‘Cero Rezago’’. Before mentioning some of the principal findings of the evaluation as well as the challenges that ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ faces, it is important to stress again that the evaluation was a formative one; thus, it was focused more on the Program’s general operation, rather than on definitive results. The evaluation, as already mentioned, aimed to come up with elements with which to judge the feasibility of the Program – as it has been operating as a pilot experience – and whether this program can help to reduce the educational delay of those people who have already finished primary school but still need to finish secondary school level. One of the things that were highlighted as positive in the evaluation, despite the criticisms of the ‘‘Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n’’ that are mentioned in the final part of this chapter, is the idea of targeting the socalled ‘‘fresh’’ or ‘‘end-point’’ of the educational delay, that is to say, the people who only need a few years to complete basic education because they have already finished primary school. As mentioned before, focusing on this population is not arbitrary. It is responsive, indeed, among other things, to the available data and statistics about the educational delay and its annual increment at the national level, which indicate that the educational delay at the secondary school level is the one that has increased the most, particularly after the education reforms of the 1990s that introduced compulsory secondary schooling. A less positive aspect found in the evaluation was the ‘‘social solidarity’’ strategy that was launched to invite, through a massive campaign in the public media, educated citizens to become voluntary tutors of one adult in a situation of educational delay. The evaluation coordinated by Bracho and Mendieta found that such a strategy was not working as planned and as a result there was a real lack of these tutors. Most of the interviewed
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informants – particularly the staff of the State Level Institutes for Adult Education – attributed this ‘‘lack of social participation’’ to the absence of television spots announcing the Program.6 However, a study conducted by Campero (2005) highlights that INEA authorities face many difficulties in order to get voluntary tutors–advisors. Despite the lack of social solidarity, the evaluation found that within INEA there are some ingenious ways to recruit ‘‘voluntary’’ tutors. For instance, with the sub-Program ‘‘SEDENA-SEP-INEA’’ – which operates not only with ‘‘Cero Rezago’’, but also with the standard Program operated by INEA – the standard or so-called ‘‘Programa Regular’’ offers basic education to the youth and adults 15 years and older – young people can obtain their military service card by helping an adult to finish their primary or secondary school. In some places like Calles, Zapata and Madero, on the other hand, the evaluation found that the State Level Institutes for Adult Education have asked the local education system and the schools for help. While the local education system in the states of Calles and Zapata had been providing the lists of students that had recently abandoned the school, so it was easier to find and enroll them in the INEA system, some high schools and universities were helping the Program by providing ‘‘voluntary’’ tutors. In the three states mentioned, some high school and university students could carry out their social service by helping one adult in a situation of educational delay to finish their secondary school. In Zapata, however, as mentioned in the evaluation, these innovative solutions are not free of criticisms, since some of the ‘‘voluntary’’ university students had been obliged to help between 5 and 10 students to keep the scholarships they received from the Programa Nacional de Becas para la Educacio´n Superior (National Scholarship Program for Higher/Tertiary Education, or PRONABES).7 In spite of the positive things and the innovative strategies, the evaluation of ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ also revealed that this Program, like the ‘‘Programa Regular’’, has still important weaknesses. Perhaps one of its strongest weaknesses is the way in which the success of the Program is measured. Since there is an excessive number of enrollment, attention and certification goals, which are fixed at the national level, the success of the Program is still judged – at both the national and the state levels – in relation to the number of people that the State Institutes of Adult Education manage to enroll and certify.8 Although, in principle, these numbers could tell us something about the effectiveness of the Program, they, however, do not give us a clue about some other aspects that are really important, such as the education-learning
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process that is taking place and/or the quality of the education provided. As stated in Bracho and Mendieta: Until now, the Program has been focused on drastically reducing the educational delay, controlling this by quantitative goals of enrollment and certification, but it has not made explicit the topic of quality of education that, at the end of the day, is what should validate the certificate obtained (Bracho & Mendieta, 2004, p. 218).
The evaluation mentions that in most of the states visited the advisors and promoters of ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ complained about the excessive number of people that they were asked to enroll and certify. These agents were overwhelmed trying to enroll more people, even though it was obvious they did not have the time to attend to all these people. The evaluation found, however, that these ‘‘solidarity figures’’ do not have a choice, since their monetary gratifications are conditioned to the achievement of the enrollment and certification goals that have been fixed at the national level. Other two important weaknesses, that may question the quality of education provided, are both the lack of advisors and tutors academically prepared to interact with the youth and adults and the excessive rotation of these figures. In regard to the first problem, detected many years ago,9 the evaluation reports that most adult educators of both ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ and the ‘‘Programa Regular’’ have not been trained to teach. These tutors or advisors not only do not have any teachers’ diplomas, but they also have not received, in general, any academic pre-service training to deal with adults. The evaluation found that most tutors only receive, in the best of the cases, a few hours of training about administrative stuff in order to assist adults who want to be enrolled to INEA, helping them to get their certificates on time, etc. The evaluation also reported that there is a very high rotation of advisors, tutors and promoters. While the advisors and promoters apparently change jobs because of their very unstable labor situation (i.e., sometimes they have to wait many months in order to get their payment) and the low monetary gratifications they receive, the so-called voluntary tutors, on the other hand, once they finish their studies or their social service, no longer feel obligated to assist the adults. This, without a doubt, has a negative impact on the youth and adult process of education since these figures, particularly the socalled advisors and tutors, do not wait for them to finish their studies. Finally, the other aspect that may question the quality of the education delivered has to do with the process of certification and the enormous pressure of INEA for obtaining results in quantitative terms in the short term. In the state of Carranza, and to a less extent in Obrego´n, the State Level
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Institutes for Adult Education have organized massive public events for people to find out about and enroll in the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’. At these massive events people are invited to take a ‘‘diagnosis exam’’ that helps INEA to determine people’s academic level. With the diagnosis exam the youth and adults can pass some modules without taking ‘‘classes’’, and, obviously, without passing the exams designed to evaluate each module. Although this exam goes in line with the philosophy of ‘‘MEVyT’’ of ‘‘validating the experiences and knowledge that adults have acquired through their life-time’’, it is important to stress that the diagnosis exam has not been designed to certificate people. Something to worry about, in regard to this point, is that during the evaluation it was found that in the state of Carranza 60% of the people who take this exam at the public events receive their educational certificates immediately after taking such an exam; this means that the people do not have to take any of the 12 secondary school modules. According to the evaluation coordinated by Bracho and Mendieta, the experience of Carranza may posit some doubts about the transparency of the process of certification of the Program and, in turn, about the quality of the INEA certificate. Although this situation cannot be generalized (in the other states the certification rate by this means is apparently low), the evidence found suggests that there is always the risk to give certificates to people who are not ready, academically speaking, for this, as a result in part of the big pressure to achieve the enormous quantitative goals that have been imposed on the states, no matter that these are literally impossible to achieve.
4. GLOBAL PROMISES, NATIONAL CHALLENGES As we have seen throughout the chapter, the compromises acquired at the Jomtien and Dakar Conferences have been only partially fulfilled. In spite of some of the innovative strategies and policies that have been implemented in the last few years by the INEA in order to attend those people who did not have the opportunity to go to school, or who did go but did not complete elementary education, overall it can be said that the education of youth and adults in Mexico is still marginalized. This section attempts to make a balance of both the positive things that have been done in the last few years and the challenges that INEA still faces in order to successfully accomplish the compromises related to the education of youth and adults that were subscribed to at the Jomtien and Dakar Conferences.
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Before making a balance of the positive things that have been achieved and the challenges faced by INEA, it is important to highlight that the compromise of reducing the illiteracy rate of men and women to one-half of its 1990 level by 2000 was not achieved. Moreover, during the period 1990–2000, the educational delay grew at an annual rate of 0.4%, increasing from 31.2 million in 1990 to 32.5 million adults in 2000. For this period, the percentage of people who had completed primary but not secondary education increased at an annual rate of 1.2%, from 13.2 million to 14.9 million (see INEGI, online).
4.1. The Positive Things that have been Achieved As mentioned above, however, there are some positive things that have been achieved in the last few years. For instance, although there is no evidence of the policies and programs specifically oriented to reduce the disparity between male and female illiteracy rates, and, in absolute terms, the number of illiterate women is still bigger than the number of illiterate men from 1990 to 2005, there was a reduction on such a disparity. While the number of men aged 15 and older who did not go to school passed from 11.7 to 7.2%, the number of women passed from 15.6 to 9.7% (see Table 4). Another aspect that clearly is in accordance with one of the Jomtien goals, the one that talks about ‘‘the expansion of provisions of basic education and training ‘in other essential skills’ required by youth and adults’’, is the introduction of the MEVyT, to which most adult education programs, Table 4. Percentage of Men and Women 15 Years and Older by Their Schooling Level. 1990
People aged 15 and older Without any school level With incomplete primary school level With primary school level With incomplete secondary level With secondary level With high school level With tertiary education or more Source: INEGI (online).
2005
Men
Women
Men
Women
24,165,024 11.7 23.1 19.3 7.0 14.5 14.1 10.3
25,938,117 15.6 23.5 20.0 5.6 13.5 15.1 6.7
32,782,806 7.2 14.5 17.1 5.4 22.2 19.2 14.4
36,019,758 9.7 14.8 18.7 4.5 20.8 19.8 11.8
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including ‘‘Cero Rezago’’, are now subscribed.10 The MEVyT design is really innovative not only because it seeks to ‘‘recognize and validate’’ the things, experiences and knowledge that youth and adults have acquired during their lifetime, but also because the new module structure within which the INEA operates is more flexible than the traditional model. The MEVyT is, indeed, the biggest change implemented by INEA since Jomtien, allowing INEA’s programs, at least in theory, to pass from a rigid format to a very flexible one that can be adapted to the different ages and interests of learners. There is a need, however, to evaluate the effectiveness of this new model in terms of behavioral changes and its impact on health, employment and productivity, as stated in one of the Jomtien goals, that is to say, to see if the new modules – the optional, basic and alternative – are helping people, for instance, to advance in their jobs or earn a better salary. The other thing that can be seen as advancement is the variety of Programs and sub-Programs that now exist to attend the youth and adults. Besides the ‘‘Programa Regular’’, ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ and ‘‘NEEBA 10–14’’ (this last is also known in some places as ‘‘MEVyT 10–14’’), as well as the Programs operated at the local level (like ‘‘Misiones Culturales’’, in the state of Carranza), INEA currently operates some Programs, like the ‘‘SEDENASEP-INEA’’, ‘‘INEA-OPORTUNIDADES’’ and ‘‘Plazas Comunitarias’’ that seek to serve specific populations. Although there is also a need to evaluate the impact of these programs, in order to judge their effectiveness as well as their positive and negative aspects, in principle it seems to be something positive to have a diversified educational supply that attempts to cover all the potential demand for youth and adult education. The sub-Program ‘‘INEA-OPORTUNIDADES’’, for instance, launched in 2002 first as a pilot experience, gives the families’ mothers who receive the benefits of the Program OPORTUNIDADES11 the possibility of certifying part of their studies (literacy, primary and/or secondary school) with the health talks that they are obliged to attend in order to receive the benefits of OPORTUNIDADES. The health talks have been adapted, since 2002, to a ‘‘module’’ format – thus, these can help women, who are normally illiterate, to advance in their education at the time they cover one of the prerequisites of the Program. The sub-Program ‘‘Plazas Comunitarias’’, on the other hand, as part as the CONEVyT Medium Term Program 2001–2006 (see Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n para la Vida y el Trabajo (CONEVyT), 2002), involves the establishment of both ‘‘Communitarian Places’’ and the educational web site of CONEVyT, which currently attend 12% of the INEA population. While the so-called ‘‘Plazas Comunitarias’’ are physical spaces equipped
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with computers in which the INEA offers programs for basic education and training for work, the web site of CONEVyT provides information on all the programs, modules and contents that the INEA offers.12 Until June 2005 there were more than 2,300 of these plazas all around the country; there is a plan, however, to build more in the not too distant future.13
4.2. The Biggest Challenges In spite of the advancements that have been mentioned throughout this chapter, the INEA still faces many structural problems that can be seen as the biggest challenges in order to successfully accomplish the compromises that the Mexican government signed at both the Jomtien and the Dakar Conferences. As the formative evaluation of the Program ‘‘Cero Rezago’’ shows it is very likely that one of the biggest challenges of INEA is to have adult teachers more prepared and trained to do their job. Until now, there is no existing regulation regarding the minimum profile required to develop this important task; thus, it is not surprising that there is little, if any, information about adult educators themselves, and their types and identity. Indeed, although it is a fact that with the MEVYT the youth and adult education contents cannot be accused anymore of being irrelevant to the needs and contexts of the people who it seeks to serve, there are some doubts about the potential of this model to transform people’s life (Herna´ndez Zamora, 2003; Campero, 2005). In the view of Herna´ndez Zamora (2003), with the new pedagogical model, the only aspect that has really changed is the curricula on paper (the programs of study and the didactic materials), without changes in the context and learning experiences provided to the youth and adults. While some authors (Herna´ndez Zamora, 2003; Campero, 2001; Campero, Sua´rez, & Archer, 2003) seriously criticizes the fact that the advisors who ‘‘teach’’ the youth and adults are people with a very low schooling level, and with very few teaching skills, as it was found in the evaluation coordinated by Bracho and Mendieta (2004), Campero (2005) sustains that if nothing is done to train the advisors and the other INEA figures there is a risk that the MEVYT is not going to work. Another challenge is to have certainty about the quality of the INEA’s diploma or certificate. In order to avoid the sort of problems found in the state of Carranza, impact evaluations could be conducted to verify that the youth and adults who finish their basic education in INEA have a minimum standard knowledge and equal job opportunities like their peers in the
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formal education system (Bracho & Mendieta, 2004, p. 224). In our opinion, it would be very irresponsible to leave any doubts about the quality and validity of the certificate since this could contribute to confirm some people’s perception about the view that there are two types of educational certificates: those that are validated by the formal education system and those, of doubtful quality, dispatched by INEA. Not solving this problem could contribute, indeed, to opening up, even more, the enormous educational gaps that already exist in Mexico, since at the end of the day both the learning experience and the perception of the quality of the programs have an impact not only on employment opportunities, but also on earnings and, thus, on quality of life. The other outstanding national challenge, which is very likely to be related to all the problems mentioned before, particularly to the lack of trained adult teachers, is the inadequate provision of economic resources for the education of adults. As Schmelkes and Kalman (1994) pointed out more than a decade ago ‘‘the consensus about the importance of adult education diverges with the little importance that the governments give to it’’. Adult education programs have historically suffered from inadequate financing: since 1995, the INEA budget has represented less than 1% of the SEP’s total budget (see Table 5), and the INEA public expenditure by student, as can be
Table 5. Adult Education Budget for the Period 1990–2004 (Millions of Pesos, 2002). Year
INEA Budget
SEP Budget
INEA/SEP
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
1,207.0 1,333.6 1,556.7 1,716.6 1,951.6 1,572.8 1,572.5 1,656.6 1,845.0 1,819.4 1,973.0 2,292.0 2,852.6 2,935.2 2,877.8
101,155.3 121,002.7 141,352.6 165,031.8 186,448.1 164,563.5 170,527.7 184,034.0 208,887.5 216,855.8 219,380.0 246,016.9 271,649.5 294,875.3 314,368.6
1.19 1.10 1.10 1.04 1.05 0.96 0.92 0.90 0.88 0.84 0.90 0.93 1.05 1.00 0.92
Source: Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica/Direccio´n General de Planeacio´n.
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Table 6.
299
Public Expenditure by Student for the Period 2000–2003 (Thousand of Pesos).
Pre-school Primary Secondary High school Tertiary education INEA programs
2000
2001
2002
2003
7.6 6.9 10.6 15.3 34.1 1.8
8.4 7.7 11.7 16.9 37.7 2.2
8.9 8.1 12.4 18.0 40.3 2.6
9.4 8.5 13.1 18.8 42.0 2.5
Source: Taken from OCE (2005, p. 9).
seen in Table 6, is really low in comparison to the student expenditure of the formal school system. Although this lack of financial resources has obligated INEA, and as we saw the State Level Institutes for Adult Education, to design very ingenious strategies, like the one known as ‘‘social solidarity’’, which invites people to help other adults in educational delay, relying, however, on the good will of voluntary people (the so-called ‘‘tutors’’), these kinds of strategies are far from being a permanent and/or stable solution, not only because tutors have other occupations, but also because, as we mentioned before, they are not prepared, in most of the cases, to properly help adults.
5. FINAL COMMENTS From the discussion above, we can conclude that to fully address the Jomtien and Dakar goals still posits big challenges to INEA. Although it is a fact that INEA has advanced in the last few years, innovating and designing important changes demanded at the global and national levels, as we have pointed out, these changes, however, are still insufficient. Without a doubt, the most innovative strategies and programs cannot solve the problematic issue of educating adults if the so-called advisors and tutors are not well trained to deal with adults, and, obviously, if there are not enough economic resources to allocate to the education of youth and adults. Moreover, as long as there are no solutions to the problems mentioned throughout the chapter, it will be very difficult to fulfill one of the most challenging of the Dakar compromises: ‘‘to improve all aspects of the quality of education, and ensuring excellence for all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills’’.
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Indeed, something to really worry about is the big number of people who are still in a situation of educational delay. INEA and the other agencies that provide adult education have not been very successful in reaching all the young people, e.g., 750,000 for 2003, who drop out basic education in the formal school system every year. If we take into account that every year INEA certifies 300,000 people and that nearly 200,000 people die or migrate, we have that every year 200,000 young people (aged 15) are included in those who are in a situation of educational delay (see Programa Nacional de Educacio´n 2001–2006). It is also important to notice that since there has been a shift in the population attended by INEA in recent years, focusing more on those young adults who have not completed secondary school level, i.e., the last three years of basic education, some people may argue that the illiterate people have been abandoned. In the view of the ‘‘Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n’’ the salient administration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) has not been very worried about reducing the illiteracy problem because it is relying on the demographical change, waiting for people in this situation, normally the oldest, to gradually disappear. OCE sustains that although this action of the government may have a cost benefit analysis explanation, this also brings in parallel a discussion about human rights, since those who form the illiterate group are the poorest of the poor: they are mostly adults of 40 years and older who live in rural localities (i.e., less than 2,500 inhabitants) of the poorest states of Mexico (OCE, 2003) (see Table 7). There is a need to remember, on the other hand, that there is an increasingly significant relationship between people’s schooling and the economic advancement of a country, since competing in the international markets requires a high level of human capital and productivity. This means it is vital that Mexico should seriously consider how as a country it can compete if 55% of the economically active population have not concluded their basic education, and 21% of these people have not even concluded four years of schooling – the number of years that are needed to be considered a functionally literate person (OCE, 2000b). Since the education of youths and adults is not only a fundamental human right, but also a basic element in the fight against poverty and inequality, any effort to improve the socioeconomic conditions of people needs to go hand in hand with the fight against both adult illiteracy and educational delay. We want to conclude this chapter by saying that in order to tackle educational delay there is also an urgent need to put into practice effective actions to avoid the factors that influence children dropping out of school in the first instance, since those children who for whatever reason cannot
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Table 7. People in Situation of Educational Delay by State (2005). State
Illiterate People (%)
People Without Complete Primary School (%)
People Without Complete Secondary School (%)
People in Situation of Educational Delay (%)
4.2 3.1 3.6 10.2 3.3 6.4 21.3 4.4 2.6 4.8 10.4 19.9 12.8 5.5 5.3 12.6 8.1 8 2.8 19.3 12.7 8.1 6.6 9.9 6.4 3.7 8.6 4.5 6.7 13.4 10.9 7.2
13.4 11.5 12.2 16.3 11.1 14.8 20.6 13.9 6.9 17.8 17.9 15.1 14.2 15.3 10.6 20.3 12.5 17.7 9.6 18.5 15.9 11.6 12.5 17.1 16.5 13.1 16.2 13.5 11.9 19 18.6 23.2
22.8 21.8 19.8 20.2 22.3 20.8 19.5 26.8 17.1 25.2 25.6 19.3 20.8 24.2 20.8 23.3 18.8 18.4 18.5 21.6 22.9 21.8 18.3 20.5 20 20.1 18.6 21.2 24.1 20.7 19 25.3
40.4 36.4 35.6 46.7 45.1 61.4 36.7 42 26.6 47.8 54.3 53.9 47.8 45 36.7 56.2 39.4 44.1 30.9 59.4 51.5 41.5 37.4 42.9 47.5 36.9 43.4 39.2 42.7 53.1 48.5 55.7
Aguascalientes Baja California Baja California Sur Campeche Coahuila Colima Chiapas Chihuahua Distrito Federal Durango Guanajuato Guerrero Hidalgo Jalisco Me´xico Michoaca´n Morelos Nayarit Nuevo Leo´n Oaxaca Puebla Quere´taro Quintana Roo San Luis Potosı´ Sinaloa Sonora Tabasco Tamaulipas Tlaxcala Veracruz Yucata´n Zacatecas Source: INEGI (online).
complete their basic education today will become adults in a situation of educational delay. Nu´n˜ez Barbosa (2005) asks us to distinguish between the factors that influence people dropping out of school, when they are children, and the factors that do not help adults to successfully complete adult educational programs. While the latter, she argues, are mainly the
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responsibility of the institutions in charge of developing policies and programs for adults, like INEA, the former factors can be attributed to either the family or social context, and to the formal education system.
NOTES 1. Besides the elementary or basic education, the formal school system comprises the mid-level education (either through a three-year college preparatory program or high school – called bachillerato – or advanced technical training) and higher education (which consists of four-year college and university education, called the licenciatura). It is also important to stress that the reforms to the educational law of 2003 say that children ages three to five need to be enrolled in preschool level. 2. For 2004, 87% of the people enrolled at INEA were subjected to the MEVyT model (OCE, 2005). 3. Pieck (2003, p. 617) observes that with the launching of the MEVyT model there was an attempt to give an answer to the different criticisms made against the adult education programs and models. 4. In the states where the educational services of INEA have not been decentralized, the INEA continues operating its services through its delegations. 5. For reasons of confidentiality the states’ names have been changed. Instead of the real names of the states we used the names of some of the most important men who played a key role in the Mexican Revolution. The criteria to select the states that were going to participate in this ‘‘pilot experience’’ were the political willingness of the Governor to lead the Program, the compromise and participation of the State Ministry of Education to lead the actions of the Program and use the educational infrastructure, and the participation of the General Director of the State Institute for Adult Education, among other things. 6. Because of this, and according to many of the informants interviewed, it had been necessary to contract the so-called ‘‘figuras gratificadas’’ (i.e., people who receive a payment for their work as advisors or promoters). 7. The PRONABES gives educational scholarships to academically qualified tertiary education students demonstrating financial need. 8. The same critic can be found in Campero (2005). In this book, Campero shows the results of a research that she conducted with some ‘‘te´cnicos-docentes’’ (‘‘teacher– technicians’’) who participated in an academic course that intended, among other things, to be a space where to share their work experiences at INEA. 9. According to Schmelkes and Kalman (1994, pp. 89–90), the biggest obstacle to achieve more relevant, efficient and quality adult education services is the lack of professionalism at all levels, particularly among those who work as educational agents. 10. This model also goes in accordance with the discourses introduced in the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), held in Hamburg in 1997, which brought to the debate the importance of having adult education programs that were relevant to the adults’ needs and lives. 11. The Program OPORTUNIDADES (previously known as PROGRESA) has been the principal social policy to alleviate poverty in Mexico since 1997. Although
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the Program has experienced some changes along the way (besides its name), its main goal still remains: to help families who live in extreme poverty to develop their capabilities and increase their social welfare, through improvements in their education, health and nutrition (UNESCO, 1997; Pieck, 2003). 12. This web site is easy to access and the information can also be downloaded in a relatively easy way. 13. The idea was to build 20,000 plazas by the end of 2006.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The evaluation that is quoted in this chapter was coordinated by Teresa Bracho and Giulianna Mendieta. The research team who participated in this evaluation was comprised of Araceli Camacho, Jorge Go´mez, Mo´nica Jacobo, Arcelia Martı´ nez, Lucy Maya and Alfredo Ramı´ rez. We appreciate the thoughtful comments of Vidal Llerenas, Lucrecia Santiba´n˜ez and those of the anonymous reviewers, as well as the help provided by Marianela Nu´n˜ez and Bertha Lira for the final version of this chapter.
REFERENCES Bracho, T. (2000). Poverty an education in Mexico, 1984–1996. In: F. Reimers (Ed.), Unequal schools, unequal chances. The challenges to equal opportunity in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bracho, T., & Mendieta, G. (2004). Evaluacio´n del Programa Cero Rezago 2004. Mexico: Centro de Investigacio´n y Docencia Econo´micas. Campero, C. (2001). En la encrucijada: Avances, retos y perspectivas de la educacio´n ba´sica de personas jo´venes y adultas. Available at http://bibliotecadigital.conevyt.org.mx/ colecciones/documentos.htm, accessed January 2006, online. Campero, C. (2005). Entretejiendo Miradas. Sistematizacio´n de una experiencia de formacio´n de educadores y educadoras de jo´venes y adultas. Pa´tzcuaro, Michoaca´n: Centro de Cooperacio´n Regional para la Educacio´n de Adultos en Ame´rica Latina y el Caribe (CREFAL) – Universidad Pedago´gica Nacional (UPN). Campero, C., Sua´rez, M., & Archer, L. M. (2003). Educadores de jo´venes y adultos. In: M. Bertely Busquets (Coord.), Educacio´n, derechos sociales y equidad. Tomo II. Educacio´n de jo´venes y adultos. Mexico: Consejo Mexicano de Investigacio´n Educativa (COMIE). Consejo Nacional de Educacio´n para la Vida y el Trabajo (CONEVyT). (2002). Programa de Mediano Plazo 2001–2006. Mexico: CONEVyT. Herna´ndez Zamora, G. (2003). Comunidades de lectores: puerta de entrada a la cultura escrita. In: Decisio. Saberes para la accio´n en educacio´n de adultos 6. Available at http:tariacuri. crefal.edu.mx/decisio/inicio.php, accessed September 2006, online. Instituto Nacional de Estadı´ stica, Geografı´ a e Informa´tica (INEGI) (online). II Conteo de Poblacio´n y Vivienda 2005. Me´xico. Available at http://www.inegi.gob.mx
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Instituto Nacional para la Educacio´n de los Adultos (INEA) (2005). Rezago educativo. Me´xico: INEA – Direccio´n de Planeacio´n y Evaluacio´n. Instituto Nacional para la Educacio´n de los Adultos (INEA). (online). + Quie´nes somos? Antecedentes. Available at http://www.inea.gob.mx/wps/portal/, accessed January 2006. Nu´n˜ez Barbosa, M. (2005). El rezago educativo en Me´xico: Ana´lisis y propuesta de disen˜o institucional del INEA, Tesina de Maestrı´a. Mexico: CIDE– Divisio´n de Administracio´n Pu´blica. Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n (OCE). (2000a). Comunicado 30, El Informe Me´xico sobre los Acuerdos de Jomtien: + optimismo justificado? Available at http://www. observatorio.org/comunicados/comun030, accessed June 2005, online. Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n (OCE). (2000b). Comunicado 44, El rezago educativo. Available at http://www.observatorio.org/comunicados/comun044, accessed February 2006, online. Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n (OCE). (2003). Comunicado 97, Analfabetismo. Available at http://www.observatorio.org/comunicados/comun097.html, accessed June 2005, online. Observatorio Ciudadano de la Educacio´n (OCE). (2005). Educacio´n de adultos. Plataforma Educativa 2006. Cuadernos de Trabajo. Available at http://www.observatorio.org/ plataforma2006/8_Educacion%20%20adultos.pdf, accessed February 2006, online. Pieck, E. (2003). Educacio´n de jo´venes y adultos. In: M. Bertely Busquets (Coord), Educacio´n, derechos sociales y equidad. Tomo II. Educacio´n de jo´venes y adultos. Mexico: Consejo Mexicano de Investigacio´n Educativa (COMIE). Schmelkes, S., & Kalman, J. (1994). La educacio´n de adultos: Estado del arte. Hacia una estrategia alfabetizadota para Me´xico. Mexico: Centro de Estudios Educativos. Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica (SEP) (2000). Me´xico Jomtien+10. ‘Evaluacio´n Nacional de Educacio´n para Todos’. Mexico: SEP. Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica (SEP). (2001). Programa Nacional de Educacio´n 2001–2006. Mexico: SEP. Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica/Direccio´n General de Planeacio´n. Programacio´n y Presupuesto. Estados financieros consolidados INEA (mimeo). United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (1997). CONFINTEA. Adult Education. The Hamburg Declaration. The Agenda for the Future. In: Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, Hamburg, Germany, 14–18 July 1997. UNESCO.
THE REFORM FOR EFA IN MEXICO: DISAPPOINTING PROGRESS, COULD DO BETTER Christopher Martin ABSTRACT The paper examines 15 years of basic educational reform in Mexico directed at improving scholastic performance, equity and education for all (EFA), through mainly administrative measures, particularly decentralization. Taking a critical policy studies approach informed by anthropological examination of local educational processes, this chapter takes issue with scholarship that sees educational reforms in LDC’s as the product of ‘‘decision makers’’ and the school reality as a deficit to be filled by ‘‘policy’’. This perspective mirrors the characteristically top down approach of the very reform process it is supposed to be analyzing. The approach taken in this paper treats school district persons and institutions as active agents in their own right. More specifically the paper will argue that Mexican reforms toward EFA have been unable to transcend the very corporatist–personalistic structures it avowedly sought to reform. It has thus been largely ineffective in mobilizing forces for change, the goodwill, creativity and initiative of educators so important to its avowed aim of improving student scholastic performance. However, isolated examples of innovative uses of spaces opened by the reform offer ideas about how to reorient the reform in more productive directions. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 305–324 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08010-8
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INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND In Mexico, policies responding to Education for All (EFA) targets since Jomtien cannot be distinguished from either recommendations of other international agencies, such as the World Bank, UNICEF, OECD and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (to which Mexico signed up along with 189 countries in 2000, Gobierno de la Repu´blica Mexicana, 2005, p. 5), or from many nationally generated policies. This is partly because EFA has only infrequently been an explicit feature of policy-making or practice in Mexico. It is also because there is considerable overlap in what these players consider important for educational advance such as Universal Primary Education (UPE), more efficient and effective use of resources, teacher training equity and equality of provision. As such national policy may be traced to one or more of various influences. Therefore this article will discuss Mexican progress toward the EFA goals regardless of whether these derived from the UNESCO EFA campaign or from elsewhere. Progress toward the EFA goals is the key measure of the EFA effort. Nonetheless they cannot be achieved or sustained without sound policy, something stressed throughout the EFA Global Monitoring Reports. I will place considerable emphasis on policy. I consider the only way to understand the gap between policies favorable to EFA and disappointing results, is by examining the gap between policy and practice; between positive intentions and real outcomes, identifying the obstacles between the two. At the national level, I will examine the educational governance and leadership needed to effect the six EFA goals (see inter alia, EFA Global Monitoring Report, Summary, 2005, p. 1) in the Mexican context. At state level I will discuss administrative and management policies in the context of the educational decentralization effected as from 1992. At local level I will discuss the EFA targets themselves, concentrating on those related to standard schooling: UPE and quality, but also touching on gender and early childhood education. The main point I wish to make is that to really bring about education for all, we need to move toward education with all, starting with the way that policy is made and educational stakeholders participate or not in the educational process.
FRAMEWORK There is a strong current in the study of EFA and other educational reforms in LDC’s particularly in Latin America to see policy as the product of ‘‘decision makers’’ and filling a deficit, at the point of implementation, the everyday
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reality of schooling being considered as devoid of agency and motivation.1 Among its other defects, this perspective mirrors the characteristically top down approach of the very reform process it is supposed to be analyzing. The school reality, its history, culture and community need to be understood in its own right as well as in its interaction with broader policy in which it is an active agent. Harnessing local school practice and the experience of teachers as an active agent of systemic educational reform is seen by the EFA monitoring report team as a condition of achieving EFA (see EFA, 2005, p. 28).
THE REFORM ERA AND ITS BACKGROUND By the end of the 1980s, indicators of educational underperformance in Mexico persisted, investment was low, as was retention (see Prawda & Gustavo, 2001, pp. 142–143, 153) and a prolonged teachers strike brought the national educational system to a standstill. The EFA and the World Bank educational recommendations that appeared at the same time became incorporated into a major educational reform that was linked to a broader national project of ‘‘modernization’’ that ushered in a period of neo-liberal economic policy. This happened at this time of great socio-economic and political unrest in which the teachers’ strike was just one element. There was a major economic crisis in 1994, the entry into NAFTA, the rise of the Zapatistas and two political assassinations. These events occurred during the period of the government’s modernizing mission of which the educational reform was a part. As with the economic reforms of the time it left a lasting influence. In spite of its impact on educational policy, its effect on scholastic performance has been minimal and thus raises serious questions about its worth and what other changes and improvements should be included to reach its goals. The resolution of the above-mentioned teachers’ strike paved the way for the reform initiated in 1992 with the signing of the National Agreement for the Modernization of Basic Education (ANMEB). This began with an historic agreement of collaboration between the public educational authorities (Secretarı´ a de Educacion Pu´blica, SEP) and the national teachers union (SNTE). The other main elements of the reform were a new education law devolving the operational aspects of the educational system to the states, a teacher professionalization package (Carrera Magisterial, CM) involving training and payment by results), a compensatory educational programs for marginalized groups, new curricula and materials and provisions for more school autonomy and local participation in school affairs.
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Nonetheless, 16 years on, there is broad agreement that progress toward EFA has been mixed, if not disappointing. On the positive side, progress toward UPE has been made, though is still only 94.1% of the complete primary school aged group. Overall, there is gender parity in basic school attendance and considerable advances have been made in early childhood education, with 98.35% in 2005 of the 5 year old age group accessing it as compared with 77.02% in 1992 (Reimers, 2006, p. 70). Gender goal achievements are similarly high (Umayahara, 2005, p. 22). Nonetheless, the bad news is that inequalities between poor and rich states, schools and populations remain, especially in the transition between primary and secondary schooling (Martı´ nez Rizo, 2002; Reimers, 2006, op. cit. p. 25). In addition, attainment rates have risen little especially in upper primary and in secondary schooling, reflecting persistent problems of educational quality (PISA, 2003 cited in Instituto Nacional para la Evaluacio´n de la Educacio´n (INEE) (2005), p. 447). The picture that emerges is a flurry of policy activity that has produced surface improvements, especially in quantitative aspects of coverage averaged out, but severe inequalities and problems of quality remain, explaining the underperformance of Mexico in the context of the OECD PISA evaluations. Something is blocking policy from engaging with and transforming school reality.
THE RESEARCH INHERITANCE A recurrent limitation of many policy analyses and evaluations of large-scale reforms is that the studies echo the standpoint toward change inherent in administrative reform. They see policy as filling some deficit present in the existing situation, in our case, the educational system, particularly at school level. The idea being that new policy will remove problems, filling the gap with a new improved (mainly managerial) vision that will make the system work better. Among various critiques of this tendency are Rigby (2005) and, specifically on educational matters, Arnove (2005). What is startlingly absent is attention to the educational aspects. Not only do such approaches appear to assume that an educational system is just like any other system comparable, say, to a sales company or a gas distribution firm, but also they seem to have little interest in the meat of education which is teaching and learning. Grindle (2004) is concerned about the gaps between design, policy-making and implementation. She considers that these points cannot be studied in the abstract, but through understanding the real life negotiations between actual actors and institutions involved. She concludes that on balance the recent
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Mexican educational reforms have been successful ‘‘despite the odds’’ of obstacles that stood in their way. Unfortunately, Grindle’s criteria of success are more like administrative benchmarks than educational goals reached.2 Another difficulty with her analysis is her not distinguishing between SNTE, dissident movements and grassroot teachers. This leads her to the conclusion that (a) the ‘‘teachers were winners in the reform’’ (a remarkable revelation for any educator currently working in any average classroom) and (b) the reforms have largely succeeded despite the odds – an even more extraordinary conclusion given the disappointing National Institute of Educational Evaluation (INEE) results over the past 2 years. Furthermore, the danger of remaining at the top level of the reform is that when things seem to be working well at this level, yet the school level results are poor, the teachers appear as the guilty parties. Yet the teachers are the ones who have to bear the brunt of policies that may be simply unworkable at local level.3 The EFA 2005 Quality monitoring report goes further than most international agencies in involving teachers in local national and international policy-making (EFA, 2005, p. 29). The same document also points to something that makes policies unworkable at local and other levels: practices that are unaccountable or lack transparency not to mention corrupt practices that need to be understood and removed in order to advance toward the EFA Goals (see section on the school level, below). As will be seen below, at national level, the reform avowedly seeks to displace corporatism with technical and open decisionmaking, yet was born of a corporate agreement at national level, and encounters corporate understandings at state level. At local level, teachers operate the new technical requirements through networks of personalism. This in turn acts to protect them from the chilly winds of the neo-liberalism that the union tells them are the inimical source behind the reforms. Meanwhile, where accommodation between the various actors has occurred, this has opened the way for the reforms to inspire innovations in educational provision especially at local level.
THE MEXICAN EDUCATIONAL REFORM Top Level From the early 1980s, Mexico had planned to achieve EFA at primary school level. Throughout the 1980s great emphasis was placed on the move toward full coverage at this level and on programs to combat drop out and
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improve the quality of education (PALEM, e.g., Go´mez-Palacio Mun˜oz, 2003). A new technocratic element began to appear in the educational administration and the beginnings of the ‘‘de-concentration’’ of the educational system. New chains of command were established in which the role of supervisor was strengthened as a conduit of upward information flows and downward control of the implementation of policy. By the end of the decade and the arrival of President Salinas to power, plans were to focus on the quality issues. By the time of Jomtien, the government was ready to sign up to the EFA initiative with this quality emphasis. However, as with the contemporary entry into NAFTA and OECD, official optimism was undermined by reality. The 1989 teachers strike was occasioned by nearly a decade of educational under-investment. Teachers’ salaries fell to barely more than one ‘‘minimum wage’’ (Martin, 1994, p. 24). This traditional, social class-based conflict was resolved in typically corporatist terms. The president worked to sack the previous head of the union (Cordoba, 2004). In return for eventual cooperation in the planned educational reform, particularly through the teacher professionalization productivity pact mentioned earlier, the union won a significant pay rise, gained many important positions in the educational administration and most important of all, retained its centralized structure and collective agreements at top level with the government, arguing that the alternative of decentralization would cause the injustice of fragmentation (inter alia, Ornelas, 2000, p. 437). This deal and the reform that followed has understandably been seen as one in which the union was a winner (e.g., Ornelas and Grindle). Perhaps, it was achieved at the cost of real changes in teacher conditions and professionalization, of the unions’ legitimacy with the public and with much of its grassroots following. This resulted in the union’s ever-greater isolation from the public and internal conflict and rankand-file disaffection. Although the operational aspects of the educational services were developed, the normative aspects remained in the center, as did many of the special programs designed, paradoxically, to develop local capacity, such as the School Project – Quality Schools Program (PEC) (SEP, 2004) to be discussed later in relation to the EFA’s quality initiative. Thus the reform of educational services was born of a pre-reform, corporatist–personalist deal between the government and the union head. It also effectively bought off the rank-and-file dissents with the carrot of a pay rise and the stick of greater control, through, among other more direct means, a productivity pact. In this way the forces of change were circumscribed in the oldest
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traditions of Mexican governance, in corporatist agreements between individuals and central government control (for a fuller discussion of these tendencies in education, see Latapı´ , 2004, esp. pp. 28–47). The EFA initiative emphasizes the importance of sound policy-making to bring about solid and fast progress toward the goals. The monitoring reports refer to technical as well as social and ethical criteria (EFA, 2005, p. 29). Mexico has made important strides in making all public information freely available to citizens.4 The National Education Evaluation Institute also provides detailed open access information on education for the public. The Mexican government has also implemented a vast program entitled Programa Operativo para la Transparencia y el Combate a la Corrupcio´n which diffuses results on the Ministry of Education’s website.5 Furthermore, new regulations give public servants a degree of independence from changes in a political administration – something permitting more policy continuity than previously. Nonetheless in practice public servants continue to be recruited by senior politicians of regimes and open competition is still rare. Notwithstanding the advance indicated by the above measures, various anomalies cast doubt on their implementation, efficacy and warn against taking them at face value. Transparency and international labor law is routinely flouted in teachers’ contracts by the automatic deduction of union dues at source. The power of the official union permits this irregularity and the government does not question it. The union itself has never agreed to engage in substantial reform, and the ascendancy of its de facto leader (Elba Esther Gordillo) into party political power casts an even greater shadow over teachers’ union reform. Loopholes too exist in the use of public spending in education. Not only are funds misused but once made public, such misuse is not sanctioned. In December 2005, the press announced that 94 million pesos destined for basic education were used to buy private planes for the state ministry of education in Jalisco (Pu´blico, 16/12/2005, p. 1). Only by examining the actual process of policy-making can real progress or lack of it, be understood and rectified. The next section examines another prerequisite for educational improvement signaled in EFA guidelines, namely administrative efficiency. This can be discussed in the Mexican case by turning to educational processes at state level, the level highlighted by the educational decentralization effected from the end of the 1990s, focusing on Jalisco. Each state has appropriated the overall decentralization according to a wide variety of regional conditions making it impossible to generalize the process. The only common feature is the strong influence of regional/ state political reality over the general decentralization process.
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Decentralization/Devolution of Operations In the Bangkok March 2006 mid-decade assessment strategic planning meeting, decentralization was considered as one of the crucial management tools to further EFA goals (UNESCO, 2004). Its appeal lies in its bringing a more modern, locally responsive educational administration nearer the users, thereby encouraging greater accountability. This fitted well with the modernization agenda of the 1988-04 government and World Bank recommendations. Mexico carried out its decentralization as from 1992 under the new education law.6 Decentralization posed state governors and the new state educational secretaries with a dilemma. On the negative side, they rightly feared that they would assume responsibilities without sufficient funds to fulfill them and with inadequate preparation for the new task – as turned out to be the case (Pardo, 1999; Latapı´ , 2004).7 This led to institutional incoherence rather than stimulating new ways of providing public education. However, in some states necessity was the mother of invention, as in Aguascalientes and Oaxaca where new institutional forms permitted new actors (academics, external consultants and funders) to support innovations in educational delivery, supervision and special services to poor communities. On the positive side, state authorities saw their budgets massively increased.8 This obviously bolstered state power, though unevenly, concentrating it in the hands of the educational secretary – something that altered significantly the balance of power in state governments. Hanson (1997) argues that administrative reforms have been inspired more by political concerns than technical ones. At national level this was evident in the Salinas government’s push toward the ‘‘modernization’’ of education and other areas in order to become a member of the ‘‘first world’’ (membership of NAFTA and OECD, see Vargas & Patricia, 2003), and the union’s desire to clean its image while retaining most of its previous powers. At state level, the politics was less about motivations, since this was mainly the province of the federal government; it was more a question of opportunities and threats presented by the implementation of decentralization. Given the newness of these changes at state level, and the very different characters and histories of the states, it is not surprising that the outcomes of decentralization varied a great deal. One of the most complex was Jalisco where, at national level, the union was a key player. In Jalisco, federal–national negotiations were complicated by the fact that the political party in power in the state of Jalisco was one of the most important opposition parties at state and national level, the National Action Party (PAN), the national party being the dominant Institutional
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revolutionary Party (PRI).9 This fact played into union–administration negotiations in the following way. In Jalisco, decentralization occurred in a state with a long-standing distinction between the larger, mainly rural, better-funded federal system, and the smaller, mainly urban, less well-endowed state system. The teachers in each system belonged to different union sections. Decentralization favored the opposition government (PAN) which sought to gain a hold on the federal system’s resources, and generally use decentralization to shift the balance of power from its federal political opponent (PRI) to its own party interests at state level, thereby effecting an important power gain for itself, the opposition party. Yet this in turn provoked a strong reaction in the federal section of the teachers’ union. Drawing on its direct connection with the federal level of the union, and the latter’s successful defense of the national integrity of the union, the threatened federal teachers of Jalisco fought back against loss of power by calling upon the national union leadership to stymie any coup in favor of the state level union section. In this endeavor, anti-neo-liberal propaganda against the Salinas and Zedillo governments was employed to great effect in rallying not just state section teachers but teachers in general against decentralization, pointing out how the reforms were threatening the unity of the union, and Mexican education, in favor of internationally imposed reforms. In this mobilization against decentralization, even national leaders were accused of having sold out in signing the ANMEB. These conflicts were to influence the more day-to-day aspects of educational reform discussed below. The capacity to innovate mentioned above, was not greatly in evidence in Jalisco. Nonetheless the state government at the end of the 1990s did instigate important research and information systems and promoted international cooperation. However, these developments were restricted in part due to the political conflicts mentioned above that tied up resources. If at national level, corporate agreements were the means to initiate the reform, at state level, corporate divisions combined with party politics, in the Jaliscan case, fettered its progress, delaying indefinitely the merger of the state and federal systems and the homogenization of teacher salaries. Here, at national level, corporate tradition encases the forces of change that occur only in cases where educational secretaries operate in a consensual atmosphere supported by new inputs to the system, national, international and local. If at state level the dimension of conflict between top and subordinate actors (along with horizontal power struggles) affects political-educational outcomes, at school level, top-bottom tensions are much more far-reaching and directly affect progress toward EFA goals.
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School District Level10 The acid test of any major basic education reform is what happens in the school, something underlined throughout the EFA documents and by the Mexican government too (see footnote 3, above). Though not explicitly related to EFA targets, the past two government administrations created flagship programs for basic educational improvement, four of which are directed at one or more of the EFA goals: the teacher professionalization program to improve educational quality through upgrading teacher performance via training and pay incentives (Carrera Magisterial, CM); the compensatory educational programs for marginalized populations; the early childhood reform and the Quality Schools program, PEC.11 The compensatory programs consist of programs directed in part toward adapting learning to the social and cultural conditions of poor and marginalized students. The most important are the PARE(IEB) programs geared to improve basic literacy and numeracy. The external evaluations of these programs suggest that their impact has been positive but disappointing in relation to the large mainly World Bank and IAB funds spent on them. They have suffered from weak administrative and institutional arrangements as well as inadequate teacher preparation. More successful have been the CONAFE programs where new methodologies for learning have been developed in a way that has encouraged innovation at grassroot levels. I have discussed these programs in another paper and so will move on to the other programs (Martin & Solorzano, 2003, pp. 22–25). Based on sound research indicating the benefits especially for poor children of early childhood care and education (ECCE), its reform in Mexico in the past 5 years, has been overdue but welcomed by educational stakeholders and the public in general (Observatorio Ciudadano de Educacio´n (OCE), 2005, pp. 8–10). The rise in coverage mentioned above (p. 317) has been a considerable achievement. However, strong criticisms have been launched at the government’s heavy handed way of achieving this, through legislation, making ECCE compulsory, when until recently there were not even the resources or personnel to make this possible (ibid.). Not surprisingly in such circumstances, quality is uneven (Reimers, 2006, p. 117), with the most marginalized, smallest communities still without provision or provision that is inadequate. The gap between policy and reality, already touched on, and evident in the ECCE reform, is a recurring theme in the other programs. This has been clear in the recent evaluation of the signature programs of the current government. The published findings point out a huge disparity between
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spending on e-learning equipment, Enciclomedia (20,475 pesos per student) in contrast with ordinary reading materials (19.2 pesos). Spending per student on teacher training is so insufficient that the evaluators insisted, in the public presentation of the findings that it is the investment in teachers that is what is lacking and explains the shortcomings in educational achievement that blight educational advance in Mexico (Del Valle, Reforma 7/11/2006, p. 11). Given this conclusion, and the importance given in reaching the EFA targets by the EFA guidelines, I will now focus on teachers as the key to educational improvement at school level. I will deal with training, broader issues of professionalization, pay and other working conditions. Lack of investment in teachers and teaching is a recurrent theme in teachers own dissatisfaction with their work, as will be seen below. It is likely then that both the lack of investment in training, technical support and other working conditions explains both a lack of teacher’s capacity/ performance and disillusionment with the profession – both of which translate into disappointing progress in raising quality and resulting low student attainments. Teacher training has long suffered from a rigid, prescriptive focus in teacher pre-service and in-service training that probably dates from the post revolutionary, nation-building times when teachers were the ‘‘cultural missionaries’’ of the new secular state. There have been important reforms over the past decade that have shifted toward the much needed focus on active learning in teacher colleges and in-service training (INSET). While good on paper, these have remained disassociated from real teaching reality (see Tatto & Ve´lez, 1999) due in large part to lack of accompanied teacher practice and follow up in schools – something needed to root the new approaches in conditions that often militate against innovation and flexibility in learning. Teacher training is nested in the broader program of teacher professionalization, the previously mentioned carrera magisterial (CM). By examining the operational difficulties of this program among teachers, it will be easier to understand how their contribution to educational improvement, the most important of its agents, has been so limited. The CM is a package of training and performance-related pay compensations to supplement salaries and therefore reward teachers for professionalizing themselves, thereby raising scholastic achievement. Performance is measured according to a variety of classroom and extra-curricula criteria, by superiors, peers and via student attainment. The motivation behind the CM is the evident need to raise teaching quality but this has been made especially difficult in the context of a large and powerful union, the SNTE, the largest union in Latin America (see especially Latapı´ , 2004, pp. 37–39). A few words on the teachers’
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context are necessary here. Mexican teacher salaries, as in the rest of Latin America, are not high. Nonetheless, they have improved, and teachers recognize this. The percentage (22%) feeling satisfied with their salaries rose from 11% between 1997 and the turn of the century (Campos Esquerra, 1999b, pp. 24–25). Where, as in the case of Tizapa´n, teachers are able to work double shifts, and thereby earn twice the normal pay, then teachers have made significant gains. It would seem that all the incentives were in place for a true collaborative advance in teaching/learning. That this has not happened, the fundamental issue of this article, needs explanation. The simple reply would be that pay improvements have exceeded their effectiveness in increasing teacher productivity. This type of argument is used by the World Bank to calculate the most cost effective ways to bring about scholastic improvement (LopezAcevedo, 2004). There are three problems with this type of explanation: the first is that since payment is supposed to be linked to results, lazy teachers will not get salary increases. The second is that though teachers have gained higher salaries they have done so at the cost of closer vigilance and inadequate training for a more demanding curriculum and extra-curricula demands. Third, evidence from the field also shows that teachers do indeed work hard and long hours and indeed join the CM and other courses in their free time. In Tizapa´n, 95% of teachers work double shifts. (Whether this is a good thing or not is beside the point here.) As a consequence teachers express profound dissatisfaction with their professional conditions. Although part of this continues to be about pay, a large area of dissatisfaction is about conditions in general. Putting together these facts, either CM is not working properly, or that other factors intervene to undermine it. Actually both are the case. Material compensations are indeed the main incentive for any worker, but incentives theory takes into account just what is earned not how it is earned. This seemingly hairsplitting anthropological point is crucial for understanding teachers’ whole approach to work. An important component of the remuneration of a teacher consists of benefits, salary advances, scholarships, loans, transfers and other items contributing to the teacher’s well being. To obtain these benefits is not only time consuming, but depends on the discretion of the union authorities. A wide margin for negotiation permits the union the chance to trade favors for loyalty and other expressions of gratitude. Take the double shift for example. Once a means of rationalizing the reach of primary schooling to more children in times of rapid educational expansion, and then in the 1980s, a way for teachers to supplement low salaries, this has become a perverse habit. Since it is the union that provides
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access to double shifts, a teacher, who gains one, becomes indebted to the persons who provided it. Since it helps teachers to earn more, they clearly do not wish to forgo it. In short, the teacher colludes in this practice that undermines good teaching since it stretches the teacher’s working day, leaving no time to study and prepare classes. The SEP permits double shifts. All in the system are implicated. This trafficking of goods and services embedded in personalist relations has long been a customary practice at school district level (Sandoval, 1986; Martin, 1990), involving the SEP, the union and even municipal authorities. It is known but it is rarely discussed in relation to local level educational practice. In the field area of Tizapa´n, the effect of the reform has not been to eliminate these practices, but to broaden their scope. This is especially evident in the CM. The CM is designed to be a merit-based open mechanism for teacher promotion and pay enhancements. Teachers are evaluated according to courses taken, performance and student scholastic progress. The CM is intended to incentivate teachers to professionalize themselves, make them more accountable and thereby improve the efficiency of the educational services. Here surely we have a triumph of reform over the corporatist closed shop and a check on non-merit-based promotion. Yet the actual operation of the program exposes the inverse of this design. It also helps explain the apparent contradiction between the gains of the teachers under the reforms and their expressions of discontent. In its first years of operation, the teachers saw the CM as a barrier to promotion (‘‘la barrera magisterial’’) since, due to limited services, only a small percentage of teachers eligible to apply could find places in it. Subsequently, the majority have entered, over 80% in Tizapa´n. Not all manage to complete all the steps necessary to achieve promotion or with sufficient points. Yet many do get promoted even without having completed, because a senior figure has interceded on their behalf, in return for loyalty or reciprocal favors. Equally, judgments of performance, also needed for promotion, are often made behind closed doors rather than in the approved committees in an open fashion, as is stipulated. The criterion of student achievement would appear to be more difficult to manipulate. Not so. There are recorded cases of teachers requesting the test from the official evaluator in advance, in order to rehearse the students. All these practices were common and documented (Martin, 1990) long before the CM. The point here is that the CM was supposed to attack these practices replacing personalism with merit. Yet it is nested in, and absorbed by personalism that in Tizapa´n is widespread. So, far from reforming teaching, the CM, as practiced here, confirms its traditional malpractices.
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It is easy to blame teachers for engaging in such corruption, and Latapı´ (2004) would see such cases as a perfect example of his view of the union holding the educational system to ransom. Maybe, but in all of the above, each of the main actors at all levels play a part: the top public servants for endorsing the complicity between the union and the SEP rather than separating these functions – crucial for advancing transparency, the state authorities for sending ill-prepared officials to administer the program, the union, of course for perpetuating sharp practice, and protecting abuse, while canting its commitment to real change. And of course the teachers themselves. As they often say in Tizapa´n: ‘‘We are all in the same boat’’. The upshot is that the teacher professionalization upon which hopes for teaching and learning improvement have been pinned have been undermined by insufficient attention to local school reality. More programs do not seem to have resolved the problem. The way to renew local school practice is by returning the responsibility to the school and its actors: the teachers, students and parents. This in turn needs a change of policy perspective from education for all to education with and by all.
