As education sector funders develop new patterns of collaboration they are re-directing support to education ministries or national budgets. Donor focus on formal primary education has been at the expense of support to adult literacy and other out-of-school programmes. Coordination among funding agencies may have led to neglect of national and local needs. The voices of teachers and other education workers are being silenced by reforms.

A team led by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Goss Gilroy Inc. and Education for Change Ltd examined the effectiveness of external support to basic education in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Zambia. Their final report presents the results of an evaluation commissioned by a consortium of thirteen agencies.

Determining the volume and shape of education aid is difficult due to the different ways donors classify and report their financial contributions. It is, nevertheless, clear that support to basic education did not increase from 1990 (date of the landmark Education For All conference in Jomtien) to the 2000 Dakar commitment to Education for All (EFA) at the rate that could have been expected from the nature of the commitments made. There is still a wide gap between the funding required to achieve the EFA goals for 2015 and the support actually being provided.

The evaluators noted that:

• Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps) may boost national ownership but do not necessarily improve partnerships when used rigidly rather than as a flexible process: some SWAps have caused disagreement among donors.
• Donor reliance on templates and prescribed solutions to achieve EFA objectives has been detrimental to a commitment to partnership, undervalued the capacities of partners and sometimes limited the relevance of programmes and projects.
• Support for adult literacy, early childhood education and youth and adult life skills education is largely channeled through non-governmental organisations (NGOs), thus weakening capacity and commitment of responsible government ministries.
• The trend in the increase of SWAps has not noticeably reduced the administrative burden for host governments: progress on developing joint administrative procedures has been slowed by donor reluctance to accept local processes as adequate.
• In the four countries studied there has been a shift of technical assistance towards management rather than education-specific expertise such as teacher education and curriculum development.
• The goal of achieving gender parity in primary and secondary school enrolment is proving harder to reach than expanding overall levels of enrolment.

Some programmes to expand coverage and improve efficiency are seen as undermining teachers’ professional status, such as measures to cut salaries or reduce teacher training time. Reforms are being held back because the stakeholders are excluded and there is no strong sense of ownership on the part of national governments.

The evaluation team recommends that donors should:

• complement the trend towards supporting basic education through SWAps by appreciating the positive role projects can play in encouraging innovations and offering targeted support to marginalised groups
• attach more value to the views and participation of students, parents and teachers in programme design
• simplify and coordinate their administrative requirements and procedures with other external agencies and with partner governments
• stop channelling funds to non-formal education and adult literacy only through NGOs
• re-emphasise the importance of gender parity in policies on basic education
• offer long-term commitment to ensure planning towards achievement of EFA targets is not subject to dramatic fluctuations in short-term external support.

External agencies are clearly willing to develop deeper and more effective partnerships with national partners. However, this goodwill is threatened by pressures to accelerate progress towards the achievement of quantifiable goals in basic education through the application of standardised solutions.

Source(s):
‘Local solutions to global challenges: towards effective partnership in basic education’ by Ted Freeman and Sheila Dohoo Faure, September 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs

id21 Research Highlight: 26 June 2006

Further Information:
Ted Freeman and Sheila Dohoo Faure
Goss Gilroy Inc.
Suite 900
150 Metcalfe
Ottawa, ONK2P-1P1
Canada

Tel: + 1 613 230-5577
Fax: + 1 613 235-9592
Contact the contributor: tfreeman@ggi.ca

Goss Gilroy Inc

Other related links:
'Is the international community getting serious about EFA?'

'Education for all by 2015: how aid can help'

'Far from the front line: how likely is universal primary completion by 2015?'

'Going into a decline? Assessing global aid flows to education'