RETURNING THE GAZE TO THE SCHOOL The focus of teachers’ professional dissatisfaction at present is not only salary but the job, and the obstacles faced in carrying it out with limited resources and in institutionally incoherent conditions. In the end the job is all about the scholastic achievement of the pupils and the satisfaction of the parents. To encourage greater parent–community participation in education, a long-standing deficiency, the reform established school boards and schools capacity to develop their own projects. The latter can compete for funds under the ‘‘quality schools’’ (PEC) fund established in the Fox government – the other signature program referred to above. It would be difficult to describe this as a move toward ‘‘education for all’’ since by definition the program selects schools deemed worthy of extra support (OCE, 2005, p. 26). So far these measures have had little effect in stimulating local school development (see comment on the above-mentioned evaluation in La Jornada 7/11/2006).12 With or without the PEC, parents remain only marginally involved in school processes and in spite of the problems affecting school and of unsatisfactory results in scholastic performance, parental approval of teachers is reported as high. Around 80% of parents consider teachers as a whole do a good job and that their own teachers also do (Campos Esquerra,
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1999a, p. 43; Cacheux & Christopher, 2002, p. 21). Nonetheless, if the general state of the relationship is not in doubt, ethnographic studies at school level show that day-to-day tensions between teachers and parents are never far from the surface. Apart from moral indiscretions, the most persistent self-criticism is of teacher absenteeism, which is also criticized by the teacher’s colleagues (Campos Esquerra, 1998, p. 24). The teachers themselves are self critical, coinciding exactly with parents respecting absenteeism and other forms of irresponsibility and pedagogical shortcoming (ibid.). These preoccupations combine with confusion and irritation about the injustices in the way the reform is being implemented (especially, as seen about the CM), but perhaps the most striking feature is their subjection to the union. A survey of teachers published in 2000 showed that teachers were more favorable toward the SEP authorities’ management of education than with their own union. More striking still, in a recent study of teachers in Mexico City (Fomento, 2005), this cocktail of frustration with service/working conditions and self criticism for their own inadequacies has led to a deep disaffection with being teachers. The same overall view is evident from the field research in Tizapa´n drawn upon throughout this section. Apart from agreement about teacher irresponsibility being the least acceptable teacher shortcoming, parental and teacher views coincide in seeing lack of physical investment in schools as the major obstacle to improve education. Whether this is the case or not is not an issue here. The point is that the major educational stakeholders coincide in thinking it so. The point I wish to underline in all the above, is that at the present time, among educational stakeholders (policy-makers, officials, teachers and parents), there is general concern about the poor quality of education and expectations that the reform will make things better. Yet the persistence of centralism in spite of decentralization, of corporatism in spite of ‘‘reform’’, of poor infrastructure in spite of selective programs like PEC, at school level have engendered a strong sense of frustration particularly among the ‘‘street level’’ professionals, the teachers, which is less and less about salary and more about the work of educating. There has been remarkably little scholarly attention given to a kind of teacher dissidence distinct from the more traditional militancy against the authorities, typically over pay or power in the educational arena. The kind of dissidence I refer to is relatively unconnected to national union mobilization, but very connected to local matters, particularly empathy with the poverty of parents and pupils and poor quality public services for the poor. This combination of factors together with the underlying teacher–parent
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trust, has led to a phenomenon in which independent groups of teachers from all over the country have formed themselves into associations geared toward self-professionalization, project development linking school and community, innovative and pedagogical practices and in some cases engaging in organized critique of union policy and practice. The phrase characterizing this renewal of their original vocation (recalling the pioneer teacher missions to the countryside following the Mexican 1910–1920 revolution) is ‘‘return ones gaze to the classroom’’ (Editorial, 2000). This renewed identity as street level professionals with parents, pupils and community has led these associations into alliances with others seeking restitution and identities, particularly indigenous people and the rural poor, rekindling their cultural identities. Indeed some teacher associations were born of their alliances with religious and secular pro-poor social movements like the base communities in Chiapas in the 1970s and 1980s were born of such alliances (also the ‘‘base Communities’’ in urban and rural Jalisco, in Guzma´n & Martin, 1997).13 It is difficult to judge the significance and future of these movements, though some of them have achieved regional presence and count on teachers in their thousands. Some have won international recognition for their educational innovational achievements. Many are beginning to feed into policy-making inspired by international and national disenchantment with top down reform and recognition of the importance of bottom up reform based on systematizing best practice and innovations. Here there may be lessons for the EFA reforms.
CONCLUSION EFA goals are one part of a wide panorama of influences on an educational reform era from the early 1990s in Mexico. At policy level, recommendations of greater openness and efficiency in the interest of improving coverage, quality and equality coincided with those of other international agencies, especially the World Bank, as well as with national concerns about the need for broad social reform. At federal level, steps toward transparency were undertaken beginning with the bold ANMEB. But this was blighted by anti-democratic, personalistic decision-making at the outset and the refusal of the teachers’ official representatives to reform the union. This in turn stymied the substantive actions to prepare teachers adequately for educational reform. The same lack of preparation and concern about pedagogical matters was evident in the comprehensive administrative decentralization,
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whose success in clarifying and making more accountable educational procedures have depended on widely divergent local political scenarios. Nonetheless significant advances in the EFA targets have been registered over the decade and a half following the policy reform, though these cannot be clearly attributed to those reforms. I refer to the near arrival at UPE, gender balance and the extension of basic education to ECCE. Yet in almost all cases there is a flip side to the advances, most of which are traceable to policy failures – not in the admirable policy targets (transparency, decentralization, compensation, etc.) but in the style of policy-making. Reality is seen as emanating from intention (rather than the reverse) and from the intentions of those who often have little contact with grassroot school reality. Thus the policy target of ECCE is undermined by legal compulsion; PEC is undermined by policy contradiction (between policy ends – improved public schooling and selective means, contrary to EFA). The CM attempts to get teachers to teach better by using incentives, but without the training instruments to convert these into action and results. The problem here is more than just a top-down bottom-up contradiction; it is a failure to recognize change produced not by decree but by detonating it through the synergy of various partners. We need to change vertical with horizontal interactions, as international agencies like the CERI of OECD and PREAL as well as UNESCO itself recommend in documents cited earlier. In the last section, it was shown that local level actors do know how to generate school level proposals involving various stakeholders. Here reality is ahead of official intention – awaiting its acknowledgement of the need for collective policy-making, in other words the transition from education for all to education with all.
NOTES 1. Although the EFA guidelines do indeed emphasize social participation, this is not a goal as such but an object of sound policy rather than part of it (see, e.g., the small sub section in the Policy Chapter of the 2005 Global Monitoring Report Summary on Quality, Summary, p. 29). 2. Indeed, her whole methodology, its mirroring of the policy cycle: design, policy approval, implementation and evaluation, restricts her study’s ability to escape the process that she analyses. 3. I am not in a position to argue that teacher responses to the reform account for poor scholastic results, but surely school level conditions must figure in any explanation and are even the acid test of any reform. This is especially the case when the reform itself makes so much of decentralization and school level change (Secretary of Education, Zedillo in Radio interview, 18th May, 1992, Radio Monitor; then 14
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years later, Gomez Morı´ n, 10 March 2006, SEP http://www.sep.gob.mx/wb2/sep/ sep_Bol720306), where the weight of UNESCO – EFA and PREAL opinion emphasizes this school-level change and where the huge gap between the system and the reality is so great – as it is in Mexico. 4. The Information Law seen in the educational sphere http://www.funcionpublica. gob.mx/pt/ 5. http://www.sep.gob.mx/wb2/sep/sep_4232_programa_operativo_p 6. http://www.campus-oei.org/quipu/mexico/index.html 7. This was made clear to me in interviews in the Secretariat of Public Education in Jalisco in mid 1999; see also Ruiz Cervantes, in Pardo (1999), p. 512. 8. In 1992, 700 thousand employees, 13 millions of students and 100 thousand educational premises, Latapı´ , 2000, op. cit. p. 25) were transferred to the states). 9. My data in this section comes from my own interviews with the two of the most recent secretaries of education, in October 2000 and December 2005 as well as interviews with public school teachers in Bases Educativos, the main independent teachers association in Western Mexico. 10. I am indebted to Martı´ n Ortiz, a primary school teacher who heads up the chief independent public school teachers association in Western Mexico, Bases Educativos, for the data here. It is based on many years of research. I draw on the past 3 years of his interviews in Tizapa´n, Jalisco and surroundings for his forthcoming doctoral thesis. 11. The Fox government has implemented two other important programs indirectly related to EFA goals: (1) the National School Reading Program. By its very nature, its impact on learning cannot be seen as direct, though it is a major indirect contributor to raising school quality. The other signature program of the 2000–2006 government has been the school internet resource, Enciclomedia. 12. Definitive evaluations of PEC have been difficult to find in large part because the baselines were not established from the beginning (Reimers, 2006, p. 463). However there have been some studies at more local levels. In one study completed in Yucata´n the alarming conclusion was reached that the PEC schools have performed worse than non-PEC ones (Valde´z, A´ngel, Rodriguz, & Adelaida, 2006). 13. Apart from radical, grassroot religious movements, more conservative Catholics have been active in defending the freedom of parents to have their children educated in their faith. This is denied within the constitutional framework following the separation of church and state which all public education is secular. The Union of Parents (UNPF) has been especially engaged in this regard and in campaigning against sex education in schools. Paradoxically, they also support a more scientifically advanced curriculum that reflects the needs of the modern world. A comprehensive history of the role of parental activism at all levels can be found in Garcı´ a and Marı´ a (2002).
REFERENCES Arnove, R. F. (2005). To what ends: Educational reform around the world. Journal of Global Legal Studies, 12(1), 79–95. Cacheux, J., & Christopher, B. (2002). Los Mexicanos Juzgan la Educacio´n. Educacilo´n 2001, May, 19–23.
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Campos Esquerra, R. (1998). La Socieda Juzga a los Maestros, in Educacio´n 2001 (pp. 27–33), Mexico City, May 1998. Campos Esquerra, R. (1999a). Los Padres de Familia Evalu´an a los Maestros de sus Hijos. Educacilo´n 2001, February, 42–45. Campos Esquerra, R. (1999b). Los Maestros se Juzgan a sı´ mismos. Educacilo´n 2001, May, 23–26. Cordoba, J. (2004). Wall Street Journal, 30 july, http://www.lacrisis.com.mx/cgi-bin/cris-gi/ DisComuni.cgi?colum04%7C20030507192642 Editorial. (2000). Cero en Conducta, 48(April), 1–3. EFA Global Monitoring Report. (2005). Education for all, the quality imperative. Fomento. (2005). Unpublished report to the Ford Foundation, Mexico City, May 2005. Gobierno de la Repu´blica Mexicana. (2005). Los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio en Me´xico: Informe de avance 2005. Go´mez-Palacio, M. (2003). Entrevista on Margarita Go´mez-Palacio Mun˜oz, Dialogos, www.iacd.oas.org/la%20educa%20115/dial.html (consulted 20/04/2006). Guzma´n, E., & Martin, C. (1997). ‘Back to basic Mexican style: Radical catholicism and survival in the margins. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 16(3), 351–366, Elsevier Science Ltd., Great Britain. Grindle, M. S. (2004). Despite the odds. The contentious politics of education reform. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hanson, M. (1997). ‘La descentralizacio´n educacional: Problemas y desafı´ os, PREAl, Nun. 9, in Programa de Promocio´n de la Reforma Educativa en Ame´rica Latina y el Caribe, Santiago de Chile. Instituto Nacional para la Evaluacio´n de la Educacio´n. (2005). Panorama Educativo de Me´xico, Indicadores del Sistema Educativo Nacional. Latapı´ Sarre, P. (2004). La SEP por Dentro. Las Polı´ticas de la Secretarı´a de Educacio´n Pu´blica comentadas por cuatro de sus secretaries (1992–2004). Me´xico: Fondo de Cultura Econo´mica. Lopez-Acevedo, G. (2004). ‘‘Teachers’ salaries and professional profile in Mexico’’ (september 2004). World bank policy research working paper No. 3394. http://ssrn.com/ abstract=625271 consulted 20/04/2006 Martin, C. J. (1990). ‘‘The dynamics of school relations on the urban periphery of guadalajara, Western Mexico’’, en European Review of Latin America and Caribbean Studies (1992), summer. Martin, C. J. (1994). Schooling in Mexico: Staying in or dropping out. UK: Averbury. Martin, C. J., & Solorzano, C. (2003). Mass education, privatization, compensation and diversification: Issues on the future of public education in Mexico. Compare, 33(1), 15–30. Martı´ nez Rizo, F. (2002). Nueva visita al paı´ s de la desigualdad. La distribucio´n de la escolaridad en Me´xico, 1970–2000. Revista Mexican de Investigacio´n Educativa, 7(6), 415–443 (2003), Education at a Glance. OECD Indicators. Observatorio Ciudadano de Educacio´n (OCE). (2005). Plataforma Educativa 2006, V. Educacio´n Ba´sica, Me´xico Ornelas, C. (2000). The politics of the Educational Decentralization in Mexico. Journal of Educational Administration, 38, 426–441. Pardo, M. (1999). Federalizacio´n e innovacio´n educative en Me´xico. Me´xico: El Colegio de me´xico. Prawda, J., & Gustavo, F. (2001). Me´xico Educativo Revisitado. Me´xico DF: Oce´ano.
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Reimers, F. (2006). Apreder ma´s y mejor: Polı´ticas, programas y oportunidades de aprendizaje en educacio´n ba´sica. Me´xico: Fondo de Cultura Econo´mica. Rigby, J. (2005). Policy, theory and pragmatism: Implementing the UK’s Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme. Policy and Politics, 33(2), 277–296. Sandoval, E. (1986). ‘‘Los maestros y su sindicato: relaciones y procesos cotidianos’’, en Cuadernos de Investigacio´n Educativa, Nu´m. 18, DIE-Cinvestav, Me´xico. Secretarı´ a de Educacio´n Pu´blica. (2004). Programa de Escuelas de Calidad, http:// basica.sep.gob.mx/DGDGIE/escuelasdecalidad/pub/ques/index.html Tatto, M. T., & Ve´lez, E. (1999). Iniciativas para el cambio en la formacio´n de maestros: el caso de Me´xico. In: M. T., Tatto (2004), La educacio´n magisterial. Su alcance en la era de la globalizacio´n. Santillana, Me´xico: Aula XXI, pp. 87–138. Umayahara, M. (2005). ‘‘Regional overview of progress toward EFA since Dakar: Latin America’’, executive office, education sector UNESCO Mimeo, April 1, 2005. UNESCO. (2004). ‘Education for all, summary, global monitoring report 2005. Valde´z, C., A´ngel, A., Rodriguz, C., & Adelaida, G. (2006). ‘‘Estudio comparative de los conocimientos de los alumnus de sexton grado de primaria que estudian en las Escuelas de Claidad. Revista Iberoamericana de Educacio´n, Fall 2006 (Forthcoming). Vargas, R. E., & Patricia, M. (2003). Tratado de Libre Comercio del Ame´rica del Norte: Salinas Prometio´ un Me´xico de Primer Mundo con el Acuer5do, La Jornada, 20 January 2003, www.jornada.unam.mx/2003/01/20/014n/pol.php?origen=politica.htm
EDUCATION FOR ALL AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AT-RISK STUDENT POLICY IN CURACAO, NETHERLANDS ANTILLES Rosita C. Tormala-Nita ABSTRACT In this chapter, educational policy development addressing the learning needs of the at-risk population in Curacao is described as a direct result of the implementation of the global standards of the EFA goals. The at-risk student population is defined in this chapter as the proportion of students whose home language differs from the school language. Achievement is based on proficiency in the language of schools and a national tracking system, which has historically accommodated the learning needs of the atrisk into various school types. This chapter argues how the global promises for a quality education for all is exposing a more than 40-year-old policy of national tracking that questions the right to an academic education for the majority of the at-risk students. Goal 4 of the EFA places Curacao as an example of islands which have long surpassed the target for participation in technical and vocational programs. The chapter opens with an overview of the goals and targets that created a framework for continuous structural reform of a complacent system of education for all backed by compulsory education. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 325–336 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08011-X
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INTRODUCTION In 1976, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) concluded that most Antillean children enter the secondary school without sufficient knowledge of the Dutch language, and those who leave at the end of the primary school tend to lapse into illiteracy (UNESCO, p. 10; Martis, 1983). UNESCO has collaborated with the islands of the Netherlands Antilles for more than thirty years, helping to address the rights to a quality education for all children. In 1981, the stakeholders in Curacao reached a consensus and the landmark report entitled Education For One and All became the first policy document to reform the system of education into a quality system of education for all children and youth (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1981). This report was produced as a result of the UNESCO’s Major Project on Education for Latin America and the Caribbean of 1981. For the island of Curacao, the educational needs of children and youth marginalized through language of instruction in schools continues to be of high priority on the political agenda. This chapter defines the at-risk student population in Curacao as the proportion of students who speak only the majority language from birth and at the time they enroll in basic education, which is 80% of the population. Besides the language of instruction, there were often no other indications as to how the system of schools, specifically the island of Curacao, should adjust to meet the educational needs of the at-risk majority. In 1990, the world commitment was launched by UNESCO’s Education For All (EFA) campaign in which the six EFA goals were set to assist nations in providing quality basic education for all children and youth by the year 2000 and 2015, respectively. Also, the Drakar Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs was developed to empower nations to create their own specific plan of action. In small countries such as Curacao, the EFA goals were used specifically to target at-risk students and families. These global promises of EFA have provided the island with maps and guidelines to evaluate and reorganize education targeting all areas in need of innovations and reforms. Progress made is reported by the local officials to the EFA Global Monitoring Group. One challenge for Curacao, however, is that of the national tracking system of schools. The chapter opens with an overview of the goals and targets that created a framework for the islands of the Netherlands Antilles, specifically Curacao. The chapter also illuminates a core challenge, specifically, the national tracking system, which EFA Goal 4 seems to be challenging. The national tracking system is an adopted national policy that has served to accommodate the learning needs of at-risk students
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by placing them accordingly and mostly in the technical and vocational secondary school programs, and thereby creating a complacent system forced by compulsory education. This chapter will address how global goals of quality education are adjusting a more than 40-year-old policy of national tracking that questions the rights to academic education for all at-risk students.
THE GLOBAL STANDARDS OF EDUCATION FOR ALL UNESCO’s priorities of assisting nations in planning national educational policies and strategies for achievement are contained in EFA goals of 1991. Countries are challenged to be responsible and accountable for ensuring credibility of their respective plans in terms of internal sustainability and continuity despite political and institutional changes over time (www. unesco.org/edu/efa; see also Millennium Development Program at United Nations Development Programmes, www.undp.org). UNESCO also reminds all nations that the most important consideration in evaluating the quality of progress made would be to bear in mind that the credibility of National EFA Plans depends largely on national leadership, commitment, and sustainability; internal funding complemented by external financial support; and reliable information and monitoring system (www.unesco.org). EFA was instrumental in creating a framework for the Netherlands Antilles and in providing the maps that assisted each island to target specific goals for providing childhood education, the reforming K-8, upgrading technical and vocational secondary education and, recently, a plan readdressing the quality of the entire system of formal and informal education that has resulted from the reforms. The National Commission for UNESCO in the Netherlands Antilles was activated in 1995. In 1996, a national team articulated the concept of Foundation-Based Education for K-6, Stappen naar een beter toekomst: beleids en stappenplan voor de verniewing van het basisonderwijs in de Nederlandse Antillen; and in 2002, students enrolled in the first cycle of the K-2 reforms (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1995a, 1995b). The first reports on the EFA goals were published between 1999 and 2000 (Panneflek, 2001). EFA goals and targets aimed at understanding quality and ways to measure quality. The government made a commitment to education and asserted that for education to be used as a tool for national and
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international development, the standards of a quality system of education based on the world-class standards as suggested by EFA goals need to be met. In implementing the EFA, the six goals targeted were:
Goal 1. Expansion of early childhood care and developmental activities. Goal 2. Universal access to and completion of primary education by the year 2000 [new deadline of 2015] and ‘Improvement in learning achievement. Goal 3. Reduction of illiteracy rate, especially the disparity between male and female illiteracy rates. Goal 4. Expansion of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults. Goal 5. Increased acquisition by individuals and families of the knowledge, skills, and values required for better living, made available through all education channels. Goal 6. Improving the quality of education. The assessment report of 2000 (Panneflek, 1998, Country Report Netherlands Antilles; Panneflek, 2001) indicated that the majority of the activities and developments were in the areas of early childhood care, adult education (illiteracy), and basic education. With respect to EFA Goal 1, specific goals included policy formulation based on international agreements such as the rights of the children representing the (a) spirit and intention of UNESCO’s work and EFA document, (b) development of curriculum for day care center programs, and (c) identification of funding sources (Panneflek, 1998, Country Report Netherlands Antilles, 1998–2000). EFA Goal 2 addressed universal access and transition to primary education, which for Curacao applied to the improvement of K-5 programs overall and academic achievement in grades 6–8. Goal 2 focused on the right to primary education and basic education, which for Curacao means a 90–92% school enrollment and 90–92% literacy rate throughout most of its history (UNESCO, Education For All: Challenges, 2001). School participation has also much to do with the 1991 Ordinance of Compulsory Education by which 6–15 year olds are required to be enrolled in schools (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1999; Panneflek, 2001). This Ordinance of Compulsory Education became a reality as a result of
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localized legislation stimulated by EFA, although its implementation was scheduled in 1996 (Panneflek, 2001). The Global Monitoring Report referred also to ‘‘a gap between what is legally compulsory and what is the reality’’ (UNESCO, 2006, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, p. 44). In Curacao, every year there is the issue of not enough places in secondary education to make such enforcement feasible. Although basic education is available for all, access to schooling, language of instruction that students could understand, and level of education that students aspire, have bearing on retention. An example as reported by Panneflek (2001) is the island of St. Maarten as a result of large inflow of illegal immigrants, making it financially not feasible to implement the Ordinance of Compulsory Education, which would guaranty schooling for immigrant children. Private organizations are reported as taking the responsibility to help educate these students. The report Children Out of School: Measuring Exclusion made an argument on measurement of quality: It is clearly not enough to simply enroll children into school but to ensure that they complete primary schooling equipped with a comprehensive set of basic literacy and numeric skills. Thus, measures of out-of-school children need to be studied alongside measures of education quality and learning outcomes (UNESCO, 2005, p. 3).
This important challenge helps answer some of the questions of why despite the full compliance with universal education, dropout rates and the youth illiteracy remain a problem. In strengthening primary education, the Foundation-Based Education (1995–1998) was introduced to devote special attention to the problem of children with special needs in elementary education and take measures that will make care for children possible (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1995a, 1995b). The overriding goals were to broaden educational opportunities and integrate kindergarten into elementary schools, including provisions for the languages of instruction. The report also introduced the practices of (a) hiring assistant teachers to support classroom teachers and (b) giving special attention to the transition from elementary education to secondary education by optimizing the standardized tests and improving the admission procedures in light of modern developments. Such practices included the monitoring of the quality of elementary education by periodically administering national tests in those subjects, mathematics, verbal ability, and Dutch language for which core goals have been established (Panneflek, 1998, Country Report Netherlands Antilles, 1998–2001). EFA’s Goal 3 focused on youth and adult literacy, ages 15–24. This group includes the at-risk groups that have mostly dropped
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out of the formal system of schooling. The Department of Education reported that the government has not been able to achieve Goal 3 as yet. New targets are set for 2015 to combat functional illiteracy and add a second chance for education. EFA Goal 5 is also reported as gaining a lot of attention in clarifying the ‘life-long learning’ concept (UNESCO, 2000, EFA 2000 Assessment: Country Report). A goal of utmost important to the chapter is EFA Goal 4 ‘‘expansion of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults’’, namely in the form of basic secondary education also referred to as lower secondary education by EFA. As indicated by the Global Monitoring Report 2007, universal basic education is becoming the practice of combining primary and lower secondary education (UNESCO, 2006, EFA Global Monitoring 2007). In Curacao, the original concept of Foundation-Based Education combined the kindergarten, primary, and lower secondary; however, the possibilities of lack of funding in the future has led to a recent proposal to maintain grades 6–8 as lower secondary education. Now, the purpose is to refine lower secondary education and enhance academic skills in an effort to prepare more students to access the academic track (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 2006a). EFA Goal 4 addresses the transition to the technical and vocational education and retention based on the idea of basic education as a right for all students. The country report stated that the government will pay special attention toward creating more alternative study routes in schools for vocational education. Attention needs to be paid to the recent Global Monitoring Report that categorized the Netherlands Antilles as already having one of the highest total secondary enrollments in technical and vocational programs compared to other nations around the world (UNESCO, 2006, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, p. 44). The Global Monitoring Report could be the key in starting the process of readjusting a more than 40-year-old policy of national tracking that questions the rights to academic education for the at-risk students. The quality of the system of education is the focus of EFA Goal 6. The recent educational plan by the government proposed an increase in the compulsory age and compulsory education as vehicles for controlling the dropout rates of the at-risk majority and that of reintegrating students back into the formal system of education. Reintegration has been justified based on funding. Certainly, global monitoring of education through EFA has helped move a complacent system of education that borrowed policies from the Netherlands into a system strategically addressing the participation of at-risk students in formal and informal education in Curacao.
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THE CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL TRACKING SYSTEM The Netherlands Antilles is scheduled to change its political status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which will give the island of Curacao an autonomous status by July of 2007. Education is increasingly being promoted as the key to national and international development for the new status of the island. The purpose of schooling is often argued based on the islands’ strategic location in comparison to the surrounding nations in the Western hemisphere (i.e., South, Central, and North America; and the Caribbean), in relation to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and to the probable advantages of becoming a member of the European Community. Another suggestion is that of preparing students for the participation in International Association for Evaluation of Educational Attainment (IEA), as suggested by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report (Alexander et al., 2001, p. 48), to measure of how schools on the island compare to schools in other nations. The education of at-risk students has been increasingly on the political agendas. One aspect of Antilleanization of the Dutch system requires a compromise between the languages of schools and that of the at-risk community. Within the formal system of education, the national tracking system focuses on the academic achievement examinations in Mathematics and the Dutch language. A unique component is the dual system of technical and vocational training on one end and the academic program on the other end. The national tracking system is designed to keep everyone in school at least to the compulsory age. Schools in Curacao are controlled by differing school board systems some of which are Protestant, Roman Catholic, public, and Seventh Day Adventist. Panneflek’s study in 1986 focused on achievements of sixth graders in the differing school board systems in Curacao (Panneflek, 1986). He concluded that not only language was a factor but also that social class creates a significant determinant for academic success. Mobility into the secondary school system was implemented to place students according to their performance in grades 6–8 (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1998a, 1998b). Policy adoption is also an aspect of being part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, especially considering the success of the Netherlands among the industrialized nations of the world. Educational policy in the Netherlands Antilles is often developed in close coordination with the Netherlands. Externalization is therefore an integral part of the history of these islands. Schriewer (1990, 2000, 2002) and Steiner-Khamsi (2004) examined how borrowed policies serve to legitimize controversial changes when reforms are
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adopted. The major transfer of policy began in 1953, when the fiscal responsibility for education was transferred from the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the islands. In the process of building a replica of the Dutch system of education, a major policy adopted was the Mammoth Act of 1968, which was immediately taken into law to improve the structure of the system of education on the islands. In 1968, the categorizations of schools followed the introduction of the national tracking system, which controls career tracks and the thinking behind future reforms. An important policy benefit proclaimed with the introduction of the Mammoth Act was that of standardizing the educational credentials attained in the Netherlands Antilles to be of equivalent value to credentials attained in the Netherlands. Furthermore, although this Act stimulated great pride among Antilleans because of the way it assisted the educational system in sorting out talented Antilleans for advanced educational opportunities, it has also served to institutionalize large educational inequities within the Antillean educational system (Tormala-Nita, 2003). Ro¨mer (1981) blames these inequities on the mistaken notion that merely copying the Dutch educational structure would lead to equal educational opportunities for all Antilleans. Educational Acts such as the Mammoth Act of 1968, he argued, helped institutionalize the thinking that supports the Dutch language, the language of secondary education, as the key to gaining access to higher education. He also argued that adopting policies without a critical evaluation for a small nation has its consequences: y the various school tracks were specifically designed to meet the needs of a society with a widely defined structure of career possibilities at the end of the secondary school level. A defined structure that in a small-scale society was neither possible nor realistic. y the biggest problem was not in adopting the idea but the aspirations and expectations that such idea created which could not be fulfilled by a small society (Ro¨mer, pp. 96–97).
Ro¨mer (1981) noted that in practice, the tradition of adopting educational policy from the Netherlands continued to be costly to the Antilleans. Instead of closing the gaps between the privileged and the at-risk students, the Mammoth Act led to educational policies that contributed to a widening of this gap. Up to this day, although the government continuously improved the technical and vocational education, similar problems still persist. EFA Global Monitoring Report stated the Netherlands Antilles as having the highest level of enrolment in technical and vocational education. EFA Goal 4 has to improve not for vocational purposes of schooling but also for promoting intellectual programs based on highest standards for more at-risk students. The struggles on the islands have much to do with the islands’ history of designing schools for specific purposes, e.g., schools for domestic
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education, schools for technical education, schools for physically and mentally disabled students, schools for special education, schools for vocation, schools for the gifted, schools for Papiamentu, bilingual schools, and the Dutch schools. Each school’s purpose in the community of Curacao is very specific and transparent. Special children are educated in special schools. Vocational ability students are educated in vocational schools (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 1997). Gifted children are educated in advanced academic programs. The international review report by the OECD (Alexander et al., 2001) suggested the importance of reliable quantifiable data and systematic information for better functioning of the education system. The island knows from the ‘‘lessons learned’’ from their own practices that the quality of education for the at-risk students needs to improve. EFA goals have helped Curacao define and target the career path of the at-risk students. Now Curacao itself needs to question its national tracking system. When analyzing the progress report for the six EFA goals, specifically not meeting all the targets, by 2000, the OECD was invited by the Kingdom of the Netherlands to outline the problems and make recommendations on what the Netherlands Antilles needs to do to develop a system that is more efficient, more consensual, and more transparent in delivering high-quality schools. The Government of Curacao, on the other hand, as stated by the OECD report, needs to develop transparency in the funding system of all schools to ensure equitable treatment. Ultimately, the report calls for responsibility and accountability to be applied equally for all. This recommendation entails perhaps that the Netherlands Antilles should demand accountability of all those responsible for delivering a quality education to students, their families, and the community. According to the OECD report, this recommendation would entail assuring quality through curriculum development; getting the inspectors of education to rigidly control and improve quality; and establishing school boards to bear the responsibility for delivering high quality of education. The report also calls for the creation of a better way of monitoring and assessing students by collecting reliable systematic data and information on schools. On the matter of assuring access, the report addressed the priorities of adult learning, life-long learning, and the role of higher education to strategically help accomplish these goals. OECD also highlighted the importance of establishing learning opportunities for the immigrant children, improving teacher education, expanding financial resources, and enriching resources for the language of instruction – all as important aspects to help the system meet its goals (Alexander et al., 2001, pp. 52–56). Recently,
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the Bureau for Educational Innovations reported progress in meeting the goals of childhood education – EFA Goal 1 – and an increase in student achievement – EFA Goals 2 and 4 in examinations of the technical and vocational programs (Department of Education Netherlands Antilles, 2006b, http://www.bpo.an, September Nieuwsbrief, 2006). A current education proposal aims to increase compulsory age in order to address the issues associated with funding and the education of the at-risk outside the system of education and reforms inside the formal system of education.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS This chapter provided the framework representative of a group of small nations with a wealth of experience in adopting international models of education that could strive to become the international model of educational reform. Specifically, the EFA goals and targets have been instrumental in empowering the Netherlands Antilles to target the local understanding of quality and ways to measure quality education. The national policy of tracking, although it accommodated most at-risk students by means of the technical and vocational secondary program, neglected their rights to academic education. Because nations want to be known for their successes, this nation-wide strategy of exposing the problems creates an urgency to address the problems. It is important to note that the current models of education proposed by international organizations have replaced the models offered by the former colonizers. The rhetoric becomes one in which the attention is on the benefits of internationalizing the curriculum; thus, nations not wanting to be left behind become eager to adopt these models. But first, it is important to understand what it takes to reach a quality system of education for all. A core challenge would be the transition of more at-risk students into the academic secondary school.
REFERENCES Alexander, T., Hostens, G., & Tuijnman, A. (2001). Education policy reforms in the Netherlands Antilles, Expert Report, http://www.interped.su.se/publications/WPSI.doc, retrieved 2005. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1981). Beleidsnotacommissie. Ensen˜ansa pa un i tur – Education for one and all: een visie op het toekomstige onderwijsbeleid. Willemstad: Author.
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Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1995a). Stappen naar een beter toekomst. Beleids en stappenplan voor de verniewing van het basisonderwijs in de Nederlandse Antillen. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1995b). Foundation based education: Steps towards a better future. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1997). Beleidskader voor de Ontwikkeling van Beroepsonderwijs op de Nederlandse Antillen. Un Bon Fishi, Un Bon Futuro. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1998a). Basisvorming in het voortgezet onderwijs van de Nederlandse Antillen: Een informatieblad voor alle medewerkers in het voortgezet onderwijs van de Nederlandse Antillen. Vierde nummer. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (1998b). Basic secondary education in the Netherlands Antilles. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles. (1999). Division of consultancy, research, and planning. Country report: Netherlands Antilles: Education for all 2000. Willemstad: Author. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles. (2006a). September nieuwsbrief. Bureau Procesmanagement Onderwijsvernieuwing (BPO). Maneho di Proseso di Inovashon di Ensen˜ansa (MPIE). Number 1–6, January 2005, http://www.bpo.an, retrieved March 2006. Department of Education Netherlands Antilles (2006b). Visie op taalbeleid: Deltaplan voor een massieve aanpak gericht op het kansrijk maken van Antilliaanse jongeren. Willemstad: Author. Martis, R. F. (1983). Education in Aruba: Teacher’s perceptions of learning problems among first and second graders. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan. Panneflek, A. (1986). Academic achievement among sixth graders in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Ed.D. dissertation, Loma Linda University, California. Panneflek, A. (1998). Country report Netherlands Antilles. UNESCO, http://www.2.unesco.org/ wef/countryreports/netherlands_antilles/rapport_3.html, retrieved August 2005. Panneflek, A. (2001). Antillean education: Quo Vadis? An assessment report of the major projects in the Netherlands Antilles 1980–2000. Drukkerij ‘‘De Curacaosche Courant’’. Curacao, NV. Ro¨mer, R. A. (1981). De Ministaat: Problemen van kleinschaligheid, Een Decennium Later. De Netherlandse Antillen: University of the Nederlandse Antillen. Schriewer, J. (1990). The method of comparison and the need for externalization methodological criteria and sociological concepts. In: J. Schriewer (Ed.) in cooperation with B. Holmes, Theories and methods in comparative education (pp. 25–83). Frankfurt: Lang. Schriewer, J. (2000). World system and the interrelationship networks: The internationalization of education of education and the role of comparative inquiry. In: T. S. Pokewitz (Ed.), Educational knowledge: Changing relation between the state, civil society, and the educational community (pp. 305–343). Albany: State University of New York Press. In: Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The global politics of educational borrowing and lending (pp. 29–53). New York: Teacher College Press. Schriewer, J. (2002). Inter-societal relations and the construction of reference societies: Externalization in processes of modernization. Unpublished manuscript. In: Gita SteinerKhamsi (Ed.), The global politics of educational borrowing and lending (pp. 29–53). New York: Teacher College Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Ed.) (2004). Globalization in education: real or imagined? The global politics of educational borrowing and lending. New York: Teachers College Press.
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Tormala-Nita, R. (2003). Thinking about educational reform: The perspectives of Rector Magnificus in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Ph.D. dissertation, Marquette University, WI, USA. United Nations Development Programmes, Millennium development program, http://www.undp. org/, retrieved February 2002–2006. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2000). EFA 2000 assessment: Country report, http://www.unesco.org/efa, retrieved 2003–2006. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2001). Sharing challenges: Multiplying results, http://www.unesco.cl/medios/biblioteca/documentos/ booklet_orealc_efa_english.pdf?menu=/esp/ retrieved 2001–2006. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). http://www. unesco.org, retrieved 2001–2006. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2005). Institute for statistics. Children out of school: Measuring exclusion, http://www.unesco.org/efa, retrieved 2005. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (UNESCO). (2006). Education for all: Global monitoring report 2007, http://www.unesco.org/efa, retrieved 2006.
EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES C. C. Wolhuter ABSTRACT This paper presents a state-of-the-field review of progress toward the ideal of Education for All in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. First, the significance of Education for All in Sub-Saharan Africa is clarified. Then, the beginnings of formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa (i.e., nineteenth century missionary education) are discussed, followed by colonial education. This is followed by an overview of post-independence strategies and initiatives aimed at the expansion of education. The Outline of a Plan for African Educational Development, drafted by a meeting of Ministers of Education of African states (MINEDAF) immediately after independence, 1961, is discussed, followed by the resolutions taken at the seven MINEDAF conferences held since 1961 till the present day. The resulting strategies and initiatives aimed at bringing education to all are discussed and evaluated. The impact of structural adjustment programs signed in recent years by most governments of African countries with the World Bank is also addressed. In conclusion, the present state of education in Sub-Saharan Africa and the prospects and challenges of Education for All are summarized.
Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 337–362 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08012-1
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INTRODUCTION: EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: THE PIVOT FOR UPLIFTING A CONTINENT INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WORLD In the throes of the Afro-pessimism that held sway during the 1970s and 1980s (the per capita real gross domestic product (GDP) of Sub-Saharan Africa1 fell from 1980 to 1991 at an average of 1.5% p.a. (Europa Publications, 1996, p. 1), Africa had frequently derogatorily been dubbed as ‘‘a third world within a third world’’. Being the second largest continent surface-wise and containing 13% of the world’s population, Africa produces a meager 2% of the global GDP. Given the widespread and extreme poverty levels in Africa, there is a dire need to redress this imbalance. Empowering the population by developing their human capital through education has a proven track record to this end: a survey of cost-benefit studies covering 16 African countries calculated the following average social rates of return to investment in education: primary education, 26%; secondary education, 17%; and tertiary education, 13% (World Bank, 1988, p. 22). With the turning of the tide since the early 1990s to Afro-optimism – the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa grew at an average rate of 2.7% p.a. from 1990 to 2003 (World Bank, 2004, p. 261) – and talk of an African Renaissance in the new century, the time appears to be ripe for such an exercise of empowering the population through education. This paper surveys the development, present state and prospects of providing education for all to Sub-Saharan Africa.
MISSIONARY EDUCATION: BEGINNINGS OF FORMAL EDUCATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA It could be accepted that the basis of formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa was laid by nineteenth century missionaries from Europe. From the beginning of missionary activities, education assumed a central role in the spreading of the Christian religion: it was not enough that missionaries tell the inhabitants of Africa about the Christian religion, but the congregation had to literally see and read the Bible as well. The school was a characteristic part of the typical station. Most missionary schools offered only elementary education – converts were only taught the rudiments of literacy (so that they could read the Bible) and the doctrine of the church. Advanced levels of education did not exist.
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The academic nature of missionary schools was strengthened by the fact that these schools were modeled on the template of the schools in the countries of origin of the missionaries. In those countries, at that time, technical and vocational schools did not exist. Missionary schools, therefore, too had an abstract, book-orientated curriculum, which did not prepare the indigenous population for their own society and world. Missionaries saw in education an instrument to dismantle the indigenous cultures of Africa and replace them with Western culture and religion (cf. Fafunwa & Aisiku, 1982, p. 21). In the course of time missionaries did, however, incorporated agricultural education and handcrafts in the curriculum. One major motivation for this was to train people to build and maintain missionary stations. A very tiny fraction of the population of Africa attended missionary school. A further characteristic of missionary schools was a lack of co-ordination. Every missionary station concentrated on its own local missionary field without paying attention to outside developments (Fafunwa & Aisiku, 1982, p. 21). Missionary schools were hampered by limited budgets and personnel and unhealthy physical working conditions (Cowan, O’Connell, & Scanlon, 1965, p. 4).
COLONIAL EDUCATION As the colonial era progressed, colonial governments became increasingly involved in education too. Their involvement ranged from the subsidizing of missionary schools to the creation of schools in their own right. Colonial education, however, remained a slightly adapted secular version of missionary education. The indigenous populations were educated outside the context of their cultures and environments. Schools were used to serve colonial interests: the quantity and quality of education that colonial administrations were prepared to supply were just enough to train staff for auxiliary and subsidiary positions such as clerks, interpreters, and preachers (Fafunwa, & Aisiku, 1982, p. 22). Whereas for colonial administrators education was an instrument of social control, the indigenous people saw it as a means of self-advancement (Ruddell, 1982, pp. 293–302). According to Samoff (1987, p. 334), the rapid expansion of schooling was commonly viewed by the leaders of the newly independent states as a central element in the legitimating of the new states. Political leaders in Africa saw education first as an important means to forge national unity (cf. Cowan, et al., 1965) (most of the new African states were very recent political entities with borders arbitrarily drawn in the nineteenth
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century to suit the interests of the colonial powers) and second, in the time of Schultz’s human capital theory (cf. Sobel, 1982) and McClelland and Inkeles’s modernization theory (cf. Fa¨gerlind & Saha, 1984, pp. 49, 93), as the most important instrument to the economic growth and transformation of the underdeveloped African continent. On the eve of Africa’s independence in 1960, with an adult literacy rate of 9% and primary, secondary, and tertiary enrollment ratios of, respectively, 44%, 5%, and 1%, the time was ripe for an education revolution on the continent, and education became a central policy issue in all the newly independent African states.
INDEPENDENCE (1961) ADDIS ABABA’S STRATEGY: CHARTING A COURSE FOR AFRICA’S EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Most African countries attained independence around 1960. The Ministers of Education of the then 36 independent African countries met in Addis Ababa from 15 to 25 May 1961 to establish an inventory of educational needs and a program to meet those needs in coming years. The ensuing plan titled Outline of a Plan for Educational Development in Africa became universally known as the Addis Ababa Plan (UNESCO, 1961). In the plan, a belief in the economic returns from investment in education is once again stated. Chapter 2 deals with Economics and Education, while other prominent themes include the quantitative expansion of educational opportunities, a call for relevance in education, and the need to expand teacher training. At the conference it was stated that Africa needs education for all and not just for a selected few (as far as could be established, this was the first time in history that the phrase Education for All was used). As far as quantitative expansion is concerned, the conference set enrollment targets for Africa for 1980, of 23% universal primary schooling and 2% secondary and tertiary education (UNESCO, 1961, p. 19), while it was resolved that adult literacy campaigns had to be launched too. Making education relevant to the needs and situation in Africa meant first that curricula and textbooks had to be reformed so as to take account of the African environment and cultural heritage and second that education should be re-directed so as to make it more responsive to the needs of the economy. In this regard, a shift to technical, agricultural, and vocational education (from academic education) had to take place.
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On the subject of teacher training, it was pointed out that as much as half the teachers in Africa were unqualified; therefore, the expansion of teacher training capacity had to be of high priority.
FROM ADDIS ABABA TO DURBAN 1998 TO DAR ES SALAAM 2002: HALLMARKS OF DECISION ON AFRICA’S EDUCATIONAL JOURNEY SINCE INDEPENDENCE The Addis Ababa conference was a first in a series of eight Ministers of Education of African States (MINEDAF) conferences: MINEDAF II: Abidjan, 17–24 March 1964; MINEDAF III: Nairobi, 16–27 July 1968; MINEDAF IV: Lagos, 27–4 February 1976; MINEDAF V: Harare, 28 June–3 July 1982; MINEDAF VI: Dakar, 2–6 July 1981; MINEDAF VII: Durban, 20–24 April 1998; and MINEDAF VIII: Dar Es Salaam, 2–6 December 2002. A MINEDAF IX is planned for 2007. The main themes of the Addis Ababa conference (expansion of educational opportunities, eradication of adult literacy, Africanization of curricula, linking education with development, and increasing teacher training capacity) recurred at all these subsequent conferences. A few years later, at Nairobi (Anon, 1969), it was argued that Africanization of education also entails the replacement of the ex-colonial language as the medium of instruction with indigenous languages. This call was repeated at subsequent conferences. At Lagos objections were leveled against examination systems (cf. UNESCO, 1977, pp. 22–24), which were criticized for testing whether an individual was suited for the next education level, rather than testing the ability of the individual to use his or her qualities in the service of the community to which he/she belongs. Since Dakar, the decline in educational quality, in the wake of the economic deterioration that set in throughout Africa since the early 1980s and the cuts in governmental spending since the late 1980s (which will be dealt later in this paper), has been a cause for concern (cf. UNESCO, 1991/1, pp. 17, 19, 29). With the dwindling of available funds for education calls for community participation in the supply of schools were made at Dakar (cf. UNESCO, 1991/2, p. 33), Durban (cf. UNESCO, 1998, p. 4), and Dar Es Salaam (cf. UNESCO, 2002). Following the worldwide rise of the concept of lifelong learning and, in particular, the Hamburg Declaration and the Agenda for the Future adopted
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by the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education held in Hamburg in 1997, lifelong education was placed on the table in Durban and Dar Es Salaam.
CONSEQUENTIAL INITIATIVES Quantitative Expansion Spurred by their belief in the power of education to accomplish economic growth and development and forge national unity, the governments of the newly independent African states, pursuing the targets set at the Addis Ababa conference, launched massive education expansion programs in the years after 1961 to the point where education, as the biggest single item on national budgets, as a rule claimed a quarter of governmental expenditure. In one exceptional case, 45.8% of the 1988 public budget of Coˆte D’Ivoire was allocated to education. Table 1 shows the consequential post-independence enrollment explosion in Africa till 1980. Unconventional Modes of Expanding School Attendance Multi-shift schooling was introduced in high population density areas as a way of obviating the problems of a shortage of school buildings and an under-supply of qualified teachers. Double-shift schooling was established in inter alia (i.a.) Burundi, Egypt, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, while Zambia and Mozambique even instituted triple-shift schools. At the other end of the spectrum multi-grade schools – where one teacher teaches several grades in one classroom – was introduced to improve school access in the low population density areas of the Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Togo, and Mauritania). In an attempt to provide education to nomad communities, Somalia tried a short-lived exercise of mobile teaching units in the Table 1.
Post-independent Enrolment Growth in Africa ( 000).
Level
Primary Secondary
Year 1960
1970
1980
19,312 1,885
33,372 5,353
61,284 13,738
Sources: Coombs (1985, p. 74); UNESCO (1997/2, p. 2–9).
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early 1960s. The Undugu project in Kenya (a non-governmental organization established in 1973), in turn, targeted destitute street children in urban areas; it provided them with the Undugu Basic Education Program, consisting of informal education with an emphasis on practical and literacy skills in Swahili and English, thus preparing them for self-employment. After completion, more capable children were channeled into primary schools. Alphabetization of the Adult Population Virtually every country in Africa has made some attempt at reducing the high adult illiteracy levels with which they were burdened at independence. Six of the eleven countries that participated in UNESCO’s Experimental World Literacy Project (1968–1974) were from Africa. The most prolific author on literacy initiatives in Africa, Bhola (1990, p. 100), distinguishes between three literacy approaches, of which the project approach is the most conservative and gradual. Literacy projects are of small scale – an example is the integrated literacy project in Mali since the 1960s (cf. Turrittin, 1989). The program approach is nationwide but under bureaucratic control. An example of an adult literacy program is the Botswana National Literacy Program launched by the Ministry of Non-Formal Education in 1980. The third type is the campaign approach, which is of big scale and involves high political fervor and popular mobilization. Examples are the Somali urban literacy campaign (1973) and the Somali rural literacy campaign (1974). The most comprehensive adult literacy campaign in Africa was that of Tanzania in the 1970s (cf. Nyerene, 1985, pp. 45–52). According to Arnove (1982, p. 433) in the history of literacy campaigns in the world, three stand out as the most remarkable: Cuba in 1961, Nicaragua in 1980, and Tanzania in the 1970s. Distance Education Hampered by a shortage of teachers and school buildings in their pursuit of lofty expansion targets, many post-independence African governments have turned to distance education projects to increase education opportunities. Since the 1980s the financial constraints have given an additional impetus and a lease of life to distance education. Since the first education institution, the Centre d0 Enseignement Supe`rieur opened in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1962, a multitude of distance education projects had been established – by the early 1990s already 18 African countries (UNESCO, 1997/1, pp. 2–46) and commonwealth Africa alone had 25–35 distance training institutions
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(Murphy & Zhin, 1992, p. 9). In-school distance education projects use interactive radio to enhance curricula (such as the PALOP project – a joint project of the five Lusophone African countries (cf. UNESCO, 1977/1, p. 135) and broaden (add subjects to) curricula (such as in Mauritius). Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe use a system combining correspondence, radio, and supervision in study centers. Out-of-school distance education is used by countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya (cf. Murphy & Zhin, 1992).
Africanization of Curricula One of the major education trends of African nations in the post-independence era has been the changes in the curriculum from content that reflected the world views and goals of colonial powers to knowledge and attitudes that build nationalism, African identity, and an appreciation of African history, cultures, and environment (Merryfield & Tlou, 1995, p. 260). Three major, continentwide initiatives in the 1960s were the establishment of the African Mathematics Program (started 1963), the African Primary Science Program (started 1965, renamed Science Education for Africa in 1970), and the African Social Studies Program (started 1968). Each had its headquarters in an African city and developed textbook series and manuals for teacher training for the perusal of member countries. The most notable result was of the institution of the subject Social Studies to replace and integrate the traditional subjects of History, Geography, Civics, Economics, and Anthropology in many countries (cf. Merryfield & Tlou, 1995; Salia-Bao, 1990, pp. 12, 14–38, 73–74). African states formed the African Curriculum Organization in 1976 (headquarters in Nairobi). The major thrust of this organization is to develop the capacity of member states to undertake curricular reform (cf. Yoloye, 1984, p. 244). Yet despite these efforts, schools in Sub-Saharan Africa still very much bear the stamps of their European origins as far as organization, curricula, textbooks, language of instruction (to be discussed below), and examinations are concerned. Rayfield (1994, p. 258) reports on a case in Francophone West Africa, where a textbook of the 1940s was, with few changes, still used in the 1980s. In Coˆte D’Ivoire, there were three attempts (i.e., three main acts) since independence failed to dismantle the French-modeled education system (cf. Assie-Lumyumba & LumumbaKasongo, 1991). When a South African author of a chapter on education in Coˆte D’Ivoire approached the cultural attache´ of Coˆte D’Ivoire in Pretoria for information, he was met with the response ‘‘notre syste`me e´ducatif est es^cectement comme celui de la France’’ (our education system is exactly like
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that of France) (cf. Wolhuter, 2000, p. 163). A factor which impedes the development of education adapted to the situation in Africa is the continual use of the Cambridge Overseas Examination Board’s examinations as final secondary school examination in many Anglophone African countries and the baccalaureat as final secondary school examination in many Francophone African Countries. Development of Education Through Medium of African Languages While at the Abidjan conference (1964) the sentiment was still in favor of the retention of the ex-colonial languages as the medium of instruction in schools, in an about-turn at Nairobi (1968) calls were made for the replacement by the indigenous languages of Africa (cf. Anon., 1969, p. 42). At Lagos (1976) these calls rose to passionate pleas, and this change was seen as an essential element in the Africanization of education (cf. UNESCO, 1977, pp. 19, 45–56). In contrast to the Saharan countries, which after independence swiftly made Arabic the medium of instruction, this is one area in which, in Sub-Saharan Africa, few initiatives were taken (for the reason for this inertia, cf. Bray, Clarke, & Stephens, 1986, p. 149; Rubagumya, 1991; Coombs, 1985, pp. 255–260; Urch, 1992, p. 4). In Nigeria, the Ife University launched the Yoruba project in 1976 using Yoruba throughout the primary school in nine primary schools. Spurred by the problem of having inherited two ex-colonial languages (Italian and English), Somali was developed as medium of instruction in Somalia. Apart from these cases, however, the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained unchanged: at some level in the primary school cycle vernaculars are replaced by the ex-colonial language as the medium of instruction. If it is borne in mind that 20–25% of the adult population of Anglophone Africa is proficient in English, 10–15% of the adult population of Francophone Africa is proficient in French, and 5% of the population of Lusophone Africa is proficient in Portuguese; and accepted that a primary school pupil requires a vocabulary of at least 3,000 words in a language to benefit from education offered through the medium of that language, then the damaging effect of a continual employment of ex-colonial language as a medium of instruction in schools could be appreciated – as is explained by Rubagumya (1991) in the case of Tanzania. Examination Reforms As has been explained, at Lagos objections were leveled against examination systems as testing whether an individual is suited for the next level of
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education, rather than for the ability to use his/her qualities in the service of the community to which he/she belongs. A related and common criticism is that examinations tend to measure pupils’ ability to recall facts with little attention given to higher order cognitive skills (cf. Roy-Campbell, 1992, p. 159; Bray et al., 1986, p. 74; Njabili, 1994, p. 6; Kellaghan & Greaney, 1992, p. 2). This leads to rote memorization, rather than comprehension, information gathering, and discovery learning (cf. Welle-Strand, 1996, p. 75; Frencken, 1988, p. 65). Two countries in Africa that undertook reform initiatives to address these problems were Kenya and South Africa. Kenya reformed its primary school termination examinations in the mid-1970s. The examinations were changed in order to include a much broader spectrum of cognitive skills, as well as skills that could be applied in a wider range of contexts in and out of school (cf. World Bank, 1988, p. 85; Kellaghan & Greaney, 1992, p. 13). The post-1994 South African government started to change its education system from a content-based system to an outcomesbased education system (cf. Wolhuter, 1999; Pretorius, 1998). Linking the World of School with the World of Work Virtually every African state has taken initiatives to link the world of school with the world of work. These have taken four forms. First, most states introduced vocational subjects in the curriculum and some, for example, Zimbabwe, made them obligatory for all pupils. A second type of initiative was the introduction of poly-technical education (whereby pupils spend part of the school day on farms or in workshops), for example, Mali (in 1962) or, on a more limited scale, the BEPAZ-project in Zimbabwe. A more extreme form was the turning of schools into production units, such as in Benin (1971), the Education for Self-Reliance (1967) of Tanzania (cf. Roy-Campbell, 1992, p. 151) or the Brigades (a private initiative) in Botswana. Finally, National Youth Community Service Schemes were introduced in countries such as Malawi, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, and the ZENTCHA project in Ethiopia. It should be added that these initiatives generally were not very successful, and the governments even found many impossible to implement (for reasons, cf. Durt, 1992, pp. 57, 168–170, 182–220). A notable exception is the Brigades in Botswana, which is an unqualified success. Not only did efforts to link the world of education with that of work not bear fruits, but also the spectrum of school unemployment is assuming ever greater proportions encountered by many (despite the impressive rates of return on aggregate level, mentioned at the beginning of this paper). According to Mandebvu (1994, p. 4) in the early 1990s, the 250,000 school
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leavers in Zimbabwe each year were chasing 40,000–60,000 available jobs in the formal sector. Only 6% of those who passed the final secondary school examination in South Africa in 2001 could find employment in the formal economy (Olivier & Duvenhage, 2001 p. 21). Teacher Training Existing, conventional teacher training could not supply fast enough the quantity of trained teachers required by swelling enrollments, let alone training the huge percentage of unqualified teachers inherited at independence. In order to address these problems, some ingenious methods of teacher training have been devised, of which especially two have attracted much attention and praise from comparative educationists. The first initiative that won the praise of Comparative Education literature (cf. World Bank, 1988, p. 41; Coombs, 1985, p. 220), was that of Tanzania (cf. Nyerene, 1985). In 1974 Tanzania set itself the aim of universal primary school enrollment within three years. The biggest obstacle identified was the shortage of trained teachers. Using the conventional mode of training (three year full-time teacher training college course for secondary school graduates) would be too time-consuming to make the achievement of the goal of universal primary school attendance within three years possible. Accordingly, it was decided to train primary school graduates as primary school teachers using an initial six-week residential course followed by a combination of supervised (underqualified teachers) primary school teaching, a correspondence-cum-radio course, and a final examination after three years. Zimbabwe’s ZINTEC scheme, a slight variation on the Tanzanian model (cf. Dzvimbo, 1992) likewise is widely lauded by comparativists (cf. Bray, et al., 1986, pp. 163–165; Lockheed et al., 1991, p. 93). Other countries using modes of distance education teacher training, include Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zambia. Nigeria has established a Mobile Teachers Training Unit. Community Initiatives A commendable trail-blazing exercise in community initiatives with respect to the construction and/or financing and management of schools in Africa was the Harambee-school movement in Kenya. Following a call by Kenyatta shortly after independence, hundreds of Harambee or self-help schools mushroomed. These schools cater for more than half of Kenya’s secondary school population (Mwiria, : 1990, p. 356). At the Abidjan conference (1964) delegates from Rwanda and Sudan reported that self-help schemes in the
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setting up of schools functioning in their countries. Other countries, where community initiatives have contributed significantly to the expansion of education, include Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Botswana, and Swaziland. In Malawi, for example, 26% of all primary schools are wholly owned, financed, and managed by local authorities (Lockheed et al., 1991, p. 196). The cuts in governmental expenditure, in the wake of the economic deterioration of the 1980s, gave a new impetus and new lease of life to community initiatives and private schools throughout Africa. In Zimbabwe, for example, 80 out of 90% of schools are private schools (Welle-Strand, 1996, p. 119). Lifelong Education At both the Durban (cf. UNESCO, 1998, pp. 59–61) and Dar Es Salaam (cf. UNESCO, 2002) conferences lifelong education was discussed. Up to now, however, no significant initiatives have been taken. The only initiative was the setting up of a National Qualification Framework in South Africa in 1995 with the purpose of accrediting all education qualification in South Africa and creating a network for lifelong learning (cf. Steyn, 2000, pp. 69–70). The South African example has been followed by some neighboring countries, such as Namibia and Mauritius, while moves are afoot in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) to create a regional (i.e., Southern African) qualifications framework. Desegregation of Schools In countries of Africa with significant numbers of inhabitants of European descent, such as Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa, pre-independent racially segregated school systems were desegregated after independence in the interest of equity considerations (the ‘‘white schools’’ were invariably better endowed, equipped, and staffed than the ‘‘Black schools’’) (cf. Atkinson, 1982; Dodd, 1968; Wolhuter, 2005).
ASSESSMENT Ideal: Education For All In view of their serious regard for education, as outlined above, the governments of African states wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embraced
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the ideals of Education for All (EFA) as formulated at Jomtien, Amman, and Dakar. In 1990, delegates from 155 countries, as well as representatives from some 150 organizations agreed at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand (5–9 March 1990) to universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy before the end of that decade. The World Declaration on Education for All was drafted (cf. UNESCO, 1990). Article 1 of the Declaration states that every person – child, youth, and adult – shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to meet their basic learning needs. Article 3 calls for universalizing education and equity and quality. Article 4 states that educational opportunities should translate into meaningful development for both individual and society. The focus of basic education must, therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively on enrollment. These calls were reiterated at the Mid-Decade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All, held at Amman, Jordan, 16–19 June 1996 (of UNESCO, 1996) and in the Dakar Framework for Action, adopted by the World Education Forum held at Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000 (of UNESCO, 2000). In the Dakar Framework the year 2015 is set as target date for universal primary education. A regional conference on Education for All for Sub-Saharan Africa was held in Durban, 6–10 December 1999 (of UNESCO, 1997/1), where the theme was Education for All: A Framework for Action in Sub-Saharan Africa: Education for African Renaissance in the Twenty-First Century. At the MINEDAF Conferences of Durban and Dar Es Salaam African Ministers renewed their support for the Jomtien and Dakar resolutions, EFA was very vividly on the agenda of these conferences. The theme of the Durban conference was ‘‘Lifelong Education for All’’. The enthusiastic subscription to the ideal of EFA, and the active extension of education in Africa in recent decades, outlined above, asks for the assessment of education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Quantitative Aggregates Adult literacy – it as been stated that in 1960, the adult literacy rate in Africa was 9%. In Sub-Saharan Africa the figure likewise stood at 9% in 1960 (World Bank, 1988; as quoted by Samoff, 1999, p. 399). Sub-Saharan Africa’s subsequent progress in the alphabetization of adults, as well as the projections for 2015 are presented in Table 2. While the percentage of illiterate adults (of the total adult population) is constantly declining,
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Table 2.
Adult Illiteracy in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Year
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Projection 2015
Percent of adults illiterate Number of adult illiterates 000, 000
91.0
71.6 113
61.7 126
50.7 138
39.7 142
24.1 136
Sources: Samoff (1999, p. 399); UNESCO (1999/2, p.11–282, 2003, p. 310).
projections indicate that even by 2015 universal adult literacy will still be a distant ideal. In 2000, adult literacy rates varied from 85.2% in the case of South Africa to 16.0% in the case of Niger (UNESCO, 2003, p. 310). In six countries adult literacy rates are below 40% (UNESCO, 2002). Primary School Enrollments – during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s Sub-Saharan Africa was hit by a series of economic crises: the first oil crisis of 1973, the ensuring global recession, and the second oil crisis of 1979. Africa’s total (foreign) debt rose from US $14 billion in 1973 to US $125 billion in 1987 (Kennedy, 1993, p. 214). By the mid-1980s payments on loans consumed about half of Africa’s export earnings. The causes of Africa’s economic decline since the 1970s, besides those enumerated above, included rising foreign debt, poor governance, for example, political instability and governments being hostile to the business community, the population explosion, environmental degradation, and the consequential deterioration of agriculture (Europa Publications, 1997, p. 15). With the Third World becoming more and more indebted, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank gradually evolved as the Third World’s lender of the last resort, arranging rescheduling of debts and making structural adjustment loans conditional on the adoption of a standardized range of policies encompassing the reduction of governmental expenditure, the privatization of state corporations, the liberalization of the economy, the encouragement of the private sector, the controlling of the money supply to contain inflation, and currency devaluation (cf. Campbell & Stein, 1992, pp. 5–10; Europa Publications, 1997, pp. 7–15). The reason for the currency devaluation is to redress the balance of payment: to make imports more expensive and exports cheaper, thus stimulating exports, while at the same time stimulating domestic industry for import substitution. In the belief that the growth of state bureaucracy has led to corruption, waste, and inefficiency, the IMF and World Bank require debtor countries to reduce the role and staffing of the state. By 1988, over 28 African countries had embarked on such structural adjustment programs (Campbell & Stein, 1992, p. 6). The above-depicted economic predicament means less money for education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Expenditure on education rose (in 1983 US
Education for All in Sub-Saharan Africa
Table 3.
351
Progression in Primary School Enrolments in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Year Enrolments 000 Gross enrolment ratio
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
36
52.5
79.5
61,996 74.8
85,778 81.5
Sources: World Bank (1988, p. 12); UNESCO (2003, pp. 334–335).
$terms) from US $3.8 billion in 1970 to US $8.9 billion in 1983 (World Bank, 1988, p. 15). Under these circumstances the enrollment boom of the first years after independence (as presented in Table 1) could not be sustained. It was pointed out above that at independence in 1960, the gross primary education enrollment ratio in Africa stood at 44%. When the net is tightened around Sub-Saharan Africa, it came to a more paltry 36%. The subsequent trajectory of primary school enrollments is presented in Table 3. The gross enrollment primary education enrollment ratio surged from 36% in 1960 to 52.5% in 1970 and to a peak of 79.5% in 1980, while it declined year after year to a low of 73.3% in 1982. Since 1993 it again rose year after year, to reach 81.5% in 2000. In two countries the 2000 gross enrollment ratio was below 50%: 35.5% in Niger and 44.3% in Burkina Faso, while in Equatorial Guinea it was below 60%, at 59.5%. Secondary school enrollments – as has been explained above, Africa’s gross secondary school enrollment ratio stood at 5% in 1960. In 1970 the aggregate gross secondary school enrollment ratio for Sub-Saharan Africa has grown to 7.1%, and it more than doubled in the next decade to reach 17.5% in 1970 (UNESCO, 1997/1, pp. 11–19). In the 1980s, amidst the economic decline, the rate of increase decelerated and in 1990 figure stood at 22.4% (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 350–351). The following examples are illustrative. From 1990 to 2000 the gross secondary school enrollment ratios of South Africa, Mauritius, and Angola grew, respectively, from 66.8% to 87.3%, from 52.9% to 77.1%, and from 11.8% to 17.6% (South Africa and Mauritius also had the highest enrollment figures in the Sub-Saharan African region) (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 348–351). Quality Public expenditure on education – Sub-Saharan Africa has a long history of declining per capita education expenditure. Amidst the enrollment boom of the 1970s there was a constant decrease in this area. Public recurrent
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C. C. WOLHUTER
expenditure per student in Sub-Saharan Africa, expressed in 1983 US dollars, fell from $67 in 1970, to $61 in 1975, to $51 in 1980, to $48 in 1983 (World Bank, 1988, p. 34). As mentioned above, during the economic decline of the 1980s, public expenditure on education dropped. A World Bank study found that in a sample of 16 countries, during the decade 1981–1990, real per capita education spending decreased in 13 countries (Bredie & Beeharry, 1998, p. 2). Compared to international levels, public expenditure on education in Sub-Saharan Africa is low. The 2003 EFA Global Monitoring Report gives the 2000 per pupil current expenditure on primary education in US $ as follows: South Africa: $423; Mauritius: $372; Botswana: $162; Coˆte d’Ivoire: $109; Lesotho: $99; Gambia: $57; Mali: $33; Benin: $33; Togo: $22; and Burundi: $14. The aggregate for the developed countries was US $3,543 (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 380–383). Teacher supply – the pupil–teacher ratio in Sub-Saharan Africa in primary schools stands at an all-world high of 44 – nearly twice the world average of 23 (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 374–375). At secondary school level the pupil–teacher ratio for Sub-Saharan Africa is 25, which is the next highest in the world, after South and West Asia (world average 17) (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 374–375). Of the 26 countries with available data, 9 have less than 70% of their primary school teaching force trained (Cape Verde: 69%; Cameroon: 68%; Ghana: 68%; Benin: 62%; Mozambique: 60%; Congo: 57%; Namibia: 50%; Malawi: 46% and Belize: 41% (UNESCO, 2006). Of the 15 countries with available data, 7 have less than 70% of their secondary school teacher force trained (Eritrea: 62%; Cape Verde: 62%; Mozambique: 57%; Comores: 51%; Uganda: 45%; Belize: 41% and Burundi: 37% (UNESCO, 2006). Teacher morale is generally low and a deficient teaching and learning culture exists. This deficient teaching and learning culture is evident from i.a. the high absentee rates amongst students and teachers. In their research on teacher absenteeism in the different states of Nigeria, for example, Adeyemi and Akpofu (2001, p. 481) found in one state a teacher absentee ration of 18.85% (i.e., on average, 18.85% of teachers are absent from school every day). In a study in South Africa, Steyn, Wolhuter, and De Waal (2003, p. 644) found that on average, schools had a teacher absent rate of 12.4% on any given day. Internal efficiency – the average school life in Africa is 8 years. This is the lowest for all world regions. On other continents the corresponding figures are: America, North: 14; America, South: 14; Europe: 16; Oceania: 15; and Asia: 10 (UNESCO, 2006). The median percentage of repeaters in secondary schools in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa is 15.5% – the highest in the world (world average 5.1%) (UNESCO, 2003, p. 351). The pattern is similar
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353
at the primary school level: 17.9% of all primary school pupils are grade repeaters (world average 5.2%). The survival rate from grade 1 to grade 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa is 73.8%, which is the lowest of all world regions (UNESCO, 2003, p. 343). In four countries the rate is under 50%: Mali, 49.0%; Namibia, 42.7%; Rwanda, 39.1%; and Guinea-Bissau, 38.1% (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 340–343). The transition rate from primary to secondary school in Sub-Saharan African is 60.4%; this is also the lowest of all world regions (UNESCO, 2003, p. 343). Physical facilities – as could be expected from the low expenditure levels, physical facilities are grossly deficient and generally in a parlous state. In Zimbabwe, for example, only 7% of grade 6 pupils have a ruler, and only 18.4% of grade 6 pupils are in classrooms that meet the ministry’s benchmark of one seat per child (Chung, 1995, p. 395). Steyn et al. (2003, p. 33) report that during a field study in Madagascar, they came upon a primary school in Madritsara where there was one ruler for the entire school. The state of physical facilities is strikingly encapsulated in Samoff’s (1999, p. 393) title of his survey of African education, ‘‘No Teacher Guide, No Textbooks, No Chairs’’. Outcome-quality – cross-national studies have invariably found achievement levels in Sub-Saharan African schools to be the lowest. The most extensive international studies on achievement in education are those of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The study on reading literacy found the reading proficiency of final grade secondary school pupils (18 years of age) in one African country to be equal to that of 14 year olds in England (Fa¨gerlind & Saha, 1984, p. 51). In reading tests, the Malawian students had just over half as many correct answers as the average number in the IEA-surveyed countries (World Bank, 1988, p. 33). In the 32 countries where reading proficiencies were measured, the tree Sub-Sahara African countries – Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Botswana – scored the lowest (Elley, 1994, p. 57). Equity The universal dimensions of educational inequality – gender, socioeconomic origin, rural—urban, and regional (especially the core-periphery gradient) (cf. Wolhuter, 1993) are all present in Sub-Saharan Africa, and glaringly so. Taking the gender parity index as a yardstick, gender disparities in both primary and secondary school enrollments are the harshest in Sub-Saharan Africa, worse than all other world regions, including the Arab states (cf. UNESCO, 2003, p. 108). World Aggregate and Sub-Saharan
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C. C. WOLHUTER
African gender party index values with respect to primary and secondary education enrollments are shown in Table 4. Pupils from affluent socioeconomic homes are also advantaged. For example, in Chad, the richest fifth of the population live an average of 1.3 kilometers from a primary school. For the poorest fifth the corresponding figure is 9.9 kilometers (World Bank, 2003, p. 22). Several studies on school desegregation in Africa, introduced as a measure to equalize educational opportunities, as discussed above, merely lead to a racially stratified education system being replaced by a socioeconomically stratified system as affluent black parents send their children to the historically white schools which are located in the higher socio-economic class residential areas and whose higher school fees are unaffordable for those of the lower socio-economic rungs (cf. Pape, 1998; Lemon, 1995; Dorsey, 1989; Bennell & Ncube, 1994; Durt, 1992, pp. 164–165). Harsh urban–rural differences occur too, favoring urban dwellers. In the lowest quintile income in Madagascar, for example, the gross secondary school enrollment ratio for urban boys is 85%, while for rural boys it stands at 19% (Bredie & Beeharry, 1998, p. 221). Steep regional inequalities along the core-periphery gradient are visible too. In Coˆte d’Ivoire there is a nine years difference between educational attainment in Abidjan and in the Savannah (Bredie & Beeharry, 1998, p. 8). In Namibia 87.8% of schools in the Windhoek region (core) have electricity, in the Khorixas region (halfway in the gradient) the figure is 78.9%, while in Table 4. Number of Countries
Primary Education Sub-Saharan Africa World Aggregate Secondary Education Sub-Saharan Africa World Aggregate
Gender Parity Index (GPI).
Have Close to the Medium Achieved Goal GPI Position GPI GPI Between Between 0.95 Between 0.8 0.97 and 1 and 0.96 and 0.94
Far from Goal: GPI o0.80
Total
10
5
12
13
40
100
20
31
16
167
3
1
15
17
36
47
18
64
30
159
Note: Gender Parity Index (GPI): Ratio of female-to-male value of a given indicator. A GPI of 1 indicates parity between the sexes; a GPI between 0 and 1 means a disparity in favor of boys; and a GPI greater than 1 indicates a disparity in favor of girls. Source: UNESCO (2003, p. 108).
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Ondangwa West (periphery) it is 23.5% (Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture, Namibia, 2005, p. 92).
PROBLEMS IN THE WAY OF ACHIEVING EDUCATION FOR ALL A number of problems stand in the way of attaining education for all in Sub-Saharan Africa. The population growth is one such factor: despite declining fertility levels, the average annual population growth in the SubSaharan region still stands at 2.5% – the highest of all world regions (World Bank, 2004, p. 257). This places tremendous pressure on the provision of education. An annual growth rate of 2.5%, for instance, translates into a doubling of the population in less than 30 years. That means every thirty years the number of schools, teachers, desks, books, etc. will have to be doubled just to maintain present levels. The weak economic position and financial squeeze, discussed above, is also a hampering factor. In addition, there is the anomaly of cumbersome bureaucracies and state regulation of civil life on the one hand and weak, incompetent, and ineffectual governments on the other hand. An example of the former is the number of days it takes to start a new business: in Namibia and Mozambique it takes, respectively 85 and 153 days (In Canada it takes 3; the world average is 50.8). (World Bank, 2004, p. 249). An extreme example of the latter is Somali – a country that for the past decade has existed without any government at all. What is needed is for government to scale down the extent of their interference in society in order to allow civil society to re-assert its autonomy; while at the same time the state should improve its capacity to handle those core functions that have been trusted to the state, such as to ensure the safety and security of its citizens – a challenge explained by Fukuyama (2004). Socio-economic deprivation is a serious problem for the region. In the countries for which data is available, the percentages of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa living in poverty (i.e., less than US $2 per day) range from 35.8% for South Africa to 90.8% for Rwanda (UNESCO, 2003, pp. 300–303). This means first that many children live in environments with insufficient means to facilitate their education (such as computers or electricity) or even pre-requisites for education (adequate nutrition and homes offering a decent, human living). Second, children have so many obligations in terms of household chores that they are unable to benefit from educational opportunities, even if these are available. For example, in Madagascar boys
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C. C. WOLHUTER
and girls of school going age who do not attend school spend, respectively, 1.4 and 4.1 hours per week collecting water and 3.0 and 1.0 hours per week collecting firewood. They spend, respectively, 8.9 and 21.1 hours per week on all household tasks (Bredie & Beeharry, 1998, pp. 23–25). The HIV-AIDS scourge is another severe impediment for the region. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest incidence of HIV-AIDS in the world, reaching an all-country high infection rate of 38.8% in Botswana (UNESCO, 2003, p. 300). This has a negative effect on education in a number of ways. First, resources that could have been employed on the education project must now be used on learning for the HIV-AIDS infected. Second, the household chores of many children are increased, as they must care for sick relatives. Third, many children are rendered orphans. Kobiane´, Calve´s, and Marcoux (2005, p. 468) quotes research which alleges that in Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe 15% of children under the age of 15 are orphans. Their research in Burkina Faso concludes that orphanhood impedes children’s chances for education (Kobiane´, et al., 2005). Fourth, the economic output is adversely affected, as most AIDS sufferers are in the economically active years (15–54 years) of their lives. Already the life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa is 49 years for males and 50 years – the lowest in the world (world averages: 65 years for males and 67 years for females. (UNESCO, 2003, p. 302). And for some inexplicable reason, the infection rate among teachers seems to be significantly higher than that of the general population (cf. Education Labour Relations Council, South Africa, 2005). Problems located inside the education system have been discussed above, namely internal efficiency, insufficient physical infrastructure, and inadequate teacher training and morale. To these could be added weak and ineffectual education management and administrative structures (cf. World Bank, 1988, pp. 82, 87). At the latest meeting of EFA coordinates in Africa to discuss progress, in Dakar from 28 June to 2 July 2004, it was also pointed out that the frequent turnover of education ministers in Africa hampers progress towards EFA (UNESCO, 2004).
CONCLUSION: PROSPECTS Since the advent of independence nearly 50 years ago, Sub-Saharan Africa has been the terrain of serious endeavor to extend education to all, and some of these initiatives (such as the Tanzanian adult literacy campaign and the ZINTEC teacher training course in Zimbabwe) have become models for
Education for All in Sub-Saharan Africa
357
the international community. Sub-Saharan Africa has subscribed to the global ideal of EFA. Yet despite these attempts the global promise of education for all, and especially quality education for all remains but an elusive ideal, prevented by a host of national tensions: problems both outside education systems (in society) and inside education systems. By current projection the goals of universal adult literacy and universal secondary education, despite getting closer, will still be a long way off by 2015 (universal primary school attendance might be approximated by then). The dilemma is that the problems in society preventing the provision of education for all are exactly the same problems which education is widely looked on to address (e.g., economic growth, curbing population growth and socio-economic upliftment). If it could be assumed that two of the key factors determining the state of education are population dynamics and financial resources (and there is a substantial body of scientific opinion who will find both assumptions problematic), then the present decline in fertility levels and the positive economic growth bode well. It could then be predicted that eventually the economic growth would make more resources available for investment in education (and the assumption that resources rendered by economic growth would flow to education and be made available to all on an equitable basis is problematic too). To put such resources to use to attain education for all in the shortest time and in the most costefficient way possible, the establishment of an active educational research support base is essential. The need and the significance, in particular, of south–south comparative educational research, have been pointed out several times (cf. Wolhuter, Steyn, & Steyn, 2003, p. 29). Yet it remains a lacuna in the corpus of comparative educational literature. One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the lack of an organizational infrastructure for Educational Research in Sub-Saharan Africa. The only functioning Comparative Education society in the region is the Southern African Comparative and History of Education Society (SACHES); and even SACHES is battling to fulfill its potential (cf. Weeks, Herman, Maarman, & Wolhuter, 2006). An African Education Research Association is sorely needed to stimulate and to facilitate educational research in the region. Many of the educational issues facing Sub-Saharan Africa have been subjected to thorough research in other parts of the world. The results of such research could be fruitfully interpreted within the Sub-Saharan African context and used as a basis for educational experiments, which in turn could be subjected to research and Comparative Education research, with the aim to inform policy. An example is the problem of linking the world of
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education and that of work. Other parts of the world have moved beyond the naı¨ ve view of vocational subjects/schools. What comes to mind are, i.a., the movements toward teaching general skills in secondary education, such as those contained in the SCANS-list of the USA’s Ministry of Labor’s Commission for the Acquisition of Essential Skills (cf. Hamilton, 1999; World Bank, 1988, pp. 62–65), teaching how to learn and the teaching of entrepreneurial skills. A virile research community putting in place a superstructure of scientifically tested knowledge to guide educational reform and policy-making in Sub-Saharan Africa will ensure that the 2015 global promise of education for all, and that of quality education, despite the host of national tensions lying currently in the way; are attained in the shortest and most cost-efficient way possible, thus providing a platform for launching Sub-Saharan Africa into the twenty-first century world.
NOTE 1. The generic name Sub-Saharan Africa includes the following 45 countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Coˆte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
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TEACHER QUALITY AND EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA$ Thomas M. Smith and Albert Motivans ABSTRACT This chapter addresses the issue of teacher quantity, quality and their interrelationships. It first sets out the scope of the ‘quantity gap’ in primary teachers in sub-Saharan Africa, from 1991 to the present and towards the EFA target date of 2015. It then assesses different measures of ‘quality’ among current primary teaching forces. It begins by looking at how countries compare in terms of the percentage of teachers that meet nationally specific criteria of a ‘qualified’ teacher and as linked to an internationally comparable benchmark of teachers’ educational attainment. The next section looks beyond minimum qualification standards to examine the educational qualifications that teachers actually based on data covering 13 South and East African countries. Among the same group of countries, it opens a discussion concerning direct measures of teachers’ knowledge of science and mathematics and academic skills. The final section then examines measures of in-service training or the
$ This chapter is based on parts of UIS. 2006. Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015. Montreal, Canada.
Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 363–394 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08013-3
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continuing professional development of the current teaching force based on the results of a regional assessment study.
INTRODUCTION While there has been progress worldwide towards meeting the Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education (UPE) during the last decade, it is still far from reach, especially for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. For these countries the challenge of expanding initial education systems is the greatest and the significant shortfall of teachers’ risk efforts to provide every child with a good quality primary education. Due to a number of factors, related to both the supply of and demand for teachers, education systems in the region have struggled to maintain sufficient teaching forces, and current capacities have been stretched, as reflected by rising pupil–teacher ratios. The ‘quantity gap’, or the number of new teachers needed to achieve UPE by 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa is considerable. At the same time, it is essential to recognise that there is a ‘quality gap’ which is no less challenging. The sub-Saharan African countries facing the greatest need for new teachers currently have the least-qualified primary teaching forces. That policymakers should seek to improve teacher quality was put forth by the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers (ILO/UNESCO, 1966) and echoed in the Education for All Dakar Framework for Action almost 35 years later. The capacity of the teaching force alone will not ensure the effective teaching and learning required to reach UPE. But efforts to achieve EFA targets in sub-Saharan Africa often have implied trade-offs in resource allocation between expanding educational opportunity and improving the quality of educational provision. These policy trade-offs are evident in the recruitment, training and deployment of teachers. This chapter addresses the issue of teacher quantity, quality and their interrelationships. It first sets out the scope of the ‘quantity gap’ in primary teachers in sub-Saharan Africa, from 1991 to the present and towards the EFA target date of 2015. It then assesses different measures of ‘quality’ among current primary teaching forces. It begins by looking at how countries compare in terms of the percentage of teachers that meet nationally specific criteria of a ‘qualified’ teacher and as linked to an internationally comparable benchmark of teachers’ educational attainment. The next
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section looks beyond minimum qualification standards to examine the educational qualifications that teachers actually hold based on data covering 13 South and East African countries. Among the same group of countries, it opens a discussion concerning direct measures of teachers’ knowledge of science and mathematics and academic skills. The final section then examines measures of in-service training or the continuing professional development (CPD) of the current teaching force based on the results of a regional assessment study. This chapter uses measures of teacher quantity and quality in subSaharan Africa that are drawn from a range of data sources, including the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) education database, a special survey on teachers undertaken by UIS in 2004, as well as a cross-national study of student achievement that also collected data on teachers. While country coverage is often uneven across indicators, making it difficult to identify those countries where teacher quality is of greatest concern, data are available from a sufficient number of countries to suggest gaps that should concern policymakers.
THE QUANTITY CHALLENGE: NUMBERS OF TEACHERS NEEDED TO ACHIEVE UPE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA According to recent UNESCO estimates, 18 million new primary teachers will be needed globally to achieve UPE by 2015 (UIS, 2006). In the subSaharan Africa region alone, 3.7 million new teachers will need to be recruited in the next decade in order to ensure that all children have the opportunity to complete a primary education. The rising demand for primary teachers reflects the steady growth of school-age children in most sub-Saharan African countries. Overall, the number of primary pupils has increased from 63 million in 1991 to 71 million in 2004. The need for primary teachers also reflects low rates of primary school participation and completion across the region. The 71 million pupils enroled in 2004 represented about two-thirds (66 per cent) of the primary school-age population. Thus, one-third of school-age children in the region are out of school. The primary school-age population in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase from 114 million in 2005 to 138 million in 2015. In other words, in 2015, there will be 24 million more school-age children than there are today.
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In order to maintain the current net enrolment rate of 66 per cent, by 2015 education systems would serve some 91 million pupils. And serving the entire school age population would mean an additional 47 million schoolage children. The scope of the challenge in terms of primary education provision differs widely across the region. The countries farthest from reaching UPE face both high population growth rates and low rates of current participation. These countries are found in Central and West Africa. In Southern Africa, population growth rates are much lower and the system of primary education covers more of the school-age population. The situation in many other countries is between these two extremes. A notable constraint to the supply of teachers is HIV/AIDS. Found across the world, the epidemic is concentrated in some of the poorest countries, especially in Southern Africa. The 10 countries with the highest prevalence rates range from 12 to 39 per cent, are Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Central African Republic and Mozambique (UNAIDS, 2005). It is estimated that more than one in three persons in Botswana and Swaziland are infected with the virus (ibid.). These 10 countries generally have primary participation rates well-above the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Early research suggested that teachers were at greater risk than the general population (Malaney, 2000), but more recent studies seem to provide evidence to the contrary (Bennell et al., 2002; Bennell, 2003; Bennell, 2005). A recent study in South Africa that followed cohorts of teachers, showed that infection rates among educators were lower than that of the general adult population (MTT, 2005). From 1991 to 2004, the fastest growing region for primary education enrolments in the world was sub-Saharan Africa. The number of pupils increased by 3.8 per cent annually during this period. By 2004, this had translated into an increase of 8 million primary pupils. During the period from 2000 to 2004, the net enrolment rate grew by 9 percentage points to reach 66 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. The most rapid growth rates were found in the countries starting from the lowest levels – the number of primary pupils has grown by approximately 10 per cent annually in Mali, Eritrea and Guinea. In effect, this has more than doubled the number of primary pupils in these countries over this period. How has the growth in teachers kept pace with the increase in enrolments? The pupil–teacher ratio is a commonly used indicator that reflects the human resource capacity of education systems, though it does not reflect the distribution of teachers within a country. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the
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growth in the number of pupils since the early 1990s was impressive. But most countries could not balance this growth with sufficient numbers of teachers, which has led to increases in already high pupil–teacher ratios (see Fig. 1). The median ratio was 46 pupils per teacher in 2004. The ratio in Ethiopia is 72 pupils per teacher and another 5 countries have ratios exceeding 60:1 (Chad, Congo, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda). Yet at the same time, a number of countries were still able to reduce the number of pupils per teacher, such as Burundi and Burkina Faso, although these ratios still exceed the regional median. Gabon, Senegal, Seychelles and Togo all managed to bring their respective ratios below the regional average. What does the future hold in terms of the demand for increases in teaching forces to meet UPE targets by 2015? Fig. 2 shows that similarly high levels of growth would be needed, especially in Chad, Congo and Niger. Thus, by 2015, Chad will need a teaching force almost four times as large as in 2004, while Lesotho, Botswana, Gabon and Mauritius could actually see declining number of teachers. Fig. 3 presents secondary net enrolment rates in 2004 besides the required growth in teacher stocks by 2015. Basically, the countries facing the greatest need have the lowest levels of potential human capital. The share of youth enroled in lower or upper secondary programmes still falls below 35 per cent
Teachers
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Average Annual Increase (%) in Primary Teaching Force Needed to Reach UPE Targets, 2005–2015. Source: UIS (2006).
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Fig. 3. Secondary Net Enrolment Rates (2004) and Average Annual Growth in Primary Teaching Force Required to Meet UPE by 2015. Source: UIS (2006).
in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (including Lesotho, which has sufficient numbers of teachers but not all have secondary qualifications). Five countries have fewer than 20 per cent of the secondary school-age population enroled, while Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Niger report less than
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10 per cent. To raise the number of teachers with at least a secondary education, countries need a long-term strategy to reinforce institutional capacity and improve the content of teacher training. It is important to note that population growth and system coverage are not the only factors shaping demand for expanding teaching forces. By improving the efficiency of an education system, it is possible to reduce the need for additional teachers. For example, one measure of internal efficiency is the extent to which children repeat grades. Repetition may reflect poor conditions of teaching and learning. It also increases pressure on teachers and resources. In 2004, in almost every country in sub-Saharan Africa, at least one in four pupils repeated a primary grade. Another indicator reflects late entry into primary school. In sub-Saharan Africa more than one in five children starts primary school late. Late entry makes it difficult for teachers to manage a wide range of ages and skills in the same classroom. Furthermore, children who start school late are more likely to drop out (UIS/UNICEF, 2006).
THE QUALITY CHALLENGE: THE STATUS OF CURRENT TEACHING FORCES Some countries will face a serious challenge in extending teaching forces to meet the goal of UPE. Many of these countries also face a gap in terms of teacher knowledge and skills. Teacher quality is notoriously difficult to monitor and measure. Thus how should we measure and monitor teacher quality across countries in subSaharan Africa? Teacher quality encompasses a range of skills, competencies and motivation. As common sense suggests, specific training is required in order to expect quality services from a teacher or any other skilled professional. Data on training levels are one of the few indicators systematically collected about teachers, but that tell us little about the content of such training. Teachers’ current knowledge in the subjects that they teach as well as their participation in continuing training to keep themselves abreast of changes in their profession are additional indicators of quality. Teachers Meeting Minimum Training Qualifications There are two issues that make the development of cross-nationally comparable indicators of teacher quality difficult: availability of data and
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uncertainty about the measurable characteristics of effective teachers. The types of data on teacher that are most widely collected by Ministries of Education, including teachers’ academic credentials and whether or not they are certified to teach, are only weakly linked to pupil achievement in countries where this relationship has been studied. The teacher quality indicator that currently collected by the UIS, based on administrative data available with different countries, is the proportion of trained teachers, or those who have received the minimum teachertraining (pre-service or in-service) required at the relevant level by a given country. This measure of teacher training can be made more informative by reporting the minimum level of education needed to become a teacher in various countries (as has been done for the data reported in this chapter). However, this information is available for only a subset of countries and may not account accurately for the proportion of teachers ‘‘qualified to teach’’ when a country has changed its standards to become a teacher. Based on data for 2002–2004, Fig. 4 presents the minimum educational level (i.e. International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) level, see the appendix for a description of these levels) required to teach at the primary level and the proportion of teachers who meet or exceed the standard. While the length and type of programme does not tell us what future teachers learn in individual teacher training programmes, primary teacher ISCED 2
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Fig. 4. Minimum Standards for Teaching at the Primary Level and the Proportion of Trained Teachers Meeting these Standards by Country, 2002–2004. Source: UIS (2006). Note: See Appendix for Description of ISCED Levels.
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training standards are overall lower in sub-Saharan Africa than other regions. Few countries require that teachers earn tertiary-level degrees/diplomas, except in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In fact, most countries set a minimum requirement of a post-secondary non-tertiary diploma/certificate (ISCED 4), which entails completion of upper secondary education for admittance (approximately 12 years of schooling) or at least an upper secondary level programme. Among the sub-Saharan African countries that require an ISCED 4 qualification, Coˆte D’Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritius and Zambia report that all of their primary teachers meet this standard; only one-quarter of teachers in Guinea have done so. Upper secondary-level qualifications are also a very common minimum requirement, especially in Central and Western Africa. But the actual proportion of qualified teachers varies considerably, from 40 per cent in Chad and GuineaBissau to 85 per cent in Rwanda. Finally, minimum standards for primary teachers in Burkina Faso, Congo, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania are equivalent to lower secondary education (ISECD 2), typically 10 years of schooling or less before teacher training. A relatively high proportion of teachers meet these low qualifications: including 87 and 95 per cent of primary teachers in Burkina Faso and Senegal in 2004. In contrast, only approximately 57 and 60 per cent of primary teachers in Congo and Mozambique completed the minimum training. Indicators of the distribution of teachers across the academic qualifications they actually hold are available for fewer countries. While these data make the unit of comparison (by ISCED level) more cross-nationally comparable, the availability of data is limited to those countries that maintain information about the qualification levels of their teaching forces and are able to report these data according to international standards.
Trends in Proportions of Teachers Meeting Minimum Qualifications Many developing countries continue to face challenges in expanding primary education because of teacher shortages and under-qualified teaching forces. The sheer number of new teachers needed to meet UPE is daunting, but ensuring that they are sufficiently prepared to lead a class is an even greater challenge. In countries seeking to expand primary education systems, teachers simply cannot be trained fast enough to keep pace. One way to balance educational expansions under tight budget constraints is to increase class size. Another way is to hire teachers who do not hold even the
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minimum qualification required in the country; typically paying them a lower salary. Fig. 5 shows the proportion of primary teachers in 1998 holding the minimum education or qualification level required to teach primary school in relation to the proportion of qualified primary teachers in 2002. Countries above the diagonal line increased the proportion of their primary teaching force holding the minimum required educational qualification between 1998 and 2002; countries below the line showed a fall in the proportion qualified. While Mozambique and Rwanda increased the proportion of primary teachers meeting the minimum qualification level over this period, Niger and Belize had large declines. It is important to note that replacing unqualified teachers with qualified ones is only one way that countries can improve on this measure over time – lower standards is another. While data on changing standards for teachers are only available for a few countries, the following case studies suggest some of the different policy levers that developing countries use to respond to the increasing demand for teachers. In Niger, increased demand for teachers was met by expanding the potential pool of teachers to individuals who did not meet minimum educational requirements. As the net enrolment rate increased from 26 to 38 per cent
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between 1998 and 2002, schools in Niger hired large numbers of volunteer teachers without any pre-service training at substantially lower salaries than other teachers. As a result, the proportion of trained primary teachers decreased from 97 to 72 per cent between 1999 and 2002. Incidentally, the need for the rapid ‘hiring’ of volunteer teachers was further compounded due to the fact that 60 per cent of teachers in Niger were laid off since 1998 due to mandatory retirement after 30 years of service (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2005). As a result, higher paid teachers in the civil service were systematically replaced by lower paid volunteers. By 2002, the total number of volunteer teachers increased to 10,369 (IMF, 2000). However, while the proportion of civil servant teachers declined, the influx of new recruits was sufficient to maintain a pupil–teacher ratio of 41:1 during this period. In Mozambique, the proportion of trained teachers increased from 33 to 60 per cent between 1998 and 2001. This was achieved by lowering the minimum required education level to become a primary teacher and introducing an accelerated teacher training programme that allowed teachers to start working in the classroom sooner. Initiated just before political independence in 1975, primary teachers were formerly trained in a 2 year collegebased programme, to be taken after 9 years of formal schooling; however to expedite the training of primary teachers 1- and 3-year programmes to be taken after 7 years of formal schooling were later established (EAIE, 2003; IAU/UNESCO, 2004). As demonstrated in the previous example, the lowering of teacher training standards is often directly linked to the implementation of accelerated teacher training programmes. These training regimens are substantially shorter than previously recognized training programmes and thus can expedite the training of many new teachers1. Other examples of such programmes include Burkina Faso, where minimum primary teacher training was reduced from 2 to 1 year, allowing the proportion of trained teachers to rise from 80 to 87 per cent between the years of 2000 and 2002 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2004). During this period, pre-service training programmes have also been ‘accelerated’ in Guinea (CONFEMEN/MEN de Guine´e, 2003) whereby the length of training decreased from 3 to 2 years or less. To date, there has been little research on differences in the performance among teachers who attended traditional versus shortened teacher training programmes. While those countries that hire volunteer teachers (i.e. Niger) and those that lower standards (i.e. Mozambique) reflect different trends in the proportion of teachers meeting minimum educational requirements, the standard for entering the teaching profession declined in both countries. While
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these policies were largely aimed at reducing the costs of expanding primary education, the implications for education quality and learning outcomes have yet to be seen. There are, however, cases that demonstrate that it is possible to increase the number of trained teachers without lowering standards. In the 10 years since the genocide in Rwanda, the Government has developed a policy framework for national reconstruction and development that includes considerable attention to upgrading teachers’ professional qualifications. This has included reorganizing teacher training institutions and opening new Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs). These TTCs and two state-subsidized church-based schools produce approximately 1,500 new primary teachers a year (Rwanda Ministry of Education, 2003). As this output still did not meet the needs of a rapidly expanding primary system that grew by 27 per cent between 1998 and 2002, the primary pupil–teacher ratio that grew from 54:1 to 60:1 over this period. Nevertheless, Rwanda has been able to increase its percentage of trained teachers from 49 to 81 per cent.
Beyond Minimum Qualifications: Teachers’ Education Levels While the proportion of teachers who meet the standards for minimum qualification highlights gaps in teaching quality, they do not necessarily reflect the education levels actually attained by teachers. This section draws extensively on a sample survey of the reading and mathematics teachers of 6th-grade pupils who participated in the 2000–2002 assessments of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ)2. Some of the participating countries, for example, Seychelles and Mauritius, have the highest rates of primary education participation in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, there are still issues in terms of the efficiency of the educational system and high rates of repetition and early-school leaving. Other countries, especially Mozambique, have lower rates of participation in primary education and feel more sharply the shortage of primary teachers. In many of these countries, teacher supply has been sharply affected as a result of high rates of disease and mortality related to HIV–AIDS. These differences are reflected by the education and training levels of 6th-grade teachers, which vary considerably across the 13 countries that participated in the SACMEQ study (see Fig. 6). In Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania, over 40 per cent of their 6th-grade pupils are taught reading by
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Fig. 6. Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils by Education Level of their Reading Teacher. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002. Note: In this and Further Charts Based on SACMEQ Data, Countries are Presented in Groupings Related to the Level of Demand for Teachers by 2015. The First Group, Which Includes Mauritius, Lesotho and others Face Little Demand for New Teachers, the Second Group, Which Includes Kenya, Tanzania and others can Expect Moderate Levels of Demand for New Teachers and the Third Group, Represented by Mozambique, Faces the Highest Demand for New Primary Teachers by 2015.
teachers with a lower secondary (ISCED 2) qualification or less. Teacher qualifications are even lower in Lesotho, where more than one-half of 6th-grade pupils are taught reading by teachers who have only finished primary school – not much more than the pupils they teach. At the other end of the spectrum, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland have at least 45 per cent of their teachers with A-level (ISCED 3A) or tertiary level qualifications. While relatively few of the 6th-grade pupils face reading teachers with only a lower secondary qualification or less in Mauritius, Seychelles and Swaziland (2, 8 and 13 per cent, respectively), almost one in three teachers in South Africa have only this level of education. South Africa is also one of the countries with the largest disparity in educational qualification between the teachers of different pupils. Lesotho and Namibia also have a gap between low-qualified and well-qualified teachers. In order to increase substantially the number of teachers with at least a lower secondary qualification in Lesotho and Tanzania, for example, more pupils need to remain in school up to that level. In 2004, the gross enrolment ratio for lower secondary was only 40 per cent in Tanzania and 45 per cent in Lesotho (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2005). In Malawi, less than
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one-third of all pupils who start primary school complete this level of education. These factors limit the pool of potential primary teachers with higher level qualifications. Lesotho faces relatively little pressure to expand teaching forces to meet UPE by 2015 and, therefore, could seek to raise qualification levels. But it will be far more difficult to balance these two goals in Tanzania, where demand will increase. The data presented in Fig. 6 show a wide distribution among 6th-grade pupils in terms of their teachers’ educational qualifications in Southern and Eastern Africa. The large proportions of students having teachers with low-educational qualifications raises concerns about students’ access to teacher quality. Fig. 7 shows how these ‘‘teaching resources’’ are distributed by type of region (remote/rural area, small town or large city) within countries. According to the data, 6th-grade pupils living in rural communities or in large cities appear just as likely to have a teacher with low educational qualification in most SACMEQ countries. The exception is South Africa, where 37 per cent of 6th-grade pupils in rural communities and small towns have reading teachers with a lower secondary qualification or less compared to 17 per cent in large cities. Access to more highly trained teachers – in this case reading teachers with at least an A-level qualification – was also equitably distributed among schools in urban and rural locations, with the exceptions of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Moreover, the data suggest that 6th graders outside of large cities are more likely to have a teacher with high qualifications in Mauritius, Swaziland and Uganda, which may reflect posting policies of newly qualified teachers to rural areas. It is important to note that qualified teachers may be unevenly distributed within the districts of either a rural or urban zone. For example, in Lesotho two-thirds or more of 6th-grade pupils were taught by teachers with only a primary education in the Mafeteng, Qacha’s Nek and Maseru districts. This was the case for less than one-quarter of pupils in the districts of Quthing and Butha-Buthe (Mothibeli & Maema, 2005). One aspect of teacher quality which does vary considerably by school location in SACMEQ countries is teacher experience. Research suggests that pupils learn more from experienced teachers than they do from those less experienced (U.S. Department of Education, 2001; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2000; Murnane & Phillips, 1981). These studies point primarily to the difference between teachers with fewer than 5 years of experience (new teachers) and teachers with 5 or more years of experience. But the benefits of experience appear to level off after 5 years. Studies in the United States suggest that there are no noticeable differences, for example, in the
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Fig. 7. (a) Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teachers have Junior Secondary Qualifications or Less by Location. (b) Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teachers have A-Levels or Tertiary Qualifications by Location. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
effectiveness of teachers with 5 versus 10 years of experience (DarlingHammond, 2000). Fig. 8 shows that the percentage of 6th-grade pupils whose reading teacher has less than 3 years of experience by the location of the school. The gap between rural and urban areas was highest in Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda. These three countries also face the greatest pressure to expand the number of primary teachers to reach UPE among the SACMEQ countries.
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Fig. 8. Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teachers have o3 Years of Experience by Location. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
Individual studies conducted in sub-regions or other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, however, suggest larger problems attracting qualified teachers to work in rural areas. For example, Morgan et al. (2005) found critical shortages in science and mathematics teachers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, where more than 300 secondary schools were not even offering these subjects. A recent study in Mali found that 58 per cent of urban teachers have completed the required 4-year programme of upper secondary education, but only 31 per cent of rural teachers had done the same (Ouedraogo, 2005). A different pattern emerges in Burkina Faso, where 58 per cent of primary teachers in urban areas hold a primary teacher’s college certificate (1 year, shortened from 2 years, of study after completion of lower secondary education). Yet, as many as four out of ten in this group have also completed a tertiary level credential (which requires 2 years of study after completion of upper secondary education). In contrast, 89 per cent of primary teachers in rural regions hold teaching certificates but almost none of them have tertiary credentials (Ouedraogo, 2005). Some countries have implemented policies aimed at reducing regional imbalances in teacher quality. For example, Ghana attempted to attract qualified teachers and head teachers to rural regions using incentive packages, which provided free bicycles to facilitate travel, for example, and free or low-cost housing. At the same time, the government also instituted additional redeployment policies, such as the transfer of excess office staff to rural classrooms and greater use of double shifting. The government also implemented the National Service Scheme programme, whereby new
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university graduates had to complete a year of teaching in classrooms before they could be offered employment. This programme was later expanded to new graduates from Polytechnics and other institutions of post-secondary education, and the length of required service was extended from 1 to 2 years. While this innovative programme brought more teachers to classrooms, it did not ensure a minimum level of professional training (Konadu, 1994). Such teacher allocation policies have proven to minimise variation in access by the socio-economic status (SES) of pupils. In most SACMEQ countries, both high and low SES pupils were equally likely to be assigned to teachers with high or low educational qualifications. For example, in most countries pupils with high and low SES were equally likely to be taught reading by teachers with a lower secondary qualification or less. Access to more highly trained teachers was inequitably distributed between high and low SES pupils in only three countries – Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa – and these gaps were wide. In Mauritius and Namibia, high SES 6th-grade pupils were more than twice as likely to be taught reading by a teacher holding at least an A-level qualification than were low SES pupils; high SES 6th-grade pupils in South Africa were 40 per cent more likely than low SES pupils to be taught by a teacher holding at least an A-level qualification. While these policies have made a positive impact in minimising variation across schools in access to teachers, teachers often face difficulties in adjusting to life in a rural environment, which can have an impact on their attendance and performance (Pryor & Ghartey Ampiah, 2003).
Measuring Academic Skills of Teachers Research studies have shown positive associations between student achievement and teachers’ academic skills, level of content knowledge, and participation in content-related professional development opportunities (Ballou, 1996; Cohen & Hill, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Ehrenberg & Brewer, 1994, 1995; Ferguson, 1991; Ferguson & Ladd, 1996; Goldhaber & Brewer, 1997, 2000; Monk & King, 1994; Mosteller & Moynihan, 1972; Murnane & Phillips, 1981; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2000; U.S. Department of Education, 2001; Wenglinsky, 2000, 2002; Wiley & Yoon, 1995). Yet, unfortunately, the administrative databases of education ministries generally do not include or maintain these kinds of measures. A number of these measures have been administered, to differing degrees, as part of international assessments of students. For example, data on whether pupils are taught math by teachers who have an academic
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qualification in mathematics were collected as part of the SACMEQ data collection, as were data on teachers’ participation levels in professional development activities. SACMEQ is unique in that the math and reading skills of teachers of 6th-grade pupils were also assessed as part of the study, allowing a direct comparison of pupils’ background characteristics and their teachers’ academic skills. Research shows that students tend to learn more from teachers with strong rather than weak academic skills (Ballou, 1996; Ferguson & Ladd, 1996; Ehrenberg & Brewer, 1995, 1994; Ferguson, 1991; Mosteller & Moynihan, 1972). However, some educators argue that the quality of instruction has more to do with teachers’ performance in the classroom than on standardised tests (Darling-Hammond, 1998). Yet, it is very difficult to measure many of the traits associated with effective teaching, such as interpersonal and publicspeaking skills, in addition to enthusiasm for working with children. Most studies examining the link between student learning and teacher skills tend to focus exclusively on academic skills (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Indeed, one of the few sources of comparative data on teachers’ skills is the SACMEQ data, which compare reading and mathematics achievements of primary teachers in Southern and Eastern Africa. As part of the SACMEQ study, 6th-grade reading and math teachers were tested in their respective fields of instruction. Their average scores were then compared to those of their pupils (by mapping both sets of scores at the same scale, with the student mean equal to 500 and a standard deviation equal to 100). Fig. 9 shows the results. The reading scores of teachers ranged from an average of 650 in Tanzania to approximately 800 or above in Kenya and Seychelles (teachers in South Africa and Mauritius did not take the assessments). Within-country variation in scores were of similar magnitude, with the difference between the lowest and highest scores ranging from 120 to 150 points in most countries. Tanzania had the least variation among teachers’ scores, with 95 per cent of teachers scoring within a range of 87 points; in Uganda the picture was much different with greater variation in academic knowledge among teachers, highlighted by a gap of 220 points. Moreover, a number of countries had a sizeable overlap between the reading scores of 6th-grade pupils and their reading teachers. For example, the highest performing pupils in Seychelles, Tanzania and Uganda scored similar levels to that of the average teacher in their country. The range in the mathematics scores of teachers was even wider, both within and between countries. Math teachers in Kenya and Seychelles had the highest average scores (as they did in reading) and teachers in Tanzania
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Fig. 9. (a) Average Reading Scores of 6th-Grade Pupils and their Reading Teachers. (b) Average Mathematics Scores of 6th-Grade Pupils and their Mathematics Teachers. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002. Note: The top of the bars represent the average scores of teachers (grey) and pupils (white); the lines bisecting the top of the bars show the range within which 95% of pupils’ and their teachers, respectively, in each country scored (+/ 1.96* SD). Teachers were not assessed in Mauritius or South Africa.
had the lowest. Teachers in Tanzania and Uganda performed, on average, better in math than in reading compared to teachers in other countries. Reading and math achievement scores of 6th-grade teachers were not strongly associated with school location (isolated/rural, small town or large
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city) in most countries. For example, only in Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda did teachers in large cities score significantly higher in mathematics than those in isolated or rural areas. In most other SACMEQ countries, urban and rural teachers scored similarly in math results. But there were two interesting exceptions: in Malawi and the Seychelles, pupils in isolated/rural areas had teachers with higher math scores than those in large cities. High SES pupils were more likely than low SES pupils to have math teachers with higher scores in Namibia and Tanzania. In Zambia, teachers with low SES pupils scored higher in math than those with high SES pupils. But in most SACMEQ countries, the scores were similar. Using the SACMEQ data, it is possible to explore the relationship between levels of education and teachers’ academic skills. Teachers with higher academic qualifications tend to earn higher salaries, thus it is important to know whether these additional costs correspond to better academic skills. In most SACMEQ countries, there was a positive relationship between 6th-grade teachers’ educational levels and their academic skills in reading and math (see Fig. 10). On average, reading teachers with an A-level or tertiary qualification scored approximately 40 points higher than those with a lower secondary or primary degree. Differences were statistically significant in all countries except Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. However, test scores among 6th-grade math teachers did not vary significantly by qualification level in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. While an improvement over existing data, especially as they link teacher and student performance with a range of other factors, these data are inadequate to monitor cross-national trends in teacher quality. While they are useful for obtaining a snapshot of teacher quality, measures derived from student assessments have not been collected in a sufficiently comparable way over a sufficiently long period of time to clearly identify trends in teacher quality. The current international studies cover different grades, across different countries, using different measures and sampling frames. Finally, even with stable longitudinal measures of teachers’ academic skills, their content knowledge, teaching experience, and other ‘‘visible signs’’ of teacher quality, current research suggests that these measures explain a relatively small proportion of the variation in student achievement that is associated with the assignment of a student to a particular teacher. For equity reasons, it is important to monitor whether poor and wealthy students, taught in urban and rural schools, living in high-income and lowincome countries have equal access to teachers. But even policies aiming to equalise access will not fully close the gaps in achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
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Teacher Quality and Education for All in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Fig. 10. (a) Average Mathematics Scores of 6th-Grade Pupils’ Mathematics Teachers by their Education Level. (b) Average Reading Scores of 6th-Grade Pupils’ Reading Teachers by their Education Level. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
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CPD of Teachers Teachers, like other skilled workers, benefit from both pre-service and onthe-job training, which are commonly referred to as continuing professional development (CPD). Relevant activities can include: improving teachers’ general education background, as well as their knowledge and understanding of the subjects they teach; instruction on how children learn different subjects; developing practical skills and competencies; learning new teaching strategies and how to use new technologies; improving their professionalism and code of ethics; and providing knowledge and skills linked to the everchanging needs of a dynamic society (based on Perraton, Creed, & Robinson, 2002). Participation in professional development activities has been shown to have a significant positive impact on teachers’ beliefs and practices, students’ learning and on the implementation of educational reforms (Cohen & Hill, 2000; Villegas-Reimers, 2003; Wenglinsky, 2000, 2002; Wiley & Yoon, 1995). Unfortunately, there are very little cross-nationally comparable data on teachers’ participation in CPD. However, data from sample surveys of teachers, including SACMEQ, can indicate the degree to which different countries use CPD to maintain and improve the quality of their teaching forces. Participation rates in CPD varied widely within and between the 13 SACMEQ countries (see Fig. 11). For example, two-thirds of 6th-grade reading teachers in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania reported no CPD participation in the previous 3 years. But nearly two-thirds or more of these teachers had done so in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Uganda. Low participation rates may reflect a lack of CPD offerings or that uncertified/untrained teachers are not eligible, as in the case of Zambia (SACMEQ, 2004). There was also variation among countries with higher rates of participation. While all 13 SACMEQ countries had at least 10 per cent of their pupils taught by reading teachers with 16 h or more of in-service training, the figure was over 25 per cent in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. Patterns of participation were similar for mathematics teachers. Teachers in rural regions may find it more difficult to participate in CPD, given the expense and time required to travel. Yet, this does not appear to be an important factor, according to SACMEQ data. Fig. 12 shows the percentage 6th-grade pupils whose reading teachers reported participating in CPD activities in the previous 3 years. Only Kenya had a greater proportion of urban pupils (45 per cent) taught by teachers with in-service training compared to 20 per cent of rural pupils. In Tanzania, 6th-grade pupils’ were
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Fig. 11. Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teacher Participated in InService Courses in the Prior 3 Years by Number of Days. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
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Fig. 12. Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teachers had no In-Service Courses in the Prior 3 Years by Location. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
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considerably more likely to be taught by a reading teacher with recent inservice training if they lived in a rural area or small town than in a large city. This does not mean that distance from major population centres is not important. The first wave of SACMEQ data demonstrate how regional disparities in training opportunities may exist within countries, particularly between urban and rural regions. This study suggested that teachers in large urban centres or provinces with higher population densities engage more often in CPD than their counterparts in sparsely populated rural regions. For example, 65 and 63 per cent of Grade 6 teachers in the capital cities of Nairobi and Harare met the benchmark in terms of in-service training, while only 3 per cent in southern and none in eastern Zambia did so, both of which are rural regions (SACMEQ, 2004). Teachers’ participation in CPD does not necessarily translate into improved learning outcomes. Critics contend that if professional development focuses too much on process (e.g. how to teach) and not enough on content (e.g. how children learn), student learning will not necessarily improve (Baker & Smith, 1999; Showers, Joyce, & Bennett, 1987). Individual country studies suggest that in most parts of the world the majority of CPD activities are ‘‘too short, too unrelated to the needs of teachers and too ineffective to upgrade teaching knowledge’’ (Villegas-Reimers, 2003). Little data are available, however, to compare the content of professional development activities. However Fig. 13
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Fig. 13. Percentage of 6th-Grade Pupils whose Reading Teachers by their Rating of In-Service Training. Source: Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ), 2000–2002.
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shows how SACMEQ reading teachers rated the effectiveness of short inservice activities. Less than 20 per cent of teachers participating in CPD activities rated them as effective or very effective in Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania. Yet, over 50 per cent did so in Botswana and Namibia. These data suggest the need to improve both access to and quality of professional development activities in Southern and Eastern Africa – and may be broadly suggestive of the same issue in other less-developed regions.
CONCLUSIONS: BRIDGING QUANTITY AND QUALITY GAPS National efforts to achieve EFA targets often imply trade-offs in resource allocation between expanding educational opportunity and improving the quality of educational provision, some of which is captured by macro-level indicators reviewed here. Increasing enrolment comes at a cost – increasing educational expenditures, decreasing teachers’ salaries, and in many cases higher pupil–teacher ratios. Research over the past decade suggests other ways that developing countries have tried to control teacher costs as enrolments rise, often by bringing in large numbers of unqualified or less qualified teachers, and in the process lowering the average qualification and experience level of the teaching force, or by supplementing teaching capacity with teacher aides and community volunteers (Mehrotra & Buckland, 1998). These types of policy trade-offs tend to conflict with EFA Goal 6 – which emphasises the importance of improving educational quality. Fig. 14 summarises countries’ needs in terms of both teacher quantity and quality by highlighting the percentage of current primary teachers meeting national qualification standards, the percentage of current teachers that do not, and the remaining percentage of additional teachers needed to achieve UPE by 2015. The total number of primary teachers required by 2015 is presented as 100 per cent. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa will need to greatly enlarge their stocks, while others can focus on improving qualification levels. For example, Niger and Mozambique have large proportions of teachers that meet the entry standard. It is true that these standards are low (generally 9 years of education), but this may not be the time to raise them given the large numbers of new recruits needed by 2015. Alternatively, some countries may face difficulties in even maintaining existing standards. For example, at least 80 per cent of teachers in Eritrea hold a post-secondary non-tertiary qualification (ISCED 4). This is
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ISCED 2
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Fig. 14. Teaching Stock with and without Minimum Qualifications and the Additional Teachers Needed to Reach UPE by 2015 (%). Source: UIS (2006).
commendable but it is also important to consider whether teacher-training institutions will be able to expand the national stock of teachers by 9.5 per cent a year to reach UPE by 2015. This is also the case for Guinea (6.0 per cent) and Malawi (5.7 per cent), which have similar entry standards but far lower proportions of primary teachers who meet the minimum requirements. Yet is it important to ensure that lower standards do not compromise educational quality. The government in Burkina Faso decided to lower standards to attract more teachers and widen access to primary education. The government adopted an aggressive recruitment policy, which established a 1-year teacher-training course upon completion of lower secondary education. At the same time, the primary completion rate (the expected gross intake into the last grade of primary education) has risen steadily, from 28 per cent in 2000 to 49 per cent in 2004. At the same time, pupil–teacher ratios have remained constant at 49:1 (2004), yet the goal of UPE remains distant. To hire an enormous number of teachers in order to achieve UPE, alternative training programmes that quickly provide teaching candidates with content knowledge and a basic pedagogical understanding is often seen as the only feasible solution. Given the duration and expense of traditional teacher-training programmes, many countries – particularly in Central and West Africa – have considered shorter-term options to meet rising demand for education. They face serious fiscal constraints, with limited budgets exacerbating already difficult situations. Thus some governments have decided that the most viable option is to lower or soften entry standards and to recruit untrained teachers.
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Less than fully trained teachers, often termed para-teachers, are increasingly being used in many developing countries to meet the increased demand for teachers as primary enrolment expands. While little systematic, crossnationally comparable data exist on this issue, a number of country-level studies suggest that the impact of hiring para-teachers on student achievement is not clear cut – in some studies there appeared to be a negative impact while in other the impact was positive or neutral. This is an area where more rigorous evaluation of policies is needed. The number of teachers that will need to be hired for a number of developing countries to meet UPE is huge. Alternative training programmes that quickly infuse teaching candidates with content and pedagogical content knowledge may be the only feasible solution to addressing gaps in teacher supply in many countries. Knowing what works in these programmes, as well as how the existence of these programmes influence the current stock of teachers, will be critical for maintaining quality as governments attempt to expand the number of places in primary and secondary schooling. New approaches are needed to resolve existing and imminent gaps in the quantity and quality of teachers. It is clear that qualifications alone do not make an effective teacher. But it is also evident that a teacher possessing only 6 years or less of formal schooling may not be prepared to teach in a primary school. As demonstrated by the SACMEQ results, there are countries where 6th-grade pupils outperform teachers on mathematics and reading tests. This kind of situation ultimately creates a vicious cycle: poor instruction and learning reduces the demand for education, which, in turn, reduces the pool of qualified teachers. Thus, understanding the strengths of these programmes, as well as their impact on the current stock of teachers, will be critical to maintain quality as governments attempt to expand the number of places in primary and secondary schooling. Throughout this chapter we have presented a range of indicators highlighting differences in teacher quality within and among countries. As countries vary widely across most of these measures, a few global comments about the state of teacher quality are possible. For example, countries in sub-Saharan Africa have low proportions of teachers who meet country-designated minimum training requirements. Further, many of those standards are quite low compared to the requirements in more-developed countries. As we move beyond the most basic indicators, namely those that can be collected from Ministries of Education, coverage and frequency of teacher-related data are considerably reduced. Thus most of the data presented here come from ad hoc surveys of the administrative records of education ministries or from teacher questionnaires administered through international assessments
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of achievement (e.g. SACMEQ). Research suggests that basic academic skills and in-depth content knowledge are important predictors of student achievement. But current data can, in most cases, only serve as rough proxies (i.e. whether a teacher has a degree in the field of instruction). Furthermore, they are available for relatively few countries, which limits the ability to make concrete recommendations on how scarce resources should be distributed across countries to improve teacher quality. That said, data collected through cooperative projects, such as SACMEQ, suggest areas that should receive greater focus. For example, several Southern and Eastern African countries, including Lesotho, Malawi and Tanzania, have large proportions of their 6th-grade pupils taught by teachers with low qualifications. Furthermore, the data suggest that teachers with varied credentials and skill levels are more or less equally distributed between urban and rural areas and across pupils of high and low SES. Although, there are exceptions to this pattern (i.e. in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa urban pupils are more likely to have reading teachers with at least an A-level qualification), variation in teachers’ qualifications and skills across these two domains were less than expected. This is not to say that teacher skills did not vary – there was a wide range of variation, both within and among countries, in the reading and math skills of teachers, to such an extent that some countries had a sizeable overlap between the reading scores of 6th-grade pupils and their reading teachers (Seychelles, Tanzania and Uganda). There was less variation than expected in these typical stratification variables, suggesting that the policy mechanisms that distribute teachers within countries (e.g. salary differentials, housing provision or initially deploying new teachers to work in rural areas) can have an effect on reducing inequality. More research and evaluation on which of these mechanisms is most effective to improve teaching and learning are clearly needed. Participation in CPD is widely regarded as a means of upgrading the skills of the teaching force. Data from SACMEQ highlight the wide variation in use of this training in developed and developing countries. Teachers’ access to professional development does not appear to correspond strongly to development status. For example, fewer than 20 per cent of 6th-grade teachers participated in effective or very effective in-service training in Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania, while over 50 per cent of teachers in Botswana and Namibia did so. Thus, while country-level wealth does not appear to be a strong barrier to the provision of professional development opportunities, the quality of the professional development activities needs improvement before they can have a strong impact on educational reform.
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NOTES 1. In addition to the above examples, such programs have also been used in conflict and emergency situations although sometimes only lasting a few weeks. 2. SACMEQ, a consortium of Ministries of Education located in the sub-region of Southern Africa, has been working in partnership with the UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) to undertake educational policy research in order to generate reliable information that can be used by decisionmakers.
REFERENCES Baker, S., & Smith, S. (1999). Starting off on the right foot: The influence of four principles of professional development in improving literacy instruction in two kindergarten programs. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 14(4), 239–253. Ballou, D. (1996). Do public schools hire the best applicants?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111(1), 97–133. Bennell, P. (2003). The impact of the AIDS epidemic on schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa. Background paper for the Biennial Meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, December. Mimeo. Bennell, P. (2005). The impact of AIDS on teachers in South Africa. Accessed at http:// www.eldis.org/fulltext/aidssouthafricanote.pdf Bennell, P., Hyde, K., & Swainson, N. (2002). The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa: A synthesis of the findings and recommendations of three country studies. Brighton: Centre for International Education, University of Sussex. Cohen, D., & Hill, H. (2000). Instructional policy and classroom performance: The mathematics reform in California. Teachers College Record, 102, 294–343. CONFEMEN/MEN de Guine´e (2003). Le projet de formation initiale des maıˆtres et la double vacation en Guine´e. Dakar. Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Teachers and teaching: Testing policy hypotheses from a National Commission Report. Educational Researcher, 27(1), 5–15. Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(1). Available at http:// olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v8n1/ Ehrenberg, R. G., & Brewer, D. (1994). Do school and teacher characteristics matter? Evidence from high school and beyond. Economics of Education Review, 13(1), 1–17. Ehrenberg, R. G., & Brewer, D. J. (1995). Did teachers’ verbal ability and race matter in the 1960s? Coleman Revisited. Economics of Education Review, 14(1), 1–21. Ferguson, R. (1991). Paying for public education: New evidence on how and why money matters. Harvard Journal of Legislation, 28(Summer), 465–498. Ferguson, R. F., & Ladd, H. (1996). How and why money matters: An analysis of Alabama schools. In: H. F. Ladd (Ed.), Holding schools accountable: Performance-based reform in education. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Goldhaber, D. D., & Brewer, D. J. (1997). Evaluating the Effect of Teacher Degree Level on Educational Performance. In: W. Fowler (Ed.), Developments in School Finance, 1996 (NCES 97-535): 197-210. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
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ILO/UNESCO. (1966). Recommendation concerning the status of teachers. IMF. (2000). The International development association and the international monetary fund: Niger. Decision Point Document under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Available at http://www.imf.org/external/NP/hipc/2000/ner/Niger.pdf International Association of Universities (IAU)/UNESCO. (2004). Country Reports. Mozambique. IAU online databases. Available at http://www.unesco.org/iau/onlinedatabases/ Konadu, D. A. (1994). Improving the deployment of teachers: The Ghanaian experience. In: IIEP research and studies programme: The management of teachers. Paris: IIEP-UNESCO. Malaney, P. (2000). The impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector in Southern Africa. CAER II Discussion paper, Boston. Accessed at www.hiid.harvard.edu/caer2/htm/content/ papers/paper81/paper81.htm Mehrotra, S., & Buckland, P. (1998). Managing teacher costs for access and quality. Staff Working Paper, Evaluation, Policy and Planning Series, No. EPP-EVL-98-004. New York: UNICEF. Monk, D. H., & King, J. (1994). Multi-level teacher resource effects on pupil performance in secondary mathematics and science: The role of teacher subject matter preparation. In: R. Ehrenberg (Ed.), Contemporary policy issues: Choices and consequences in education. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. Morgan, W. J., Christopher, A., Amanda, S., & Segun, A. (2005). The condition of teachers and of teaching in rural schools. Paper commissioned for UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Nottingham: Centre for Comparative Education Research, School of Education, University of Nottingham. Mosteller, F., & Moynihan, D. P. (Eds) (1972). On equality of educational opportunity. New York: Random House. Mothibeli, A., & Maema, M. (2005). The SACMEQ II Project in Lesotho: A study of the conditions of schooling and the quality of education. Harare: SACMEQ. MTT (Mobile Task Team). (2005). Educator attrition and mortality rates in South Africa. Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal. Murnane, R. J., & Phillips, B. R. (1981). Learning by doing, vintage, and selection: Three pieces of the puzzle relating teaching experience and teaching performance. Economics of Education Review, 1(4), 453–465. Ouedraogo, A. (2005), Personal communication to the UIS. Perraton, H., Creed, C., & Robinson, B. (2002). Teacher education guidelines: Using open and distance learning. Paris: UNESCO. Pryor, J., & Ghartey Ampiah, J. (2003). Understandings of education in an African village: The impact of information and communication technologies. London, UK: Department for International Development. Rivkin, S., Hanushek, E., & Kain, J. (2000). Teachers, schools, and academic achievement. Working Paper No. 6691 (revised), National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. Rwanda Ministry of Education (2003). Education sector strategic plan 2003–2008 [1st Draft, April 2003]. Kigali: MINEDUC. SACMEQ (2004). Data Archive for the SACMEQ I and SACMEQ II projects. Paris: IIEP-UNESCO. Showers, B., Joyce, B., & Bennett, B. (1987). Synthesis of research on staff development: A framework for future study and state of the art analysis. Educational Leadership, 45(3), 77–87.
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UNAIDS (2005). AIDS epidemic update. Geneva: UNAIDS/WHO. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2004), Global Education Digest 2004. Montreal, Canada: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2005), Global Education Digest 2005. Montreal, Canada: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2006a). Teachers and educational quality: Monitoring global needs for 2015. Children out of school: Measuring exclusion from primary education. Montreal, Canada: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO Institute for Statistics/UNICEF (2006b). Children out of school: Measuring exclusion from primary education. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. U.S. Department of Education (2001). Monitoring school quality: An indicators report. In: D. P. Mayer, J. E. Mullens & M. T. Moore (Eds), NCES 2001–30. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Villegas-Reimers, E. (2003). Teacher professional development: An international review of the literature. In: Quality education for all. Paris: IIEP-UNESCO. Wenglinsky, H. (2000). How teaching matters: Bringing the classroom back into discussions of teacher quality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Wenglinsky, H. (2002). How schools matter: The link between teacher classroom practices and student academic performance. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(12). Retrieved from epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n12. Wiley, D., & Yoon, B. (1995). Teacher reports on opportunity to learn: Analyses of the 1993 California Learning Assessment System. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 17, 355–370.
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APPENDIX. DESCRIPTION OF INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF EDUCATION (ISCED) The minimum training required to become a teacher in different countries is reported in this chapter according to the ISCED. The use of ISCED allows for cross-national comparison of education systems across a number of dimensions, including programme duration, entry requirements and theoretical versus practical/technical orientation. ISCED was not specifically designed to compare the educational qualifications of teachers. Yet by grouping national qualifications along these lines, it affords greater comparability than relying on nationally specific measures of trained teachers or the cumulative duration of schooling required to become a teacher. Lower secondary (ISCED 2): Typically between 8 and 9 years of schooling, 2 and to 3 years after completion of primary education. Upper secondary (ISCED 3): Typically between 12 and 13 years of schooling, requiring completion of lower secondary education for entry. ISCED 3A and 3B programmes are designed to prepare students for entry into tertiary programmes at the ISCED 5A and 5B levels, respectively (see below). ISCED 3C programmes generally do not lead to a qualification that would allow entry into tertiary programmes. Post-secondary, non-tertiary (ISCED 4): These programmes straddle the boundary between upper secondary and post-secondary education from the perspective of international comparisons, even though they are often considered as upper secondary or post-secondary programmes in a national context. They are often not significantly more advanced than ISCED 3 programmes, but they serve to broaden the knowledge of participants who have already completed such a programme. The students are typically older than those in ISCED 3 programmes. ISCED 4 programmes typically have a full-time equivalent duration of 6 months–2 years. Tertiary (ISCED 5A): These programmes are largely theoretically based and are intended to provide sufficient qualifications for gaining entry into advanced research programmes (e.g. to earn a Ph.D.) and professions with high skills requirements (e.g. medicine, law, architecture and engineering). The minimum duration is 3 years after completion of an ISCED 3 programme. Tertiary (ISCED 5B): These programmes are generally more practical/ technical/occupationally-specific than ISCED 5A programmes. Minimum duration is 2 years after completion of an ISCED 3 programme.
CHALLENGES OF REBUILDING EDUCATION IN CRISIS: ACCESS TO UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION IN AFRICA Ladislaus M. Semali ABSTRACT This chapter outlines the enormity of the task of achieving universal primary education in Africa with over 40 million children currently out of school in sub-Saharan Africa. Several questions are addressed with reference to global trends and using World Bank and national enrollment data. For example: Why does Africa seem unable to secure ‘‘education for all’’ for school-age children? Is it simply the relative poverty levels of African countries, or are there grounds for thinking that other factors might be at work? And, what challenges do these countries face in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic? This chapter also notes that some countries are at higher risk of not achieving universal primary completion and gender equality by 2015. What must politicians and policy-makers do to reverse these trends? As observed by Blair’s Commission for Africa, the challenges are immense and if Africa continues on its current path then the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for halving poverty, universal primary education and the elimination of avoidable infant deaths in sub-Saharan Africa will not be delivered in 2015 but instead between 100 Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 395–425 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08014-5
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and 150 years late. The challenge is to find short- and long-term policies and solutions to address this global policy.
The confluence of wars, HIV/AIDS, poverty and hunger, terrorism, and natural disasters has refocused national and international attention on the state of schooling in sub-Sahara Africa. Voices of educational reform can be heard from many directions and the debate about access to universal primary education (UPE) continues among all concerned about quality, efficacy, equality, and effectiveness of current educational systems. These calls are not confined to Africa, but are a worldwide phenomenon. Recent Education for All reports, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), where world leaders promised to eradicate poverty, promote human dignity and equality, and achieve peace and democracy and environmental sustainability; and the Blair’s Commission for Africa report, Our Common Interest, are a few examples of these calls. Although their conclusions are open to debate, some commentators use the grim words ‘‘education in crisis’’ to describe the African state of affairs, principally because, many years beyond the independence movement, the schooling system has failed to meet its promise of educating all children (Sachs, 2005; World Bank, 1989). Other voices suggest that the Education for All (EFA) movement – first announced at Jomtien in 1990, and 10 years later revised by the Dakar Educational Goals in 2000 – is one way to avert the crisis and turn the spotlight on core areas of intervention that may make a difference. The assumption is that the proposed policy options outlined can bring long-term gains that will have a wider spin-off effect in moving toward quality of education for all. To be sure, an interim report issued in 2005 showed that the crisis is far from over and that sub-Sahara African countries are lagging behind other regions of the world in making progress toward the goal of providing education for all, particularly the target areas of UPE and gender parity (UNESCO, 2005a). It is predicted that the 23 African countries highlighted in Fig. 1 will not meet the 2015 EFA goals. The Jomtien and Dakar goals set macro indicators and policy targets pledged and adopted by international organizations and the 191 UN member-governments as a bold intervention for mass education. At Jomtien, in 1990, educators, policymakers, and ministers of education committed themselves to ensuring the right to basic education for all people by 2000. Over the years, a quiet evolution of the way we view education has been taking place. For example, the view of education as distinctive instrument of education has changed considerably from the earlier preoccupation with
Access to Universal Primary Education in Africa
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Map of sub-Sahara Africa: Countries that will not Achieve EFA Goals by 2015.
skilled manpower as a necessary adjunct to capital-intensive economic growth to the current conviction that education is a precondition for the achievement of a range of economic goals for social development as well as for individual self-realization, peace, and security (Evans, 2000). Education and skills training are seen by governments as pillars of the developmental state of affairs in terms of developing and growing the economy, and in relation to social cohesion (Soudien, 2005). The overall assumption of this view, however, is that educational reform and globalization are understood as critical to bringing into a single package, peace, security, development, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, summed up this global view when he issued in 2005 the interim report of the MDGs: ‘‘We will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, we will not enjoy either without the respect of human rights’’ (United Nations, 2005).
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For sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), EFA and the Millennium Goals promote ‘‘education’’ not only as fundamental human right but also as one of the drivers indispensable to sustainable development and poverty eradication. Thus, education is widely acknowledged to foster civic participation, greater tolerance, and intercultural dialogue (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). However, at the village or local level, it is not clear how increased access to education, while of great importance, might by itself be the magic bullet that makes the difference. It is important to note that the increased reliance on EFA as a desirable goal for development is not new to sub-Sahara Africa. Since the 1960s, when the catchphrase initially was introduced during the anti-colonial nationalist movements, African governments have singled out ‘‘education’’ as central to their rationale for national development. The assumption was that the benefits of education were easy to explain to the masses and that reforms in that field were likely to show results in a short time. Recently, for example, Kenyan politicians used access to UPE as a campaign promise in 2002 for the current government. For them, education remains a high priority for the government’s development strategy. Similarly, Tanzania saw a rapid increase in the net primary enrollment rate, from 57 to 85% in 2002, following the implementation of the campaign promise in the 2000 national election to abolish fees in primary schools (Kattan & Burnett, 2004). Clearly, the rhetoric of EFA is not going away any time soon, since most of the SSA countries are signatories to international conventions on education – e.g., the Jomtien EFA Goals, the Dakar Education Goals, and the MDGs on Education. From the current global discourse on EFA, it may be seen that some advocates both within countries and from international organizations view education not only as a human right but also as ‘‘merit good.’’ This view is fueled by persisting assumptions and the enduring belief that education can: (1) liberate and empower; (2) develop a literate citizenry; (3) be instrumental in social and economic development and in the investment in a country’s future; and (4) dispose people with particular competencies and attitudes, and deliver transfers of wisdom, expectations, ways of thinking and discipline to the next generation. These promises reveal an underlying, tacit neoliberal consensus that education for all can eliminate poverty and hunger, reduce infant mortality, and usher in a new paradigm of development and progress for African populations. Some of these expectations of education have become the central focus of several research enterprises while others have remained in large measure myths, particularly when we consider that outcomes have not always been automatic, or matched inputs, or even consequential to educational reforms in Africa.
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It is unclear, however, how programs and national policies promoting international development targets and the fulfillment of human rights can be implemented and at what cost. The EFA’s macro-policy targets, as will be explained in this chapter, fall short of the integrated, multi-sectoral, and multi-disciplinary view of the world in which populations of low-income countries live. For instance, poverty – which is a serious threat and challenge to the EFA goals (see Table 1) – cannot be addressed by one discipline alone, because education is linked to health and well-being and together they are linked in complex ways to gender, age, social class, race, ethnicity, political status, place of residence, and so on. Strategies and policy options drawn by the ministry of education in any country cannot resolve alone the challenges that confront people everyday. In this chapter, I examine the national challenges facing education in SSA countries, particularly in meeting the EFA goals by 2015 (see Fig. 1) in two sections. In the first section, I focus my discussion on the description of 23 countries that will not meet both the enrollment and gender parity targets. In the second section, I review recent research on the national challenges which are examined against the backdrop of ‘‘national policies’’ and the assumptions underlying the educational reform effort. In particular, I examine how governments respond to EFA goals to establish the fit or distance between them.
Table 1. Comparison between Education for All and Millennium Development Goals. Education for All Goals Goal 1: Expanding early childhood care and education Goal 2: Universal primary education by 2015 Goal 3: Equitable access to learning and life skills program for young people and adults Goal 4: Fifty percent improvement in adult literacy rates by 2015 Goal 5: Gender parity by 2015 and gender equality by 2015
Relevant Millennium Development Goals
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education (i.e., completion of full primary schooling by all children by 2015)
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women (i.e., eliminate gender disparity preferably by 2015)
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ASSUMPTIONS AND CHALLENGES TO UPE IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA When we look back to the 1990s, we observe that steady progress, no matter how dismal the results may have seemed, was made – especially toward UPE and gender parity among the poorest countries. According to the 2005 Global Monitoring Report (GMR), progress in primary education is noticeable in the poorest countries such as Burkina Faso, Benin, and Eritrea. Between 1990 and 2001, the overall numbers of children in primary school in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 48%. But attaining universal enrollment has been patchy. Rural areas tend to fare worst, and some groups (such as girls, disabled children, and orphans) continue to be marginalized (UNESCO, 2004a, 2004b). In the year 2000, 104 million children were out of school – nearly all of them living in developing countries. Of the 104 million, 57% were girls, although that is better than the proportion in 1990, when 63% of all out-of-school children were girls. As we approach 2015, the challenges loom large. The 2005 GMR assessment reveals that SSA, when compared with other regions of the world, is not on track to achieve the EFA goals unless significant efforts are made to dramatically improve current enrollment trends (see Table 2). The SSA countries, as is the case with all other low-income nations, have also witnessed a number of situations that constrain and even reverse progress toward achieving the EFA goals by 2015. These situations include largescale political and economic crises, the persistence of armed conflicts, the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and man-made and natural disasters, such as the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean or drought in Northern Kenya. Even though steady progress in UPE and gender equity has been made since 1998, the GMR warns that the pace is insufficient for the goals to be met in the 10 years remaining before the target date of 2015. In sum, the major challenges facing SSA are: (1) providing access for all children to quality education; (2) eliminating gender-based and other access disparities; (3) ensuring children complete primary school; and (4) achieving measurable learning outcomes. Access to UPE for All Children Goal 2 of the EFA aims at getting all children into school and having them successfully complete primary school. This is the government’s responsibility, even though other organizations, such as religious groups, may be the
New Entrants to Grade 1 of Primary Education, All Ages, Both Sexes. 1998/1999
1999/2000
2000/2001
2001/2002
2002/2003
2003/2004
2004/2005
Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Coˆte d’Ivoire Democratic Republic of the Congo Djibouti Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali
347,674 – 50,517 153,584 146,023 334,685 13,118 – 174,874 13,275 – 309,006 766,670 5,837 – 57,336 1,536,929 – 30,163 468,719 118,591 35,779 916,051 52,454 49,676 494,817 – 172,900
– 205,066 50,449 160,256 – 350,900 13,063 – 193,044 14,979 65,784 310,745 – 6,056 – 68,909 1,646,730 – 31,018 480,254 143,918 36,464 892,001 51,357 – 523,943 616,202 181,592
– 215,112 50,496 172,162 151,423 546,894 13,100 – 202,166 15,115 – 305,208 – 7,806 16,174 67,808 1,749,756 33,192 31,106 461,885 155,879 – –– 98,520 – 538,955 660,243 206,125
– 222,625 52,410 177,121 163,605 482,034 12,591 71,270 231,273 16,677 71,759 322,711 – 7,839 16,156 74,899 1,714,609 35,319 31,672 466,667 168,994 – – 69,631 – 585,805 658,892 233,118
– 230,683 52,719 212,874 172,529 453,578 12,861 – 238,517 – 64,189 353,966 – 8,017 – 72,355 1,721,270 35,061 32,487 481,392 194,763 – 825,881 60,250 – – 657,540 235,411
– – – – – – – – – – – – – 8,431 – – 2,025,566 – – 494,984 – – – – – – – –
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
401
Year
Access to Universal Primary Education in Africa
Table 2.
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Table 2. (Continued ) 1998/1999
1999/2000
2000/2001
2001/2002
2002/2003
2003/2004
2004/2005
Mauritania Mauritius Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Sao Tome and Principe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Togo Uganda United Republic of Tanzania Zambia Zimbabwe
– 22,175 521,368 53,154 132,650 – 295,337 3,977 190,102 1,639 – – 1,264,880 – 30,932 139,403 – 668,994 248,754 –
64,404 21,516 536,145 54,332 145,581 – 328,839 – 244,374 1,703 98,923 – 1,202,214 446,801 30,655 136,079 – 713,722 251,638 416,139
73,139 21,227 592,809 54,942 158,623 – 270,266 4,534 225,874 1,711 – – 1,168,581 – 30,489 151,022 1,608,562 868,555 275,585 416,139
88,397 20,090 648,746 57,103 204,069 – 313,953 4,564 240,067 1,517 – – 1,167,020 572,848 30,618 154,614 1,488,369 1,109,416 279,527 445,894
83,512 20,021 630,648 58,021 215,946 5,290,614 404,153 – 265,646 1,511 – – 1,168,581 583,756 29,688 149,454 1,612,706 1,601,993 286,401 417,829
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 1,331,553 – 417,034
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 1,229,945 – –
LADISLAUS M. SEMALI
Year
Access to Universal Primary Education in Africa
403
agencies that actually provide the schooling. GMR reports indicate that progress toward UPE has been slow overall since Dakar: the world’s net enrollment ratio increased by only 1 percentage point, from 83.6% in 1998 to 84.6% in 2002 (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). Across sub-Saharan Africa, however, enrollment ratios are rising rapidly due to elimination of school fees, and the gender gap is slowly closing. Another problem is that many countries are faced with low enrollment ratios as well as an insufficient capacity to accommodate all children. This calls for continued policy efforts to expand the school systems and to improve their quality. According to the GMR, access to primary school remains an issue. Intake rates measure access to the first grade of primary education. Gross intake rates (GIRs) above 100% are the rule rather than the exception, meaning that many children younger or older than the official entrance age are enrolled in primary school. The GIR also can reflect obstacles to timely enrollment, such as high costs or lack of schools. Forty percent of sub-Saharan African countries have GIRs below 95%, implying that mere access to primary schools remains an issue, especially for poor rural children and particularly for girls. A positive sign is that some of the countries with the lowest intake rates recorded increases of 30% or more between 1998 and 2002 (e.g., Guinea, the Niger, Senegal, Tanzania) (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). To achieve this goal, African governments are expected to address specific policy options that enable different stakeholders to enroll all children in school. The 2005 GMR outlines these options to include the following: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
(7) (8)
Make UPE a political priority at the highest level. Declare primary education free and compulsory for all children. Increase national funding to basic education and improve its quality. Set up a clear legal framework so that local boards and committees can effectively participate in the management of schools. Train enough teachers, and improve their working conditions. Make special provision for the education of excluded children, such as disabled and other children with special needs, including refugees and displaced children, orphans and working children, and children from linguistic and cultural minorities. Make education relevant to local cultural and economic contexts so that parents see that education improves quality of life. Increase access to secondary education for all children so that basic skills are fully learned and education leads to opportunities for productive work in society.
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These options pose policy dilemmas for all 23 countries under discussion. The challenges are enormous. Current reports reveal that in 2000 the number of children out of school in Africa had increased by 17% since 1990 – that is 6,378,000 more children without the chance to obtain primary education (see UNESCO, 2004a, 2004b). The state of elementary education is dismal (see Fig. 2). UPE by 2015 is not assured to the approximately 100 million children who are still not enrolled in primary school, 55% of them girls. These children suffer particular disadvantages such as: (1) being girls – not sent to school by their parents; or doing household chores and looking after smaller brothers, sisters or ailing parents; or the school may be too risky for girls to go there;
Fig. 2.
Percentage of Primary School Enrollment (Net Rates 2001). Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report (2004a).
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(2) being poor and unable to afford schooling, or needing to work to support the family; (3) living in a conflict area, where schools are disrupted or destroyed; (4) disabled or affected by HIV/AIDS, unable to get to school or without adequate care; (5) living in remote or rural areas, where the schools are too far away, or there just not any; (6) moving around – belonging to nomadic or migrant families and not able to spend time at school; (7) living on the street – orphans and others having to live as best they can without help; or lack school uniforms; (8) being children from minority groups – not speaking the language of school, or looked down upon by others. These groups of at-risk children pose a formidable challenge to subSaharan Africa governments. GMR (2005) reports that in the 23 countries, primary net enrollment rates have been declining and some 40 million children are still not in school. Fees are still collected at the primary level in most countries with the exception of a few countries like Tanzania and Kenya (since 2003). In Botswana, they resumed collecting fees in January this year. High fertility rates, HIV/AIDS, and armed conflicts continue to exert pressure on education systems in the regions like the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Somalia. The GMR shows that certain strategies were very successful, such as removing primary school user fees, which can massively increase enrollment. In Kenya, for example, following the introduction of free primary education in 2003 student enrollment rose from 5.9 to 7.7 million by 2005. In Niger, Burkina Faso, and Angola the expected number of years of formal schooling a child will experience is less than five years on average. More than 60% of children drop out of school in Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, and Rwanda (Kattan & Burnett, 2004). Further, the challenges both to get and to keep children in school are manifested in a variety of areas of the school system, including overstretched facilities, inadequate teaching resources, overcrowding in schools (especially in urban slums), the high cost of special equipment for children with special needs, gender, religious and regional disparities, the increased number of orphans in and out of schools as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and low transition rates from primary to secondary schools. At the Davos Summit, in January 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a ‘‘big push forward’’ in Africa to reach the MDGs, financed by
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an increase in foreign aid. The challenges outlined in the Blair’s commission for Africa are staggering, and for this reason, the commission concluded that if Africa continues in its current path, the MDGs for halving poverty, for UPE, and for the elimination of avoidable infant deaths in sub-Saharan Africa will not be delivered in 2015 but between 100 and 150 years later (Commission, 2005). Blair’s commission recommends that a partnership between Africa and the developed world that takes full account of Africa’s diversity and particular circumstances is necessary. Africa must accelerate reform. And the developed world must increase and improve its aid, and stop doing those things that hinder Africa’s progress (Commission, 2005): ‘‘The problems to be addressed are interlocking and could be summed up into political, including governance and conflict; structural, including fragmentation, transport costs, and the roles of agriculture, manufacturing, and services; environmental and technological, including climate, water, desertification, deforestation, and technological development; and human, health, education, and the growth and age structure of population. These problems are vicious circles which reinforce one another. They must be tackled together. To do that Africa requires a comprehensive ‘big push’on many fronts at once’’ (p. 2).
Making the Case for UPE Why has such a basic human right become so problematic for governments in SSA countries? In 1993 Coclough and Lewin tried to answer this question by performing a cross-country analysis of low-income countries, including 24 out of 42 sub-Sahara countries, and through a multivariate analysis of the influences on achievement of UPE. They showed that countries with low Gross Enrollment Rates tend to have low per capita incomes (p. 63). They argued, in economic terms, that this is partly because poorer countries have higher rates of population growth, and thus proportionately larger schoolage populations. Thus, the size of the educational task facing poorer nations will be greater in low-income nations than in richer countries. Consequently, low per capita income will affect the capacity of governments to finance and deliver schooling. Coclough and Lewin’s conclusion was that attainment of UPE is critically influenced not only by the supply of school places, but also by the demand for school places by private households. Low household incomes will reduce demand (p. 78). In their analysis, Coclough and Lewin made the assumption that it makes good sense for poor governments with limited resources to invest or devote a
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large proportion of their GNP in the universalization of primary education. They further assumed that it is universally acceptable to use investment in primary education, where the rates of return are higher. However, they were not as clear when it came to addressing local conditions of governance, geography, culture, and education of parents, all of which are predictors of children’s education. Equally, they did not tackle the political, structural, environmental, technical, or human hindrances. They relied in part on the economic model and GER projections. While championing this supply-and-demand model of understanding UPE, which makes good sense to a lot of people, it is important to note that the quality of primary education in SSA varies in every country, and has a standard duration of between seven to ten years (although some children may repeat classes and others may drop out before the end) and that lower education has a standard duration of six years. The phenomenon of under-enrollment has been troublesome for many sub-Saharan governments for decades. The 2005 EFA report highlights the challenges facing these countries, including inadequate and poorly trained teachers, large enrollments that compromise quality, unfriendly learning environments (especially for girls), poverty, and HIV/AIDS (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). For these reasons, some estimates indicate that as many as 50% of the school-age population is not enrolled in school, the majority living in rural areas, which is home to 70% of the poor populations. Girls, disabled children, and orphans are still marginalized, and together they add up to the total of almost 40 million children still not in school (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). Although the number of pupils per teacher declined between 1998 and 2002 in more than two-thirds of the 143 countries with data, there are exceptions. In sub-Saharan Africa, pupil/teacher ratios (PTRs) typically exceed 40:1 and are as high as 70:1 in some countries (e.g., Chad, the Congo, and Mozambique). PTRs have also increased in several countries that have eliminated or reduced school fees (e.g., the United Republic of Tanzania). Projections were made of the number of teachers needed to increase GERs to 100% by 2015 with a target PTR of 40:1 to assure quality. In some West African countries (e.g., Burkina Faso, Mali, and the Niger), teacher numbers would have to grow dramatically – by 20% per year. In addition, enrollments have not increased significantly in early childhood care and education programs, one of the keys to enhanced performance at primary school (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). Achieving EFA goals in sub-Saharan Africa will require at least the doubling of efforts made over the previous decade. When judged by the EFA Development Index (EDI), which
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provides a summary measure of progress toward four of the six EFA goals (UPE, gender, literacy, and quality), 35 countries have EDI values below 0.80 – far from achieving the goals. Most, but not all, of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b).
GENDER PARITY Both Goal 5 of EFA and the Millennium Development Goal 3 aim at gender equality and to empowering women by eliminating gender disparity by 2015. Progress reports on this goal indicate that few countries have met this goal and the issue is principally one of girls’ enrollments. Studies on enrollment have revealed that fewer women than men have access to education in Africa. Although girls’ primary enrollments have risen rapidly, especially in some of the lowest-income countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the 2005 gender parity target in primary and secondary education has been missed by 18 countries in SSA (see Fig. 3); while 13 countries are at risk of not achieving gender parity in primary education and 9 are likely to miss the secondary education target by 2015. Blair’s Commission for Africa observed that education is as much a right for girls as it is for boys. The Commission
Fig. 3. Gender Parity: Male to Female Enrollment Ratio. Source: Global Monitoring Report, 2004. Note: Enrollment ratios above 1 indicate greater female enrollment. Enrollment rations below 1 indicate greater male than female enrollment.
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acknowledged that, despite the rapid and significant progress being made in some countries that show what is possible, the first time-bound MDG target – eliminating gender disparities by 2005 in primary and secondary – clearly was missed. It is generally assumed that the impact of education on a country’s development is stronger when girls are educated. In particular, the assumption underlying this goal is that some fertility studies suggest that increases in education are positively correlated with decreases in fertility and that girls’ education, in particular, provides an opportunity to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. The case of Uganda is cited to show that education was a key factor in reducing prevalence rates (see Fig. 4). Educating girls is also an indirect investment in the education of the following generation. Thus, educators and policymakers who met in Dakar emphasized that it is unacceptable that there are still large gender disparities in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. To achieve the Dakar goals, African governments are expected to address specific policy options that will enable each child to enjoy the right to be educated. These proposals for change include the following options: (1) Make UPE a political priority at the highest level. (2) Give families incentives to send their children (especially girls) to school, such as: stipends, free school meals, textbooks and paper, and uniforms.
Fig. 4.
Education and HIV/AIDS: Knowledge Causes Behavior to Change. Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report (2004a).
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(3) Promote the education of girls, as they are more likely to be excluded from school, and discourage child labor. (4) Make special provision for the education of excluded children, such as disabled and other children with special needs – including refugees and displaced children, orphans and working children, and children from linguistic and cultural minorities. (5) Make schools safe (especially for girls) and equip them with necessities such as drinking water, books, desks, and separate toilets. Some of these gender and educational quality measures are becoming increasingly visible in national education plans. African governments’ development policy and planning now recognize the need to specifically address the issue of women participation in all aspects of development. This has been witnessed in the past decade through strong delegations from nations in Africa to the Women’s conferences in Cairo, Egypt and Beijing, China. In Tanzania, the government established a ministry of Children, Women and Social Welfare. In Kenya, the government recognized in the 7th Kenyan National Development Plan (1994–1996 that historical gender disparities exist in development projects where women are marginalized and so isolated from opportunities to participate in development and decision making at the national level (Lutta-Mukhebi, 2004). While asserting that education remains the single major factor that can narrow the gender imbalance in all areas of development, these national plans reveal that females are disadvantaged at all levels of education in terms of access, participation, completion, and performance.
Mismatch Between Promises and Policy in Gender Equity Even though steady progress in UPE and gender equity has been made since 1998, experts warn that the pace is insufficient for the goals to be met in the remaining 10 years (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). In 1999, for a gender responsiveness study, FAWE carried out an in-depth analysis of policies in six countries in SSA: Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania (FAWE, 1999). To undertake the analysis, FAWE developed a gender framework of analysis for documents in the education sector: ‘‘ABC of Reviewing Education Policies for Gender Responsiveness.’’ A gender-responsive policy is defined in the document as being one that incorporates gender in a systematic and consistent manner through a process of policy formulation.
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The results of the FAWE study showed major gaps between the commitments made by governments in their EFA National Action Plans to support girls’ education and the gender responsiveness of the policies themselves. Most policies did not target the specific needs of girls. The report concluded that this situation explains the existence of disparities between girls and boys in educational systems, as well as disparities in access, retention, and performance. The common assumption supporting the education of girls is that lack of education and training prevents young people from finding jobs and thus adequately feeding their families. For many developing countries, especially in SSA, 23% of all boys and young men and 38% of all girls and young women do not continue with or never attended primary school (FAO/UNESCO, 2001). Another common assumption that supports the education of girls revolves around the fertility hypothesis. It is commonly believed, for example, that by reducing fertility the pressure of overpopulation will be eased, which will in turn improve the health of the recipients. The assumption underlying the studies cited above is based on the belief that the direct costs of rearing children increase as parents recognize the growing importance of human capital in the new dispensation; however, requiring much greater expenditure per child also is seen to have a rising opportunity cost. At the same time, distant potential economic returns from children in the form of support in old age look insecure. As more children survive, households ‘‘risk’’ having fewer children, confident that each child is much more likely to survive. As households move from subsistence agriculture to commercial farming and especially to urban life, they also choose to have fewer children. This is partially because children are no longer so invaluable as farm workers. Families and individuals contemplating their reproductive lives conclude that they can do better with fewer children. Improvements in the knowledge and affordability of effective birth control ease the behavioral change. In pursuing these arguments, we must recognize the fact that gender parity issues are contextualized within a socio-cultural framework where the ideas at issue are not just about contraceptive methods but also about family life, gender systems, social mobility, economic opportunity, and much more. For the fertility proposition to work, we must recognize the role of the government and the extent to which national policies impinge on fertility behavior and outcomes (McNicoll, 1998, p. 13). For instance: (1) The state develops, funds, and manages programs that seek to influence family size outcomes through information, advocacy, economic inducement, or political pressure.
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(2) The state maintains an overall regulatory regime and system of public administration, providing a legal-administrative setting for civil society, economic activity, and family life. (3) The state has a part in determining access and opportunity in the society – the social stratification and gender systems – thereby affecting the fertility calculus of individuals and families. (4) The state designs and undertakes public-sector expenditure and transfer payments keyed to age or family status, thereby affecting the private economics of fertility. (5) The state wields the symbols of national identity and cultural continuity that take the place of local beliefs and traditions about progeny, setting individual expectations and behavior in a wider national and even global cultural framework. These arguments reflect assumptions of the best socio-political and cultural conditions that underlie social regulation of fertility. However, little or no information exists to illustrate such an extensive regulatory framework anywhere in Africa. Notwithstanding the fertility hypothesis, eliminating gender-based and other access disparities pose formidable challenges to most governments. Most countries indicate in their policies their commitment to promote the education of girls (as they are more likely to be excluded from school), to discourage child labor, and to make special provision for the education of excluded children, such as disabled and other children with special needs, including refugees and displaced children, orphans and working children, and children from linguistic and cultural minorities. In spite of such awareness, the prospects of achieving UPE and gender parity in an era of fiscal constraints and the looming HIV epidemic seems like a tall order. Furthermore, it is surprising that, throughout the EFA reports, very little mention was made about the role teachers must play, particularly female teachers, besides professional development. Most of the policy options outlined above suggest ‘‘teacher-proof’’ innovations, which can sustain the impetus for change, despite the teachers. In some other cases, teachers are absent from the discourse about EFA reforms. In the majority of the EFA goals, the role of teachers as implementers or actors is not central to the proposed indicators. To succeed, the EFA targets will need systematic planning, active participation of all stakeholders (local, regional, national, and international), in-depth studies, and constant monitoring for the long term.
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IMPACT AND IMPLICATIONS OF HIV/AIDS ON THE EDUCATION SECTOR Goal 6 of the MDGs addresses HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. However, the AIDS pandemic has had a disproportionate impact in Africa, where some 62% of the world’s 15–24 year olds who live with HIV are to be found. The scale of the pandemic is chilling. It is estimated that some 25 million people have died so far, and life expectancy in some southern African countries has been pushed back to pre-1950s levels (UNAIDS, 2002). A further 25 million Africans are living with HIV, including nearly 40% of the population in Botswana. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has impacted education in major ways. In 1999 alone, nearly 1 million children in this region lost their teachers to AIDS. The cumulative effect of these deaths has been placing untenable burden on many countries that already lacked sufficient trained teachers. When parents become ill with AIDS, children are often pulled out of school to care for them, take on other household responsibilities, or work to support the family. When parents die, children often leave school because of economic hardship. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of orphans in some countries exceeds half a million, and, in some countries, children who have been orphaned by AIDS comprise half or more of all orphans nationally. AIDS is responsible for leaving vast numbers of children across Africa without one or both parents. Table 3 shows the countries with the largest numbers of AIDS orphans. Tragically, EFA is more important at this time, because supposedly it provides a stable element in a child’s life. For this reason
Table 3.
New Orphan Estimates.
Total Number of Orphans due to AIDS, 2003
Orphans due to AIDS as a Percentage of all Orphans, 2003
DR Congo Ethiopia Nigeria South Africa Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
Botswana Lesotho Malawi Namibia Swaziland Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
Source: UNAIDS (2002).
770,000 720,000 1,800,000 1,100,000 980,000 940,000 630,000 980,000
77 56 48 48 63 48 60 78
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education is probably the single most effective way of preventing the further spread of HIV. Facts about how young people can protect themselves are increasingly being introduced into schools and as well as into out-of-school curricula. A sampler of a few reports on the epidemic will illustrate the seriousness of its impact, not only on the education sector but to the entire African social infrastructure. According to the Global Health Council (2005), Zambia lost 1,300 teachers to AIDS in the first 10 months of 1998 – the equivalent of two-thirds of all new teachers trained annually – and this trend has only slowed down slightly in recent years. In Kenya, 10 teachers on average die from the disease each week. And in South Africa, as many as 60,000 teachers are expected to die before the decade is out (McElroy, 2003). In Botswana, 38.8% of all adults are infected with HIV/AIDS (Global Health Council, 2005). In Namibia, the incidence of HIV infection among teachers is assumed to be well above that for the population as a whole, which is currently between 20 and 25%. Projections by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) indicate that, by the end of this decade, at least 3,500 working teachers will have died in Namibia, but the figure could be higher (The Namibian, 2002; Coombe, 2000). In Tanzania, it is estimated that 27,000 teachers are likely to die from AIDS by 2020 (UNAIDS, 2002). Data from Mozambique show a very rapid acceleration in deaths among working teachers. In 1999, throughout subSaharan Africa, 860,000 primary school students lost teachers to AIDS, and many more children can no longer attend school because they are needed at home to care for ailing relatives or for the children of deceased family members (UNAIDS, 2002). These data projections provide only a limited view of the dimensions of this disease and the toll it has taken on the population, let alone the stress it imposes on the institutions. HIV/AIDS has significant implications for resource allocation in the education sector in sub-Sahara Africa. On one hand, for example, in Zambia the economic impact of HIV/AIDS on the supply of education is projected by a team of experts to be grim (Grassly et al., 2003). They showed that the impact of HIV/AIDS on the supply of primary education implies costs to the Ministry of Education (MoE) and BESSIP estimated at US $1.3–3.1 million in 1999, and is projected at $10.6–41.3 million over the period 1999–2010. These costs include salaries paid to teachers absent as a result of HIV-associated illness (71%), additional training of teachers to cope with AIDS-related attrition (22%), and funeral costs contractually met by the MoE (7%). They do not include the additional costs of an active care and prevention response by the MoE, or the burden of ensuring enrollment of
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AIDS orphans. The annual cost of HIV/AIDS was a relatively small fraction of the overall MoE budget (2.5%) in 1999 but has substantial implications for resource allocation to some functions. Expenditure on teacher training will need to increase by 26% if EFA targets are to be met in the face of AIDS (UNESCO, 2005a, 2005b). On the other hand, in Uganda, where they have been able to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, data shows that education causes behavior change (see Fig. 4). However, reports show that AIDS will not be checked in Africa until those combating it take into account cultural factors about poverty and choices, traditions and beliefs, perceptions of life and death, witchcraft and ancestral punishment, power hierarchies and gender norms, social taboos and rites of passage, control of female sexuality and the demand for male virility, and pressures for widows to marry close relatives of a husband recently dead from AIDS. In addition, health workers must confront these risky practices and form partnerships with religious leaders and traditional healers who often have insights and some understanding of culture and of gender and power relationships. All of this will require additional funding. But the existing commitments, set out in the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, have not yet been fully delivered.
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA What is the future of education reform in the era of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa? Several journals and policy papers have documented the reasons why primary school enrollments have been so low in SSA countries. Numerous World Bank reports have alluded to these problems. For instance the reports – Education in sub-Sahara Africa (1988), sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (1989), World Development Report 1991: The Challenge of Development, and John Craig’s (1991) Comparative African Experiences in Implementing Educational Policies – are very telling. Has anything changed since the publications of these reports? Has the way of reporting changed? Where is the voice of African universities in these reports? Both education and development, as I pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, are complex processes and no one organization or agency can act as their sole spokesperson. While national, international agencies, and Aid organizations all have important roles to play in the ability of
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any particular country to reach the EFA goals, it is important to mention that there is a wealth of culture specific knowledge that has evolved in local communities and that remains useful in this context. Such local knowledge can support communities’ efforts to cope with the difficult circumstances they are encountering as they struggle with the complex challenges of the 21st century. Indigenous/traditional knowledge in health, agriculture, and education, is often discounted by development specialists who represent a specific academic discipline or government sector and have a single-minded focus on bringing about improvement in the measurable indices associated with a particular EFA goal. The result is that local communities forfeit their ability to discover and implement culturally appropriate strategies to address issues of relevance to their local situation and, coincidentally, to the EFA goals. These global goals were established by international organizations and UN member-governments, and however valid and theoretically attainable they may be, they are devoid of cultural context and often do not translate into local goals, beliefs, norms, and behavior. So, what considerations must African governments take to overcome the challenges of UPE? What will it take to provide for every child access to school and quality education? The international community recognizes primary education as a right, because it assumes that primary education has such a positive impact on people’s lives and on society (UNESCO, 2006). For the most part, this view, borrowed from outside Africa and based on previous experiences of other countries assumes that primary education: (1) gives people tools to understand the world and participate in society; (2) means that girls marry later, take greater care of the health of their children and make sure that they, too, get an education; (3) helps in the fight against child labor and exploitation, and against HIV/ AIDS; (4) is vital for economic development, giving individuals the chance to earn more and be more productive; (5) lays the foundation for using new technologies; and (6) enables people to have a voice in politics and in society. These are all positive indices of UPE. They are political, social, as well as ideological. It is hard to disagree with such ideals. So, what do these assumptions mean to African governments?
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Changing a Continent: Which Way To Go – Reform or Overhaul? What might the above assumptions mean for a low-income country like Tanzania? If education can be the magic bullet that moves nations out of poverty, ignorance, and disease, why has it taken so long to accomplish? Is this a viable undertaking? How can countries deal with the dilemmas and contradictions of educational reform? First, there is an underlying assumption that the educational systems inherited from colonial Africa can be reformed rather than overhauled. It is well documented that communities in Anglophone, Francophone, and Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa inherited acute deficiencies in skills, institutions, and general education at the time of their independence from colonial rule in the 1960s. For African countries to overcome these challenges, they have, at different times, implemented reform policies that today seem as if they were designed trial and error. Many reform programs financed by external funding from the North Atlantic states are today reckoned as failures because they were designed as short-term ‘‘quick fix’’ schemes and sometimes ignored local customs, culture, and postcolonial legacies. For this reason, planners have for the past 50 years been frustrated by the difficult and slow process reform has become. Persistent African customary law and practices have made the efforts of reform even harder. Besides, even where schooling has been made compulsory, governments find it difficult and costly to enforce such rules. The tendency, sometimes, to perceive schooling as part of a master plan of incursions by Westernized culture has not been addressed in education policy documents. In many cases, resistance has been passive, particularly among nomadic remote area communities. Their resistance to reforms has been strong among parents of school-age children, especially to the idea of schooling of girls (Semali, 1995). I must mention, however, that although the case of nomadic pastoralists in East Africa may be considered a special case and opposition to Western-type schooling may be more prominent in Islamic than in other households, high dropout rates are, in general, a continent-wide problem. It is well documented that the in-school and out-of-school factors that cause children to drop out in Africa, and elsewhere include, boredom with lessons, harsh treatment by their teachers or by other pupils, disillusionment with the outcomes of schooling, a desire or push to get married, and the need to earn an income or help the family in the case of HIV/AIDS (Kelly, 2000; Hussein, 1979). Overall, the future of African education depends on how governments, international organizations, and aid agencies deal with the
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HIV epidemic, the single most significant issue of concern to impact the reform effort in the continent for many years to come. Also, it is important to note that, a little over a year ago, Tony Blair’s Commission was created to address Africa’s failure to meet some of its development goals. Under this endeavor, Africa would enter into a partnership with the ‘‘rich’’ world, where the rich countries would double aid, cancel 100% of multilateral debt, and redress a trading system that was intentionally skewed against the interests of the world’s poorest people. Africa, for its part, would improve its governance, improve the transparency of its political and financial procedures, and crack down on corruption. With regard to debt relief, some 19 countries are benefiting already – 13 of which are in Africa. Nigeria, for example, has had 60% of its debts written off in order to put the $1 billion a year it saves into education for 3.5 million more children. According to Sachs (2005), rich nations have pledged to double aid to Africa – an extra $25 billion a year – in five years. However, not much of this has been seen yet. An extra $3.7 billion has been produced for the Global Fund to fight the three major killers, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
Dilemmas and Contradictions: Desire and Decline Second, educators, planners, and practitioners must become aware of the dilemmas and contradictions that the educational reform agenda faces. There has been for decades the assumption that education can solve problems and bring prosperity to both individuals and nations. Parents make sacrifices so that their children can go to school and obtain economic security. The dilemmas and contradictions of this belief in the economic ‘‘common sense’’ of schooling and its outcomes warrant extensive comments. Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in books and articles of examining the education sector at a micro-level in Africa. Perhaps of significant note are recent publications that focus on the ‘‘feminist modern’’ – the new persona of woman seen as a solution to development dilemmas in the Third World and the antithesis of the oppressed Third World women of the earlier development era. For example, works like Frances Vavrus’ (2003) Desire and Decline: Schooling Amid Crisis in Tanzania, Stambach’s (2000) Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro: Schooling, Community and Gender in East Africa, Kiluva-Ndunda’s (2004) Women’s Agency and Educational Policy: The Experiences of the Women of Kilome, Kenya, and Bloch et al.’s (1998) Women and Education in Sub-Saharan
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Africa: Power, Opportunities, and Constraints challenge the thinking that the continued investment in education must revolve around the multiplicity of positive impacts at the individual level, which would then compound to give aggregated results for groups, communities, and nations. Clearly, the education-as-panacea concept does not fully capture the impact of economic decline on peoples’ ability to support schooling in their communities. Vavrus, for example, examines the roles played by the feminist modern in development and argues that this more recent persona of Third World women, now empowered with academic education, is a creation of influential development institutions and policy makers. In fact, the ‘‘new women’’ do not ‘‘signal the transformation of social and political economic relations that are necessary for the long-term development’’ of the African continent (Vavrus, 2003, p. 15). This creation, she argues, is a distraction from the larger, harder transformations, even though on the surface ‘‘she’’ seems to be doing well on her own. Using Northern Tanzania as the base for her ethnographic case study, Vavrus shows that the instrumental value of schooling to foster development pales in comparison to its assumed importance. She asks: how does one make sense of the sacrifices many parents make to pay for their children’s schooling when they know very well that good jobs do not await the majority of graduates? What does this do to peoples’ aspirations and actions at the local level? These questions are the basis of the inquiry on educationas-panacea that permeates the six chapters of Vavrus’ book. Vavrus also examines how functionalist, neo-Marxist, and postmodernist perspectives have influenced policymakers’ views on international development in many countries and how they have given rise to documents that illustrate the current neo-liberal consensus about women’s schooling and development. She concludes from this analysis that the empowered, educated woman in these texts is a liberated woman who bears the onus of national development, however problematic. Her analysis of colonial and postcolonial policies shows how schooling, especially for girls, was considered a cure for, or a cause of, development problems at different points in time. To illustrate the complexity of culture, Vavrus examines the dilemmas and contradictions regarding condom use and sexual risk in an era of AIDS. The inverse correlation between years spent in school and HIV infection suggests that there is an ‘‘education vaccine’’ for women. However, Vavrus doubts that schooling can inoculate young people against the disease when AIDS education and information about condoms is absent from the curriculum. In this vein, Vavrus suggests that even though health education is a crucial first step in reducing HIV transmission, it is not a panacea for slowing the spread
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of AIDS when economic decline is coupled with a strong desire for further schooling. Vavrus’ seminal work is important for providing insights into the dilemmas and contradictions envisaged in the reform agenda of EFA at the micro level. For example, she examined the dilemmas facing the residents of Old Moshi by showing how recent changes in water and agricultural policies in Tanzania have affected parents’ ability to send their children to school. Using multiple data sources, such as archival records, interviews, observations, and surveys, she challenges the assumption that new forms of community participation and governance are needed to control local farmers’ profligate environmental practices. She also looked at changes in the viability of small-scale coffee and maize production and showed that families with the greatest dependence on agriculture were the least likely to have children who matriculate to secondary school. Mbali, a village farthest from the main roads, experienced the most severe deprivations of maisha magumu (hard life), including the lack of resources to improve its primary school and to pay more for children’s secondary schooling. Using the example of a proposed water privatization program for the Kilimanjaro Region, she argues that parental support for schooling in this community cannot be studied or understood fully in isolation from the political-economic relations that constrain people’s ability to make a living off the land. She concludes from this example that the education-as-panacea concept does not fully capture the impact of economic decline on people’s ability to support schooling in their community. I see this case study as relevant to the discussion in this chapter. It is insightful about education benefits, curriculum, and the hardships that families and students endure to pursue their educational goals and desires at the individual and local level. With the HIV/AIDS pandemic looming large for many sub-Saharan countries, it is disturbing to learn that prevention education has not been part of the curriculum, and that, even when it was, knowledge did not bring about a change of lifestyle or promote safe sex that would curb the spread of the disease. The study also reveals a lack of connection between policy and education practice. What can schooling realistically offer to meet social, economic, and personal needs? The very contemplation as to whether parents should sell their coffee, maize, livestock, or, in some extreme cases, their land (which is considered a source of lineage on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro), and the perception that education is the only legitimate inheritance for females are very telling for the importance placed on education. As summed up in the popular Swahili proverb: ‘‘Ukielimisha mama utaelimisha familia nzima’’ (‘‘If you educate the
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mother, you educate the whole family’’), this education-as-panacea concept is problematic. According to Vavrus, larger and harder transformations must take place before women can claim to be the solution to development dilemmas. Finally, I find the Vavrus study on Mount Kilimanjaro insightful for understanding the dilemmas and contradictions of the education-as-panacea concept, particularly the way it is cherished in the EFA goals. Dilemmas, which occur almost universally in social relationships, are conflicting pressures or tension that have to be and, in practice, can be absorbed within institutional settings. Typically, people work through conflicts, and educational reforms can remove dilemmas. The education-as-panacea concept views schooling as a ‘‘merit good,’’ the consumption of which by individuals brings significant benefits to the larger society, including, for example, economic growth, reduced fertility, and universal literacy. Insofar as this is true, the consumption of education should be encouraged (or even compelled) by public authorities, in order to realize the social benefits. Contradictions, however, are not easily resolved. A contradiction is the tendency inherent within a specific mode of production to destroy those very preconditions on which its survival depends. The political-economic relations that constrain people’s ability to make a living off the land pose contradictions. Poverty and the desire to overcome it create a contradiction that is not easily overcome. Poverty is man-made because poverty is a result of policy options that have been taken that impoverish some and enrich others. Communities hold on to the belief that education can liberate economies and people from poverty. Would it be of interest to those institutions that benefit from the poverty of the masses to establish mechanisms that will eliminate poverty? For example, what alternatives do farmers in Kilimanjaro have when the price of coffee plummets and does not fetch them enough money to sustain their families? Or, how can they avoid poverty when the maize crop fails because of drought? Where else can these farmers turn for help? They have no access to credit nor do they have the ability to borrow against land (that most poor farmers hold as their asset). Land cannot be used as collateral for a loan. African farmers are not lazy, but they do lack soil nutrients, plots, storage facilities, and the like. The people of Mbali have houses but no titles, crops but not deeds, businesses but no statutes of incorporation. How long must they wait for better prices so as to afford to pay for their children’s education? Who controls the price of their produce? When will the labor market be able to absorb the graduates of the public and private schools? For how long must farmers continue to grow what they do not eat and eat what they do not grow? Collectively, these
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questions point to the complexity of the universal education-as-panacea and the dilemmas and contradictions that arise from the belief in the economic common sense of schooling and its ability to eradicate poverty. I might conclude that it is the unavailability of these economic infrastructures that could explain why the people of Mbali work so hard and yet cannot pay for their children’s education. The reason the 23 countries may not achieve the EFA goals by 2015 is because they are caught in a development trap with factors such as disease, geography, levels of infrastructure, among many others, none of which can be addressed independently or uniquely without considering the others in tandem. EFA is definitely a worth strategy but it is no magic bullet. Many of the efforts in education to provide girls with schooling, eradicate illiteracy, and reduce fertility rates seem to deal with poverty as a symptom rather than as a cause of the problem in society. The fertility hypothesis is linked to economic development. Fertility rates come down as economic development proceeds. Reduction of total fertility rates has not yet come to rural Africa, where the enabling conditions – child survival, girls’ education, women’s job opportunities, access to water and modern cooking fuels, and access to family planning and contraception – are not yet in place. Multisectoral investments to end extreme poverty in Africa are the very investments that will produce a rapid and decisive drop in fertility rates in a short period of time (Sachs, 2005). Too many scholars have defined these problems narrowly, as mere manifestations of the lack of UPE. All single factor explanations fail the scientific test of accounting for the observed diversity of the development experience (De Soto, 2000). The real challenge is to understand which variable is causing obstacles in specific circumstances. The focus of schooling thus removes such problems from their broader context of poverty or the ways in which the global capitalist system perpetuates poverty throughout the remote villages of Africa. For example, the privatizing of water in Kilimanjaro described in the case study means that poor families will have to pay to use water for drinking or for irrigation, contrary to customary practice. In the meantime, however, their incomes have not changed, nor will their subsistence farming be able to sustain the new demands. Education alone cannot solve the problem.
CONCLUSION As it is currently proposed, the road to implement the reforms envisaged toward reaching the goals of EFA is a difficult one, even in the best world of
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resources. Considerable effort already is being expended in many countries of Africa, as well as elsewhere in the developing world, to overhaul Westernbased systems of education to reflect local needs. However, it is neither entirely clear what range of educational options and resources are available for the countries of SSA nor how deviation from the Western model of schooling may affect a society’s position in the international system of global economy. The politics of borrowing and lending are conflictual in nature and consequently impact the school reform debate in ways more than one. Without a clear vision in these choices, education reform will continue to fulfill only short-term schemes. Change is an ongoing phenomenon that can be observed in all aspects of life and should be an ongoing process taking place in all facets of education as well. The lack of clarity of goals and outcomes is further complicated when we consider the knowledge cycle of poverty that persists particularly in Africa: the negative effects of structural adjustment programs, militarism, HIV/AIDS, and structural violence, and other issues now being analyzed in other disciplines. Under these circumstances it is difficult to be optimistic about the prospects of educational reform in African countries. While teachers do generate innovations in their classrooms and, at times, attempt to document them, these innovations do not weigh substantially in the policy-making process generally, and certainly not in the EFA policy in particular. The question remains as how do we involve teachers, principals, and parents as the prominent stakeholders of the EFA reform process? Just as these groups were in some countries instrumental in the adult literacy campaigns of the 1960s and early 1970s, they must become active participants in the EFA movement. We also know that change cannot be brought about by outside intervention alone. Therefore, it is doubtful at this time that the reforms will have a significant impact on primary schooling in Africa unless more accurate data becomes available, in addition to radical structural changes and dynamic leadership. These qualities are critical to the reform process; otherwise, the idea of universalizing primary schooling will remain elusive. It will continue to be not only a broken promise to the many deprived children of Africa, but also little more than a distant hope to parents who wish their children to receive a better education than what they once received.
REFERENCES Bloch, M., Robert, B., & Beoku-Betts, J. (1998). Women and education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Power, opportunities, and constraints. New York: L. Rienner Publishers.
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Commission. (2005). Our common interest. Blair’s Commission for Africa Report, London. Coombe, C. (2000). Managing the impact of HIV/AIDS on the educational sector. Briefing paper prepared for African Development Forum, UNECA, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Craig, J. (1991). Comparative African experience in implementing education policies. Washington, DC: World Bank. De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books. Evans, D. (2000). The challenge of education for all in India. Comparative Education Review, 44(1), 81–87. FAO/UNESCO. (2001). Gender education in Africa. Accra: EFA forum for the Africa region. FAWE (1999). Forum for African women educationalists: Analysis of educational policies. Nairobi: UNESCO. Global Health Council (2005). Poverty and HIV/AIDS. Washington, DC: Global Health Council. Grassly, N. C., Desai, K. A., Pegurri, E. B., Sikazwe, A. C., Malambo, I. C., Siamatowe, C. D., & Bundy, D. E. (2003). The economic impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector in Zambia. AIDS, 17(7), 1039–1044. Hussein, I. (1979). Educational wastage in the primary schools. Lahore: Institute of education and research. Kattan, R., & Burnett, N. (2004). User fees in primary education. Washington, DC: World Bank. Kelly, M. (2000). Standing education on its head: Aspects of schooling in a world with HIV/ AIDS. Current issues in comparative education, 3(1), 1–10. Kiluva-Ndunda, M. (2004). Women’s agency and educational policy: The experiences of the women of Kilome, Kenya. New York: Suny Press. Lutta-Mukhebi, M. (2004). National human resource development policy in Kenya. Advances in developing human resources, 6(3), 326–333. McElroy, E. (2003). Expansion of AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign programs in South Africa and Kenya. Washington, DC: AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign. McNicoll, G. (1998). Government and fertility in transitional and post-transitional societies. New York: Population Council. Sachs, J. (2005). The end of poverty: Economic possibilities for our time. New York: Penguin Books. Semali, L. (1995). The challenge for the year 2000: Universalizing primary schooling in Africa. The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies, 17(1), 43–54. Soudien, C. (2005). Education: Wrestling with legacy. In: IJR, conflict and governance transformation audit. Cape Town: IJR. Stambach, A. (2000). Schooling, community and gender in East Africa. New York: Routledge. The Namibian. (2002). Older AIDS caregivers face stigma (December 16). Retrieved October 7, 2005, from http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/December/national/02A107340E.html UNAIDS – Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. (2002). 2004 report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Retrieved October 9, 2005, from http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/report.html UNESCO (2004a). Education for All: The quality imperative, EFA Global Monitoring Report. Paris: UNESCO.
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UNESCO (2004b). Education for All: The quality imperative, EFA Global Monitoring Report. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2005a). Ministerial Round Table, Education for All. Paris: UNESCO Headquarters, 7–8 October, 2005. UNESCO (2005b). Education for All global monitoring report. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2006). The 2006 Education for All Global Monitoring Report. Update. Paris: UNESCO. United Nations (2005). The millennium development goals report. New York: United Nations. Vavrus, F. (2003). Desire and decline: Schooling amid crisis. New York: Peter Lang. World Bank (1989). Sub-Sahara Africa: From crisis to sustainable growth. Washington, DC: World Bank.
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HOW ‘‘BASIC’’ IS BASIC EDUCATION?: RESTRUCTURING BASIC EDUCATION IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF EFA Chijioke J. Evoh and Noxolo Mafu ABSTRACT Satisfactory provision of basic education is a way through which social inclusion and economic growth can take place in post-apartheid South Africa. Although the country embraces the principles and guidelines for EFA declaration, making basic education available to the present schoolage children, and to adults who were denied the opportunity during the apartheid era, has remained unrealized. The gap in basic education has persisted despite notable improvements in the educational sector in South Africa. To address this challenge, this chapter seeks to reconceptualize and expand the meaning of ‘‘basic education’’ within the context of South African society. It argues that the meaning and the practice of basic education in South Africa is inseparable from the historic experiences and the socio-economic dynamics that shape the present society. Besides, to realize the goal of improved quality, the role of non-state institutions in basic education provision needs to be redefined. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 427–451 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08015-7
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INTRODUCTION Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another. Nelson Mandela
The post-Jomtien years have witnessed measurable progress both in policy and practice geared toward the expansion and improvement of basic education in many countries across the world. The Education for All (EFA) Declaration established a roadmap for realizing the vision of basic education. The power of education to transform human lives as expressed in the opening quote by the former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, sums up the individual and collective expectations of South Africans in their legitimate quest for basic education. Against this background this paper examines the framework of South Africa’s basic education. It seeks to reconceptualize and expand the meaning of ‘‘basic education’’ in ways that encompass technical training and out-of-school training for adults denied access to elementary and secondary education during the apartheid years in South Africa. Three related assumptions guide the policy-oriented research. The first is that, as a process, system, and to some extent cultural, ‘‘basic education’’ is deeply embedded in contexts and institutions that, in turn frame its meanings and implementation. Second, given the correlation between basic education and economic growth (Psacharopoulos & Patrinos, 2002; Hanushek, 2005), the ability of South Africa to lay the foundations for a socially inclusive society and for sustainable and broad-based economic growth within the existing scope and quality of ‘‘basic education’’ is doubtful. This leads to the third argument that, for the lofty goals of EFA to be achieved in South Africa within the designated timeframe, ‘‘basic education’’ needs rethinking and realignment with realities of South African society. This is underscored by the fact that education is the key to an effective and sustainable reengineering of the South African society away from apartheid fragmentation. This study employs structuration theoretical approach (Giddens, 1984) to discuss the relationship between the individual actions and the structural features of South African society. This theory is utilized to analyze how policy actions are structured by rapidly changing social structures and also how human agents shape these social structures in South Africa. This study
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addresses two research questions: (1) what policy actions are in place to address decades of basic education gaps in order to realize the objectives of EFA in South Africa; and (2) what are the challenges facing the implementation of EFA-related policies in South Africa? These questions fall within the social justice paradigm, which claims that policy tools should be used to expand social services in order to ensure social justice and equality. The primary objective of such educational reform in South Africa reform was first, to redress the evils of the obnoxious apartheid system by compensating the non-whites in South Africa, especially the black majority who were victims of the Bantu education system1. The study utilizes existing policy and program documents to point toward promising directions for innovative research and public policy to enhance access to basic education in South Africa. This chapter argues that the structure and content of basic education is a continuous process shaped by the socio-economic, historical and political experiences, and developmental needs of a people. Another argument of the chapter is that the structure and the provision of basic education in South Africa cannot be separated from the overall development objectives of the country. Therefore, the triple challenge of poverty alleviation, inequality, and social inclusion should be the major driving forces behind the reconceptualization and provision of basic education. The end of the apartheid system in South Africa brought the notion that the provision of education is the sole responsibility of the government as a way of compensating groups that were marginalized under the repressive apartheid system. This is a legitimate claim. Unfortunately, the government alone does not have sufficient wherewithal necessary to promote basic education in its entirety. Therefore, we further argue that community participation and the involvement of private organizations are indispensable for the realization of EFA goals in South Africa.
DEFINING BASIC EDUCATION The level of formal education that may be considered ‘‘Basic’’ has societal and inter-generational variations. Basic education has been defined as education intended to meet basic learning needs; it includes instruction at the first or foundation level, on which subsequent learning can be based (Manzoor, 1983; Gadotti, 1991, p. 1). Basic education, which is the first form of formal education, is for everybody ‘regardless of age, social and economic background, gender and residence’ (United Nation Education and
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Scientific Organization [UNESCO], 1990, p. 1). According to the UNESCO (ibid.), this process of basic education begins with the provision of Early Childhood Education for children in rural and urban settings. The EFA Declaration established a road map for realizing the vision of basic education across the world. The Framework for Action to Meeting Basic Learning Needs established six dimensions and suggests certain targets for meeting basic learning needs. These principles are: (1) early childhood care and development; (2) primary education; (3) learning achievement and outcomes; (4) adult literacy; (5) basic education and training in other skills; and (6) knowledge and skills for better living (UNESCO, 1990). Despite the efforts made coupled with the end of the apartheid system, which defined education along racial and gender lines, the EFA goals remain a farfetched dream in the country. The quality of basic education remains low in many provinces in South Africa, and the capacity to redefine, restructure, and monitor this quality is undeveloped. Inequities in the country continue to persist not along racial but gender, regional, and socio-economic backgrounds. This form of education must be holistic in order to ensure proper development and growth of children. As the UNESCO rightly observes, ‘the definition of basic education is no longer fixed by the state alone: in many cases, the expectations of society and of families, and the economy, along with the supply of knowledge from outside of the formal education system, have led to the evolution of educational duration and content’ (1990, p. 1). Generally, basic education provides learners with the fundamental skills and knowledge necessary in life. It provides the opportunity for ‘‘personal development, intellectual autonomy, integration into professional life, and participation in the development of the society in the context of democracy’’ (UNESCO, 2000b, p. 3). The 1990 World Conference on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, Thailand consolidated the imperative for basic education for individual and national development. According to Article I of the World Declaration on Education for All, the objective of basic education is to allow ‘‘women and men to develop their personal potential to achieve intellectual autonomy, integrate into society and take part in society’s development’’ (UNESCO, 1990). The declaration called for meeting basic education needs for all by universalizing access, promoting equity, broadening the means and scope of basic education, strengthening partnership, and developing supportive policy environment (Haddad, 2000). Therefore, the Jomtien Declaration and the Dakar Framework provided universal strategies that can be adapted in each country. Such pattern of integration and adaptation will take into
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account the social and economic dynamics of the society. Hence the Jomtien Declaration states, ‘The scope of basic learning needs and how they should be met varies with individual countries and cultures, and inevitably, changes with the passage of time’ (UNESCO, 1990, p. 1). Although there may be no single definition of ‘‘basic education,’’ however, the above framework set by the World Declaration on Education for All, provides basic education systems across the world some points of reference.
A STRUCTURATION ANALYSIS OF BASIC EDUCATION The structuration analytical framework is applied in this study within the broader framework of institutional changes aimed at making basic education available, accessible, acceptable, and adaptable in the society. Given that behavior and structure are intertwined (Giddens, 1984), the objective is to reconstruct and reconceptualize basic education with the goal of influencing positive social and economic behavior among the citizens in postapartheid South Africa. Because of the condensed and complex nature of Gidden’s structuration theory, what we have done in this study is to use its leading themes to articulate the central vision that should inform basic education reforms in South Africa. Giddens (1984) describes structuration theory as ontology of social life or, a description of the nature of human action and social organization (i.e., social structures). He posits that people go through a socialization process and become dependent on the existing social structures, but at the same time, social structures are continuously being altered by the activities of the people (ibid.). Structuration theory treats human actions and social organizations as a ‘‘duality’’ rather a ‘‘dualism.’’ In essence, rather than seeing human actions as separate from social structures, actions of human agents and the social structure are considered inseparable. As Giddens puts it: The basic domain of study of the social sciences, according to the theory of structuration, is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of social totality, but social practices ordered across space and time. Human social activities, like some self-reproducing items in nature, are recursive. That is to say, they are not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by them via the very means whereby they express themselves as actors. In and through their activities agents reproduce the conditions that make these activities possible. (Giddens, 1984, p. 2).
Structuration theory is, therefore, a perspective on human action, which is not focused on a particular aspect of human activity (Yates, 1997) hence the
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framework can be seen as a meta-theory. The framework draws together the two major pillars of social thinking, namely: the structuralist tradition, which emphasize on the effects of structures and social constraints in the society; and the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions, which emphasize the primacy of human agent (Bernstein, 1986). Structuration theoretical approach refused to side with either the first or the second tradition, but it sees both ‘‘structure’’ represented in the first tradition, and ‘‘agency’’ represented in the second tradition as mutually dependent duality that influences the society. This theoretical model offers a way of reexamining the structure and content of basic education in South Africa as a social structure and process that involves reciprocal interaction by way of policy processes. Despite Gidden’s unevenness in the analysis of his theory (Bernstein, 1986), the structurational perspective offers a balance framework a way to analyze the conditions governing the transformation of structures in the society, which enables the formation and maintenance of formidable institutions. This perspective offers explanations for the creation of new structures and the dismantling of existing ones as called for by the socioeconomic imperatives of the time. This is more pertinent in developing and middle-income countries like South Africa, which are still grappling with the rigors and challenges of nation building. Therefore, structure is primarily expressed in the regularized and institutionalized activities and practices of people in the society. Human activities such as basic education policies and practices constitute structures. Without human actions, there will be no structure in the society. What is considered as ‘‘structure’’ is exemplified by human actions and activities. Through human actions, societal structures are molded and maintained, and through human inaction, structures are dismantled and abandoned. As social or organizational structures (this includes, structure of the organization as a whole, its sub-units or departments as well as the hierarchy of authority) in the society influence agents’ actions, such structures are not independent. The structures are in turn influenced by human agents. Apart from human beings, agents in this context also include organizations and groups with aggregate objectives, and ‘‘structure’’ is the ‘‘medium and outcome of the conduct it recursively organizes’’ (Giddens, 1984, p. 374). Giddens called this facet the ‘duality of structure’; while constraining action, structure at the same time enables it. Much of this action that may be intentional or unintentional takes place within a routine, which eventually produce regularized social practices. Despite the broad nature of the theory, it is the aspect of ‘‘duality’’ of structure that offers the greatest help to this study. As a way of understanding social phenomenon, structurational
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perspective provides a framework that can be used to examine the nature and essence of transforming basic education in South Africa through collective efforts.
THE STRUCTURE AND NATURE OF BASIC EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA In March 1990 when 1,500 delegates from 155 countries met in Jomtien, Thailand, to adopt the guiding principles of EFA, apartheid South Africa was a pariah state. Indeed, the country was alienated from the lofty goals of EFA by two main forces. First, international sanctions against the apartheid regime isolated South Africa from the rest of the world. Second, and more importantly, the thrust of the educational policy of the ruling National Party, like most other apartheid-related policies, negated the fundamental principles of EFA (Fiske & Ladd, 2002). This evil system deprived various groups of people in the country educational resources and access at the appropriate age for the acquisition of basic education. This deliberate policy created a high rate of illiteracy among South Africans, especially blacks. When the new democratic government came to power in 1994 the country was faced with the daunting challenge of dismantling the structures of the apartheid education system and to replace it with a more accessible and democratically oriented one. In line with the principles of EFA, the 1996 Constitution of South Africa guarantees to all its citizens the right to basic education. In pursuance of this constitutional proviso, the South African Schools Act (SASA) of 1996 provided, among other things, 9 years of compulsory schooling (Department of Education [DoE], 1996a, 1996b). Generally, basic education in postapartheid South Africa is faced by two major challenges to: (1) how to address the backlog of basic educational needs of millions of citizens who were denied education at the right age in the past; and (2) how to meet the increasing demands for basic education of the present generation of children who are at the right age for such level of education. According to the 2001 Census, South Africa has a population of 44.8 million people and more than 41 percent of the country’s population resides in rural areas (Department of Education [DoE], 2005). This is the part of the country where a huge number of citizens are still yarning for basic education. In line with the EFA Declaration (UNESCO, 1990), basic education in South Africa starts with early childhood education or early childhood development (ECD), which is comprised of kindergarten and pre-school
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(Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005). However, due to low-income status of families, coupled with the age requirements for admission to public schools, which require 7 years for admission to grade 1, few learners have access to the ECD in the country (Roithmayr, 2002). In 2001 it was reported that over 23,000 ECD centers in South Africa were administered directly by nongovernmental groups (ibid.). The little provision of ECD services made by the Department of Education was focused on children from the age of 3 years to school-going age. Due to the inadequate provision of ECD services, approximately 90 percent of children under the age of 9 do not have access to ECD programs prior to entering grade 1 in South Africa (Burger, 2005). Contrary to this opinion, the national Department of Education argues that ECD has had a 12 percent growth in participation since 2000 (Department of Education [DoE], 2005b). However, this growth rate remains relatively insignificant when compared with the number of children denied ECD services, as well as growth rate in other aspects of basic education in the country. Basic education in South Africa includes the General Education and Training (GET), which is compulsory, starting from grade R-9, and the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET), which is available to adults who did not have access to basic education in the past or those who want to finish their basic education. Primary education in South Africa is divided into junior primary (grades 1–3) and senior primary (grades 4–6). The senior secondary education (i.e., grades 10–12 that ends with the matriculation examination with the senior certificate qualification) is not compulsory for learners, hence it is not considered as part of the basic education system in South Africa. On the other hand, the ABET is structured and offered according to diverse needs of illiterate adults. Besides an undeniably complex disparity of school resource allocation across the country, and as mentioned above, the huge population of adults that were deprived of basic education by the previous apartheid system has become a major issue under the present dispensation. Among adults who received no form of formal education during the apartheid era, ‘‘92 percent were black Africans, 6 percent were Coloreds, 1 percent were Indians, and 0.2 percent were Whites’’ (Waghid, 2004, p. 525). As expected, the percentage of the population without formal basic education is much higher in the rural areas, at 52 percent, than in the urban areas, at 14 percent (UNESCO Institute for Education, 2005). At the end of the apartheid system, these adults were convinced to return to regular elementary public schools where knowledge can be acquired in a free and fair environment. Prior to the formal establishment of the ABET
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programs, it become very common to see adults in elementary school uniforms learning in the same classroom with children. For a mother to be in the same classroom with her child as a learner, and probably do the class homework with her at home was quite an exciting and empowering experience. The sheer determination of many parents to avail themselves the opportunities offered by formal basic education in a free South Africa became a source of inspiration to many young adults in many communities across the country. In 1994, a new structure and methods of adult training and development was established through the National Training Strategy Initiative (NTSI) by the National Board of the Department of Labor. The main focus of this initiative was to implement an ABET that would empower and equip adult learners with the necessary skills that would enable them to have a means of livelihood and also contribute meaningfully to the overall development of the society. The ABET structure in South Africa was given a legislative support by the ABET Act of 2000 (Department of Education [DoE], 2000b). This law provides for the establishment of public and private adult learning centers under the support of three sectors: the state, Commerce and industry, and the non-profit of public benefit organization (ibid.). While commendable efforts have been made by the government to bridge basic education gaps among South Africa, a lot more effort is required. According to the UNESCO Institute for Education, South Africa has approximately 1.5 million adults who have had no education at all, ‘‘while another 4.6 million adults aged 15 and older have had no schooling above grade 6’’ (UNESCO Institute for Education, 2005). In general, approximately 19.3 percent of South Africans aged 20 and above have never been to school (ibid.). Unlike many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has put in place numerous policy frameworks in order to actualize the objectives of basic education. Yet, the rate of functional illiteracy in the country has remained relatively unchanged. This trend as demonstrated in Tables 1 and 2 below is not unconnected with some of the challenges facing basic education as mentioned above and discussed in details below. However, this opinion conflicts with government views. According to the report, Education for All Status report 2002: South Africa, incorporation country plans for 2002 to 2015 (Department of Education [DoE], 2002), the government expressed optimism that illiteracy in South Africa will be reduced into half by the year 2015, in line with EFA targets. Aitchison and Harley (2004) point out that, while government data shows that South Africa is on its way to halving national illiteracy by 2015, information from independent sources show that the government is failing in its efforts to reduce illiteracy in the country. Besides,
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Table 1.
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Literacy and Basic Education Levels of South African Aged 15 and Above.
Level of Education
1995 October Household Survey
1996 Population Census
2001 General Population Census
Full general education (grade 9+) Less full general education (ograde 9) Less than grade 7 No schooling
14.3 million (54%)
13.1 million (50%)
15.8 million (52%)
12.2 million (46%)
13.2 million (50%)
14.6 million (48%)
7.4 million (28%) 2.9 million (11%)
8.5 million (32%) 4.2 million (16%)
9.6 million (32%) 4.7 million (16%)
Source: Aitchison and Harley (2004).
Table 2.
Percentage of Population Aged 20 Years and Older with no Schooling by Province: Census 1996 and 2001.
Province KwaZulu-Natal Limpopo Eastern Cape Guateng Mpumalanga North-West Free State Western Cape Northern Cape South Africa
1996 (%)
2001 (%)
% Change
22.9 36.9 20.9 9.5 29.4 22.7 16.1 6.7 21.7 19.3
21.9 33.4 22.8 8.4 27.5 19.9 16.0 5.7 18.2 17.9
–1.0 –3.5 1.9 –1.1 –1.9 –2.8 –0.1 –1.0 –3.5 –1.4
Source: Aitchison and Harley (2004).
there is a significant level inequality in literacy among the nine provinces, which did not reflect in the national figures (as presented in Table 1). Some provinces like Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal have the highest number of functionally illiterate adults in the country (see Table 2).
BARRIERS TO BASIC EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA Despite meaningful policy reforms such as, the decentralization of school management decisions and the creation of School governing boards,
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Outcome-based Education (OBE), Tirisano (working together) initiative and curriculum reform initiatives, supply of basic in South Africa has fallen short of the increasing demand. Despite the clashing views on the underperformance of education policy in South Africa (Jensen & Taylor, 2003), it has become obvious that governmental actions have not measured with realities especially when it comes to making basic education available, accessible, acceptable, and adaptable in the country. Sustained access to basic education is critical for a long-term reduction in poverty and overall development. Access ensures easy utilization of physical, human, financial, and material resources critical for the acquisition of knowledge (Baku & Agyman, 2002). Most common factor that inhibit access to basic education in South Africa fall into two broad contexts: (1) delivery contexts and (2) transformative context. The barriers to basic education delivery include inadequate finance and the sustainability of the present sources of finance, training and retaining teachers, and training and retaining education managers and supervisors (Peltzer et al., 2005; Phurutse, 2005). Others include access to school and educational facilities for rural. On the other hand, improving the quality of existing curricula, developing new curricula to improve quality, integration of vocational and life skill training as part of basic education, the shortage of qualified education administrators and managers, and the lack of effective community involvement are identifiable challenges to the transformative capability of basic education. Many of the aforementioned challenges in the transformative contexts of basic education are attributable to lack of joined-up planning and coordinated inter-ministerial and inter-sectoral feedback system. Many factors associated with quality and standard of basic education are still missing in most provinces in South Africa. And many of the children who are presently in school may complete their primary education without attaining even basic literacy skills. Thus, this is a challenge in attaining the EFA goals. The challenges identified above do not suggest that nothing has been done in the past by the governments in terms of policy initiatives and projects. While this chapter acknowledges government efforts as mentioned above, it hastens to point out the imbalances and shortcomings in the system which renders the EFA goals in South Africa a mere dream that may not be attained. The available basic education in South Africa falls short of the sixth goal of EFA – education quality. The quality of basic education measures how much and how well learners benefit from education, and to what extent their education translates into personal and social benefits. Two underlying principles for quality are: learners’ cognitive development; and the inculcation of
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values and attitudes of responsible citizenship and nurturing and creating emotional development (UNESCO, 2004). Attainment of these qualities among learners can be realized through the skills of literacy, oral expression, numeracy, problem-solving skills as well as values and attitudes essential for the development of individual potential and human capital. Many international documents assume that the structure and contents of primary and junior secondary schools will facilitate the acquisition of the above skills among learners (UNESCO, 2004). By all standards, the attainment of basic education in South Africa should enable its citizens to be in a position to contribute to national economic growth and overall development of the country. Unfortunately, the sordid state of school infrastructure and educational resources can hardly guarantee quality basic education. The class size in public schools in South Africa remains high by all standards. Recent study indicates that overall, there is an average of 48 students per class, with a breakdown of 45 in primary and 52 in secondary schools (Peltzer et al., 2005). Many schools, especially those in rural communities operate on minimal and dilapidated infrastructure while teachers’ morale to teach is at its lowest ebb. The experience of Mr. Kgabo Masehela a Research Manager in the Assessment, Technology, and Evaluation Education Research Program of Human Science Research Council (HSRC), in a rural primary school in the Nkandla district of the KwaZulu-Natal province is a vivid illustration of the stark destitution that characterize many schools in South Africa. Mr. Masehela’s team was in the province to administer a paper-and-pencil test aimed at evaluating learners’ performances at the end of the Foundation Phase (grade 3) and to provide support to educators (HSRC Review, March 2005). We arrive at the first primary school at 7:30 am. The school is deserted, although we did pass several learners some kilometers back. A teacher emerges from a cottage on the school grounds. We explain the purpose of our visit and ask to see the school principal. ‘‘She is not coming today because she is not feeling well,’’ the teacher says. The children start arriving in dribs and drabs. The bell rings at 8:30 am. Children are shivering from the cold. All the windowpanes are shattered in the Grade 3 class. Old pieces of chalkboard cover the back windows. The pot-holed floors have not seen polish in years. Because there is no fence, goats roam around the school. The test administrator goes through the instructions in the manual and the tests get underway Kgabo Masehela, March 2005
Equity of Access is another major barrier to basic education in South Africa. It is crucial to have schools but more importantly, available schools and educational resources must be such that enable learners to attain
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literacy. While South Africa has made commendable progress in providing basic education for all its citizens, especially those that were formally marginalized under the Bantu education system of the apartheid era, a huge number of school age children remain out of school. Many children are directly or indirectly denied access to basic education in South Africa. This trend violates the provisions of the South Africa’s School Act (1996) and the National Educational Policy Act (1996), which made basic education compulsory for all children. According to the National Department of Education [DoE] (2000a), 19 percent of children in rural communities were out of school, as opposed to 11 percent in the urban areas. Rural schools include those on privately owned farm areas and former homelands in villages and in small towns. As Wilson (2002), the Human Right Watch (2004), and the South African Human Right Commission (2006), many South Africa children living on commercial farms2 are either constantly denied access to farm schools, or learn under intolerable environments. The Human Right Watch reported many cases of direct threat, harassment, interference, and interruption of learning by owners and managers of farm schools in South Africa. The present maltreatment of farm schools is more or less a reenactment of the oppressive system of the past where, until the Education Law Amendment Act of 1988, farm owners and managers could remove the children during school hours to work in the farm. Despite the existing law, this form of child labor has continued in some provinces such as Kwazulu-Natal and Northern Cape (Wilson, 2002). Besides, farms schools lack the basic amenities crucial for learning. For instance in 2002, 76 percent of farm schools lacked electricity, over 80 percent had no telephones, 43 percent had no water inside the building, and 17 percent were without any toilet facilities (Wilson, 2002). The above factors have made learning and teaching conditions in farm schools among the poorest in the country (Adele Gordon, 2000 cited in Human Right Watch, 2004). The disparity in school funding and resources are also observable among the nine provinces in the country (Fisk & Ladd, 2004). Lack of critical educational infrastructure is not peculiar to farms schools. This has left many schools in the country without basic infrastructures essential for learning. As reported in the South African Education for All Assessment Department of Education (Department of Education [DoE], 2000a), 25 percent of primary and combined schools had no access to water within a walking distance. Chronic lack of basic amenities is more prevalent in some provinces than others. For instance, many schools in provinces like the Eastern Cape and Limpopo lack electricity, running water, and adequate
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buildings (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005; Phurutse, 2005). Invariably, lack of material and financial resources is associated with low quality of basic education and levels of school outcome. By all standards, basic education in South Africa is compulsory but not free. School fees have been imposed despite the progressive constitutional proviso for affirmative right to education and promises and aspirations of the African National Congress (ANC) for educational equality. The imperative for school fees in South Africa is underscored by the fact that the redistribution of funds from the former white schools will be insufficient to carter for the educational needs of the marginalized majority. Although South Africa spends 22 percent of its budget and nearly 7 percent of its GDP on education, learners are charged school fees to supplement public funding for education (Fiske & Ladd, 2002; South African Human Rights Commission [SAHRC], 2006). The report of the 1995 Hunter Commission on Organization, Governance and Funding of schools in South Africa recommends that supplemental fees from the wealthier class in the country will release scarce state funds for poor schools to ensure egalitarian educational system (Pampallis 1998 cited in Fiske & Ladd, 2002). In effect public schools charge some amount of fees, although approximately 55 percent of the schools in the country are not able to raise more than R10,000 per year from fees. However, the few public schools in wealthier communities that charges as much as R10,000 per learner per year, finds it easier to raise sufficient funds (Roithmayr, 2002). In spite of the good intentions behind the school fees, evidences show that many children from poor families are denied education in South Africa due to their inability to pay school fees (Roithmayr, 2002; Akoojee & McGrath, 2006). As the SAHRC (2006, p. 19) argues, the introduction of school fees has the unintended consequence of commodifying quality education in South Africa. It is rational to reason that schools that charge fees are in a position to employ more and better qualified teachers, and provide other educational resources for this their learners, which invariably translates to a better quality of education (ibid.). Despite legislative provisions that exempt children from poor families from the payment of school fees and protect them against discrimination, children from indigent families have continued to experience all sorts of discrimination due to their inability to pay such fees (ibid.). The SAHRC (2006) documented different discriminatory practices against learners due to non-payment of school fees. This includes, withholding of school records, children being sent home, and withholding of services to learners and many more. This view is further reinforced by the observation of the Council of the SADTU
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(South African Democratic Teachers’ Union) , ‘‘the legal right to exemption from school fees for poor people is not enforced’’ (cited in Tomasevski, 2006, p. 59). Tomasevski (2006) adds that this lack of legislative enforcement affects the interest AIDS orphans in the country. As the Nelson Mandela Foundation Report Emerging Voice (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005, p. 51) contends, ‘‘School fees can make children of very poor families feel welcome neither at school nor at home.’’ In a study of the school dropout phenomenon in South Africa, Crouch (2005) reports that 42 percent of male and 41 percent of female dropouts in the 16–18 age group, presents the lack of money for fees as the reason for dropping out of school. With a high enrollment rate of 97–98.5 percent in elementary schools, the National Department of Education argues that school fees are by no means a deterrent to universal enrollment in South Africa (SAHRC, 2006). One cannot dispute the fact that South Africa has achieved an outstanding rate of enrollment in elementary schools. But as Haddad (2000) warns, high enrollments and efficient student flow, while necessary, do not translate to the achievement of the objective of basic education in any given country. Rather, actual learning achievements and outcomes are the real measure of success (ibid.). On the supply side of basic education in South Africa, 6,000 teachers are trained each year (many of whom will not go into teaching (Crouch & Perry, 2003), to meet the demand of 12.1 million learners (primary and secondary school-age combined) in 28,000 schools (6,000 are high schools, grade 7–12) (Fiske & Ladd, 2002; South African Government Information, 2005; Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005). Teacher supply in South Africa depends on a number of factors, such as the number of education graduates, morbidity, and mortality, as well as educators returning after a break from the profession (Peltzer et al., 2005). Many teachers in the country, especially those teaching mathematics and the sciences are unqualified. Though the number of unqualified teachers is decreasing, presently 8.3 percent of teachers in South Africa are unqualified (i.e., teachers with only high-school diploma equivalent (Peltzer et al., 2005), a drop from the 22 percent figure in 2003 (Crouch & Perry, 2003). Acute shortage of teachers and other educational resources have resulted in large class sizes. In addition to the historical experience of apartheid and its impacts, the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa has compounded the challenges of basic education in the country by adding to the existing high rate of teacher shortage and attrition (Crouch, 2001; Peltzer et al., 2005). A report on Educator supply and demand in South African Public educations system by
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Table 3.
CHIJIOKE J. EVOH AND NOXOLO MAFU
Overall HIV Prevalence among Educators by Province: South Africa 2004.
Province Western Cape Eastern Cape Northern Cape Free State KwaZulu-Natal North West Guateng Mpumalanga Limpopo
Number
HIV Positive (%)
95% Confidence Interval
2,134 1,855 891 1,152 3,627 1,437 2,772 1,315 1,905
1.1 13.8 4.3 12.4 21.8 10.4 6.4 19.1 8.6
0.6–2.0 12.0–15.8 2.9–6.5 10.1–15.0 19.8–23.9 8.7–12.4 5.4–7.7 16.2–22.3 7.3–10.1
Source: Peltzer et al. (2005). Educator Supply and Demand in the South African Public Education System.
Peltzer et al. (2005) shows that overall, 12.7 percent of all educators in South Africa are HIV positive. See the breakdown according to the nine provinces in Table 3. Despite the impressive record of student enrollment in South Africa, the increasing number of children who are dropping out of the system poses a formidable threat to the realization of the EFA goals in the country. An observation made by the National Professional Teachers Organization of South Africa (NAPTOSA) reveals that there is a 26.2 percent drop-out rate of students between grade 1 and 3; 3.5 percent dropout rate of students between grades 4 and 6; and 19.6 percent dropout rate of students between grades 9 and 10 in South Africa (SAHRC, 2006). The National Department of Education is not in agreement with the above statistics of dropout rates in the country. In a report prepared for the National Department of Education in South Africa, Crouch (2005) observes that despite discrepancies and misunderstandings education data in South Africa, approximately 40 percent of school children dropout before they reach 12th grade. Although there are differences in opinion in regards to this trend, one thing remains clear; a good measure of students enrolled for basic education in South African are not reaching the expected target. Both the delivery and transformative barriers to basic education in South Africa pose serious threat to the gains and sustainability of every effort in the redistribution of cognitive skills among the poor alleviation and reaching the EFA goals.
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RETHINKING BASIC EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA What constitutes basic education, and how basic education is structured varies from country to country depending on the fundamental theories that underpin private and social gains of education in such society. Being the most important investment in human capital (Becker, 1975), education plays a vital role in poverty reduction and the achievement of the overall development objectives of countries. Unfortunately, basic education policy processes in many countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, have been carried through without a clear theoretical foundation of such policy actions. This has resulted in the failure of many education development initiatives and misallocation of scarce resources. As Dewey (1957, p. 94) argues, ‘‘y a society which not only changes, but which has the ideal of such change as will improve it, will have different standards and methods of education from one which aims simply at the perpetuation of its own customs.’’ Such standard as Dewey alluded to, must be informed by the development needs in such society. The thought of restructuring basic education in South Africa on the basis of improving quality, expanding access, and ensuring equity brings to mind the question: how and why? While answering this question, it is very crucial that the framework used be consistent with the basic social, economic, and political objectives and values of education in South Africa. The overlapping nature of challenges facing basic education in South Africa, calls for the reconceptualization and restructuring of this educational sector in other to make existing and subsequent education policies more productive. This is underscored by Article 2 of the World Declaration on Education, which provides inter alia, the broadening of the means and scope for basic education through supportive enabling policy processes (UNESCO, 1990). This is imperative because, as a process, system, and to some extent culture, basic education is deeply embedded in contexts and societies that, in turn frames its meanings and implementation. This is in consonance with the structuration theoretical framework (Giddens, 1984). According to the structuration approach, structures are both the medium and the outcomes of the practices, which constitute social systems. Thus, what constitutes basic education in South Africa is the outcome of state policies and actions of other stakeholders in the educational system in South Africa. In the same vein, the outcomes and impacts of basic education in South Africa in terms of good citizenship, economic productivity, and overall development of the society, will go a long way to impact and
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structure the South African state and institutions in the long run. This is because human agents are responsible for creating such structures.
ACHIEVING BASIC EDUCATION OBJECTIVES AND EFA GOALS IN SOUTH AFRICA By the circumstances of its history, wide disparities exist in the basic education system in South Africa based on race, sex, and geopolitical regions and socio-economic status. This brings up the issue of educational policy action and its interplay with social and economic structures of the society. The pursuit of EFA goals has been designated as one of the powerful measures for socio-economic growth and development within Africa and other developing nations. Generally, basic education has both private and social returns in the society. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos (2002) and Figueredo and Anzalone (2003) report that evidence deriving from the effects of schooling on earnings and productivity show that in many developing countries, the returns to basic education is twice as much as the returns to higher education. When millions of adults in South Africa are without basic education skills, their income and earnings are affected in terms of private returns as well as the general productivity of labor in the economy (i.e., social returns). Such private and social effects of basic education in the society form a fulcrum to examine the extent to which South Africa can combat elements of poverty including HIV/AIDS pandemic. Thus, the goal of effecting a positive behavior, knowledge, health, and civic engagement is further deferred. Undoubtedly, South Africa needs a critical mass of vocationally skilled youths and adults with the relevant key competencies, accessible at the basic education level. This will help the country to reduce the increasing level of poverty and be able to compete effectively in the emerging global economic order. The present structure and implementation strategy of basic education in South Africa, particularly in rural areas, has failed to equip basic education graduates with the necessary skills for poverty reduction and participation in economic development. This echoes the demands of rural dwellers as illustrated below: I attended this school. It would be better if we had education that offers more skills to our children. Here in the rural areas, we don’t have money. We must have career for our children because those who passed Matric just can’t get work. y. It would be better to teach agriculture. A child could live from it whether he or she passes or fails. We have bush mechanics that failed to finish their courses, but they can still fix cars and then get money for their children. We must not have this education that is all over the place y When someone is looking for a job they are asked before they are offered employment
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what skills they have. It would be better if we could have mechanical workshops so that when a child is not able to go for tertiary education they could at least find a job. Computer courses are no going to help us in the rural areas because we don’t have computers to use’’ Community Voices (HSRC and EPC, 2005)
The above voices from rural communities in South Africa are not only calling for more basic education (quantity) but also for such education to offer more value to their daily lives and survival (quality). Therefore, expanding access to basic education and reevaluating its quality and returns through policy processes will help to accomplish the dual targets of poverty alleviation, and EFA goals by the year 2015 in South Africa. The National Department of Education in South Africa has made a good number of policies aimed toward the promotion of basic education. Generally speaking, policies are necessary, but they are insufficient condition for realizing the EFA goals. Existing basic education statistics suggest that reducing adult illiteracy rate by half in South Africa by 2015 requires helping approximately 3 million adults to gain functional literacy (Aitchison & Harley, 2004). However, these bold objectives cannot be realized only by the unilateral actions of the state, and through the traditional method of basic education delivery. First, there is the need to redefine the role of non-state institutions and basic education in South Africa. Increased participation of local communities through school governing boards, community-based organizations, and religious bodies will go a long way in alleviating basic education burden currently shouldered solely by the government. Apart from financial contributions, low-income communities in both urban and rural areas can participate in the promotion of basic education by contributing labor toward the upkeep and maintenance of schools facilities as well as in construction works in the school (Baku & Agyman, 2002). This innovative approach to educational improvement is beginning to show good results in some communities and provinces in South Africa. A good example is the Khanya Education technology project in the Western Cape Province. The Khanya project under the auspices of the Western Cape provincial Department of Education uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) to expand access to secondary and primary education throughout the Western Cape Province (Western Cape Education Department, 2004). The success of this huge technological intervention in education is attributable not only to private organizations and corporations that are partners in the project, but also to local communities who have contributed more in form of labor. As Van Wyk (Undated) the present manager of Khanya project illustrates,
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‘‘through partnerships between school, community, donor organizations and the state, this massive undertaking becomes feasible. These partnerships also help to address the issue of sustainability in the long term’’ (p. 7). The EFA goals in South Africa cannot be accomplished through the traditional system of educational delivery. In essence, access to basic education in South Africa cannot be increased without major changes in service delivery. Both in terms of quantity and quality, basic education in South Africa needs to be transformed by modern ICTs3. The imperative of technology-enhanced basic education in South Africa is underscored by the national White Paper on e-Education in 2003. As stated by the Department of Education (Department of Education [DoE], 2004a, 2004b), the introduction of ICTs in education represents an important part of government’s strategy to improve the quality of learning and teaching across the education and training system. In addition, it is part of the effort to ensure equity by expanding access to basic education in underserved communities with acute lack of teachers. The strategy of tapping ICT potential for the enhancement of basic education is in line with the EFA Dakar Declaration of Action (UNESCO, 2000a). The Dakar Declaration notes that, ICTs can be used to ‘‘y Strengthen management systems, from central ministries through sub-national levels to the school; to improve access to education by remote and disadvantaged communities; to support initial and continuing professional development of teachers’’ (ibid., p. 21). Basic education mediated through ICTs such as the Internet, satellite TV, and cable network, have the potential to link written with audio and visual material that can enrich the full range of the learner’s senses. Mafanga and Pretorius (2003) observe that ICTs create a qualitative expansion through pedagogical innovation in education. This has enabled a change from the traditional approach characterized by teacher-centered, narrow, and linear delivery of knowledge, to a more participatory, reciprocal, and exploratory processes of learning, which allows the learner to apply his or her multiple cognitive maps (ibid.). Such flexible and learner-centered education system is essential in the unfolding global economy dominated by information resources. Again, the integration of ICTs in basic education in South Africa is capital intensive and cannot be left solely to the government. Fortunately, the country has a number of public–private collaborative initiatives. A good example is the Mindset Network Organization. Mindset network system makes use of studio broadcasting of secondary school curriculum to teach many students in different secondary schools across the country at the same time. Education contents are transmitted from a broadcast quality studio in the Mindset Network head office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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As Haddad (2000) observe that ICTs can bridge geographical distances and improve educational quality by empowering teachers and learners through information. For ICTs to be meaningfully integrated in basic education in South Africa, it is crucial to broaden the conception of basic education to include vocational life skills necessary in modern world.
CONCLUSIONS Efforts to improve the quality and relevance of basic education in South Africa within the context of EFA have a better chance of succeeding if everyone involved, particularly education policy makers, agree on priorities and approaches. Such approach needs to be conscious the historical experiences of the country and its present social and economic needs. While many factors such as, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty, lack of teachers, large class sizes, and maldistribution of essential material resources limit the provision of basic education in many communities in the country, this study does not assume a simple model of causality. The improvement and expansion of basic education in the country may as well depend on many other factors. Prominent among such factors is the lack of sufficient management capacity at every point of administrative hub in the education system in South Africa. The paucity of qualified personnel to ensure standards in education planning, provision, governance, monitoring, and evaluation, has detrimental effects on the provision of quality basic education system in the country. Attaining education for all in South Africa is a social justice and an economic necessity. However, the achievement of the EFA goals will depend largely on present efforts to shape and reshape basic education structures through quality improvement and expansion of access. A mismatch between realizing the objectives of EFA by the state on the one hand and improving the essence of quality basic education (and by implication, the social gains of such improved quality) on the other hand, can result in a dysfunctional educational system and a compromise of the foundations for sustained economic growth of the country. All private and social gains associated with quality basic education and the realization of EFA goals in South Africa can be accomplished through a painstaking and collective restructuring of basic educational system that employs technology and civil society inputs for standardized quality. This underscores the need for a multifaceted approach from all agencies, departments, and stakeholders in education system in the country.
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Based on the transformative capacity of the state, communities, and civil society organizations in the country will become the operating structures of basic education system in the country. If harnessed effectively, not only would South Africa meet the objectives of EFA by 2015, but there is also a distinct possibility that basic education might be a very powerful catalyst for redressing the evils of the apartheid system in South Africa. Strcturation theory provides a way of examining both the structures and human agents, which are crucial for the restructuring of basic education in South African.
NOTES 1. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was enacted to establish a separate and lessresourced department of education for the black South African. 2. Farms schools that were established under the Bantu Education Act No. 47 of 1953 and classified as ‘‘state-aided schools,’’ provide education for the children of farm workers. They are public schools on private commercial farms. The purpose of the schools was to ‘‘create economic value for the [white] farmers and to prevent migration of [black farm workers] into cities’ (Adele Gordon, 1991 cited in Human Right Watch, 2004). In 2000, there were 3,550 farms in South Africa. Such schools constitute 13 percent of all state-funded schools in South Africa, and provide education for approximately 3 percent of learners in public school system in South Africa (Wilson, 2002; Human Right Watch, 2004, p. 1) 3. ICTs consist of the hardware, software, networks, and media for the collection, storage, processing, transmission, and presentation of information (voice, data text, images), as well as related services.
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Crouch, L. (2001). Turbulence or orderly change? Teacher supply and demand in the age of AIDS. An occasional paper sponsored by the Department of Education, Pretoria. URL: http:// www.rti.org/pubs/turbulence.pdf. [Accessed March 12, 2005]. Crouch, L. (2005). Disappearing schoolchildren or data misunderstandings? Dropout phenomena in South Africa. Report prepared by RTI for the Department of Education, South Africa. [http://www.rti.org/pubs/disappearing_schoolchildren.pdf] Crouch, L., & Perry, H. (2003). Educators. In: A. Kraak & H. Perold (Eds), Human Resources Development Review 2003: Education, employment and skills in South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press. Department of Education [DoE], South Africa. (1996a). Government Gazette No. 1867. Dated 15 November 1996. Retrieved November 26, 2005, http://www.acts.co.za/ed_sasa/ index.htm Department of Education [DoE], South Africa (1996b). South African schools Act of 1996. Pretoria: Government Publishers. Department of Education [DoE], South Africa. (2000a). Education for All (EFA) 2000 assessment. Retrieved January 22, 2006, http://www.education.gov.za/content/documents/ 84.pdf Department of Education, South Africa. (2000b). Adult Basic Education and Training Act, 2000. Act No. 52, http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/acts/2000/a52-00.pdf, retrieved November 22, 2006. Department of Education [DoE], South Africa. (2004a). The Development of Education: Country Report of South Africa. A paper presented at the 47th International Conference on Education. September 8–11. Department of Education [DoE], South Africa. (2004b). National norms and standards for school funding. Proposals for amendment, September. Department of Education [DoE], South Africa (2005) ‘‘Education for Rural People (ERP) – South Africa,’’ presented at the Ministerial Seminar on, Education for Rural People in Africa: Policy Lessons, Options and Priorities, hosted by the Government of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 7–9. Dewey, J. (1957). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Figueredo, V., & Anzalone, S. (2003). Alternative models for secondary education in developing countries: Rationales and realities. Improving Education Quality (IEQ) Project, American Institute for Research. Fisk, E. B., & Ladd, H. F. (2004). Elusive equity: Education reform in post-apartheid South Africa. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Fiske, E. B., & Ladd, H. F. (2002). South Africa and education for all. In: UNESCO, Educational for all: Global Monitoring Report. Paris: UNESCO. Gadotti, M. (1991). Meaning and challenge of basic education. Paper presented in an international workshop on Education for all: A challenge for democracy and human rights, New Delhi, September 6–8. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Haddad, W. (2000). Technology for basic education: A luxury or a necessity? TechKnowLogia, May/June 2000. Retrieved May, 2004, http://www.techknowlogia.org Hanushek, E. A. (2005). Economic outcomes of school quality. Paris and Brussels: The International Institute for Educational Planning and The International Academy of Education.
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MAKING SENSE OF THE EFA FROM A NATIONAL CONTEXT: ITS IMPLEMENTATION, AND IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLDS IN ETHIOPIA Shoko Yamada ABSTRACT Although global factors undeniably play a role in the adoption of Education for All (EFA) goals in any given country, it would seem that a great majority of studies on EFA tend to overlook the significance of local dynamics. The meaning of schooling is socially constructed, regardless of how the global consensus may wish to structuralize it. The main concern of this chapter, therefore, is to closely analyze the processes by which EFA goals are adopted by the Ethiopian government and how they are implemented at the central and local levels of the government structure. The government’s dependence on foreign assistance contributes to the way in which Ethiopian education policy converges with EFA. However, EFA goals are predominantly the concern of policy makers at the international and central government levels, while, over the course of implementation, the administrative judgment of street-level officials inevitably narrows the actual focus of policy. Also, the choices parents make concerning their children’s education are not always purely motivated by educational concerns, but are also contingent on economic and/or social factors as well. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 453–491 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08016-9
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Ethiopia has achieved a rapid increase in enrolment rates, a development regarded as a sign of true governmental commitment to succeeding in EFA. However, as the author demonstrates in this chapter, a variety of social and systematic factors coalesced to bring about the increase in enrolment, with governmental commitment numbering as just one.
1. INTRODUCTION In 1990, the World Conference on Education for All (EFA) was held in Jomtien, Thailand. Six development goals were agreed upon and aggregately came to be called ‘‘Education for All (EFA)’’. Their aim was to achieve universal access to primary education of acceptable quality for all schoolaged children, without fees charged, in tandem with elimination of gender disparities therein. The EFA’s aims also included the expansion of early childhood care, adult education, and improvement of the adult literacy rate. These EFA goals were not achieved but were endorsed again in 2000 by officials gathered in Dakar representing major bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as the governments of developing countries. Meanwhile, two of the EFA goals, namely, achieving universal primary education (UPE) and eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education, were integrated into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for social and economic development. These two education-related MDGs act as key structural pillars for the allocation of donor assistance, including within the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), which itself focuses on assistance for countries experiencing difficulties in achieving UPE by their own means. Also, after their integration into the MDGs, UPE and gender equity in education have become two priority areas of social and economic policy for countries seeking foreign assistance, as must be evidenced in their Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs). As such, the goals of achieving UPE and gender equity have became increasingly tied to a variety of assistance initiatives and modalities of donor support, which has contributed to a convergence of developing countries’ educational policies onto these two goals. Ethiopia was a signatory to each of the Jomtien and Dakar Conferences. In fact, it has been a signatory to most of the regional and global proclamations for the provision of basic education to all, dating all the way back to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Declaration, as adopted by the UN, asserted that ‘everyone has a right to education’, a concept which has been affirmed time and time again by subsequent international conferences and normative texts repeatedly. In aid-dependent
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countries like Ethiopia, influences imparted by donors’ policies and global agenda are massive. Stemming from this, UPE and gender equity have been among the education sector’s priority areas. Ethiopia’s primary gross enrollment rate (GER) jumped from 34% in 1994–1995 to 79.8% in 2004–2005 (Ministry of Education, 2005a) and is still climbing in a steep upward trend. Although, since the onset of the EFA-era in 1990, enrollment has been increasing in many developing countries, such skyrocketing rises are peculiar to a few poorer sub-Sahara African countries, including Ethiopia.1 At the same time, since well before the Declaration of EFA in 1990, the expansion of educational opportunities available to the people has always been a matter of concern for Ethiopian policy-makers. Starting with the imperial government, moving on to the Derg military government, and including the current government which acceded in 1994, each ruling authority would expressly renew national proclamations supporting UPE. Education is also contextualized as a goal enshrined within the preamble of the national constitution wherein it is recognized as every citizen’s right. In fact, increases in school enrollment ratios accelerated with each change in the ruling structure of the government. When looking at histories of education and Ethiopia, one can see that a series of international conferences favoring UPE have generally set the tone for educational policies in developing countries, but, to an extent, the Ethiopian government also had its own political motives: whether they were to gain public support through the provision of educational services, or to use educational institutions as tools to indoctrinate the public. In sum, when one tries to understand the EFA in an Ethiopian context, it is of primary importance to know the domestic political, social, and educational realities, although factors which need to be analyzed from a global perspective do also exist. In addition, the fact that EFA goals, six in total, are growingly used as if synonymous with the one concept of UPE needs to be considered in relation to local realities. As already mentioned above, two EFA goals included in the MDGs – UPE and gender equity – are given more attention than most others in the international arena. At the same time, when one looks at Ethiopia’s situation, there are organic local factors that drive the government and public to pay attention to UPE. However, it appears that a great majority of studies on EFA overlook the significance of local dynamics in adopting EFA goals and, rather, tend to focus on the global discourse setting agenda or cross-national analyses that assess results in line with internationally agreed upon indicators and standards. The meaning of schooling is socially-constructed in a variety of contexts regardless of any global consensus. Various considerations – administrative,
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political, and social – may divert the workings of policy from its originally intended direction. Parents also make choices concerning their children’s education based on their own judgment, and the motivation behind these choices may not always be purely educational, but potentially economic or social as well. Schools do not exist in a vacuum; rather they are situated in, and interact with, society as a whole. The expansion and improvement of education, is important in and of itself, but the bigger picture is far more complex because the development of education will necessarily influence, and in turn be influenced by, other aspects of social life. The main concern of this chapter, therefore, is to closely analyze the processes of EFA policy implementation, while also uncovering factors affecting its establishment thereby. Also lessons from the author’s investigation into the reasons why parents and communities commit to the education of their children, even in the face of sacrifice, will be summarized. The author will first present her analysis of the policy process from the macro level highlighting matters such as global agenda setting, governmentdonor negotiations, and policy-making at the national level. From there, she will gradually move down to lower levels of the government structure, and ultimately arrive at the households. The first section will describe how international influences seep into the making of national education policy. The author will elucidate how internationally agreed upon EFA goals are brought to dialogues held between donor institutions and national governments, and are therein wittingly used by local representatives of donors so as to ensure that national education policy follow global trends. Instances such as this underscore the fact that the Ethiopian government’s dependency on foreign financial assistance enhances the power of donors’ voices. From the second section onwards, the author will demonstrate how various local factors, such as those political, administrative, and social, have jointly affected priorities within educational service so as to create a convergence onto the promotion of basic education. While one cannot deny that external influence is an enormous factor, basic education could not have expanded at such a rapid pace unless it had made sense locally, regardless of the ideals promoted on the international stage. The EFA goals are predominantly the concern of policy makers at the international- and central-government levels. Whether policy is working in line with EFA goals would not necessarily be of concern to regional officials or the general population at large, so far as they are being provided with the kind of education that they need. However, the policy, once implemented, does come to have substantial meaning to the providers of educational services, such as teachers and administrators, as well as to the students, communities,
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and parents who send their children to school. While documents covering policy touch on a variety of areas within education, from basic and early childhood education to adult and special education, all with equal emphasis, there are certain areas which attract more attention from policy-makers than others. In the course of implementation, one can see that some education programs are promoted more eagerly than others. Also, the real nature of constraints in financial and human resources forces officials to prioritize certain avenues of allocation while leaving many others unattended. Such prioritization is not only executed at the central government level, but also, and more frequently, locally by the street-level officials closest to realities on the ground and under strong pressure to meet certain targets, such as quantitative increases in enrollment or the number of classrooms, by their bureaucratic superiors. In the case of Ethiopia, as in many other developing countries, broader access to education was considered to be of the highest priority. Kebele (village) officials and teachers were formally assigned to conduct a census of all school-aged children within local communities and simultaneously convince parents to send them to school. Each Kebele has been made to mobilize resources for the establishment of its own primary school. As the government has hardly had enough funds for teachers’ salaries, classroom teaching materials, and otherwise necessary items for sustaining its expanding education system, it is rather a natural consequence that, at least for a short time, the quality of education would suffer. Yet these government practices are virtually condoned by donor organizations owing to the snowballing focus on two of the EFA goals, universal free compulsory primary education by 2015 and gender equity, when allocating financial assistance. Another significant matter rarely garnered any attention is that of social changes caused by educational expansion which have hit communities and households throughout Ethiopia. Even though the Ethiopian government claims that it has not charged any school fees for decades, direct contributions and other personal costs collectively shouldered by the public far exceed any estimated burden were there to be normalized school fees. Moreover, schools customarily charge parents under other pretenses by using euphemisms such as registration or activity fees. Therefore, in terms of monetary finance, investment in a child’s education is not a trivial matter for parents, especially now that they are expected to send all of their children to school. In the past, families had selectively allowed schooling for some children while keeping the rest at home to assist in domestic work, farming, or other productive household work. The dramatic expansion of education over the last decade could not have been possible without a dramatic change
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in the public’s perception of the value of education in relation to the modes of working and production at home. What could be the root cause for such eager and open support for educational provisions at this time, allowing families to send their children to school? Will this trend toward universal education be sustainable, or is it a fleeting passion? UPE policies impact society and life in rural areas in ways quite dynamic and transformative, yet not often looked at. Based on a small questionnaire survey distributed to 243 students and 69 teachers, as well as supplementary interviews conducted in the surrounding communities of East Shewa in the Oromia Region, the last part of this chapter will attempt to illustrate some of the changes taking place in schools, and also in the minds of parents and students.
2. THE INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL FORCES ON NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY 2.1. Education for All Development Goals and Global Donor Discourse Before being introduced to Ethiopia and other developing countries, the six present EFA goals were subject to debate, negotiation, and other processes of consensus-building, the result of which was their adoption in the international arena. Donor organizations playing key roles in these processes, such as the World Bank, UNESCO, and UNICEF, brought their own agenda and interests to the table, ultimately resulting in the more favored promotion of some EFA goals due to inter-agency power relations. As some scholars rightly analyze, the EFA’s apparent focus on primary schooling since 1990can be largely explained by dependence on World Bank financial and intellectual resources among donor organizations and developing countries. For example, according to the estimation of Heyneman, 75% of UNESCO’s technical staff was financed by the World Bank, even though they were actually physically located within the confines of UNESCO (Heyneman, 2003, p. 329). As a result, UNESCO, once a primary normsetter for educational initiatives by multilateral and, in extension, bilateral donor organizations, was often relegated to a place necessitating its compromise. While resource reliance has been a significant factor in the virtual swing of educational initiatives closer toward the World Bank’s version of EFA, i.e., universal access to primary education, there are also normative factors which have played roles in the convergence of donor assistance to developing countries. Generally speaking, consensus is more likely to rest on
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the overarching importance of basic (primary and lower secondary) education than on other educational sub-sectors. To-date, the notion that school-based basic education has been the backbone of development in industrialized countries, and must therefore be a precondition for modernization, is widely shared (Astiz, Wiseman, & Baker, 2002, p. 69; Carnoy & Rhoten, 2002, pp. 1–2; Mundy, 1999, pp. 33–34). In addition, principles surrounding access to basic education have been consistently articulated and contextualized in a variety of conventions and declarations on children’s rights and education since the time of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. As far as donors and developing governments are concerned, this repetition has amounted to normative pressure that the failure to work toward achieving this goal would be judged as an act violating human rights (Chabbott, 1998, pp. 212–214). Also, the selective language of universal basic education and publicizing of progress toward its ends, have functioned tacitly to coerce donors and developing governments at the table to both abide by, and further propagate, the system. It is in all the above ways that (a) the interrelationship among a group of institutions rooted in developing and assisting countries, (b) the normative pressures created and reinforced among them, and (c) their financial dependence on limited resources, have all swayed policies and practices impacting educational development closer toward EFA goals, and more specifically, toward UPE.
2.2. Internationally Accepted Models Brought to Local Contexts In each country, a wide range of negotiation forums, where donor organizations and the government receiving aid sit to consult on programs or policy, have been institutionalized; these include sector/sub-sector technical working groups, regular donor–government coordination meetings, and annual review meetings for education sector programs, just to name a few. Such meetings have grown remarkably in importance since the late-1990s when an international consensus deemed that the relationship between countries receiving and providing assistance should not be forcible in nature, but rather be based on an equal ‘partnership’ to encourage the ‘ownership’ of policy by developing countries. With this newly established agreement to foster the ‘ownership’ within assisted countries, donor organizations began pressuring each other to refrain from continuing what had been conventional projects, namely, those implemented by consultants on the donor’s payroll and managed by a steering committee independent of the Ministry of Education’s routine operations. Recent donor-oriented
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discourse, with the UK and the World Bank notably at its head directing mainstream perspectives, has emphasized that a more advanced way to assist developing countries is to extend budget support. Budget support is a modality invented to encourage autonomy in policy-making and implementation undertaken by governments of developing countries. The donor’s role is to endorse the policies or plans of action developed by the government after negotiations, and provide financial support therefore, as opposed to planning and implementing parochial projects without coordination with government and other donor organizations. Meetings held between donors and the government are considered important channels for consensus building, especially since donors are now less involved in the implementation of development activities. Donors, therefore, try to ensure through the consultation process that the government programs go along with their advice, which is, in some cases, only barely distinguishable from highhanded orders capitalizing on financial and political power. In a way, the proclivity of field officials posted by donor organizations to try to control the direction and outcomes of assistance is understandable, because they themselves are under pressure to follow organizational mandates and demonstrate that progress is being made toward the targets. Donors aligning assistance with assisted countries’ development plans often measure success according to success indicators set under an agreement between the government and donors. This creates a close tie between the assessment of government performance and that of the efficacy of donor assistance, thus tempting individual field officials to control the policy processes within the assisted countries, regardless of the widely accepted norms of ‘partnership’ and ‘ownership’. In the late 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF began requiring that Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) prepare PRSPs as a condition for relief from accumulated debts incurred by donor-provided loans This HIPC debt relief initiative signified a major shift in the approaches taken by Breton-Woods institutions away from structural adjustment, which had focused heavily on the improvement of macro-economic performance in developing countries and the minimization of government functions, including those within social sectors. Improvements shown by macro-economic indicators were unsatisfactory, and inequality within each country grew, leaving the World Bank/IMF with little choice but to modify their structural adjustment scenario. They had concluded that heavily indebted countries, only able to afford payments on interest and not repayments on loan capital, were caught in a negative cycle of debt, and in order for their domestic economies to take off, debt alleviation was necessary. Also, since cuts in social services markedly increased domestic inequality during the structural
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adjustment era, reduction in poverty as defined under the new agenda placed special priority on social service sectors, especially those of basic education and primary health care. The MDGs adopted at the UN general assembly in 2000 follow the same line of argument: poverty reduction. A PRSP, which basically functions as a national development plan, is prepared by HIPC governments at their own initiative, but a certain comprehensive framework for gaining World Bank/IMF approval also requires compliance. The existence of tacit conditions within this framework has contributed to the emergence of visible similarities between PRSPs of different HIPCs. And among these, the prioritization of basic education is evident in terms of resource allocation and overall strategic emphasis provided for it. Aid modalities such as PRSP, debt relief, and assistance based on the sector development plans, are closely tied to MDGs since MDGs act as benchmarks for the assessment of performance by national governments and sector ministries. They are also linked to donor initiatives like the FTI. The FTI was launched in 2002 as a platform for targeted assistance distributed for the specific purpose of achieving, by the year 2015, universal access to primary education (UPE). The FTI functions as the focal center to 30 bilateral and multilateral donors and the developing countries for its part in raising funds for the specific purpose of UPE in addition to directing these funds to countries which have gone through endorsement procedures after satisfying set conditions. A substantive sector program and PRSP aimed at achieving MDGs are among these conditions. So far, 45 developing countries have had their education sector plans endorsed and 20 countries have already received FTI catalytic funds. Out of the 20 countries receiving funds, 13 are HIPCs and, additionally, 10 of those are concentrated in Africa. In the end, conditionalities and modalities of development assistance have contributed to shaping the interests of the international assistance community, as well as the policies of developing countries under the strong influence of donors, so that they have both narrowly convened on the enforcement of the two EFA goals as a means to bring about increased access to and gender equity in basic, and especially primary education. Ethiopia is an African HIPC receiving FTI funds. The countries which receive focused assistance tend to be more influenced by external forces and thereby give higher priority to the achievement of MDGs in education policy than their less aid-dependent counterparts. Table 1 indicates the aiddependency of the Ethiopian government according to differently calculated perspectives. According to all listed indicators, Ethiopia’s reliance on foreign assistance is increasing year by year. Given its low gross national income (GNI), the absolute amount of aid inflow is lower than the average for
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Table 1. GNI PerCapita (US $)
110
Trends in Aid Dependence in Ethiopia.
Aid Per-Capita ($)
2001 16
2002 19
2003 22
Aid as Percentage of GNI
2004 26
2001 2002 2003 17.5 21.7 22.8
2004 23
Aid as Percentage of Central Government Expenditure 1996 1997 1998 39.3 38.7 54.6
Note: World Development Indicators, 2003–2006, World Bank.
Table 2.
1998 1999 2000 2001
Trends in Educational Expenditure in Ethiopia. Educational Expenditure (as Percentage of Public Expenditure)
Educational Expenditure (as Percentage of GDP)
11.50 9.60 13.90 17.00
3.5 3.2 4 5
Note: Ethiopia: Focusing public expenditures on poverty reduction, World Bank (2001a).
sub-Saharan Africa (aid per-capita in 2003: $34). However, the proportion of aid in relation to GNI is much higher in Ethiopia (22.8% in 2003) than the regional average (6% in 2003). Table 2 shows trends in public education expenditures against both total government expenditure and GDP. As aiddependency has heightened, allocation of financial resources to the education sector has increased too. Out of all education expenditures, those for the primary education sub-sector single-handedly make up 54.4% (2001/ 2002) (World Bank, 2001a). The fact that growing resource allocation to education – especially toward primary education – has coincided with higher dependence on external funding suggests a possibility of donors’ influence on government policy and resource allocation in Ethiopia. Many scholars have pointed out that the global discourse on EFA, together with the backing of financial and technical assistance, has a standardizing effect (e.g., Benavot, Cha, Kamens, Meyer, & Wong, 1991; Chabbott, 1998; Samoff, 1999). On the other hand, a number of reports indicate that such standardization within internationally and nationally held political arena does not necessarily bring about substantial changes in the field (Astiz et al., 2002, p. 86; McGinn, 1997, pp. 44–45), and it may even produce unintended results (Mayer, Nagel, & Snyder, 1993; Nagel & Snyder, 1989). Ethiopia is, most certainly, under the influence of the international donor
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community and strong promotion therefrom of the principle of universal access to primary education. At the same time, constraints on resources extendable to the vast population entitled to enrollment have motivated the government to adopt practical makeshifts which ultimately cause a divergence between Ethiopia’s educational provisions and the assumed results of international goals. The aforementioned ad-hoc arrangements are often made at lower levels of government in response to realities on the ground, by the individual discretion of officials. At the grassroot level, terms like EFA or MDG do not carry any substantial meaning. In their place, local dynamics of political, cultural, and economic relationships govern popular decision-making regarding education. But within these local dynamics, national government ideology, party politics, the economy and other factors all have a strong influence.
3. LOCAL DRIVES FOR THE EXPANSION OF EDUCATION 3.1. A Historical View of Developments in Education in Ethiopia Ethiopia’s imperial government, which lasted until 1974, hosted the 1961 Addis Ababa Conference on Education co-organized by UNESCO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It was the first major international conference to attempt to set common goals for educational development in countries around the world. Although, the Ethiopian government hosted this conference as an expression of its strong sense of commitment, education in Ethiopia at the time, especially at the primary and secondary levels, ranked at the bottom among African nations, most of which had newly achieved independence. Among other things, the conference ultimately highlighted Ethiopia’s educational deficiencies. Embarrassed by its record, the Ministry of Education developed a new education policy, which remained in effect until 1974. This policy declared, for the first time in Ethiopia’s history, UPE to be a long-range objective. Between 1961 and 1971, the public school system was expanded more than fourfold. Even this increase in facilities provided marginal results at best, with enrollment at primary and secondary schools at around 600,000 students altogether with only 1,300 available schools (Library of Congress, 2006), compared with 12,309,375 students enrolled at 17,219 schools for grades 1–10 in 2004–2005 (Ministry of Education, 2005a). Despite the fact that the share from total government expenditures allocated to education increased from 10% in
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1968 to 20% in the early 1970s, funding remained unsatisfactory and wide regional gaps in the quality of, and access to, education were plain to see. From the overthrow of the imperial government in 1974 until the rise of military government in 1977, enrollment growth had stagnated. However, this setback proved to be temporary and enrollment at all levels grew by 20% the following year (World Bank, 2004, 22) (see Fig. 1). In fact, enrollment kept growing until the country experienced one of the worst famines in its history; students increased from 957,300 in 1974–1975 to nearly 2,450,000 by 1985–1986. Throughout the course of implementing educational development, governments in Ethiopia have involved communities in school construction. During the military regime, owing to its policy of utilizing community resources proactively, the number of primary schools increased from 3,196 in 1974–1975 to 7,900 in 1985–1986 (Library of Congress, 2006). Although the military government succeeded in achieving noteworthy improvements in primary and secondary education in its own right, when the current government took office in 1994, prospects for
10000000 9000000
Imperial regime (1947-74)
Military government (1977-91)
New government (1994-)
8000000 7000000 6000000 5000000 4000000 3000000 2000000
Primary (Grade 1-8) Seconda ry (Grade 9-12)
1000000 0
1967- 1970- 1975- 1980- 1985- 1990- 1995- 2000- 2001- 2002- 200368 71 76 81 86 91 96 2001 2002 2003 2004
Fig. 1. Enrollment in Grades 1–12, Ethiopia, 1967–2002. Note: Education in Ethiopia, World Bank, 2005. Source: Government of Ethiopia (1994) for Data for 1967/ 1968–1992/1993; Government of Ethiopia (1995) for Data for 1993/1994; Government of Ethiopia (1996) for Data for 1994/1995; Government of Ethiopia (1997) for Data for 1995/1996; Government of Ethiopia (1998) for Data for 1996/1997; Government of Ethiopia (January 1999) for Data for 1997/1998; Government of Ethiopia (August 1999) for Data for 1998/1999; Government of Ethiopia (2000) for Data for 1999/2000; Government of Ethiopia (2001) for Data for 2000–2001; and Government of Ethiopia (2002) for Data for 2001–2002.
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universal education in the near future did not seem bright at all. In that first year, following continuous efforts to expand education, the gross enrollment was only a meager 34%. As is evidenced by the enrollment trends shown in Fig. 1, efforts toward UPE have been reproduced with the ascendance of each new government. This trend implies the political significance of education within government cunning to gain public confidence and establish the legitimacy of its rule. The installation of social outreach services, such as health posts and schools, is highly visible at the grassroot level as a form of government-provided benefits. Therefore, not only in Ethiopia but also in many other countries, it is common practice for contending or newly incepted factions to promise the expansion of education in their pursuit of political power. In addition, withdrawal of the regime’s word, once committed and spread to the villages, becomes difficult due to fears that public expectations will be upset and the basis of its rule would be weakened thereby.2 One case in point would be the Ethiopian national general election campaign in May 2005. Both the ruling (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, EPRDF) and opposition (Coalition for Unity and Democracy) parties promised stronger commitment to education and health services in their manifestos – promises which were propagated widely via the mass media and personal contacts. As will be discussed later, the author considers this political campaign to be one key factor in eventual internalization of the necessity of schooling by Ethiopian parents. Such examples show that politicians often use education as a means to induce the general public to support the legitimacy of their rule. Furthermore, the rationale that education is a right every child should be guaranteed is brandished in political debates together with utilitarian justification naming it as a form of investment in national development. However, in many cases, politicians’ commitment to education, a sector which requires a large portion of the limited national budget, is more motivated by political circumstance than idealistic convictions to the guarantee of human rights. In relation to the politics of education, the author would also like to mention the National Literacy Campaign implemented by the military regime between 1975 and 1990. This campaign was introduced along with a massive amalgamate of social mobilization programs. While condemning social injustices perpetrated by the imperial regime, the military government pledged to redistribute property and empower the rural masses. It began by sending more than 60,000 students and teachers all over the country for twoyear terms of service and, according to government sources, 1.5 million
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people eventually worked in the campaign, including students, civil servants, teachers, military personnel, housewives, and members of religious groups. Booklets distributed numbered in the 22 million range for beginners courses and in the 9 million range for post-literacy classes. According to government figures, the literacy rate grew from not even 10% during the imperial regime to 63% in 1984. Other sources, however, estimated the latter figure at around 37%. Whichever the case, the skyrocketing growth in adult literacy achieved during the literacy campaign was not sustained for long. According to UNESCO data, in 1990 the adult literacy rate in Ethiopia was 28.6% and subsequently 39.1% in 2000 (UNESCO, 2005). Ethiopia’s experience relating to this powerful, yet ultimately unsustainable, mass literacy campaign, has spurred skepticism among some Ethiopian intellectuals of the current government’s achievement of increased enrollment at primary schools. Given the tight top-down control they exercise, the ruling party and its government administration could conceivably mobilize the rural population and reach targets for the short-term. Peer pressure drives villagers to follow governmental orders transmitted to them by the words and actions of local officials. According to an informal source, in many rural communities, the failure of an individual to attend adult literacy classes may mean exclusion from the whole of community activities, a fate which most people dare not choose. Ethiopia’s experience tells of how growth in enrollment may only be temporary unless an internalization of the value of education takes place among the people, and families willingly choose to send their children to school. The quality of school education and post-graduation prospects would matter a lot to parents making a decision about investing in their children’s future. However, quality of education has received less attention from policy-makers who, unfortunately, tend to prioritize physical expansion.
4. POST 1994 OUTLOOK FOR ETHIOPIA’S EDUCATION SECTOR 4.1. Policy Framework and Public Finance As soon as the current government had taken power in 1994, a new education policy, the Education and Training Policy and Strategy (ETPS) was declared, and in 1996–1997 the government designed the Education Sector Development Program (ESDP), a long-range rolling plan meant to span the coming 20 years. The ESDP translates the principles of the policy statement
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into action and is, as such, the nation’s ‘‘sector program’’ a requirement for FTI assistance as outlined by donor organizations. This program is to operate in tandem with the PRSP and is expected to contribute to MDG achievement. The government states, ‘‘[the] Government of Ethiopia is committed to Education for All (EFA) and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), both commitments are fully supported by ESDP II (Phase two of ESDP which covers the period of 2002–2005) (Joint Review Mission, 2003, p. 7).’’ Given this governmental commitment, the overall goal of ESDP in the field of primary education is to achieve universal access to primary education by the year 2015 and to improve quality, equity, and efficiency in educational services. From the latter half of the 1990s, the Ethiopian government has allocated between 55 and 65% of its educational budget each year to primary education (Ministry of Education, Ethiopia, 2004a). Over the period starting in 2005–2006 and ending with 2010–2011, the government will allocate 54.76% of the total recurrent and capital cost of the ESDP to primary education. Tertiary education will follow primary education with a 25.28% share, and secondary education will come in with 9.36% (Ministry of Education, 2005b, p. 68). One notable characteristic of Ethiopia’s financial and, hence, strategic prioritization within the education sector is its emphasis on tertiary education as well as technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Fig. 2 compares trends in recurrent education-sector expenditures in Ethiopia with those of two other East African countries. Recent increases in financial allotment to tertiary and TVET sectors sets Ethiopia apart from Tanzania and Kenya. Although one benchmark that the international aid community sets forth for FTI-assistance is the allocation of 67% of public expenditures to primary sub-sector education, in Ethiopia the rate of allocations to primary education has, to the contrary, declined following the introduction of ESDP. The Ethiopian government’s strong determination to promote TVET and tertiary education met with rather severe opposition from the World Bank and other development partners. Generally, investment in TVET is costly, and simultaneously keeping up with changes in labor market demands is difficult. Additionally, it was not clear whether Ethiopia’s focus on TVET and tertiary education included factual analysis of potential absorptive capacity within the labor market. For these reasons and more, the World Bank, along with other development partners, expressed reluctance to support Ethiopia’s bid to strengthen TVET, and tough negotiations ensued (World Bank, 2001b, p. 102). In a way, Ethiopia’s determination was understood as an expression of the government’s ‘ownership’ of policies.
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100%
80%
60%
Administration Adulted/nonformaled Teacher training
40%
TVET 20%
University Secondary
Ethiopia
Tanzania
2000-01
1999-00
1998-99
1997-98
1996-97
2003-04
2002-03
2000-01
2001-02
1999-00
2003-04
2001-02
2000-01
1999-00
1998-99
1996-97
1997-98
0%
Primary
Kenya
Fig. 2. Share of Recurrent Expenditure by Sub-Sector. Note: From Tanzania Public Expenditure Review FY 03, by the World Bank (2004). From Ethiopia Focusing Public Expenditures on Poverty Reduction, by the World Bank (2001a). From Public Expenditure Review 2003, by Republic of Kenya (2003). From Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP): Consolidated National Performance Report, 2002/2003, by the Ministry of Education, Ethiopia (2004a).
The controversy here is that, although the international aid community says that it welcomes ‘ownership’ by the governments of assisted countries, this same expression of ‘ownership’ is apt to mean non-compliance with terms prescribed by the funders. The fact that primary education’s share within the governmental budget has declined does not mean that it has not been seriously promoted. Growing allocations to the whole education sector result in a smaller proportionate ratio of funds for primary education, but in fact the actual budget earmarked for primary education in real dollar terms is increasing. In addition, a considerable part of the funds which support Ethiopia’s education system are not reflected in governmental accounting, making it difficult to more precisely grasp the state of education-related financing. Donor assistance not provided through the Ministry of Finance is not calculated as a part of the governmental budget (off-budget), while some multilateral and bilateral
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donors assist the Ministry of Education or regional governments directly. Also, there are many NGOs which support schools directly, and the activities of these groups are not fully grasped even by the regional education bureaus. Moreover, the government counts on community contributions to cover budget deficits. The government openly admits that ‘‘to ensure the realization of Universal Primary Education, the government will make every effort to provide financial, human and material resources. However, it is apparent that the government’s resources will not be sufficient. y The [Education Sector Development] Program assumes an increased role of communities in constructing low cost schools and classrooms (Ministry of Education, 2005b, p. 39).’’ According to the ESDP financial plan, community contribution is estimated to cover more than 10% of the total program cost while the governmental expenditure out of the total budget, which includes donor support managed through the Ministry of Finance, will make up 74%. When totaling the governmental expenditure, community contribution, and cost sharing by students, the amount of expenses that the government is prospectively ready to meet stand at 85% (Ministry of Education, 2005b, p. 72). This means that 15% of the estimated budget is still unaccounted for and must be generated either from the communities or from NGOs and donors. Much of the cost for education services is covered in ad-hoc manners beyond both the reaches of planning, and the knowledge of the central government. According to a World Bank study, households bear 24.5% of the per-student educational cost (World Bank, 2004). This proportion is not at all high compared with, for example, 60% in the case of Kenya (World Bank, 2002), 80% in Zambia, or 38.2% in Peru (World Bank, 2006). But this data alone does not stand as evidence that the household burden in Ethiopia is lighter than that in other countries. Data on public–private sharing of educational expenditures will fluctuate depending on which cost items are technically considered to be private costs. If one calculates fees paid to schools alone, the share of private cost would be smaller than when one adds other incurred costs such as the purchase of uniforms or teaching and learning materials, as well as transportation. Moreover, these data on per-pupil educational cost do not count ‘‘voluntary contributions’’ of parents for school maintenance and other purposes, which is far from marginal. The cross-national comparison of such data can be misleading and hide important issues on the ground from the sight of reviewers. In Ethiopia, the government faces an absolute lack of resources. Given this, the fact that a major portion of educational funds are appropriated according to local priority for purposes other than ones designated for them, seems almost inevitable. Ordinary practice dictates that the school will
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approach communities and parents to collect money in ad-hoc manner. According to the Ministry of Education’s policy, each school receives government subsidies based on its number of students. However, as these funds are channeled down from the central government to the Woreda level, they are all mixed altogether to comprise a part of Woreda’s general income. The Woreda general assembly has the authority to decide what proportion of this general income shall go to the education sector. At the Woredas in the Oromia region, visited by the author, the share provided to education from the Woreda budget was 45–48%, from which 81.5–92.7% goes to teacher salaries. Across the board, allocations to the education sector are increasing at the Woreda level. This is supported by findings from the Joint Review Mission showing that the education sector receives between 30 and 57% of the total Woreda budget although the share itself varies. The Joint Review Mission also reports that 82–99% of education budgets in the Oromiaregion which Woredas visited went to teacher salaries (Joint Review Mission, 2006, pp. 38–39). The lion’s share of educational funds is consumed by teacher salaries, which forces the government to compensate through continuous reliance on other sources in order to maintain the system. The remainder of the recurrent budget, after salary expenditures, can be spent on purchasing textbooks, but rarely are any funds left for development, such as the erection of new classrooms, or for quality management, namely allowing Woreda education officers to inspect schools. In most Woredas, funding for development expenditure was between 0 and 2% of the budget. At the point that Woreda governments receive their central government grants, resources are no longer sufficient for covering the cost of universal free primary education. More often than not subsidies allocated to each school are consolidated into the Woreda budget. It is unknown if Woreda officials consider such appropriation of resources to be a malpractice or not. Generally, in the past, corruption and the misappropriation of resources were said to be rare occurrences in Ethiopia, something not likely said about some of its neighboring countries (World Bank, 2004, p. 25). However, according to the Global Corruption Report, Ethiopia’s high rating (indicating low corruption) is slipping (Transparency International, 2004), which implies that, these days, more centrally budgeted funds are being pocketed or redirected toward objectives other than education before they ever reach the schools. Increasing resource appropriation by street-level officials can be understood as a makeshift solution to facing harsh groundlevel realities on the one hand and pressure to achieve quantitative targets, such as increases in enrollment and teachers, from higher levels of government on the other. Issues like quality or internal efficiency fall behind given
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the lack of resources and capacities. Thus, nuanced policy, which pays courtesy to various educational sub-sectors, is interpreted and re-interpreted until central government’s loosely-defined priorities therein are amplified and tightened to more regional and local applications as implementation is passed down the line. When EFA goals are discussed in the international arena, the underlying assumption is that the government will become the prime provider of formal education, especially for the primary level. External assistance for UPE is progressively being concentrated in the hands of the government, instead of being spread to individual projects or supporting NGOs. Since there now exists the modality of aligning donor assistance to government policy and funding mechanisms therein, a growing consensus has taken shape under the belief that the more a government has a tight hold on funding, decisionmaking, and implementation concerning programs, then the better and more effective social services will be. Donors pressure each other to see that amassing power in the government is facilitated, especially for the ministries in charge of finance and planning.3 However, a close look at the primary education system in Ethiopia reveals that the government cannot maintain the system by itself. So much is not yet known about primary education in Ethiopia because most information has only been collected through governmental channels, which do not capture the educational system as a whole.
4.2. Trends Read from Educational Statistics Owing to the determination of the Ethiopian government as well as to global initiatives for the promotion of primary education, the GER at the primary level miraculously increased from 30.0% in 1994–1995 to 68.4% in 2003–2004, and again to 79.8% in 2004–2005 (Fig. 3). In 2003–2004, the number of primary-school-age children in Ethiopia was estimated to be 13,950,688, among which 9,542,638 children were enrolled in both regular and evening primary school programs. However, indicators show that an increase in the GER is often accompanied by the deterioration of quality and internal efficiency, such as visible in pupil–teacher ratios and dropout rates. Fig. 3 demonstrates that as the GER embarks on its steep upward trend, pupil–teacher ratios also increase, which means that each teacher has to teach more students in the classroom than before. In Ethiopia, the government set its target pupil–teacher ratios at 50 and 40 students per teacher for the primary and secondary levels, respectively. However, at the primary level this ratio has increased from
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90 Gross Enrolment Rate
80 70
Pupil-Teacher Ratio
60 50
Repetition Rate
40
Dropout Rate
30 20
2004-05
2003-04
2002-03
2001-02
2000-01
1999-00
1998-9
1997-8
1996-7
1995-6
1994-5
0
1993-4
10
Fig. 3. Trends Demonstrated by Educational Indications. Note: From ‘‘Education Management Information System (EMIS), Education Statistics Annual Abstract’’ 2002/2003 and 2004/2005 by the Ministry of Education, Ethiopia (2004b, 2005a).
37 students per teacher in 1995–1996 to 56 students per teacher in 1999– 2000, and once more to 65 (71 for the first cycle and 55 for the second cycle) in 2003–2004. The pupil–teacher ratio has increased at the secondary level too, from 45 students per teacher in 2002–2003 to 48 in 2003–2004. While the repetition rate has been decreasing over the last few years, the dropout rate has generally come to a standstill at around 17–20%. Changes to educational outcomes and quality take time and are not always quantifiable in a short period of time. Therefore, it would be too soon to judge the effectiveness of the ESDP at this point. However, one should note that the GER would readily drop if there were not continuous investment in the system. Without balance between the development of quantitative expansion and quality in education, schools in Ethiopia may not be able to continue to attract and retain students at their current levels. 4.2.1. Regional and Gender Disparities The individual rates shown in Fig. 3 above are all taken from national averages, yet when looking at educational changes in Ethiopia, it is vital to keep an eye out for regional and gender disparities, a serious issue in this country. A large geographic section of this vast country not suited for cultivation is inhabited by nomads who migrate seasonally; It is very difficult
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for educational services to reach these diffusely spread mobile people. Also, there are 89 different languages in Ethiopia (Ethnologue, 2006) and these lingual differences often act as barriers for people who wish to access education. The national diversity of culture, habitation, and modes of living have made equitable provision of social services, including education, difficult. The Ministry of Federal Affairs applies some measures to facilitate the allocation of more resources to regions with lower socio-economic status – especially pastoral and remote areas such as Somari and Afar – but the geographical disparities are still large. Fig. 4 gives a comparison of a number of educational indicators by region It is clear that Somali and Afar achieve results lower than the other states in all of the indicators. For example, the GER for each of these two regions is 15.1 and 14.8% respectively, while it is over 140% in Addis Ababa, the capital city, and more than 100% in both Gambella and Harari. The proportion of qualified teachers at school and the number of textbooks per pupil widely varies by region. For example, 80% of teachers at the upper primary level (grades 5–8) in Addis Ababa are qualified, while in Harari, 160 140
Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER)
120
Net Enrolment Ratio (NET) Total
100
Pupil-teacher ratio Firstcycle primary school (1-4) Pupil-teacher ratio Second cycle primary (5-8) Repetition Rate in 2003/04 Total
% 80
60 40
Dropout Rate in 2002/03 Total
20
A
fa r A
dd
is A b G aba am be lla H ar Be n- ari G um u D ire z D aw a Ti gr ay SN N PR O ro m ia A m ha ra So m al e
0
Fig. 4. Regional Breakdown By Key Indicators. Note: From ‘‘Education Management Information System (EMIS), Education Statistics Annual Abstract’’ 2004/2005 by the Ministry of Education, Ethiopia (2005a).
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Oromia, and SNNPR only 30% are qualified. When it comes to Somali, the ratio is still lower at 3.5%. Gender disparity is also large. The GER for female students was below 20% in 1994–1995 and improved remarkably to 71.5% by 2004–2005, at an annual growth rate of 16.4% over the last five years. When this is segregated on the chart into rural and urban areas, dramatic growth in female participation in primary education is more visible in rural areas, with a growth rate of 24.8%, than in urban areas, which top at 7.7%, although the change is significant to note in both cases. The higher increase rate in rural areas, however, can partially be attributed to the fact that fewer girls were already in school to start with, and governmental intervention had a clearer overall rural impact. Again, the disparity is severe across specific regions as well. Addis Ababa is already achieving nearly 100%, yet in Somali and Afar, the ratios are only 7.8 and 9.0% respectively. By its target year of 2005, Ethiopia had failed to achieve the EFA and MDG of ‘‘gender equity’’; furthermore, as even the numbers show, there is still a long way to go.
5. THE IMPACT OF EXPANDED SCHOOLING ON HOUSEHOLDS AND COMMUNITIES While problems outlined above, particularly the low quality of education and gaps in equality drawn along lines of locality, sex, and language, among other social factors, are serious, there exists another important corollary of Ethiopia’s current UPE policy – one which receives far less attention from scholars: the effects on families and communities. Educationists tend to look at school as if it were isolated from the broader social and economic lives of the people around it. Most of the time, they look out on communities through the windows of the school, contemplating what communities can do to improve the quality of education and school management, but they do not look to see the school from its outside, as one organic part to the whole of village life. Certainly education is rich in merits in its own right, and plays an important role in human development. However, families have historically made decisions about whether to send children to school or not in accordance with their assessment of future prospects and various familial needs. The UPE policy, steadfastly promulgating access to schooling for every single child, can be seen as a move to reorient the mindset of parents. Before, a child’s education was a matter of familial choices. But it has become more of an issue of recognizing that a child has the right to go to school, and parents and society are obligated to send that child to school.
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In this section, the author will investigate how the philosophical basis of UPE policy spread in Ethiopian rural communities and what kind of systematic and social conditions enabled rapid increases in enrollment. Behind the education system’s explosive expansion stand the communities and parents forced to bear the heavy burden of its installment and maintenance. As a result of the government’s limited financial capacity, it is not uncommon for Ethiopia’s communities to shoulder the cost of school construction and maintenance, the procurement of teaching and learning materials, and sometimes even the salaries of teachers.4 According to the Ethiopian government, there is a tradition of not charging school fees. However, once one goes to the field, the fact that parents are charged some fixed amount is easily evidenced, and the families undoubtedly perceive these charges to be ‘school fees’.5 Also, as will be discussed later, there are numerous other direct expenses required of households who have children enrolled in schools. One significant indirect economic impact of universal schooling is the labor hours lost by the household due to the absence of the child. In the villages the author visited, as a direct consequence of the campaign for increased enrollment over the last few years less children stayed at home for a full day to help with farming or other family work than before. Though, many are able to help families for half a day because, ironically, the schools cannot accommodate all students for one whole day and must therefore operate on a system of double- or triple-shifts. The forms of land ownership and agriculture are diverse in Ethiopia. In some areas visited by the author, and particularly in Awasa and Nazret, the available land is neither large enough nor fertile enough to yield produce capable of feeding all family members. Therefore, the parents simply do not need children at home to help them. Rather, they hope that education will enable their children to acquire jobs with cash income, and leave behind the scant offerings of family land. On the other hand, in areas where the average size of family farms is bigger and hands for labor are not enough, especially at the harvest time, parents are forced to hire help or to withdraw children from school, at least temporarily. Under these conditions, when sending children to school parents bear a range of costs, both directly and indirectly. Promoting education as a value and increasing access to schools seem to have stimulated aspirations among both parents and students stemming from the often-cited potential for improving one’s life and future by gaining an education. None of the community members necessarily have a clear vision of how exactly life would be improved, for this can be interpreted in any number of ways. However, it is very common for any one of them to
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envisage employment with cash income after schooling. In some cases, education may not even be a necessary condition for that. Yet still, regardless of actual labor demands, in the villages it is commonly expected that youth would go to school first and then migrate to the urban areas for employment later. Increases in enrollment could conceivably enhance labor migration, making the schooling a rite-of-passage of sorts.
5.1. Research Questions and Methodologies To investigate the effects of educational expansion on rural households, the author conducted a questionnaire survey in conjunction with interview-based research in the Eastern Shewa zone of the Oromia region in February 2006.6 Two hundred and forty three students and 69 teachers were randomly selected from 6 schools comprising 2 each of urban, semi-urban, and rural schools. This investigation followed a field visit from one year before (February 2005) when the author had visited a wider stretch of areas anywhere up to 300 km from Addis Ababa, the capital city.7 The original survey plan for 2006 was to look at all the areas visited one year back and research matters more deeply. However, after the national election in May 2005, Ethiopia’s political situation became tense. In November 2005, students and supporters of the opposition parties were heavily involved in uprisings in some large cities, the sparks of which had spread to some rural areas too. The author had to postpone this first study and even when finally able resume work in February 2006, she was discouraged from entering areas like Ambo or Jima because of the unstable conditions at schools there. Eastern Shewa is in the northwestern part of the Oromia region, which is close to Addis Ababa. The reasons this zone was ultimately selected for this study were not only its proximity to the capital city, but also the diverse modes of agriculture and labor that households are involved in. Awasa, where needs are primarily met through subsistence farming, was visited one year earlier as one part of Eastern Shewa. Some parts of this zone, which are closer to Addis Ababa, are involved in raising cash crops. Seasonal labor migration is also generally a common practice in rural areas. At the same time, Eastern Shewa has its own urban areas in which, households are involved in diverse forms of labor, from manual labor and petit trading to professional works such as accounting or teaching. Some farmers own their own farming plots while others work on the farms of others. Such diversity gave the author a good picture of work and perceptions about education in varying households, even though it is too small a sample to generalize for the whole country.
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Table 3.
477
Sample Characteristics (Students). Sex (Students)
School location
Urban Rural Semi-urban Total
Total
Male
Female
46 52 40 138
40 35 29 104
86 87 69 242
The student questionnaire was distributed to as many children as possible at grade 4 or higher, because younger students are often not as capable of answering questions concerning schooling costs and their expectations from education as their elder counterparts. The student population in schools tend to vary, with anywhere from 300 students in rural areas to 5,200 in urban areas (Table 3). In addition to the questionnaires distributed to students and teachers, the author also went to communities near the sample schools and interviewed parents of students studying at the facility concerned. The general questions, applied within different methods for data collection targeting different groups of respondents, were as follows: 1. What factors affect parents’ decisions regarding sending their children to school? Cost of schooling. Children’s labor to support the family. Expectations from education. Priority given to certain children (by age or by sex), if any. 2. Did the family and/or community undergo any changes caused by the rapid expansion of primary education over the last few years? 3. How do different backgrounds (e.g., parental education, material condition, religion, etc.) of the family and/or community impact the schooling of children? 5.2. Structural and Social Factors within the UPE Campaign Because of its history of one-party autocracy, all levels of the governmental structure in Ethiopia are closely linked to the politics of, and under domination by, the EPRDF, the country’s principle political party (Pausewang,
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Tronvoll, & Aalen, 2002). This means that once the government commits itself to promoting, say, primary education and sends an order for an increase in enrollment down to local governmental bodies, that order will be seen as an extremely binding obligation by local government officials. As was the case with the literacy campaign of the 1970s and 1980s, the strong determination of the government has a powerful influence over the extent to which social mobilization for its policies and programs is implemented. During the UPE campaign of the last couple of years, both Kebele (village) officials and teachers have counted every single school-aged child and visited families with non-enrolled children in order to convince the parents to send them to school. In a centralized bureaucracy, officials at the lower levels are each unequivocally bound by an obligation to answer to those at higher levels. Therefore, Kebele officials are very eager to follow orders and increase enrollment. Also, the persuasion these officials have over the community become equivalent to strong social pressure on villagers. In some Kebele that the author visited, parents were fined for having non-enrolled children – and the penalties were often more expensive than fees for school would have been (Interview with parents in Eastern Shewa in February 2005). One significant change that the author noted to have taken place in the one year between the first and second visits was that parents expressed emphatic willingness to support their children’s education, although many had complained about coercive means, such as penalty fines, exerted by the local government one year earlier. One reason for this sudden change would be the general election of May 2005. At the time, both the EPRDF and the opposition party had detailed educational expansion as a principle in their manifestos, while the issue of education had been frequently mentioned in the channels of mass media, such as on radio and TV. The issue was discussed in more familiar situations as well, such as at Kebele-centered political meetings or in door-to-door canvassing in association with the parties. Two intensive campaigns, one for the election and another for UPE, seem to have contributed the most to the shift in parents’ perceptions. Traditionally, for villagers, education was one option among several for investing in a family’s future and parents often tried to diminish their risks by allowing some children to pursue routes other than schooling. Such strategies are based on the family as a unit instead of the individual. However, what had clearly changed in the one-year spanning from 2005 to 2006 was the universalization of the idea that children have a right to an education and it is the parents’ humanitarian duty to let them pursue this right. It is difficult to tell whether this concept has honestly taken root in the minds of parents or whether most people just consider it more appropriate or convenient to answer in such a
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way, regardless of their true sentiments. Whichever the case, their responses highlight the significant ability of the two campaigns to impart a value to villagers, and have that value be disseminated as knowledge.
5.3. The Impact of Childrens’ Enrollment on Households and Parents’ Perceptions Although 64% of questionnaire respondents hailed from urban and semiurban areas, overall, according to the children responding, 81.5% of parents were involved in agriculture in one way or another. Seventeen percent of these families own animals and grazing land, in addition to growing crops. Thirty-five percent of fathers and 45.8% of mothers of all responding children have never attended school. However, there is a pretty high participation rate in adult literacy classes (17.5% of fathers and 21.7% of mothers). This rate is higher for females even though the likelihood of their having been to formal school is lower than males. Only 18% of students had at least one parent who attended secondary school or higher. Fig. 5 shows the educational attainment for parents of the sample students classified by 90 80
No. of cases
70 60
Urban
50
Semi-urban Rural
40 30 20 10 0 Did
not
Att go
end
to s
cho
ed
ol
Att
Co
adu
end
lt l
ed
iter
mp
pri
acy
ma
ry
cra
cc
Fig. 5.
Att
lete
dp
sch
ool
Co
end
rim
ed
ary
mp
sec
ond
sch
ool
Hig
lete
ary
her
ds
sch
eco
ool
lev
el o
nda
ry
f ed
uca
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ool
Educational Attainment of Parents (Mother and Father).
tion
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the location of the school. The swing toward lower levels of education is more pronounced among parents of children in rural schools than in the urban. This swing is more significant when one takes into consideration female parents only. Many studies have demonstrated that parental educational attainment is a significant factor in determining a child’s educational opportunity (e.g., Hashim 2005, p. 8). Location, parental education, and current enrollment are all indelibly linked within an overarching equation for assessing conditions within universal education; in rural areas, parents tend to be less-educated and, until recently, children have had less access to education. According to responses to the student questionnaire, the most common reason given for the withdrawal, or non-enrollment, of children in school is the need for the child’s labor (30.4%). This was followed in sequence by: the lack of financial ability to cover education costs (19.6%), and marriage (female) (17.5%). The Joint Review Mission’s education sector program also surveyed causes behind dropout rates in the Oromia region. The top reason for dropping out, as also evidenced by the author’s research, was the family’s labor demands (23.4%), followed by illness (23%), and lack of financial capacity (19.1%) (Joint Review Mission, 2006, p. 12). A study conducted by Liddell, Barrett and Henzi (2003, pp. 55–57). in a rural South African community suggests that across rural lands of Africa, a family’s demands for labor and/or financial problems are consistently two major obstacles to enrollment. As mentioned earlier, policy documentation states that no fees will be charged for primary education, yet in reality schools will demand that parents pay a certain amount as recompense. School principals might assert that such contributions are made on a purely voluntary basis, but from parents’ perspective, it is far more coercive. Depending on the parents’ financial capabilities, the amount of ‘school fees’ regularly differ from school to school. Therefore, one can assume that the quality of education correlates closely with the average income levels of the parents and communities, as they are forced to make up for the lack of financial resources allocated by the government. According to the Welfare Monitoring Survey of 1995 and 2000, the economic status of more than 20% of rural households ranked in the lowest quintile (Schaffner, 2004, p. 11). This fact suggests that the quality of education in rural areas tends to be lower. A survey conducted by the World Bank demonstrated that, in the year 1999–2000 households spend on the average 19.7% of their income, or 202 Birr, on education for their children (World Bank, 2004, pp. 80–82).8 The author’s survey demonstrates that, in the Eastern Shewa zone of the Oromia region in Ethiopia, the
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average cost per child for private schooling is 264 Birr (125 Birr for rural schools, 289 Birr for semi-urban, and 384 for urban). Applying the World Bank’s calculation of average annual consumption expenditure per adult as 1,676 Birr (World Bank, 2004, p. 81), the per-child educational cost in places the author surveyed accounts for 8–16% of the household expenditure. The private household cost of education multiplies as the number of children enrolled in school increases, and that accumulated cost may sometimes exceed the family’s financial capacity. Altogether, the cost of children’s schooling is indeed a heavy burden on poor rural households. Since many rural schools serve only cycle one (grades 1–4) students, rural students who wish to move on to cycle 2 must attend an urban or semi-urban complete primary school (with grades 1–8). In the author’s questionnaire survey in 2006, 16.7% of sample students spend some amount of money on rent, which means that the distance does not allow them to commute to school from home, and they have to pay for a place to live. After excluding students who pay for rent, the average cost of schooling per head decreases from 264 to 136 Birr. Interestingly, by excluding these students, in particular, the cost of semi-urban schools becomes cheaper on the average (108 Birr) than rural schools (115 Birr). This fact suggests that there is a substantial number of rural students renting houses specifically for the purpose of completing their primary education at a semi-urban school. Students who live on their own must also spend money on food and utilities, the consideration of which further escalates total education expense (Yamada & Ampiah, 2005). Also, some of the students who migrate from rural areas are staying with relatives or friends of parents. As some scholars have pointed out, child fostering is a very common practice in Africa, and education has become one major reason for children to leave the homes of their biological parents and stay with a foster family (Hashim, 2005; Pilon, 2003). In addition to difficulties in, or pressing inabilities to, financially meet costs incurred by a child’s education, the labor demand at home is another major reason for cases of non-attendance at school. The author’s current study found that in rural areas 100% of students are involved in work to assist their parents, although the ratios are also high among students in urban (90%) and semi-urban (65%) schools (Fig. 6). A majority of students do believe that this work prevents them from doing well at school. In addition, rural students are more involved in income-generating work themselves. Out of the 243 students surveyed, 61 students responded that they were employed for cash income, and 35 (57%) of these students were from rural schools. The most common employment for such children is working on farms owned by people other than their family. The high rate of rural students’ involvement
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100 Are you engaged in work to assist your parents? yes no
80
Count
60
40
20
0 Urban
Rural
Semi-urban
Location of the school
Fig. 6.
Student Engagement in Work to Assist Parents.
in paid work from the author’s survey is corroborated by Schaffner’s findings. Based on her analysis of Ethiopia’s Labor Force Survey of 1999, Schaffner also reports that in rural areas over half of boys and nearly a third of girls have worked in a range of income-generating activities, and almost all of these activities were on a farm (Schaffner, 2004, p. 36). When answering the question about who pays for the cost of education, 58.8% of students responded that either one or both of their parents covered all costs. At the same time, 31.3% of students are responsible for their educational expenses in one way or another, nearly half of which (15%) pay for all costs incurred by their education alone. UPE policy has stirred aspirations, and the desire for an education, among youth, but ironically, in order to cover the cost of schooling, some children, especially the elder ones, have to work. This reality starkly conflicts with the conventional idea of ‘childhood’ as existing separate from the world of work. Conceptually, children in modern-day society are confined to economically-useless and dependent activities, such as schooling (Boyden, 1997, p. 190; Nieuwenhuys, 1996, pp. 238–247). Over time, as an ideal notion of ‘childhood’ has come to
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be accepted globally, child labor has thereby been contested based on the problems inherent in the sacrifice of childhood that it implies. The idea of compulsory primary education is, therefore, the other side of the coin to ideals firmly aligned against child labor. However, such exclusivity between the social constructs of child labor and schooling does not always fit locallyaccepted forms of child work. As the author’s field study demonstrates, at least in some rural parts of Ethiopia, labor provided by students is considered necessary for the household and schooling had been until recently just one optional way of investing in the family’s future. Furthermore, a number of students have to engage themselves in some form of incomegenerating work so that they can go to school. Therefore, one policy option would be to make the school curriculum and time schedule more flexible and complementary to the local culture and labor demands, instead of pushing forward a system based on one rigid notion of ‘childhood’. Early marriage, which was the third largest reason for non-enrollment, is a traditional practice in rural Ethiopia, and has often hindered the schooling of girls. One teacher in a rural school explained the perception of some parents as, ‘‘People think ‘What is the point of educating girls? After receiving an education, girls will leave the community without helping the family. It’s better to let girls get married. If girls go to school, they will miss the timing of marriage.’’’ (Interview in February 2006) At the same time though, there is a growing consent, even among rural farmers, that schooling of children is a symbol of modernization. Some parents told the author that they try to send all their children to school, including the girls, because otherwise they would be considered ‘backwards’, which is an uncomfortable consequence when living in a closed village society. Abduction – the kidnapping of young girls to be forced into marriage – has been attempted widely in rural areas, especially by those unable to afford dowries or marriage gifts. The threat of being taken is still a serious problem for girls who make long-distance commutes. However, such kidnappings have been banned by law, and the teachers and community members that the author spoke with unilaterally assert that such ‘backwards’ practices have been extinguished and presently no danger exists for the girls coming to school. Boosted by its role as a signifier of ‘modernization’, girls’ enrollment is increasing at a more rapidly progressing pace than that for boys. However, given that the wide gender gap has existed for so long, it may still be a while before the enrollment rate for female students will reach the level of their male counterparts’. Even though the UPE policy has produced incredible results and the number of children in school is increasing rapidly, many parents still
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25 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 10.00
20
Count
15
10
5
0 Urban
Rural
Semi-urban
Location of the school
Fig. 7.
Total Number of Siblings Unenrolled.
do not send all their children to school, most notably in the rural areas. Fig. 7 shows how many siblings from sample student households are not in school. In the urban and semi-urban areas, although there are children at home, the number per family is smaller, in which one child at home is the peak of distribution. On the other hand, in rural areas, the distribution of non-enrolled children is wider; it peaks at two but, in some cases, respondents indicated that six to ten siblings were at home. Parents make choices regarding investments in their children’s education selectively, especially when their financial capacity is limited or when the opportunity cost of schooling is large. What is at work here are individual judgments about the returns on investments parents make for their children, calculated in relation to the costs. Education has been one of many options for securing a family’s long-term welfare. Until very recently, education was neither a right nor a necessity granted to all children, and parents have had good reasons to be selective about deciding who goes to school and who should not, so as to minimize the overall risks on their livelihood (Hashim, 2005, p. 7; Kabeer, 2000, p. 477; Liddell et al., 2003, p. 62). Decisions, such
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as these, involving risk diversification in investment are contingent on the local environment. In the author’s study, it was difficult to find any patterns affecting prioritization in children’s schooling. Owing to the eagerness with which the UPE campaign was conducted, nowadays even illiterate villagers have internalized the attitude that it would be socially unacceptable to admit to preferential bias in deciding who goes to school. As a result, the author’s question about age and gender prioritization was often considered offensive and, in order to remedy the problem, she had to revise the questionnaire by adding a third category to the multiple-choice answer, i.e., ‘both (boys and girls; elder and younger)’. In fact though, parents are making choices between children because reality dictates that few can afford to send all their children to school. One parent said: Because we think it is important, regardless of poverty and all the difficulties, we let the children go to school. But when we don’t have money for school fees or when we need their labor, we force the children to stay home. (Interview in February 2006)
In regards to whom they chose to withdraw from school, the author could not find a clear pattern. Some parents said they put priority on the education of elder children because these children are stronger and can commute the long distance. Others said it was better to give opportunities to the younger ones, because their minds are more capable of absorbing knowledge, whereas the elder ones are more ready to work. Teachers have played a significant role in attracting students to school, together with Kebele (village) officials. Almost all the teachers sampled responded that they had actively taken part in the Kebele-wide headcount of school-aged children and sought to convince parents to send their children to school. Not a few teachers helped particular students financially by covering some parts of the educational costs. Some schools visited received assistance from NGOs that would provide material resources or contribute to the payment of school fees for some students. The rapidly increasing number of students has not been evenly distributed among schools. According to government policy, each Kebele should have a primary school. Subsequent to this order, many schools were newly established, but most of these new schools serve only students in the first cycle (grades 1–4). Therefore, in several schools covering all primary grades (grades 1–8) the number of students remains relatively low in cycle one but increases remarkably in cycle two. Such schools tend to, on one hand, suffer from shortages of classrooms, over-crowdedness, and shortages of teachers and materials, but
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on the other hand, classes in the lower grades have fewer students allowing teachers the luxury of pursuing better quality in education. Differing situations on the ground are complex in their diversity. At one of the rural schools, all of the teachers had pointed out that there was a shortage of food due to a recent draught and said that in such times where survival itself is at risk, it is difficult to keep children in school. According to one teacher at this rural school, Parents want their children to help the family, not out learning [at school]. y If teachers call the parents and tell them to allow the children to continue their education, they would say, ‘‘Fine, without food to eat, what is the worth of learning? Without food to eat, who can learn?’’ (Interview with a teacher, February 2006)
In another rural community, however, parents said that they encouraged their children to go to school. Yet, they do not necessarily do so because they think it is their child’s right or because it is a sign of modernization. Rather, there is no economic basis by which they could justify keeping the younger generation in the community. One father said, Because of the scarcity of land and low productivity in agriculture, the only thing I can do for my children to ensure that they can support themselves in the future is see to their education. (Interview with a teacher, February 2006)
The level to which parents commit to their children’s education, and their reasons therein, are contingent on the environment in which they are situated. The author found that within one year, from the first visit in 2005 to the second visit in 2006, general perceptions held by parents concerning education had changed a lot. In 2005, there was not yet one commonly shared notion that non-enrollment of children was equivalent in any way to backwardness, and being excluded from society, or neglecting the rights of a child. In the span of just one year, such internationally held values had been adjusted locally and penetrated into the minds of rural residents. Nowadays, children themselves demand that their parents send them to school because they know it is their right and their friends are exercising that right. The author considers the general election and UPE campaigns to have played pivotal roles in enacting this rapid perceptual change. It is still too early to judge whether this rapid increase in enrollment is sustainable or whether the value of education has truly been internalized irrevocably in the hearts of the parents as a conviction. The dynamic history of change in Ethiopian villages reminds one to be wary of applying any existing scenario to predict the future of this country.
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6. CONCLUSION This chapter was written with an aim to reconstruct, from a local perspective, the process wherein internationally-agreed upon EFA goals were adopted into policy by one particular developing country. The majority of discussions about EFA tend to generally and abstractly summarize practices in various developing countries under the basic assumption that all countries are aiming for common international goals. However, there are more influences from domestic sources than those from the power of a global consensus, when the government develops education policy and potentially inserts EFA at its core. In this chapter, the author has demonstrated that in the course of Ethiopia’s modern history, the expansion of basic education has consistently been promoted, i.e., with each new government, came renewed commitments to it. In Ethiopia, education has been an important political tool for attracting public support. However, even where the government is largely internally motivated to prioritize EFA within policy, it is realistically beyond its capacity to finance free primary education for every school-aged child, even when growing international assistance is calculated within the equation. Woreda (District) education offices, lacking enough resources due to poor centrally mandated allocation, end up appropriating what they have on a first-come-first-serve basis. Such systems tend to lead to the redirection of resources away from qualitative applications, such as in quality improvement or ensuring equity, and more toward the quantitative structural expansion of education. Thus, priority placed on achieving quantitative increases, as laid out in central government policy in non-specific terms, is inflated at the local level, inevitably at the expense of other educational works originally given equal emphasis within policy documents. To fill the financial gap, local government is increasingly becoming more and more reliant on communities and parents for both financial and material resource provision. In addition to school construction, considered to be justifiably the responsibility of their communities, households must bear a multitude of other educational costs, including contributing to teachers’ salaries. Households in Ethiopia are supporting the weakly instituted frame and the fabric of their education system from the bottom. The fact that village households, themselves struggling with poor financial capacity, have been able to endure such additional heavy burdens is, to say the least, impressive. The election and UPE campaigns have contributed to enhancing public awareness of educational values and highlighted a collective willingness to commit. However, it is unknown how strong household support,
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particularly in terms of social, economic, and ideological motives, for further development of the education system is, and for how long this kind of arrangement can be sustained. Social and systematic pressure on individuals and communities, encouraging them to follow the direction of government officials, in tandem with ideological values promoted through the general election and UPE campaigns appear to have contributed to increases in enrollment. Owing to the coalescence of these factors, the Ethiopian government has been able to demonstrate a high level of performance in working toward the achievement of UPE, one of EFA goals. However, many of the formative dynamics toward implementation took place beyond the realms of central government policy and administration. It was by chance that various factors converged on the achievement of UPE. The case of Ethiopia indicates that although it is important to set common international goals and establish mechanisms to monitor their achievements, once these international goals are brought into a country, their meanings change in response to the local conditions and actors. The depiction that the UPE campaign has succeeded after twists and turns, facing the reality of village life and diverse motives, makes one think of the long and complicated logical link between international goals and final beneficiaries of educational services. Whatever the reasons are, and whoever bears the cost, enrollment rate has increased.
NOTES 1. For example, the GER increased from 22.5% (1990) to 63.4% (2002/2003) in Eritoria, 66.9% (1990) to 140.1% (2002/2003) in Malawi, and 68.9% (1990) to 140.7% (2002/2003) in Uganda (UNESCO 2005, 2006). GERs may exceed 100% since the standard schooling age population is used as the denominator, though actual enrollment includes over- and under-aged population. 2. In Kenya, for example, Mwiria (1990, p. 355) demonstrates that the governmental pledge to increase support for community-constructed schools has caused an explosive increase of Harambee (voluntary) schools. Contrary to the original plan to reduce educational costs by encouraging communities to establish their own schools, educational expenditure increased significantly. However, the government could not withdraw its policy out of fear of losing public support. 3. Messages conveyed by the donor community are conflicting in that, on the one hand, they encourage the central government to strengthen its role as decision-maker and focal point for negotiations with donors and stakeholders yet, on the other hand, it demands that the government decentralizes functions to the local levels. 4. In most cases, community-hired teachers are unqualified.
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5. School administrators and teachers will call them ‘registration fees’, ‘activity fees,’ or use other such appellations, all the while assuring that these charges are not school fees. 6. Zone is an administrative unit, which is positioned between the region and the Woreda. 7. These are rural communities in the following areas: Awasa (100 km southeast of Addis Ababa – subsistence farming). 8. This survey was conducted with 8,112 samples with average annual consumption expenditure of 1,676 Birr per adult.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author acknowledges the contributions of Professor Derebssa Dufera, Institute of Educational Research, Addis Ababa University, in data collection. His long experience and provoking insight profoundly helped the author to formulate her ideas, albeit the author is responsible for analyses contained within this paper.
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Transparency International (2004). Global corruption report 2004. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press. UNESCO (2005). EFA global monitoring report 2004/5. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. UNESCO (2006). EFA global monitoring report 2005/6. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. World Bank. (2001a). Ethiopia focusing public expenditures on poverty reduction (Public expenditure review) (Report No. 23351-ET). Washington, DC: Author. World Bank (2001b). Education and health in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review of sector wide approaches. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank (2002). Kenya: Strengthening the foundation of education and training in Kenya. Washington, DC: Author. World Bank. (2004). Tanzania public expenditure review FY03 (Report No. 26807-TA). Washington, DC: Author. World Bank. (2005). Education in Ethiopia: Strengthening the foundation for sustainable progress, the World Bank. World Bank. (2006). EdStats. http://www.devdata.worldbank.org/edstats. Retrieved in April. Yamada, S., & Ampiah, J.G. (2005). Visible and hidden private cost of senior secondary education in Ghana: A multi-site case study in central region. Paper presented at the 8th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, September 14, London.
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EDUCATION FOR ALL: A MYTH OR REALITY? LIMITATIONS OF IMPLEMENTING EDUCATION FOR ALL: THE SIERRA LEONE CONTEXT Jasmine Renner ABSTRACT Civil war and conflict in African nations tend to involve the destruction, damage, and neglect of schools and classrooms. Sierra Leone is no exception. The slaughter and dispersal of children and the unemployment of teachers, coupled with the loss of equipment, textbooks and other supplies, accounted for the rapid decline in school enrolments during the civil war. This chapter seeks to provide a synthesis of the impact of the global mandate ‘‘Education for All’’ in Sierra Leone’s local and national context. It provides examples of contextual realities and challenges that confront the implementation of this international mandate. The chapter argues that Sierra Leone’s embrace and constant striving for the actualization of this global mandate is encouraging, but lacks significant contextual quality to make it a truly realized promise. Although progress can be classified as ongoing and truly encouraging, vital historical lessons can be learnt as the country forges to foster the realization of this dream. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 493–520 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08017-0
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BACKGROUND HISTORY Throughout history, educational researchers and specialists have proven that in order to foster a nation’s educational and economic growth the aspect of human capital must be addressed (Falola, 2001; Becker, 1996; Jones et al., 1920–1921; Anderson & Baker, 1969). In 1935, Mr. Milton Margai, the first Sierra Leonean Minister of Education in his introduction to a proposal for the development of public education in Sierra Leone stated, ‘‘Education is the key to progress y without education no development of any kind in a modern sense can take place.’’ Seventy years later re-echoing the need for access and quality in primary education, Sierra Leone’s Minister for Education, during the launching of the Community Movement for Education (CoME) initiative in April 2005, reiterated the government’s priority; namely, to ensure that every child has the opportunity to access education in Sierra Leone. (Opening remarks by Dr. Alpha T. Wurie, Minister of Education, Science and Technology CoME launching initiative at Rogbesse Community School, April, 2005.) ‘‘Should Sierra Leone make any gains in national development,’’ said Dr. Wurie, ‘‘education must be a key priority cutting across partisan, tribal and religious boundaries.’’ (p. 2). Located on the western coast of Africa between latitude 7 and 10 degrees North and longitude 10 and 13 degrees West, Sierra Leone a former British colony comprises of a total area of 72,000 square kilometers and a coastline of 485 kilometers. The country has four major administrative areas, namely: the Eastern province; the Northern province; the Southern province; and the Western area where the capital city, Freetown is found. Currently the total estimated population is 6 million (CIA World Fact Book Sierra Leone, 2005, see also http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ geos/sl.html). In the early 19th century, Freetown the capital city, served as the residence of the British who also ruled the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the Gambia settlements. Sierra Leone served as the educational center of British West Africa. Fourah Bay College (FBC), established in 1827, rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the West Coast. For more than a century, Sierra Leone was the only European-style university in western Sub-Saharan Africa (Paracka, 2002). Sierra Leone was known for its spectacular achievements in the field of education as early as the 18th century. Its intellectual fame spread so widely that Freetown became known as the ‘‘Athens of West Africa’’ (Paracka, 2002). The country is known for having established the first
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University, the first Boys Secondary School, and the first Girls’ Secondary School in Africa, South of the Sahara, and North of the Limpopo River. Sierra Leone developed and provided scholars and professionals, especially teachers, administrative officers, clergy and personnel in other liberal arts studies that served other English-speaking nations, especially on the West Coast of Africa. However, this fame did not last long as the college soon lost its vitality and sense of mission for higher education in Sierra Leone. The historic achievement reversed after independence in 1961 (Paracka, 2002). During this period education itself was theoretically oriented, with limited component of life-sustaining skills in the curriculum, leaving a very large number of young people unfulfilled, frustrated, and angry (Kandeh, Dugba, Thomas & Pessima, 2003). The sharpest educational system decline occurred in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, when governments’ support system was largely centralized in Freetown. The rebel war from 1991 to 2002 exacerbated the downward trend with massive educational infrastructural damage during the war of both personnel and institutions (Executive Summary, Sierra Leone Strategy Paper: Common Wealth Education Fund Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2005–2007). By the 1990s economic activity was declining, and the economic infrastructure became seriously degraded. Over the next decade, much of Sierra Leone’s formal economy was destroyed in the country’s civil war. The outbreak of the rebel war in 1991 and the coup of May 25, 1997 cumulatively had a devastating blow on the practice of education, the educational infrastructure, and more importantly the lives of children (Bones, 2001). During the recent civil war tens of thousands of children lost years of education, and it is reported that 40% of all schools were destroyed (Sierra Leone Human Right Watch World Report, 1999–2000). Young people were conscripted in large numbers in various fighting forces and became the perpetrators of extreme violence and unbelievable atrocities (Sierra Leone HRW World Report, 1999–2000). A large number were maimed, amputated, separated from their families, and traumatized. As the number that moved from rural settings into urban areas increased, sexual abuse and exploitation became common place, unwanted pregnancies became a social problem, and sexual transmitted diseases became a significant health problem. It is of no surprise that the most recent UN Human Development Index ranks Sierra Leone as the country with the lowest quality of life in the world as the country continues to maintain one of the lowest literacy rates in the world (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005).
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It is against this background and contextual history that the nation recognizing its need for a radical educational reform endorsed and willingly embraced the global mandate declared in the World Conference on Education for All (EFA), in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 (WCEFA, 1990). This new vision of access of education for children and young people also stressed the need to increase access to technical, vocational, and tertiary education as a means of improving the quality of life for the youth population. The goal of this chapter is to examine key/major accomplishments and progress of the EFA mandate, and several contextual challenges that this mandate imposes. The chapter seeks to provide a synthesis of the impact of the global mandate in Sierra Leone’s local and national context and provides examples of contextual realities and challenges the implementation process poses. Sierra Leone is recovering from a ten-year civil war that devastated most of its educational infrastructure and more importantly human capital. The daunting challenges of implementing the goals of EFA, especially among its youth and traumatized children provide an interesting lens in analyzing the impact of EFA on the micro level. Sierra Leone’s embrace and constant striving for the actualization of this global mandate is encouraging but lacks significant contextual quality to make it a truly realized promise. Although progress can be classified as ongoing, several vital historical lessons can be learnt as the country forges to foster the realization of this dream. Will the concept of education reformation through the global mandate of EFA become a myth (only paying lip service to a Utopian global mandate) or reality for Sierra Leone? This chapter attempts to provide some insight to this question.
CHAPTER LIMITATION Providing an analysis of the effectiveness of educational program implementation in a former failed state is a daunting task. Presently, the education database is weak and could not readily provide updated and current statistics for the year 2005–2006 – the time of this writing. This limitation is reiterated in the most current Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2005. Additionally, the education inspectorate’s operations are limited by inadequate resources. The chapter’s contextual analysis is limited to the most current and available information that the author could retrieve from the appropriate Ministry in Sierra Leone. The statistics and data reported in this
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chapter also reflect the most current updated data obtainable during the time period of this writing.
THE CONTEXT: EDUCATION FOR ALL IN SIERRA LEONE The world’s declaration to EFA during the Jomtein conference in 1990 (WAECA, 1990) signaled a willingness on the part of nations to consider educational access and equality for all children regardless of race, sex, or economic background. It also signaled a responsiveness to the changing societal, social education, and legal trends of nations. As with most global mandates, the core challenge of this mandate in a national setting is the lack of a framework to assess local contextual specificity regarding implementation. Nations possess a variety of social, economical, governance, and educational histories that reflect their readiness or lack of response holistically toward a global mandate. Some global implementation challenges also include but are not limited; which interests (societal or individual) to consider as priority in providing access and equality in education, how to define and weigh the importance of different factors in providing access and quality education for all, and the problem of accounting for children’s developing needs over time. The cumulative effect of these challenges is that educators consider and emphasize different factors or interpret the same concepts such as access, quality, equality, educational sustainability, and continuity in entirely different ways. With the absence of clear findings or guidelines, educators and policymakers are compelled to make difficult decisions by relying on their own subjective value judgments and experiences, resulting in considerable inconsistencies in the outcomes within jurisdictions. Current Education Situation Sierra Leone has a population of 4,963,298 (2004 census) with a schoolgoing age of approximately 1,564,919 (31.5%) in the age range 6–18 years. The country has a 6-3-3-4-education system with six years of primary, three years of junior secondary school, (JSS) three years of senior secondary school (SSS), and four years of tertiary education. Following the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 system of education in the early 1990s, schools were organized into a three level-primary system namely classes 1–6, JSS 1–3, and
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SSS 1–3. The primary-level system emphasizes basic and non-formal education with the education of girls as one of the key elements. The curriculum at the primary level places an emphasis on Mathematics, the Sciences, and Vocational and Technical subjects. Some remarkable features of this system are that the primary school curriculum has been transformed to include indigenous languages, practical creative arts, pre-vocational subjects, and social and physical/health education. It is also noteworthy to add that both the JSS and the SSS have an end-point external examination. Students who have successfully completed the JSS and SSS examinations transit or graduate into a college/university or some other vocational or tertiary post-secondary education level. On the post-secondary level, Sierra Leone’s educational system, unlike most developing nations has had its share of ivory tower stature. Its intellectual fame spread so widely that Freetown became known as the ‘‘Athens of West Africa.’’ (Paracka, 2002). Sierra Leone’s post-secondary education currently features ten post-secondary institutions throughout the country including the famous FBC and a professional law school serving the West African region. Sierra Leone continues to maintain one of the lowest literacy rates in the world (Sierra Leone – HRW World Report, 1999–2000). The wanton destruction of life and property occasioned by the war contributed to the deterioration of the country’s already low educational levels. Schools were either destroyed or comprehensively looted, thereby rendering them useless to their communities (Executive Summary CEF Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2005–2007). The notorious abduction and/or recruitment of children into the ranks of the fighting forces have also deprived many children of access to basic education and exposed them to trauma and related psychosocial disorders. Of a pre-war population of 4.3 million people, only less than 15% have completed six years of primary school education. To worsen an already deplorable situation, there has been a mass exodus of trained and qualified teachers due to the unattractive conditions of service (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005). Successive governments have not given education the priority that it deserves. The situation for the girl child is even worse. Some cultural beliefs in certain provinces do not favor the education of the girl child. The situation is even worse in the North and East with government having to intervene by waiving school fees for all girls entering JSSs in the Northern and Eastern provinces and offering further incentives (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). However, it must be noted that ensuring that girls are enrolled in schools is just one way of realizing the
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rights to Education; creating a conducive and non-violent learning environment is crucial for sustaining retention in the schools. In Sierra Leone, current emphasis is being placed on getting the girl child into schools (access), rather than creating a conducive learning environment free from violence that promotes sustainable learning. This situation to a very large extent contributes to the dropout rates of the girls at all levels of education (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005).
THE CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING GLOBAL EDUCATION INITIATIVES IN FORMER FAILED STATES Civil war and conflicts in African nations tend to involve the destruction, damage, and neglect of schools and classrooms. Sierra Leone is no exception. The slaughter and dispersal of children and the unemployment of teachers, coupled with the loss of equipment, textbooks and other supplies, accounts for rapid, steep declines in school enrollments as children fled and were otherwise displaced with their families. The reality of educating children in a former failed state that is financially broke and whose social and cultural fabric has been sullied by violence, destruction, and mayhem for ten years is daunting. Sierra Leone cannot be generally compared with the rest of the world in this context because of the abnormal realities on the ground. In the longer term, these disruptions produced backlogs in all the components that keep an education system running and developing not least in the children who survived and have to make up for lost time. Implementing global educational initiatives such as those reiterated in Dakar can become very challenging. Although the framework that emerged from the Dakar forum in 2000 reaffirmed the commitment of the international community to ‘‘meet the needs of education affected by conflict, national calamities, and instability’’ and conduct educational programs in ways that promote mutual understanding, peace and tolerance, the task of implementing this promise in a national context can be challenging. The reaffirmation at Dakar recognized that whatever the calamity that befell them, children retained their right to education and that education is a fundamental tool of protection for children. In recognition, however, of the special nature of failed states and the challenges ministries of Education face in effectively implanting these global
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mandates, it can be concluded that the education that children in these circumstances experience is somewhat different from the ordinary primary and secondary school experiences. Although education at this level covers the foundational general skills of literacy and numeracy, the traumatic experiences suffered by children and psychosocial needs of children needs to be taken into account. The challenges for ministries of Education, cover the spectrum from organizing safe structured activities for displaced and creating infrastructure to accommodate them through to delivering the right sort of curriculum with appropriate supporting materials and appropriately trained teachers. Because most governments have difficulty in coping with the range of challenges, the global promise of education often seems limited in the context of the national realities on ground. The very hard facts outlined above, produce the need for special provisions for educational initiatives in former failed states.
ASSESSING PROGRESS TOWARD THE EFA GOALS: THE SIERRA LEONE CONTEXT Matsuura (2005) a prominent researcher in the field of education and Director-General of United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), explicitly stated that the quest to achieve EFA is fundamentally about assuring that children, youth, and adults gain the knowledge and skills they need to improve their lives and play a role in building more peaceful and equitable societies. He also maintained that focus on quality is an imperative for achievement. As many third world/ developing societies strive to universalize basic education, they face the momentous challenge of providing conditions where genuine learning can take place for each and every learner. The Sierra Leone context is no exception. The Ministry of Education in 2003 developed nine key governmental goals of education which included: (a) the reduction and relief of poverty using education, (b) significant increase in the literacy rate, (c) free and compulsory quality basic education, (d) gender equity in access to and participation in education, (e) increase in access to quality education at postJSS level, (f) empowerment of youths through education, (g) increased access to education for the disadvantaged and the disabled, (h) decrease in regional and district disparities in access and quality education and greater
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decentralization of education, and (i) devolution of authority by increase in community ownership of schools (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). In order to achieve the stated goals, the Ministry of Education also outlined a number of ambitious targets including: (a) the achievement of free primary education by 2003, (b) the establishment of School Management Committees (SMCs) in all primary schools by 2005, at least one JSS in each of the 149 chiefdoms by 2007, (c) a free junior education for girls by 2006, (d) the establishment of community education centers and technical/vocational centers in chiefdoms by 2007, and (e) the establishment of model schools and centers of excellence initially in all regions and ultimately in all districts by 2008 and 2015, respectively (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). Regarding fiscal progress as relates to EFA, according to official reports, the government of Sierra Leone has progressively increased allocation to the Education sector to 23% of the national budget (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). The report also suggested that this increase of allocation has accounted for improved access to fundamental quality education (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). Furthermore, to address the issue of equity and access for all, the government maintains that additional support to parents having children in primary schools started in 2000 with government paying tuition fees, teaching and learning materials and core text books for every child from classes 1–3. These provisions were extended to classes 4–6 in the year 2002 (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). At the end of the primary cycle, each child is required to successfully complete the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) before entering secondary school. In earlier years, the examination fee was a deterrent to most parents resulting in a high percentage of children in rural areas having no opportunity to take the examinations. In 2001, the government extended its provision to pay fees for all children attempting the examination nationally (see Table 1). Considering that a large numberof children could not access school during the war years, the ministry developed a compressed primary school scheme called Complementary Rapid Education Program (CREPS), which has accounted for an increase in the enrollment of students at the primary school level (see Table 2). From the above it can be noted that these interventions have resulted in a major improvement in enrollment at the Primary level with increase of transition from primary to secondary school. However, it must be noted
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Table 1.
NPSE Entries and Passes 1999—2003.
Year
Sat
Pass
% Pass
Cut-off Score
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
18,907 21,005 26,451 34,931 46,851
16,872 18,681 20,705 28,181 37,117
93.5 92.5 78.3 81 79.2
200 200 220 220 220
Note: Figures reported from the National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003.
Table 2. Total Primary School Enrollment 1999/2000–2002/2003. 1996/1997 367,920
1999/2000
2000/2001
2001/2002
2002/2003
548,059
659,503
775,434
1,092,721
Note: Figures reported from the National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003.
that major regional disparities were observed in access of girls to secondary school. The government intervened in 2003 by providing tuition fees, uniform, core textbooks, etc., starting from 2003 to girls in the most disadvantaged regions.
ACCESS TO PRIMARY EDUCATION: A MYTH OR REALITY? The absolute numbers of new entrants to primary education has also grown steadily since 1996–2003 (see Table 2). The numbers increased from 367,920 in the 1996/1997 year to 1,092,721 for the 2002/2003 academic year. A trend of increased expansion in access to primary education can also be observed. There has also been an enormous increase in the number of students acquiring secondary education in the capital city, Freetown, due to the lack of infrastructural capacity in other regions, as a consequence of the civil war. Similarly, enrollment at the tertiary level is continuing to increase partly due to an expanding school population and the introduction of new program in these institutions (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003).
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Significant efforts have been made by the government to increase school enrollment and change the image of a Sierra Leonean child from soldier to student. In 1999, the government undertook the payment of school fees in all government-owned and assisted primary schools; in 2001, it waived national exam fees; and in 2003, basic education was made compulsory (National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone, 2003). Overall, at primary education level enrollment in educational institutions is growing steadily. It is, therefore, safe to conclude although progress in this area is still underway that article 3 of the EFA mandate stipulating that all nations should ensure that basic education should be provided to all children, youth, and adults and that they must be given the opportunity to achieve is reasonably being realized at the primary level in Sierra Leone. However, article 3 further emphasizes basic education of quality and more specifically the improvement of quality education for girls and women. Although the goal of elimination of all gender stereotyping is one of EFA’s global promises, unfortunately contextual and cultural considerations in some provinces of Sierra Leone do not allow for the promise to be fully realized. There are ongoing efforts by the government and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to eliminate gender stereotyping, but when viewed in terms of sustainability there are still challenges to be addressed. Challenges relate to the stereotypical perception of the role of women by predominantly male communities in rural areas. Some rural communities in Sierra Leone (in the North and West) like other patriarchical societies are conditioned by male dominance thinking. Although the situation is improving there are still vestiges, especially of the cultural and societal distinction in gender roles. More recently, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), and NGO stakeholders came up with very alarming figures about the high dropout rates of girls and their generally low ratios at the secondary level. These appalling statistics, coupled with the ever increasing gender awareness and the active agitation of the women of Sierra Leone about women’s rights, have drawn attention to this need and government has responded accordingly by providing uniforms and core textbooks and paying the fees of all girls entering JSSs in the North and East where the statistics were most alarming. Additionally, although the goal of access has somewhat been reasonably/ modestly realized at the primary level the increase in student numbers at the post-secondary level is imposing financial constraints on already stagnated libraries in educational institutions with very little returns realized by staff and students (Kargbo, 2002). Libraries are under pressure to provide
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services to a wide range of clientele who vary in age, education, and interests. The libraries are also limited in their ability to tap new technological sources of information and are constrained financially in upgrading their present manual methods to automated systems. These problems and deficiencies denigrate the success and achievement of many students (Kargbo, 2002). It is worth noting that the demands made on the educational system and its institutions are increasingly numerous and complex. Education management and administration has to play a key role in resolving some of the problems that emerge in the climate of unlimited demands with limited human and institutional resources with which to implement the desired goal of EFA. Other Investments To provide for the immediate human resources needs of the country, official reports illustrate that the government undertook additional investment at the upper level of education. This includes the payment of subventions to handicapped schools, technical–vocational institutions, teachers in colleges, polytechnics, the university, and other institutions on demand. These subventions cover the payment of salaries of workers, utility bills, and other charges. Additionally, official report suggests that government provided Grants-In-Aid and study leave with pay to students and teachers in tertiary level institutions. Approximately 45% of students in these institutions according to the report, benefited from either the Grants-In-Aid or the study leave or both (see Table 3). External Support Government has also been successful in mobilizing resources and expatriates services in the education recovery programme. These include donors such as UNESCO, World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, African Development Bank, United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF), Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) to name a few. Significant strides have also been made on the community level through the CoME project. The CoME project was designed by the Global Movement for Children, in partnership with local communities, to provide access to education for an estimated 375,000 school-aged children, especially in remote rural areas, within a fouryear period. The initiative involved teacher training, provision of teaching and learning materials, technical assistance for supervision and monitoring, and support to communities for the establishment of low-cost school
Institution MMCE FTC MTC BuTC PLTC BoTC FBC NUC COMAHS IPAM Law School TOTAL
Grants in Aid/Study Leave.
1995/1996
1996/1997
1997/1998
1998/1999
1999/2000
2000/2001
2001/2002
2002/2003
110 110 110 110 110 110 80 80 9
114 120 120 120 120 106 224 170 16 30 7 1,267
168 120 125 150 156 120 357 185 21 77 7 1,486
175 140 136 158 162 149 370 200 22 79 7 1,598
183 150 139 162 168 156 397 254 32 89 7 1,736
183 150 139 168 168 156 397 254 32 89 6 1,736
557 310 392 294 389 306 594 502 42 112 11 3,509
829
0
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Table 3.
Note: Institutions full names are abbreviated. For a full title see list of abbreviations. Indicates – not available.
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structures with water and sanitation facilities. At the Rogbesse Community School, where the initiative was launched, 125 six- and seven-year-old children are enrolled. Nearly half of these are girls. Thirty similar schools have been completed by the partners and local communities using low-cost, local building materials. These schools are an upgrade of the existing makeshift community learning centers. Currently 482 such centers exist, catering to almost 45,000 children. As part of its push to meet the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring quality education for all by 2015, the government has also renewed its focus on educating girls in particular. Since 2003, it has provided full support to girls who are successful in their exams in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, two priority regions for boosting girls’ enrollment and retention. This support has meant full annual tuition, books, writing materials, and uniforms for each girl. By 2007, the Government of Sierra Leone asserts, JSS education for all girls will be free.
POLICY/LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES: THE SIERRA LEONE GOVERNMENT The key official policy documents are the National Education Policy of 1995, the National Education master plan 1997–2006, and the EFA National Plan 2003–2015. The current major policy thrusts are nine years of basic education for all, the full implementation of the new 6-3-3-4 education structure with its strong scientific and vocational orientation and redressing gender inequalities. Some policy intentions of government of Sierra Leone to facilitate EFA are, namely: to increase access to quality services; to reduce cost of education to parents; and to provide educational opportunities for many young people who could otherwise be a potential source of unrest. Against this background, major legislation that have been passed from 2001 to date are the Polytechnic Act of 2001; National Council for Technical/Vocational and other Academic Awards of 2001; Tertiary Education Commission Act of 2001; Education Act of 2004, and the Universities Act of 2005. Government has also implemented the CREPS Programme, which by 2003 had 22,530 pupils but has gone up to over 30,000 by 2006 nation-wide with over 184 centers spread across the country. Also is the Rapid Response Education Program (RREP) spread across the country for improved education activities.
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Parastatal organizations and international NGOs that have supported these educational initiatives include, the World Bank, the ADB, the SABABU Education Project, the IDB Project, BADEA Support, UNICEF Programmes, EU Support, NRC Input, and Plan Sierra Leone. The SABABU EDUCATION PROJECT one of the educational initiatives is targeting the reconstruction and rehabilitation of approximately 500 schools nation-wide. The project also aids in the construction, renovation, and repair of vocational skills training facilities. In addition, it provides facilities for all schools receiving civil works intervention; provides classroom furniture for schools benefiting from civil works and provides adequate capacity training for schools. Furthermore, the management committees provide sets of textbooks in English language, Mathematics, Social studies, and Sciences in all project schools and teaching manuals for teachers in all project schools. In lieu of these, government pays primary fees subsidy from 2000 to date. For example, in 2000 government paid Le 1,680,000,000; in 2003 Le 3,609,000,000; and in 2005 Le 5,445,000,000. Government also pays NPSE, BECE, and WASSCE fees for pupils from 2001 to date. For example, in 2002 it paid for NPSE Le 544,626,240; BECE Le 980,860,800; and WASSCE Le 619,800,000 as compared to 2005 where it paid for NPSE Le 1,814,677,000; BECE Le 1,801,210,840; and WASSCE Le 826,543,740 (budget estimate). There is also free JSS for girls from the Eastern and Northern province regions passing the NPSE and an option to receive schooling in either of the two regions. The outcome is increased school enrollment. For example, in 1999/2000 it was 548,059; in 2002/2003 967,692, and 2004/2005 1,076,902. Tertiary institutions enrollment grew from 6,429 in 1999; 13,850 in 2003 to 16,625 in 2005. Both internal and external observers have witnessed something akin to a miracle in the area of policy making with regards to education across the nation. In an effort to effectively implement some of the educational programs embarked within the time frame, the government of Sierra Leone passed some legislation through parliament. Examples of legislative activities of government include: (a) the establishment of the Tertiary Education Commission Act in 2001 for the purpose of establishing the development of tertiary education, (b) the Polytechnic Act of 2001 was established to make provisions for the management and supervision of polytechnic institutions throughout the country,
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(c) the National Council for Technical, Vocational and other Academic Awards Act 2001 (NCTVA) was established for the evaluation and certification of certain academic courses and programs, (d) the Education Act of 2004 replacing the previous Act of 1964 provided for free and compulsory basic education to all citizens with punitive measures for those who cause hindrance in accessing education, (e) and the local Government Act of 2004, provided for the decentralization and devolution of functions, powers, and services that were before now centralized, to local councils and authorities. However, Sierra Leonean civil society is faced with a lot of challenges, most of which are as a result of its weaknesses. At the policy level, most civil society groups and communities lack the requisite knowledge on existing education policies. The policy implementation structures also continue to be weak. Additionally, there is a lack of adequate institutional and human resources resulting in difficulty in identifying, analyzing and attaining its global educational aspirations.
THE IMPACT OF EFA ON SIERRA LEONE’S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM CHALLENGES AND PROMISES From the official records cited above, the impact of EFA on educational reform as it relates to expansion and access of basic education on the primary level is impressive. As the government’s national report suggests there has been a consistent push toward making education accessible, especially in rural areas. On the policy level, the several legislative activities geared toward the reformation of education have to an extent been successful. However, on the contextual level of application and implementation and for the need to ensure quality within the local context of the child’s needs, there is a lot to be done. Sierra Leone is indeed at a crossroad as it faces the stark realities of the effect of a ten-year civil war and its effect on the educational infrastructure and the psychological mindset of its people. At the center of the challenges EFA faces, also lies the most important need for quality education as it relates to the specific contextual need of students at all levels of education in Sierra Leone. Therefore, the partial success story of progress on EFA has another side when taking into cognizance the challenges
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of implementation in key areas such as the lack of proper early childhood teacher training, the need for realistic quality control to meet with the contextual needs of children, poor monitoring and accountability in assessment, and the lack of adequate human and infrastructural capital and local expertise. The prospect for a comprehensive support to education requires concerted and deliberate intervention. This will result in putting the necessary pressure on government and other institutions involved to commit the necessary resources and political will to facilitate the process of education reformation. According to the executive summary of the Common Wealth Education fund, generally speaking, not much has so far been done in terms of concrete efforts on advocacy on key educational themes and issues. Even though religious organizations (Christian and Muslim) continue to play a very significant role in promoting education in Sierra Leone, they have not been very active in terms of doing advocacy on crucial educational issues like the education of the girl child, equal access to educational services and facilities, proper, timely and adequate remuneration for teachers, post-training employment, education for self-reliance, and job creation (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005).
THE IMPLEMENTATION CRISIS AND ITS IMPACT The applicability and interpretation of the EFA mandate though widely embraced is influenced to a large extent by the social, political, and eco nomic conditions of the various nations. Sierra Leone is no exception. Factors which do play a role in the process of defining and applying this mandate are also numerous. First the worsening economic conditions of Sierra Leone have led to the narrowing of the EFA mandate to mean simple access to education on quantitative basis and not necessarily qualitative. There is also not yet an agreed standard by which compliance to the qualitative aspects of the mandate can be measured. This is due to the fact that the international community is so diverse and nations possess specific contextual histories. There are regions in Sierra Leone with varying religious beliefs, social systems, and perceptions regarding the role of women and girls in the educational sphere. These differences in time reflect their approach to life, their strategies for survival, and what they will do for children.
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CHALLENGES The Challenge of Quality in Education: The Sierra Leone Context The role of school quality in enhancing primary school outcomes has been widely studied and debated (DAE, 1995; Hynemmann & Loxley, 1981; Mosha, 1994). Although much debate surrounds attempts to define education quality, solid common ground exists. The third issue of the EFA Global Monitoring Report reiterates that quality must be seen in light of how societies define the purpose of education. As a result, three principal objectives are at stake: first is to ensure the cognitive development of learners and the second emphasizes the role of education in nurturing the creative and emotional growth of learners and in helping them to acquire values and attitudes responsible for citizenship. Finally, quality must pass the test of equity (Matsuura, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005). Therefore, an education system characterized by discrimination against any particular group is not fulfilling its mission. The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005 also gives powerful evidence of why quality matters for reaching a wide set of individual and development goals, and identifies policy areas that directly impact on learning (Matsuura, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005). Several factors must be considered when discussing quality in the context of EFA in Sierra Leone. According to Jones (1998), in order to achieve quality consideration must be given to teachers, the environment, curriculum assessment, meeting the needs of the children, and parental involvement. Jones suggests that adults working with children should be knowledgeable about child development, must be trained in early childhood education, have opportunities for training and reflection, and receive guidance from supervisors with early childhood training (Jones, 1998). Evidence suggests that the successful EFA drive of achieving access to primary education for children in Sierra Leone has not translated itself to quality of primary education in the short run. The search for quality demands that the reality must resemble the rhetoric as perceived by clients, teachers, parents, and students in particular. This is far from being the case in Sierra Leone. The major challenge confronting the government in the provision of quality basic education is the disenabling environments that have made quality in universal education a daunting task. Equally and perhaps more seriously is the problem of quality teacher recruitment and retention. The payment of attractive salaries commensurate with teacher’s
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qualification has been an overgrown problem in the nation coupled with lack of adequate teacher preparation and training programs in early childhood learning. It must be noted, however, that progress is being made for the government to begin addressing these issues but not sufficient enough to sustain a holistic impact to effectively deal with the issue. Quality in terms of the environment in which the child learns is also a critical component of success. Isbell and Exelby (2001) communicated the necessity of an enriched environment when they noted, ‘‘Through the unique and concrete experiences that children have as they interact with their environment, they learn how the world worksy, therefore, children, teachers, and parents must work together and use their resources in the most effective way’’ (p. 11). Jalongo and Isenberg (2004) explained that there are several components of the environment including the physical environment, the human environment, and the curricular environment. Important factors when creating the physical environment are the choice of materials and classroom design. Isbell and Exelby (2001) offered guidelines for choosing appropriate materials to be included in the classroom. Among many other considerations, the materials must be washable, of high quality, affordable, attractive, and open-ended (Isbell & Exelby, 2001). Classroom design is also noteworthy. Jalongo and Isenberg (2004) listed features found in appropriate environments: ‘‘ambiance, privacy, size, density, and arrangement of space’’ (p. 159). The human environment encompasses the relationship between and among teachers, students, and families. As defined by Bredekamp and Copple (1997), ‘‘The early childhood classroom is a community in which each child is valued. Children learn to respect and acknowledge differences in abilities and talents and value each person for his or her strengths’’ (p. 16). A model of this type of a classroom environment will be of tremendous asset in promoting an effective learning environment for children in Sierra Leone. Currently, infrastructure limitations as a result of the civil war inhibit the full expression of this ideal. Although efforts have been made in improving infrastructure in the Northern and Eastern provinces, there are still areas that need attention. In order for early childhood education to be effective, the human environment must support effective learning practices. Finally, the curricular environment is a critical component of quality environments. Developmentally appropriate practices when developing curriculum must include: consideration of children’s interests and child development, support of a variety of abilities, cultures, and experiences, the use of technology, and an integration of many subjects. Individualized instruction is also vital to the pre-school curriculum. Bowman (1999) asserted that to
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meet the instructional needs of children, the teacher must take children’s biological, sociological, and experiential differences into account. Sierra Leone is yet to develop a holistic approach in catering for its children at the primary level.
Lack of Local Human and Infrastructural Capital and Expertise The quality of teachers and their general satisfaction with the job are the most important single ingredients in education. Teachers have been labeled the single most important tool for educational effectiveness (Hernes, 2001). In Sierra Leone, teachers continue to be unmotivated and not committed to their work because of poor remuneration. The Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) on its part continues to advocate mainly on issues related to conditions of service for teachers (their constituents) though limited, if anything, otherwise. Peoples Educational Association (PEA) and partners in adult education association (PADECO) have been active over the years in doing work on adult education and creating awareness in communities around the country about that, but not much has been done beyond that. PEA has worked with organizations like UNICEF, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), NRC, and a few others on work with non-formal primary education, and rapid education programs (CREPS), etc. The efforts of the SLTU to advocate for better conditions of service are yet to attain the desired results. There is clearly the need to intensify advocacy work geared toward exerting pressure on government to improve the conditions of teachers so that their reputation, dignity, and motivation can be restored. There should also be equity between urban and rural teachers in terms of timely payment of salaries. Work in the area of education over the years has been largely centered on the construction/rehabilitation of physical infrastructure and the provision of basic teaching and learning materials. Teacher training and retention, and the formation and strengthening of Community Teachers Associations (CTA) were not prioritized. However, the World Bank/ADB funded project on the rehabilitation of basic education programs, locally dubbed the SABABU Education Project, placed emphasis on the training of Teachers and SMCs as well as the provision of physical infrastructure and teaching and learning materials. The training of SMCs focuses on ensuring that communities deeply engaged in the management of schools in a sustainable manner. These trainings have been conducted in some parts of the country where the SABABU project is underway.
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Lack of Early Childhood expertise and Teachers Training Corollary to this challenge is the lack of teacher expertise in early childhood education Cartwright (2000) listed several characteristics and/or traits of good early childhood teachers which include but are not limited to: (1) inner security, (2) self awareness, (3) integrity, (4) a theoretical ground, (5) general knowledge with an emphasis on environmental science, community and young children’s books, (6) warmth and respect for children, (7) trust in the child, and (8) unconditional caring. Most qualified teachers at the primary level lack these traits and more so training in this regard.
Meeting the Basic Needs of Children in Sierra Leone Abraham Maslow was best known for his model of motivation and learning. In his hierarchy of needs, Maslow maintained that before learning can take place, more basic needs must be met, such as psychological and safety needs. In Sierra Leone children’s needs must be accurately ascertained to provide for adequate and constructive learning. Given the atrocities and the effect the civil war had on the lives of children there must be a meeting of basic psychological and safety needs in order for children to develop at normal rates physically, linguistically, cognitively, and socially. While government is attempting to cater for this there is still a tremendous lapse in this area.
Macro Economic Context of Sierra Leone Sierra Leone has experienced a long and deep economic crisis following its recent civil war. It is no surprise that the most recent UN Human Development Index ranks Sierra Leone as the country with the lowest quality of life in the world. In this case the main challenge to EFA achievements could be described in one word: sustainability. The question of sustainability as it relates to the overall quality in education is crucial. The economy has continued to exhibit a marked deficiency both from the governmental and consumer’s perspective. The economic trend certainly reduces government’s capacity to finance provision of basic social services including education. Although external revenue and mobilization efforts from other nongovernmental bodies/entities have an influence on the level of financing and of education for all initiatives, the excessively weak macro economic context in which EFA initiatives are implemented has the potential of a
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negative toll in the long run. The changing country population and the macro demographic trends and dynamics continued to exert pressure on the economic situation. Budget tracking is not very useful in a situation where coalitions have to rely on reports. In a system that lacks strong accountability mechanisms like Sierra Leone, donors and networks have to be proactive in budget tracking. Sierra Leone has a long history of unaccountability of people controlling funds allocated to education. This unaccountability is supported by the local communities some of who benefit from the clientelism. Therefore, the creation of networks and coalitions alone is not enough (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005). As the CEF executive summary states ‘‘Knowledge of allocations, the quantum of allocations and the timing of distribution for allocations to various regions and schools should be the focus of such tracking.’’ The report also notes that limited capacity to monitor the effectiveness of spending characterizes the educational system. Resources available to government are inadequate and allocations made to this sector are limited. Rural community access to these allocations is minimal because of the over centralization of facilities, lack of transparency, and mismanagement of funds of some service providers in education. The poor and marginalized do not participate in decision making and policy formulation. A number of education policies formulated have not been sustainable at the strategic and operational levels, as lack of ownership has contributed to the limited commitments in implementation at different levels of public policy directives and projects (Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone, 2003–2005).
Monitoring and Assessment Quality Education The purpose of assessment is to ‘‘inform instructional decisions, result in benefits to the child and family, and relate to what the child is learning in school’’ (Jalongo & Isenberg, 2004, p. 276). Assessment practice must be closely monitored in an early childhood setting. According to Bredekamp and Copple (1997), assessments are used in inappropriate ways that result in negative effects for young children. They offered eight guidelines to use when assessing children including attention to content, methods, purpose, planning, and impact of assessments, among other recommendations. There is also absence of a communication component within the framework of the basic education program. Talking Drums Studio, SLTU and
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Anti Corruption Commission conducted an eight-month long assessment to ascertain community perspectives on quality education in Sierra Leone and made a presentation to the Parliamentary Sub-committee on Education outlining their findings and requesting that they initiate action geared toward addressing core issues that affect quality education in Sierra Leone. Key issues looked into included the government’s quality education and free education policy, ownership and responsibility for education, parental responsibility, and motivation in classroom, the role of the SLTU and the MEST. They recommended more intensive information and sensitization at the community level; ownership, proprietorship, and active participation of communities in the management and operations of schools; improvement in the conditions of service for teachers; equity and fairness in the distribution of resources and opportunities; combating poverty which poses a major limitation to equal access to education and combating corruption. This has to some extent resulted in the formation of SMCs for active participation in the management of schools, mechanisms for combating poverty (PRSP) and involving the public in sectoral budget discussions.
TENSION BETWEEN GLOBAL PROMISE AND NATIONAL CHALLENGES By promulgating educational global promises, the international community has sought to provide new educational access to many and at the same time given nations the tools they need for sustained educational growth. It has increased the rewards for educational labor, enhanced educational accountability and has made the world a smaller place, in which it is possible to know and understand each other better. In short, increasing global promises that focus on access of education for all are the foundation of true educational sustainability, and possibly the best route out of illiteracy. But – and herein lies the rub – the same dynamism that generates growth also plants the seeds of tension between global promises and national challenges. The Sierra Leonean experience of the past decade provides one of the clearest illustrations of the tension between global promises and national pitfalls. On the one hand, the vigorous growth in access in the educational arena witnessed on that continent would not have been possible without the implementation of global promise of EFA. On the other, weak infrastructure, failed civic governance, and the challenges of program implementation in failed states has left Sierra Leone vulnerable to a potential sudden reversal of the gains accrued and tragic social disruption as a result of national challenges.
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Furthermore, worse still, the benefits of EFA have yet to reach millions of children affected by the ten-year civil war. In Sierra Leone, for example, per capita income has not only failed to keep pace with the world as a whole, but it has also fallen further behind with devastating impact. It is apparent from these examples that the national challenges entail deep human challenges as well as the need to ensure that educational globalization does not impoverish the very middle classe it has helped to create or leave millions marginalized. However, the solution is not to turn our backs on meaningful global promises such as that promulgated in EFA. For educational globalization is the best way open to us to promote educational progress in the nations that need it most. Part of the solution lies in using the evolution of educational globalization to go beyond promoting access to address directly the root causes of poverty. Indeed, by doing so, we will provide the necessary first steps of educational access to the children who seemingly had no hope. Poverty, failed governance, the challenges of program implementation in failed states, and the disintegration of social and cultural institutions are difficult challenges to resolve in their own right. In combination with educational globalization, these have given rise to national challenges or the sense of instability generated by rapid change and the fear that no one is in charge. To address this problem, the global community must develop frameworks that allow nations to create their own educational accountability forums, but we must as well simultaneously address the darker side of educational globalization by building the social infrastructure that will ensure that access for education for all children is shared equitably and widely.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the impact of EFA initiatives on the reformation of education in Sierra Leone is a mixed bag. However, if certain structural weaknesses and human resource failure and lack of training and expertise are not resolved, the EFA target may still fall seriously short. The role of the nation in the provision of education as well as the involvement of communities has to be clearly stated and thoroughly implemented. Human resources such as teachers should not only be well trained, but also professionally supported and motivated to follow through the whole process. Similarly, the role of parents and students in this process cannot be overemphasized. Students and parents must be recognized as clients who are motivated by outcomes too. It is also further concluded that
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quality in education is crucial. As the need for a definition of quality in the contextual sense becomes paramount, government must ensure that there is an adequate framework of benchmarking what ‘‘quality’’ is in the Sierra Leonean context. If quality in education declines, so will the reason for enrolling and staying in schools for most students. This is because for these students other compelling lifesaving alternatives may quickly be found instead of spending time in school, which does not guarantee beneficial outcomes. As Sierra Leone moves into another phase with its EFA initiatives, these issues should be foremost in the nation’s agenda. Additionally as coalitions and networks are built between development partners and the community for this venture, the sustainability of quality should not be far removed from the planning and implementation processes. The review of Sierra Leone’s experience with the EFA implementation suggests a complex of factors that may have influenced and affected differently, the impact EFA had in various segments of the society. The overall experience in the implementation of EFA points to policy directions for continuous improvement in the following areas. Qualitative EFA: in an environment conditioned with deficiencies as a result of the civil war, improving quality of existing schools, teacher training, school environment, and parental involvement might be just as effective at improving enrollment and retention rates. The goal should not be merely to have children formally enrolled in schools, but to ensure that they actually learn what they are supposed to learn (quality and quantity must be addressed simultaneously). Quality of Inputs: the sustainability and implementation of EFA is to a large extent affected by the quality of inputs (i.e., teachers, textbooks, teaching materials, basic infrastructure, leadership, etc.). However, these inputs can be effective in strengthening institutional arrangements that promote decentralization, pluralism, transparency, effective resources flow, and accountability. The success of the COME initiatives at district level suggest that there is a significant relationship between community/village level social capital of which trust is a major determinant and school outcome improvement. Government must therefore focus on improving quality of input from various stakeholders at the community and village level by ensuring the establishment of adequate and appropriate mechanisms in order for it to achieve its goals. Transformative education: EFA initiatives must be result-oriented and in particular be appropriate, relevant, and transformative as is perceived by the layman in the Sierra Leone context. Given the existence of basic and legitimate survival needs of the general populace mainly as a result of the war,
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the gap between the social benefits and people’s perceived private benefits needs to be narrowed. Some evidence of the connection between transformative education and social private benefit for the people is promotion of employment opportunities, allowing for unlimited post primary schooling, teacher’s training, and professional development, meeting the child’s basic social, psychological, and physical needs and ensuring relevance of rural and life skills. EFA has to be seen as being externally efficient in both micro and macro contexts.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFA NGO MEST MMCE BuTC FTC MTC PLTC BoTC FBC NUC IPAM COMAHS LAW School SLTU UNESCO UNICEF CoME NCTVA PEA PADECO CRS NRC CREPS CTA
Education For All Non-governmental Organization Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Milton Margai College of Education Bunumbu Teacher’s College Freetown Teachers College Makeni/Mabruka Teachers College Portloko Teachers College Bo Teachers College Fourah Bay College Njala University College Institute of Public Administration and Management College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences Council of Legal Education Sierra Leone Law School Sierra Leone Teacher’s Union United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization United Nations Children Education Fund Community Movement for Education National Council for Technical, Vocational and other Academic Awards Act 2001 Peoples Educational Association Partners in Adult Education Coordination Office Catholic Relief Services Norwegian Refugee Council (and a few others on work with non-formal) Complementary Rapid Education for Primary Schools Community Teachers Associations
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School Management Committees Rapid Response Education Program
REFERENCES Anderson, C., & Baker, E. D. (1969). Educational development in Sierra Leone. Ann Arbor, MI: Malloy Lithoprinting Inc. Becker. G. (1996). Human capital and poverty. International Symposium ‘‘The Family and the Economy in the Future of Society’’ volume 1, number 2, of Familia et Vita. Bones, A. (2001). Case Study Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone. In: R. McRae & D. Hubert (Eds), Human security and the new diplomacy protecting people promoting peace. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Bowman, B. (1999). Achieving excellence in education. Center for early education at Rutgers, 1(2), 1–7. Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (1997). Developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood programs. Washington DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Cartwright, S. (2000). Education is experience: The rest is only information. Young Children, 55(4), 12–13. CIA World Fact Book Sierra Leone. (2005). Retrieved January 13th 2006, http://www.cia.gov/ cia/publications/factbook/geos/sl.html Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF): Strategy for Sierra Leone (2003–2005). Executive Summary. Sierra Leone Strategy Paper (2 pp). CEF Secretariat, UK, 1st Floor, Hamlyn House MacDonald Road, London N19 5PG. Also found on http://www. commonwealtheducationfund.org/sierraleone.html DAE (1995). Effective schools: Determining which factors have the greatest impact. DAE Newsletter, 7(4), 2–3. Executive Summary Common Wealth Education Fund Strategy for Sierra Leone January 2005– March 2007 (Revised). Falola, T. (2001). Nationalism and African intellectuals. New York: University of Rochester Press. Hernes, G. (Ed.). (2001). Management learning by managing teachers. Editorial HEP Newsletter, XIX(2), 2. Human Rights Watch Annual Report. (1999–2000). Retrieved February 17th 2006, http:// www.hrw.org/ Hynemman, S. & Loxley, W. (1981). The impact of primary school on academic achievement across twenty-nine high and low income countries. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the America Sociological Association, Toronto (August). Isbell, R., & Exelby, B. (2001). Early learning environments that work. Beltsville, MD: Gryon House. Jalongo, M., & Isenberg, J. (2004). Exploring your role: A practitioner’s introduction to early childhood education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Jones, R. (1998). Starting early: The why and how of preschool education. The American school board journal, 185(10), 20–25. Jones, T. J., et al. (1920–1921). Education in Africa: A study of west, south and equatorial Africa by the African education commission. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund.
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Kandeh, J., Dugba, B. A., Thomas, M., & Pessima, J. L. (2003). In: D. Teferra & G. Philip (Eds), African higher education: An international reference handbook. Altbach, IN: University Press. Kargbo, J. (2002). The internet and university participation: The Sierra Leone experience. Published in First Monday, volume 5, number 2 (February 2000), URL: http:// firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_2/kargbo/index.html Matsuura, K. (2005). Education for all global monitoring report: Understanding education quality (p. 12). Mosha, H. (1994). Reassessment of the indicators of primary education quality in developing countries. International Review of Education, XXXXIV, 3. National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone (2003). National Report on the Development of Education in Sierra Leone (pp. 1–2). UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics Education in Sierra Leone, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Also found on www.ibe.unesco.org/International/ICE47/English/Natreps/reports/sierraleone.pdf Paracka, D. J. (2002). The Athens of West Africa: A history of International education at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Unpublished doctoral dissertation Georgia State University, AAT 3045983. World Conference on Education for All, WCEFA (1990). Meeting basic learning needs. A vision for the 1990s. New York: WCEFA, Inter Agency Commission.
WCEFA: A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF MULTILATERAL EDUCATION Phillip W. Jones ABSTRACT For over six decades, multilateral agencies in education have prompted the international community to embrace proposals for large-scale initiatives to solve once and for all the problems of illiteracy and the lack of universal schooling. Even with their highly contrastive policy frameworks, the major agencies can periodically be relied upon to call for military-like assaults to achieve basic education for all, usually over a 10–15-year time frame. Just as predictable have been inflated expectations, failures of analysis, strategy and financing, and the tendency of agencies to hold other actors to account for failing to meet agency expectations. The much-trumpeted World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA, 1990) is analyzed in the wider perspective of post-WW2 agency programs for universal literacy and primary education. Although expectations of success were high at the time, the WCEFA initiative quickly evaporated, although it remained for some time as a much-cited normative and political point of reference. The failure of WCEFA is analyzed in terms of the strains and stresses facing multilateral education at the end of the Cold War and in terms of more recent multilateral commitments to education for all. Education for All: Global Promises, National Challenges International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 8, 521–538 Copyright r 2007 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3679/doi:10.1016/S1479-3679(06)08018-2
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Every 10 years or so since the end of World War II, the international community engages in a ritualized drama around the twin themes of universal education and the elimination of illiteracy. This chapter places in historical context the ‘education for all’ (EFA) movement that has dominated multilateral agenda in education over the past two decades, analyzing the movement as an episode in the post-World War II history of multilateral education. This chapter then considers a particular EFA initiative that culminated in the 1990 World Conference on Education for All, praised at the time but quickly fading into relative insignificance. The persistence of such global rituals opens up serious questions about realistic pathways for achieving universal education and universal literacy. At the heart of matters is whether any kind of ‘big push’ can make any appreciable difference to the time-honored reality that educational expansion comes as a natural consequence of economic growth. Further, the rituals prompt consideration of both the substance and style of multilateral policy and programming in education. At the present time, the international community is at mid-point for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, 2000–2015) – goals that include significant EFA commitments. The themes of this chapter are important for assessing rationales for the MDGs and understanding why they are unlikely to be attained. The institutional focus is on the four major UN agencies committed at the time of WCEFA to educational development. These were the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP, which has since abandoned education as a program sector). A fifth co-sponsor, the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) joined in at the very last moment and had little influence on the Conference. Not only were the four agencies the prominent co-sponsors of the WCEFA, they were the dominant organizational means available at the time for the UN to express commitments to education in terms of the UN’s three great pillars – peace, prosperity, and human rights (important sources on WCEFA are Chabbott, 1998, 2003).
BACKGROUND At its very founding in November 1945, UNESCO entertained proposals for an immediate international campaign for the eradication of illiteracy among adults. Within a year, a Commission on Fundamental Education had put together a conceptual, normative, and program platform for ‘fundamental
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education’, aimed directly at out-of-school adults and young people, combining literacy with a range of life skills programs (UNESCO, 1947). Following the adoption by the UN General Assembly in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO aligned itself with calls for free and compulsory primary education, and a series of influential regional conferences addressed such normative concerns in contexts of nation-building and modernization (Bombay in 1952 for South Asia and the Pacific, Cairo in 1954–1955 for the Arab States, and Lima in 1956 for Latin America). Soon, a series of ministerial-level regional conferences was to set targets for universal primary education (UPE) in the context of national development – the Karachi Plan (1959), the Addis Ababa Plan (1961), and the Santiago Plan (1962). These coincided with and were partially conceived as part of the UN’s First Development Decade (1960–1970) when hopes were high that the problems of underdevelopment could be tackled within such a timeframe. In 1960 the UN General Assembly invited UNESCO to draw up plans for a World Campaign for Universal Literacy, a Soviet proposal to eliminate illiteracy within the decade, a plan stymied in 1962 by vehement United States opposition calling for emphasis to be rather placed on formal schooling. Over the next three decades, the key UN agencies working in the field of education continued in their various ways to push for rapid educational expansion, whether in the name of human rights, meeting basic human needs, or national development through modernization (for accounts, see Jones, 1988, 2005). The next step in the now predictable ritual came in 1990 with the World Conference on Education for All held in March 1990 in Jomtien, Thailand (the key official documents are the preparatory publication Meeting Basic Learning Needs (WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission, 1990b) and the Final Report (WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission, 1990a)). WCEFA is regarded as ushering in a new set of global commitments for EFA, although only soft targets were set for the year 2000, such as achieving UPE, halving levels of adult illiteracy, providing early childhood care and development for all, and making significant gains in the quality of basic education. For reasons outlined below, any momentum derived from the Jomtien Declaration had dwindled to a very significant extent by the mid-1990s. Yet by 2000 a fresh and unprecedented coalition of multilateral, bilateral, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had successfully mobilized themselves in support of a select set of MDGs, adopted without controversy at the UN’s Millennium Summit, goals that included the elimination of gender disparities in education by 2005 and the achievement of UPE by 2015. While the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC pushed the MDGs
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off international agenda for a time, the mounting concerns over global insecurity and disorder gave added impulse to the MDGs, the early years of the new century witnessing something of a reversal of earlier declines in multilateral and bilateral aid budgets. Since 1990, a series of conferences on social and economic themes organized through the United Nations was a prominent feature of international life. From 1990 to 2002, they dealt with such matters as EFA, children’s rights and needs, the environment and development, human rights, population and development, social development, women, the habitat, and sustainable development. What was significant about them was the high degree of international NGO involvement in the lead-up and organization of the conferences. Generally speaking, the conferences were not likely to have been convened on the initiative of governments alone. With the backing of a few western governments, notably the Nordics, a broad coalition of NGOs (representing ‘civil society’ in UN language) had begun to exert unprecedented political influence on the setting of global agenda. Even those meetings convened through the Bretton Woods institutions of economic multilateralism – on such themes as debt, trade, and development finance – saw high levels of formal and informal NGO involvement, despite the pronounced lack of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) ease over much that NGOs were campaigning for. Overall, the series of meetings and the associated global agenda setting was an expression of a new globalized world order, one that saw impact on states as drivers of global agenda. With the scope of governance constrained, states by 1990 were beginning to reveal in tangible ways the effects of neoliberal ideas on their legitimacy and functionality. New spaces were opening up, that included possibilities for greater private sector and NGO participation in areas hitherto dominated and controlled by states. Multilateral agencies, too, were caught up in some of these shifts. On the one hand, as an expression of inter-state co-operation, the multilaterals felt acutely the impact of neoliberalism on governance, their scope and budgets trimmed according to the dictates of ‘small government’ thinking. On the other hand, they began to feel the impact of civil society involvement in the political constructions of their identities and in the execution of their programs. The interplay between the two was a significant feature of the pattern of multilateral engagement that emerged through the 1990s, differing markedly from what had gone before. All of this diplomatic and expert activity is costly. Multilateral engagement is necessarily expensive, with costs compounded through the increasing complexity of global partnerships involving national governments and
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local organizations, bilateral aid agencies, NGOs, and a host of experts and support groups. Does any sense of rationality derive from evidence of effectiveness and of tangible progress? Are the benefits better viewed in terms of keeping international norms and standards (such as universalizing education) at the forefront of economic and social policy? Are international and national efforts better directed to more fundamental matters of economic growth, in the certain knowledge that educational expansion and quality gains will come as a consequence?
MULTILATERAL EDUCATION AND THE ORIGINS OF THE WCEFA The WCEFA was an expression of how multilateralism was undergoing radical change as the Cold War was coming to its dramatic end. That change saw basic shifts in multilateral governance, with a rise in influence of ‘civil society’ in policy development, seen in the heightened profile of NGOs. It needs to be emphasized, however, that at the Conference itself the participation of NGOs was tightly controlled, their numbers kept small and their official place in the program generally confined to a meeting held the day prior with official sponsors and participants. This overt containment differed greatly from the pattern that developed subsequently. Nevertheless, the indirect hand of NGOs on WCEFA was heavy, and this has to do with the way in which the idea was conceived and sold to the international community. This brings us to UNICEF and its role as one of the principal sponsors of WCEFA. UNICEF UNICEF had cautiously embraced an education program in 1959, becoming more committed to a deeper involvement as quickly as 1961 in the context of the UN’s First Development Decade and in the period’s enthusiasm to regard education as a major means of achieving economic growth, modernization, and nation-building (general accounts of UNICEF include Black (1987, 1996) and Beigbeder (2001); on UNICEF education in the early years see Phillips (1987); see also Jones (2005, 2006b)). At first, UNICEF had entertained program ideals of influencing the overall shape and development of national education systems – in ways more directly practical than UNESCO could afford – but it was an approach that did not require long to
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collapse under its own weight. Rather, through the 1970s, UNICEF built up a reputation for addressing at community level the basic needs of children and their careers, especially in rural and depressed urban areas. Entirely dependent on voluntary contributions, whether from national governments, the private sector, NGOs, or the general public, UNICEF programming reflected the impact of coalition-building, softening the direct effects of political multilateralism on its governance and budget. The heavy influence of NGOs was seen, for example, in the steady build up through the 1980s of human rights as a key organizing principle to drive the UNICEF mission and program. Through the 1980s, when the UNESCO drama was being played out (see below), UNICEF’s Executive Director Jim Grant had explored various ways in which the Fund could fill some of the educational space in the UN system abandoned by UNESCO. At a time of on-going expansion of UNICEF resources, Grant was confident about the long-term viability of an expanded education program, one that need not displace resources away from UNICEF’s higher profile work in child health and nutrition. A key driver of Grant’s concerns about education was the immediate impact of World Bank and IMF austerity measures on many poor countries, the 1980s having seen increasing indebtedness and protracted economic recession impacting severely on the provision of basic education, its reach and its quality. UNICEF had itself contributed to analysis of the negative impact of structural adjustment in low-income countries (see Cornia, Jolly, & Stewart, 1987; Jolly, 1991; Stewart, 1995). In addressing potential education futures for UNICEF, Grant was drawn to another UNICEF initiative that had dominated the 1980s, the ‘health for all’ movement that had emerged from the 1978 Alma-Ata (USSR) conference, jointly convened by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), to promote ‘health for all by the year 2000’. This commitment reflected the three major rationales for UNICEF programs – (a) emergency and humanitarian relief, (b) national development, and (c) the human rights of children and women. Of the many program initiatives taken up, two were especially important in shaping Grant’s subsequent thinking about education. First, the Facts for Life campaign saw millions of carefully crafted but simple booklets (distributed in many languages and in varying cultural forms) addressing preventable child mortality through the presentation of basic information of direct practical significance. Second was a mass, global child immunization campaign, accelerating as the 1980s progressed. Despite the prevailing austerity of the 1980s, Grant was convinced that given political and public will the necessary funds could be assembled for such a
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campaign, and with the directness of child immunization he and many political leaders across the developing world found themselves on something of a political winner – directly beneficial, not expensive, and simple, practical and of popular appeal. The health for all movement was instrumental in shaping Grant’s views about how a parallel movement might concern education. In UNICEF quarters, the nation-wide development of education systems had long been abandoned as a program objective or rationale. But education remained potent because of its capacity to convey useful information about child health and nutrition. Thus, in the UNICEF lexicon, an educated population would be a healthier population. This instrumentalism propelled Grant, with an almost missionary zeal, to convince the heads of the other UN agencies involved in education to sponsor an ‘EFA’ movement along similar lines. Tellingly, Grant was convinced himself that a 10-year campaign, with sufficient resources, would be sufficient to ensure a basic EFA.
UNESCO The mid-1980s had seen what has been called the UNESCO crisis, the Organization reeling from unprecedented attacks on its legitimacy (accounts from the period include Coate, 1988; Imber, 1989; Preston, Herman, & Schiller, 1989; Wells, 1987). Strident charges of mismanagement and politicization prompted the withdrawals of the United States and the United Kingdom, reducing UNESCO’s already small budget by about one-third. As the designated ‘lead agency’ in the UN system for education, UNESCO at the time was incapable of exercising leadership in any of its multiple areas of responsibility. At best, it could restate its many normative positions and it could rely on partnerships with better resourced and more credible organizations to give tangible expression to its normatively driven ideas. Prominent among these, of course, was universal education, the UNESCO outlook and program heavily shaped by the inclusion of education in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Whether through target-setting for achieving UPE, or through mass campaigns to eradicate adult illiteracy, UNESCO was relentless in embracing whatever practical strategy was open to it in order to give effect to EFA (a recent overview is UNESCO, 2005). Prominent here, of course, was the speed and dexterity with which UNESCO massaged its human rights educational ideals into education as a driver of national development, modernization, and economic growth. This of course was entirely in keeping
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with the spirit of the times, the very early 1960s seeing the entry into education of UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank, undertakings shaped by First Development Decade thinking. Yet despite the paucity of its operational budget and its reliance on partnerships with development agencies more directly concerned with national development, there can be no doubt that UNESCO was successful in keeping universal education intact as a priority in the UN normative framework, a set of values that saw the various dimensions of human rights as interdependent and indivisible (an important contemporary analysis is Sewell (1975)). Given the fact that most mid-sized western universities have bigger budgets than does UNESCO, the Organization’s reliance on normative and policy pronouncements is understandable. In its earlier decades between 1950 and 1980, UNESCO had relied for operational funding from UNDP in particular, but also the World Bank and UNICEF with which it had cooperative agreements. It was a period in which those agencies welcomed UNESCO’s specialist expertise in education, UNESCO itself welcoming the injection of funding that enabled it to project a more practical, operational air. But by 1980, the funding agencies were themselves building up educational expertise, and had a dwindling interest in sharing the credit for their work with UNESCO. For its part, some of the vehement western critique of UNESCO management and efficiency was justified, even if more generally it was an early expression of the anti-UN stance of neoliberalism. Two elements of the UNESCO tradition, however, were especially important in the lead up to the WCEFA. First, UNESCO norms had insisted on EFA as an inescapable obligation, and accordingly UNESCO had been concerned as much with adults and out-of-school youth as with children of primary school age. Adult literacy was a longstanding UNESCO concern, the Organization frequently studying the mass campaigns of such members as the Soviet Union, China, Mexico, and Cuba as well as adult literacy programs in a range of others. Monitoring adult literacy rates around the world, however difficult and imprecise a science, was also important for an Organization insistent on keeping the needs of adult learners on international agenda. Second, and very important, there had been a longstanding UNESCO concern to ensure the balanced development of education systems. Admittedly with a state-centered orientation, UNESCO had assisted many member governments to think of their national systems of education – and of their own obligations to extend provision – as an organic whole. Each component was important for the health of the others. Thus secondary schools relied on the primary schools for well-educated students and on
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teachers colleges and universities for well-prepared teachers. Primary, secondary, technical, higher, and non-formal education components each contributed to and drew from the quality and reach of the others. Placed in the framework of human capital theory assumptions that education was a driver of economic productivity and growth, UNESCO was an important promoter of educational expansion from the 1960s onwards. Other organizations were perhaps more committed to studying carefully the pace of growth, to ensure the affordability of rapid expansion of formal education. But for UNESCO, the combination of its human rights commitments with its alignment to expansion in the name of economic growth, modernization and nation-building was a potent one. UNESCO was treated, in the lead-up to and during the Jomtien Conference, with all the diplomatic courtesies connected with its status as the UN system’s ‘lead organization’ in education. UNESCO’s budgetary limitations and lack of in-country operational reach were well understood at the time. Yet the problem remained as to UNESCO’s precise role, and the diplomatic solution was to confer on it responsibility for monitoring progress and follow up. This, again, was entirely in keeping with the UNESCO tradition of collecting and analyzing statistics concerning educational provision – school enrolment ratios, adult literacy rates, and so on. Because formal systems of education carried with them far more significant budgetary obligations and because they accounted for the overwhelming share of aid to education (when compared with non-formal education and literacy programs), it is no surprise that international interest in tracking UPE was more intense, with greater efforts to achieve precision.
World Bank The participation of the World Bank was crucial to how the policy framework for the WCEFA initiative was constructed. In particular, the financial and policy reach of the Bank eclipsed by a wide margin all other multilateral efforts in education (authoritative general histories of the World Bank include Mason and Asher (1973) and Kapur, Lewis, and Webb (1997); on the World Bank and education, see Jones (2006a, 2007)). At the time of UNICEF’s Jim Grant’s launching of the world conference idea in 1988, the Bank’s Education and Training Department had been working on proposals for a program of ‘accelerated educational development’, proposals that had won quick ‘in principle’ support from Bank President Barber Conable. (It is in the scheme of things that the attitudes, prejudices, and convictions of
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World Bank Presidents account for a great deal in the history of the Bank.) Because those proposals addressed the downturn of primary education expansion as experienced through the 1980s, there was an instant relationship with Grant’s ‘basic EFA’ ideas, despite much Bank unease and hesitation over the financial implications of Grant’s more ambitious vision. There was considerable irony stemming from the Bank’s position. From its inception of education lending in 1963, the World Bank had always justified its involvement in stark economic terms. Not for the Bank the arguments of human rights. Rather, what drove the Bank’s education policies was adoption of the simple proposition of human capital theory that appropriate kinds of education and training would enable individual workers to become more productive; those increases in output would, collectively, be sufficient to drive economic expansion and growth, thus enabling development. In 1963, the Bank’s entry into education was driven by the desire to make its own investments in physical public-sector infrastructure more productive. The Bank was lending massively for dams, ports, steel mills, power stations, communication and transportation systems, and the like, all being examples of infrastructure that required persons with varying levels of technical knowledge and skills for their design, construction, and operation. In the Bank’s initial view, it was formal education in the secondary, technical, and higher education sectors that should take priority in its lending, and developing countries should borrow accordingly. Even the secondary school curriculum was changed in many countries at Bank insistence, involving a considerable shift of emphasis in favor of technical and vocational content. To measure the effectiveness of such education strategies, the Bank adopted the view – again derived from human capital theory – that all that was required was to monitor and track the earnings of workers. Their productivity, it was argued, could be assessed through the proxy indicator of their earned wages, those wages thus indicating how effective and relevant their education and training had been. Although from time to time such justifications of Bank interventions in education as basic human needs, poverty alleviation, and equity surfaced, what was of fundamental and permanent concern was to achieve economic growth through increased worker productivity. This reflected the powerful driver of Bank development policies, that growth was the key to poverty alleviation and to development. Measuring the rates of return from education thus became the key to constructing World Bank education policy (the seminal work in the tradition is Psacharopoulos (1973); a critique is Bennell (1996)). The method displaced other actual or potential methods, not least manpower forecasting
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and planning that dominated policy processes in many countries and development agencies. Once the numbers were coming in, Bank policy stances took a decisive shift, coming as it did at a critical juncture in the history of the World Bank. The year 1980 saw the departure of Robert McNamara, whose rhetoric on poverty and redistribution had been matched by dramatic increases in Bank lending, diversification of what the Bank was prepared to lend for, and particular focus on basic human needs. McNamara changed none of the basics of Bank operations, but the bigger Bank was more readily a busier and more diverse Bank. The decade leading to the WCEFA in 1990 saw Bank education policy and practice pulled in two different directions. First, rate of return proponents in the Bank, having achieved organizational prominence in the Bank’s education hierarchy, turned around much conventional thinking about education, thereby confusing many borrowing nations still needing to pay off loans that were now being discredited by the Bank. In curriculum, it was argued that the high costs and frequent datedness of vocational education raised doubts about its potential as an investment. In particular, the ‘diversified’ pattern of secondary schooling championed by the Bank was now seen as too expensive and frequently irrelevant to the needs of the labor market. Rather, it was a general, liberal, or academic curriculum of key knowledge and skills that was seen – in the longer term – to better meet the productivity requirements of workers and employers. Associated with this conclusion was another of even more potential policy significance – that whereas private rates of return from educational investments might well-suggest secondary and (especially) higher education as the optimum investment for individuals and households, it was rather primary education that produced the highest social rates of return, and in development terms those rates of return were handsome indeed. Thus the Bank made a monumental judgment – that for government expenditures in low-income countries it was primary education that should receive priority. Were secondary, technical, and higher education systems to expand, that would need to occur on the basis of substantially increased private, user pays financing. Once UPE was achieved in low-income countries, then budgetary possibilities would open up for expanding these components of education systems at public expense, especially secondary education, but only when national economies could afford it. To convince the international community of this conclusion was to be the World Bank’s great quest at Jomtien (key World Bank policy papers from this period include World Bank (1986, 1990); and, later, World Bank (1995)). The second broad direction facing the Bank’s education work through the 1980s stemmed from the protracted recession affecting much of the
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developing world, a downturn compounded by the excessive indebtedness of many. Servicing external debt obligations was becoming an acute issue for many, and many government budgets across the developing world were under considerable strain. The impact on the poor was considerable, many public services being scaled down, with serious consequences for equity, poverty strategies, and prospects for strong public institutions to address them. The Bank’s response, along with its Bretton Woods partner organization the IMF, was to embark on a program of austerity and adjustment lending, at the forefront of which was the Bank’s traditional view of conservative economic policy. This dual policy position – of affording greatest priority for public expenditures on education to primary education, and mounting austerity programs for economic reform and recovery – shaped decisively the World Bank’s motivation for its involvement in WCEFA. As noted, by 1988 the Bank was drafting its own proposals for a program of ‘accelerated educational development’, in order to address the collapsing rate of loan approvals for education and to address the immediate and dire effects of austerity and adjustment policies on education, especially in the poorest countries. Such a policy position, that saw the Bank promoting EFA while simultaneously promoting radical reforms in public policies for education, have been described as contradictory. By contrast, it amounted to a ‘coming together’ of policies that had been emerging in the Bank through the 1980s (for a discussion on contradictions in Bank education policy, see Mundy (2002)). The key to understanding World Bank participation in the WCEFA is the Bank’s commitment, accelerating through the 1980s with increasing intensity, to nothing less than a crusade to achieve its fundamental policy objectives in education. Those objectives were relatively few, but whose implications were enormous. Described by former Bank Staffer Stephen Heyneman as the ‘short policy menu’, they had at their heart three basic policy recommendations that the Bank promoted energetically: (i) to shift public expenditures away from vocational and higher education toward academic and basic education; (ii) to increase the private cost for attending universities; and (iii) to install loan schemes to set off the financial burden on individuals who must now face high tuition fees for higher education (Heyneman, 2003, p. 325). Bank participation in WCEFA was emphatically not part of the Bank’s preferred strategy to promote its education policies and lending strategies. It is important to appreciate that the Bank, in several important respects, was an unwilling co-sponsor, and that any participation in the WCEFA movement needed to be on the Bank’s terms. In other words, the Bank had to
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ensure that the Jomtien initiative in no way jeopardized its current policy objectives in education, and that in large measure helps explain its participation and its desire to control the WCEFA from within. In particular, many members of Bank senior management were fearful that the Jomtien initiative had considerable potential to commit the international community to targets that the Bank itself would or could not commit to. Even its education chiefs wanted no part of an EFA plan that would force countries into unachievable targets or undeliverable claims on both domestic and international finance. Thus the Bank prescribed a ban on any Jomtien financial targets expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product or of World Bank lending for education. The other sponsoring Agency Heads had no option but to accept the Bank’s view. In sum, the World Bank in 1988 and 1989 was faced with the prospect of its self-proclaimed leadership in international educational development being challenged by the EFA coalition forming around UNICEF. More than that, the Bank needed to ensure that its education reform agenda was not upset by a rival policy position that might win widespread political support. This is the key to understanding World Bank participation in WCEFA. A key move was the Bank’s release of its Education Department Head, Wadi Haddad, to serve as Executive Secretary of the WCEFA, a highly strategic move given the Bank’s policy objectives and its deep concerns that expectations arising from WCEFA might become, in its view, unrealistic.
UNDP The UNDP was a somewhat reluctant partner at Jomtien. As the UN system’s largest provider of grants for development programs, UNDP had built up a sizeable education program, with a focus on secondary, vocational, teacher, and higher education. Its partnership with UNESCO, dating back to the origins of UNDP’s predecessor body the UN Expanded Program of Technical Assistance in 1949, saw UNESCO and the other UN Specialized Agencies made operationally ‘solvent’ by the injection of significant levels of UNDP funding for development projects. As the peak UN body for development, it was not an option for UNDP to stay aloof from WCEFA. If the Conference was to generate expectations of increased UN funding for basic education, UNDP would inevitably be at the forefront of the provision of grants. Education was never central in the UNDP galaxy, and its cautious, conservative approach to ‘education in development’ issues saw it placing considerable emphasis on human capital rationales (for accounts of UNDP and
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education, see Jones, 2005, 2006c). In policy terms, UNDP had been generally content to follow the World Bank. By 1990, UNDP had built up some experience in primary and literacy education, but its preferred stance was to support areas of education of more ‘direct’ economic and productivity potential. Through the 1990s, in fact, UNDP was to become more interested in out-of-school education and sustainable livelihoods. More than that, through the decade UNDP was to wind down to a minimum its funding of the UN Specialized Agencies in favor of direct grants to in-country partners to manage its projects and programs. By century’s end, UNDP was to abandon education altogether as a UNDP-funded sector. UNDP was hardly prominent before, during, or after WCEFA. Its views on basic EFA were diffident, although there was a natural tendency to follow the Bank’s lead on the financing of public education, and thus put primary education to the fore. UNDP’s funding between 1966 and 1974 of a joint Experimental World Literacy Program with UNESCO had left UNDP thoroughly skeptical about the economic and productivity impact of newly acquired literacy in adulthood, and this aspect of EFA caused no excitement at all in UNDP. Senior education specialist John Lawrence, a one-person education secretariat in UNDP after 1989, was more interested in out-ofschool youth, keen to reach them with programs to promote livelihoods that were viable and sustainable. The other UN sponsors of WCEFA were doubtless keen to see sizeable UNDP grants made available to promote the Jomtien objectives. They were to be disappointed, although funds did flow for a time through the decade. Between January 1995 and May 1997, for example, 174 basic education projects were operational, just over half of the UNDP education total. These were costed at $373 million, or over 70 percent of the education total. In the broader scheme of things, however, this was not a decisive intervention.
WCEFA IN RETROSPECT It is tempting to overstate the historical importance of Jomtien. Although much excitement was aroused and many organizations and professionals energized, the failure to produce a clear conceptual framework for EFA with clear targets and funding commitments made a return to business as usual inevitable. The Jomtien Declaration (WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission, 1990a) represents a careful compromise between the principal sponsoring agencies. The differences between them were never resolved, so it was natural for each to return to its former ways soon after.
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UNICEF did well to capitalize on the opportunity to promote an image of visionary leadership. Its education staffing in New York was quickly expanded, to approximately 10 persons, where it has remained since. Much more troublesome was fulfillment of UNICEF’s ambitions to become involved in mainstream education policy work at country level. Despite strenuous efforts, this remained an elusive objective. Even more serious was the failure of the UNICEF budget to afford basic education the priority foreseen at Jomtien. As a share of the UNICEF total, in fact, education fell from 1990 to 1991, from 10 percent of the program budget to 8 percent, rising to 12 percent in 1995. As UNICEF’s retiring education chief pointed out: ‘Budgetary reallocation did not follow the rhetoric’ (Aklilu, 1997, p. 20). Even UNESCO’s monitoring role was tested by its constrained capacities. By mid-decade, the parlous state of follow-up was all too evident in the fiasco that was the 1996 Amman EFA global forum. If anything, the event revealed all too starkly how ineffectual efforts had been since Jomtien, whether in terms of fulfilling the expectations aroused there or simply in terms of assessing progress. In retrospect, part of the revitalization of EFA efforts in the second half of the 1990s could in fact owe something to the poverty of the Amman forum. The World Bank continued through to mid-decade with its short policy menu, culminating in a public relations disaster following publication of its 1995 policy statement on education, despite the attempt by virtually all of its education line managers to prevent its delivery by the Bank’s President to the Board of Directors for approval. Even given the subsequent softening of Bank rhetoric and the embrace of a more explicit poverty focus, no fundamentals have since been altered (although higher education has recently received something of a policy boost). Much more important have been the collapse of certainty within the Bank and the abandonment of its global leadership rhetoric. A decade ago, the Bank knew what it stood for and proclaimed that certainty boldly. Now it is not so sure, and the Bank has had to learn how to work alongside others, not even as a ‘first among equals’ but as a partner (see, e.g., the current expression of Bank education policy: World Bank (2006)). UNDP, as noted, has abandoned education as a development sector, leaving other agencies to garner grant monies once provided by UNDP. Combined with the general decline in aid funding evident across all bilateral and multilateral agencies in mid-decade, the effect was strongly evident in EFA progress. At the same time, a decisive development over the past decade has been various efforts to ‘harmonize’ development co-operation efforts, particularly at country level, and UNDP’s leadership of the
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co-ordinating UN Development Group has elevated its profile considerably. Indirectly, that is working to the benefit of EFA. Although it would be an over-statement to say that the WCEFA initiative had run its course by the mid-1990s, there is some truth in the observation. The failure of Jomtien stemmed essentially from the over-confidence that multilateral education was sufficient to deliver. Although there were various attempts at Jomtien to construct partnerships, it needs to be recalled that NGOs were effectively shut out, and the bilaterals virtually dictated to over policy content. By putting themselves at the heart of things, the large multilaterals at Jomtien failed to sense the changing spirit so evident elsewhere, a spirit that placed emphasis on partnerships, the participation of civil society and NGOs, and active collaboration with bilateral agencies. The resurrection of EFA objectives toward the end of the 1990s, and so evident in the MDGs, has come about through the construction of considerably broader and inclusive coalitions. Many more players have been involved, although the events of September 11, 2001 resulted in a temporary slackening of the pace. A different pattern of coalition-building, a new sense of education as a global good and global priority, a stronger set of budgetary commitments involving a wider range of donors, and a willingness to engage, plan, and deliver programs at country level have all combined to raise fresh hopes about the realization of EFA. Current work toward EFA is not business as usual, but whether the MDGs contain sufficient potency to tackle global poverty remains a fundamental concern. At the same time, the old multilateralism died with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Jomtien stands as a memorial to it.
REFERENCES Aklilu, H. (1997). Interview with Aklilu Habte. Education News (UNICEF), 6(3), 19–23. Beigbeder, Y. (2001). New challenges for UNICEF: Children, women and human rights. New York, NY: Palgrave. Bennell, P. (1996). Using and abusing rates of return: A critique of the World Bank’s 1995 education sector review. International Journal of Educational Development, 16(3), 235–248. Black, M. (1987). The children and the nations: Growing up together in the postwar world. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillan. Black, M. (1996). Children first: The story of UNICEF, past and present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chabbott, C. (1998). Constructing educational consensus: International development professionals and the World Conference on Education For All. International Journal of Educational Development, 18(3), 207–218.
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Chabbott, C. (2003). Constructing education for development: International Organizations and Education for All. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer. Coate, R. (1988). Unilateralism, ideology and US foreign policy: The United States in and out of UNESCO. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Cornia, G., Jolly, R., & Stewart, F. (Eds) (1987). Adjustment with a human face. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heyneman, S. P. (2003). The history and problems in the making of education policy at the World Bank 1960–2000. International Journal of Educational Development, 23(3), 317–337. Imber, M. F. (1989). The USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA: Politicization and withdrawal in the specialized agencies. London: Macmillan. Jolly, R. (1991). Adjustment with a human face: A UNICEF record and perspective on the 1980s. World Development, 19(12), 1807–1821. Jones, P. W. (1988). International policies for third world education: UNESCO, literacy and development. London: Routledge. Jones, P. W. (2005). The United Nations and education: Multilateralism, development and globalisation. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Jones, P. W. (2006a). Education, poverty and the World Bank. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Jones, P. W. (2006b). Elusive mandate: UNICEF and educational development. International Journal of Educational Development, 26(6), 591–604. Jones, P. W. (2006c). UNDP and educational development: An institutional policy analysis. International Journal of Educational Development, 26(6), 605–617. Jones, P. W. (2007). World Bank financing of education: Lending, learning and development (2nd ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Kapur, D., Lewis, J. P., & Webb, R. (1997). The World Bank: Its first half-century, 2 Vol. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Mason, E. S., & Asher, R. E. (1973). The World Bank since Bretton Woods. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Mundy, K. (2002). Discussion: Retrospect and prospect – Education in a reforming World Bank. International Journal of Educational Development, 22(5), 483–508. Phillips, H. M. (1987). UNICEF in education: A historical perspective. UNICEF History Series Monograph IX. New York: UNICEF. Preston, W., Herman, E., & Schiller, H. (1989). Hope and Folly: The United States and UNESCO. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Psacharopoulos, G. (1973). Returns to education: An international comparison. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Sewell, J. P. (1975). UNESCO and world politics engaging in international politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stewart, F. (1995). Adjustment and poverty: Opinions and choices. London: Routledge. UNESCO. (1947). Fundamental education: Common ground for all peoples. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2005) Education for All: Literacy for life. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2006. Paris: UNESCO. WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission. (1990a). Final report. New York: WCEFA Executive Secretariat. WCEFA Inter-Agency Commission. (1990b). Meeting basic learning needs: A vision for the 1990s. New York: WCEFA Executive Secretariat.
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Wells, C. (1987). The UN, UNESCO and the politics of knowledge. London: Macmillan. World Bank. (1986). Financing education in developing countries: An exploration of policy options. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (1990). Primary education: A World Bank policy paper. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (1995). Priorities and strategies for education: A World Bank review. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2006). Education sector strategy update: Achieving education for all, broadening our perspective, maximizing our effectiveness. Washington, DC: World Bank.
AUTHOR INDEX Aalen, L. 478 Abu-Ghaida, D. 115, 124 Adams, J. 146 Adelaida, G. 322 Adeyemi, J.K.G. 352 Adriazola, F. 276 Agarwal, R. 222, 231 Agyman, D.K. 437, 445 Aikman, S. 185 Ainscow, M. 160 Aitchison, J.J.W. 435–436, 445 Aklilu, H. 535 Akoojee, S. 440 Akpofu, J.K. 352 Alexander, T. 331, 333 Al-Samarrai, S. 54 Amanda, S. 378 Ampiah, J.G. 481 Anderson, C. 494 Anwar, M. 93–94 Anzalone, S. 444 Archer, D. 270, 272 Archer, L.M. 297 Armfield, A. 163 Arnove, R.F. 308, 343 Arshad-Ayaz, A. 73, 105 Asher, R.E. 529 Assie-Lumyumba`, N. 344 Astiz, M.F. 459, 462 Atkinson, N.D. 348 Ayyar, R.V.V. 207 Aziz, K. 92
Baker, S. 386 Baku, J.K. 437, 445 Ball, S. 259, 271 Ballou, D. 379–380 Barrett, L. 480, 484 Bashir, S. 207, 221, 229 Batliwala, S. 147 Becker, G.S. 443, 494 Beeby, C.E. 196 Beeharry, G.K. 352, 354, 356 Beigbeder, Y. 525 Benavot, A. 462 Benegoteku, B. 168 Bennell, P. 354, 366, 530 Bennett, B. 386 Beoku-Betts, J. 418 Berger, P.L. 102 Bernstein, R.J. 432 Berry, C. 185 Bhola, H.S. 343 Black, M. 525 Bloch, M. 418 Bloom, D.E. 50 Boer, J. 61 Bones, A. 495 Booth, T. 160 Bourdieu, P. 103 Bowman, B. 511 Boyden, J. 482 Bracho, T. 279, 282, 285, 288, 290, 293, 297–298 Brantlinger, E. 156 Bray, M. 186, 345–347 Bredekamp, S. 511, 514 Bredie, J.W.B. 352, 354, 356
Baker, D.P. 183–184, 459, 462 Baker, E.D. 494 539
540 Brewer, D.J. 379–380 Brown, K.G. 186 Buchert, L. 41, 60 Buckland, P. 387 Buenfil, R.N. 259 Bundy, D.E. 414 Burger, D. 434 Burnett, N. 398, 405 Burns, R.B. 185–186 Cacheux, J. 319 Caldwell, J.C. 115 Calve´s, E. 356 Campbell, H. 350 Campero, C. 292, 297, 302 Campos Esquerra, R. 316, 319 Carnoy, M. 99, 268, 459 Cartwright, S. 513 Cha, Y.-K. 462 Chabbott, C. 459, 462, 522 Chang, M.C. 168 Chau, N. 185 Chen, Y.Y. 161, 163, 171 Cheng, K.M. 172 Cheng, L.L. 162 Cheng, Y. 173 Chiroque, S. 264 Chomsky, N. 272 Christopher, A. 378 Chung, F. 353 Clarke, P.B. 159, 345–347 Coate, R. 527 Cochrane, S. 115 Cohen, D. 379, 384 Cohen, J.E. 50 Colclough, C. 54 Coombe, C. 414 Coombs, P.H. 342, 345, 347 Copple, C. 511, 514 Cordoba, J. 310 Cornish, L. 185–186 Cowan, L.G. 339 Craig, J. 415
AUTHOR INDEX Crawford, N. 167, 173, 176 Creed, C. 384 Cristopher, B. 319 Crossley, M. 69 Crouch, L. 441–442 Darling-Hammond, L. 377, 379–380 Dı´ az, H. 269, 276 De Soto, H. 422 De Waal, E.A.S. 352–353 Dei, G.S. 79 Delamonica, E. 42, 56 Deng, M.P.F. 161, 163, 164, 173 Desai, K.A. 414 Dev, S.M. 224, 228–229, 231 Dewey, J. 443 Dodd, W. 348 Dorji, J. 187 Dorsey, B.J. 354 Dowson, C. 167–168, 176 Dreze, J. 228, 241, 244 Dual, P.A. 162 Dugba, B.A. 495 Durt, M. 346, 354 Duvenhage, H. 347 Dyer, C. 246 Dyson, A. 160 Dzvimbo, P. 347 Ehrenberg, J. 63 Ehrenberg, R.G. 379–380 Elespuru, O. 269, 276 Escobar, A. 191 Evans, D. 397 Evans, P. 168 Evoh, C.J. 427 Exelby, B. 511 Fairclough, N. 103 Falola, T. 494 Faure, S. 260–261, 271 Fenstermacher, G. 79
Author Index Ferguson, R.F. 379–380 Fa¨gerlind, I. 340, 353 Figueredo, V. 444 Fiske, E.B. 433, 441 Fomento. 319 Fong, V.L. 130 Freeman, T. 260–261, 271 Freire, P. 79 Frencken, H. 346 Fukuyama, F. 355 Fulcher, G. 156 Fullan, M. 191 Fuller, B. 159 Gadotti, M. 429 Gazdar, H. 228 Ghartey Ampiah, J. 379 Giddens, A. 428, 431–432, 443 Go´mez-Palacio, M. 310 Goldhaber, D.D. 379 Goldin, C. 239 Good, L. 61 Gopalakrishnan, R. 242 Govinda, R. 244, 250 Graham, N. 168 Grassly, N.C. 414 Greaney, V. 346 Greene, M. 81 Grindle, M.S. 308 Grossman, D. 155 Gu, D. 162, 164 Guo, F. 161 Gutting, G. 197 Guzma´n, E. 320 Gyamtso, D. 187 Haddad, W. 430, 441, 447 Hallam, S. 174 Hamilton, S.F. 358 Hannum, E. 134, 146 Hanson, M. 312 Hanushek, E.A. 376, 379, 428 Haraway, D. 94
541 Harbeson, J.W. 66 Harding, S. 94 Hargreaves, E. 185 Harley, A. 435–436, 445 Hart, G. 269 Hartwick, E. 191 Hashim, I. 480–481, 484 Haski, P. 110 Hasnain, K. 95 Haugen, V. 168 Henfry, S.A. 168 Henrı´ quez, N. 267–268 Henzi, P. 480, 484 Herman, E. 527 Herman, H.D. 357 Hernes, G. 512 Herna´ndez Zamora, G. 297 Heung, V.W.K. 155, 167–168, 173, 176 Heward, C. 118–119 Heyneman, S.P. 458, 510, 532 Higgins, L. 69 Hill, H. 379, 384 Hill, M. 115 Ho, F.C. 167–168, 176 Hoshino, T. 35 Hostens, G., 331, 333 Hui, K.F. 167–168, 176 Hussein, I. 417 Imber, M.F. 527 Isbell, R. 511 Isenberg, J. 511, 514 Jagannathan, S. 207 Jalongo, M. 511, 514 Jamtsho, S. 187–188, 190–191 Jensen, J. 437 Jolly, R. 526 Jones, P.W. 99, 521, 523, 525, 529, 534 Jones, R. 510 Jones, T.J. 494
542 Josephine, J. 222, 231 Joyce, B. 386 Kabeer, N. 121, 147, 484 Kain, J. 376, 379 Kainath, G.S. 224 Kalman, J. 298, 302 Kamens, D. 462 Kandeh, J. 495 Kapur, D. 529 Karan, A.K. 222, 228 Karchung, K. 181 Kardar, S. 86 Kargbo, J. 503–504 Karikorpi, M. 207 Karumnachery, L. 79 Kattan, R. 398, 405 Katz, L.F. 239 Katzkowicz, R. 276 Kellaghan, T. 346 Kelly, M. 417 Kennedy, P. 350 Kiluva-Ndunda, M. 418 King, E. 115 King, J. 379 King, K. 69 Kitamura, Y. 31, 65 Klasen, S. 115, 124 Kobiane´, J. 356 Konadu, D.A. 379 Kroeber, A. 110–111, 124, 145, 148 Kudus, S. 168 Kumar, K. 244 Laclau, E. 95, 103 Ladd, H.F. 379–380, 433, 441 Laird, D.J. 187–188, 190–191 Latapı´ Sarre, P. 311–312, 315, 318 Law, S.Y. 167–168, 176 Lee, W.O. 171 Lee, Y.H. 162, 171 Lemon, A. 354
AUTHOR INDEX Lewis, J.P. 529 Li, D. 134 Liang, B. 162 Liddell, C. 480, 484 Lipman, P. 259 Little, A. 185–186, 196 Liu, J. 109 Liu, Q.L. 163, 171 Liu, W. 128 Lloyd, L. 185–186, 196 Lo, M.K. 168 Lockheed, M.E. 347–348 Lopez-Acevedo, G. 316 Loxley, W. 510 Lo´pez de Castilla, M. 265 Luckman, T. 102 Luk, F.Y.Y. 167–168, 176 Lumumba-Kasongo, T. 344 Lutta-Mukhebi, M. 410 Lynch, N. 265–270, 272 Ma, Y. 128 Maarman, R.F. 357 Macaulay, L. 86 Macedo, B. 276 Maema, M. 376 Mafanga, S. 446 Mafu, N. 427 Makuwira, J. 191 Malambo, I.C. 414 Malaney, P. 366 Mandebvu, O.S. 346 Manset, G. 163 Manzoor, A. 429 Marcoux, R. 356 Marphatia, A. 270, 272 Martin, A.B. 186 Martin, C.J. 305, 314, 317, 320 Martin, J.R. 80–81 Martis, R.F. 326 Martı´ nez, A. 279 Martı´ nez Rizo, F. 308 Maslak, M.A. 118
Author Index Mason, D.A. 185–186 Mason, E.S. 529 Matsuura, K. 500, 510 Maxwell, T.W. 181, 185, 187–188, 190–192, 196 Mayer, J.W. 462 McClain, N.C. 168 McElroy, E. 414 McEwan, P. 185 McGinn, N.F. 41, 462 McGrath, S. 69, 440 McLaren, P. 79 McNicoll, G. 411 Mehrotra, S. 42, 56, 387 Mendieta, G. 285, 288, 290, 293, 297–298 Merryfield, M.M. 344 Metcalf, B. 99 Meyen, E.L. 156 Meyer, J.W. 462 Miller, T. 110–111, 124, 145, 148 Miranda, A. Peru´, 265 Monk, D.H. 379 Montera, C. 185 Mooij, J. 224, 228–229, 231 Morgan, W. J., 378 Mosha, H. 510 Mothibeli, A. 376 Motivans, A. 363 Mouffe, C. 95, 103 Mputu, H.A. 111, 147 Mu, K.L. 163 Mundy, K. 59, 459, 532 Murnane, R.J. 376, 379 Murphy, L. 59 Muthukrishna, N. 157 Mwiria, K. 347, 488 Na, X. 173 Nagel, J. 462 Namgay, Reid, J.M. 187 Nandy, A. 96
543 Naseem, M.A. 73, 88, 103 Nayyar, A.H. 95 Ncube, M. 354 Nederveen Pieterse, J. 191 Nu´n˜ez Barbosa, M. 301 Nieuwenhuys, O. 482 Ninnes, P. 181, 191 Njabili, A.F. 346 Noddings, N. 80–81 Nussbaum, M. 122 Nyerene, J.K. 343, 347 O’Connell, J. 339 Olivier, A. 347 Orivel, F. 270 Ornelas, C. 310 Ouedraogo, A. 378 Panchamukhi, P.R. 242 Panneflek, A 327–329, 331 Pape, J. 354 Paracka, D. J. 494–495, 498 Pardo, M. 312, 322 Parker, A.N. 211 Patricia, M. 312 Patrinos, A. 428, 444 Pausewang, S. 478 Pearson, V. 168 Peet, R. 191 Pegurri, E.B. 414 Peltzer, K. 437–438, 441–442 Peng, J. 109, 128 Perraton, H. 384 Perry, H. 441 Pessima, J.L. 495 Phillips, B.R. 376, 379 Phillips, D. 184 Phillips, H. M. 525 Phurutse, M.C. 161, 437, 440 Piao, Y.X. 162, 171 Pieck, E. 302 Pigou, C. 219 Pilon, M. 481
544 Poon McBrayer, K.F. 163 Potts, P. 161, 163, 171–172, 174 Preston, W. 527 Pretorius, B. 446 Pridmore, P. 185 Pripathi, A., 222, 231 Priyam, M. 244 Prouty, B. 54 Pryor, J., 379 Psacharopoulos, G. 428, 444, 530 Rabten, W. 181 Rahman, F. 87 Ramachandran, V. 242 Ramirez, F. 258 Rangarajan, C. 241 Rani, P.G. 201, 239 Rayfield, J.R. 344 Reimers, F. 41, 308, 314, 322 Renner, J. 493 Rhoten, D. 459 Richards, S.B. 156 Riddell, A. 41 Rigby, J. 308 Rivkin, S. 376, 379 Ro¨mer, R.A. 332 Robert, B. 418 Robinson, B. 384 Rodriguz, C., 322 Roithmayr, D. 434, 440 Rong, X. 125 Rose, P. 50, 55–56, 65 Ross, H. 109, 118 Roy-Campbell, Z.M. 346 Rubagumya, C.M. 345 Ruddell, D. 339 Ruiz Caro, A 267 Rwanyange, R. 69 Sachs, J. 396, 418, 422 Saha, L.J. 340, 353 Saigol, R. 87, 92 Salazar Herrera, C. 275
AUTHOR INDEX Salia-Bao, K. 344 Samoff, J. 69, 339, 349–350, 353, 462 Sandoval, E. 317 Sarangapani, P.M. 207 Saxena, S. 244 Scanlon, D.G. 339 Schaffner, J. A 480, 482 Schiller, H. 527 Schmelkes, S. 298, 302 Schriewer, J. 331 Seeberg, V. 109, 134 Segun, A. 378 Semali, L. 395, 417 Sen, A. 122, 241, 244 Sewell, J.P. 528 Shah, A. 210 Sharma, A. 242 Shaw, C. 270 Shi, T. 125 Shoji, M. 34 Showers, B. 386 Siamatowe, C.D. 414 Sibli, M. 185 Sikazwe, A.C. 414 Sin, K.F. 167–168, 176 Skrtic, T. 156 Sleeter, C. 79 Smith, H. 63 Smith, P. 260, 269–270 Smith, S. 386 Smith, T.M. 363 Snyder, C.W. 462 Sobel, I. 340 Solorzano, C. 314 Soltis, J. 79 Soudien, C. 397 Spohr, C.A. 118 Stambach, A. 418 Stein, H. 350 Steinberg, R. 269, 272 Steiner-Khamsi, G. 184, 331 Stephens, D. 345–347 Sternberg, L. 156
Author Index Stewart, F. 526 Steyn, H.J. 357 Steyn, S.C. 348, 352–353, 357 Stiglitz, J. 269 Stromquist, N.P. 121, 257 Stubbs, S. 157 Subrahmanian, R. 274 Sua´rez, M. 297 Syed, A. 104 Tan, G. 109 Tang, S. 164 Taseer, S. 104 Tatto, M.T. 315 Taylor, N. 437 Taylor, R.L. 156 Tenzin, W. 187–188, 190–191 Thanh, T. 185 Thinley, P. 187 Thomas, M. 495 Thousand, J.S. 156 Tilak, J.B.G. 206, 221, 227 Tlou, J. 344 Tomasevski, K. 64, 175, 441 Tormala-Nita, R.C. 325 Torres, R.M. 260 Toye, J. 68 Tronvoll, K. 478 Tsang, M. 134 Tuijnman, A. 331, 333 Turrittin, J. 343 Umayahara, M. 308 Urch, G.F. 345 Utsumi, S. 68 Valde´z, C. 322 Van Driem, G. 188 Van Wyk, K. 445 Vandemoortele, J. 42, 56 Vargas, R.E., 312 Varghese, N.V. 203, 206, 222, 231 Vasavi, A.R. 207
545 Vavrus, F. 118, 418–419 Veenman, S. 186 Verspoor, A.M., 347–348 Vexler, I. 261, 263 Villa, R.A. 156 Villegas-Reimers, E. 384, 386 Vislie, L. 159 Visvanathan, N. 118–119 Viswanathan, B. 245 Vlachou, A. 156 Ve´lez, E. 315 Waghid, Y. 434 Wang, H.B. 162, 164, 171 Wang, S. 118, 128, 140, 173 Wang, Z. 161 Watson, K. 69 Webb, R. 529 Weeks, S.G. 357 Weiler, H. 274 Welle-Strand, A. 346, 348 Wells, C. 527 Welmond, M. 270 Wenglinsky, H. 379, 384 White, H., 68 Wiley, D. 379, 384 Wilson, S. 439, 448 Wiseman, A.W. 183–184, 459, 462 Wiseman, J. 217 Wolhuter, C.C. 337, 345–346, 348, 352–353, 357 Wong, K.P. 168 Wong, S. 168 Wong, S.–Y. 462 Xiao, D. 128 Xiao, F. 162, 164 Xu, B.L. 163 Yamada, S. 453, 481 Yang, H.L. 162–164, 171
546 Yates, J. 431 Ye, L.Y. 171 Yip, E. 167, 173, 176 Yip, N.S.Y. 167–168, 176 Yoloye, E.A.S. 344 Yoon, B. 379, 384 Yu, D. 164
AUTHOR INDEX Yuen, C. 167, 173, 176 Yuen, Y.M. 167–168, 176 Zhang, T. 128 Zhao, Y. 161 Zhou, W. 128 Zigmond, N. 156
SUBJECT INDEX discourse policy 259 Donor Coordination 37, 60–61, 65
access to education 34, 75, 81, 101, 119, 134, 163, 170, 398, 408, 446, 500, 504, 509, 515 Addis Ababa Plan 340, 523 advocacy 47, 172, 411, 509, 512 allocations 76, 125, 202, 204, 207, 208, 210–213, 216, 220–222, 224, 226, 228–231, 233–238, 240, 264, 266, 271–272, 364, 379, 387, 414, 434, 501, 514
Educational finance x EFA global monitoring 79 EFA Global Monitoring Reports 41, 62, 65, 76, 115, 118, 306, 329–330, 332, 352, 404, 409, 510 EFA goals 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 45, 50, 52–53, 61–62, 67, 74, 76, 91, 112, 114, 146, 181–182, 197, 261, 270, 306, 309, 312–313, 320, 326–327, 333, 396, 398–400, 407, 412, 416, 421–422, 429, 437, 442, 444–445, 447, 500 EFA High-Level Group Meeting (HLG) 38–41, 49, 53, 65 equity 53, 120–121, 124, 144, 168, 172, 201–202, 219, 228, 230–231, 233, 235–237, 242, 249, 258, 261, 265, 271, 274, 306, 348, 353, 382, 400, 410, 430, 438, 443, 446, 500–501, 510, 512, 515, 530, 532 external debt 266, 270–272, 275, 532
basic education policy 443 Bhutan x, xv, 181–197 Bhutan’s EFA goals 186, 190–191 Bhutanese 182–184, 187–193, 195–196 Centrally Sponsored Schemes: 203, 205, 207–208, 217, 226, 241, 249 Child Labor 66, 410, 412, 416, 439 China xiv, 65, 67, 109–115, 117–121, 123–129, 131–137, 139, 141, 143–149, 151, 153, 155, 157–158, 160–164, 170–176, 410, 528 China, inclusive education 171 civil society 32, 37, 46–48, 52–53, 59, 63, 66, 68, 75, 90, 257, 259–261, 263, 265, 267, 269, 271–273, 275, 277, 284, 355, 412, 447, 524–525, 536 colonial education 337, 339 colonial educational 86–87
failed states 499–500, 515–516 Fast-Track Initiative (FTI) 32, 38, 45, 48–49, 62, 65, 67–68 Flagship Programmes 39, 65
decentralization 100, 263, 274, 286, 306, 310, 312–313, 319–321, 436, 501, 508 disabilities 127, 155–156, 158–159, 161–175, 208
G8 Summits 42, 68 Global Campaign for Education (GCE) 47–48, 59, 66–68 547
548 HIV-AIDS 116, 146, 269, 272, 356, 366, 374, 396, 400, 405, 407, 409, 413–417, 420, 423, 441, 444, 447 Hong Kong ix, 155, 157–158, 160–161, 165–168, 170–176 inclusive education ix, xiv, 65, 155–161, 164, 166, 168–170, 175–176 India x, xv, 51, 53, 65, 67, 86, 91, 97–98, 186–187, 201–208, 214, 218, 221, 223, 225, 228–230, 233, 239–240, 243–244, 247, 255 Indians 98, 187, 196, 240 indigenous populations 258, 268, 275, 339 Indonesia 67, 155, 157–158, 160–161, 168–171, 173–176 Indonesian 168–169 learning difficulties 160, 165–166, 170 Learning in Regular Classrooms 163–164 like equity 242 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 52, 66, 117, 202, 260, 266, 272, 275, 306, 396, 399, 496, 522 MINEDAF conferences 337, 349 Missionary education 337–339 multigrade teaching 181–182, 184–186, 188–193, 195–196 nationalism 73, 75, 77, 79, 81–83, 85, 87–89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 344 Netherlands Antilles xv, 325–333 official development assistance (ODA) 42, 45, 54, 66 Pakistan 67, 75, 81–89, 91–92, 95–102, 104 Pakistanis 82, 88, 93, 98, 101
SUBJECT INDEX policy borrowing 181, 184, 196–197 post-apartheid South Africa 431, 433 poverty alleviation 429, 530 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) 50–51, 61, 271 professional development 365, 379, 384, 386, 390, 412, 446 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) xv, 201, 203–205, 207–209, 212–213, 215, 218–221, 223–225, 227–229, 236, 239, 241, 243, 245–246, 248–249 Sierra Leone xv, 358, 402, 410, 493–496, 497–500, 502–503, 506, 509–516 Sierra Leonean civil society 508 social inclusion 266, 429 Sub-Saharan Africa 51, 83, 337–339, 341, 343–345, 347, 349–353, 355–359, 361, 363, 365–367, 369, 371, 373–375, 377–379, 381, 383, 385, 387, 389, 391, 393, 398, 400, 403, 405–407, 409, 413–415, 419, 435, 443, 494 Teacher qualifications 375 teachers’ academic skills 379, 382 The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) 47, 66 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 36, 60, 65, 78, 115–116, 126, 143–144, 184, 186, 190–191, 196, 259, 261, 270, 306, 522 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 36, 83, 111–112, 123, 522 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 36, 38–41, 47, 51, 60, 65, 67–69, 76–79, 110, 112, 118, 121, 124, 144, 146, 259–261, 269–270, 306, 321, 326, 328, 340–341, 343, 345, 348–349, 351, 353–356, 430, 433–435, 438, 443, 446, 500, 522
Subject Index universal primary education (UPE) 34, 42, 49–50, 52–53, 56–57, 76, 82, 101, 182, 202, 260, 280, 306, 321, 364–365, 367–369, 371, 376–377, 387–388, 395, 397, 399, 401, 403, 405, 407, 409, 411, 413, 415, 417, 419, 421, 423, 425, 522 Working Group Meeting on EFA (WGEFA) 38–39, 41, 65 World Bank 32, 36, 38, 42, 46, 48–51, 53–57, 59–62, 65–68, 99, 118,
549 124–125, 146, 158, 176, 186, 259, 261, 270–272, 306–307, 312, 314, 316, 320, 337–338, 346–347, 349–350, 352–353, 355–356, 358, 396, 415, 504, 512, 522, 524, 526, 528–535 World Bank’s FTI 52, 61 World Conference on Education for All 202, 260, 280, 349, 430, 496, 521–523 World Education Forums xiii, 33, 59, 110, 202, 273, 349 World Trade Organization (WTO) 272
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