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World
Education Forum
Dakar, Senegal 26-28 April 2000 |
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| Working
with the business community to strengthen basic education |
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Issues
Paper
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| Strategy
Session II.3 |
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Original
: English
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 Among
the many challenges facing the education sector worldwide is
its capacity to foster development, inspire new ideas and empower
people, young and old, to live freely and fully. A key question
within this challenge is how to adapt or redefine the processes
that engage local education authorities, community associations,
international organizations, NGOs, businesses and financial
institutions in today's interdependent world. How to find ways
to take advantage of the more positive aspects of globalization
that may or may not fit well into the local community, its culture,
languages, interests and concerns -- whose defenders are not
always friendly to change. |
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Although education may appear to be a socio-political issue
or no immediate concern to the business community, there is
a strong correlation between an educated society and the establishment
of democratic institutions and market-based economies. With
some 130 million primary school-age children in developing countries
out of school today, and 60% of them being girls, obviously
this situation does not contribute to the conditions necessary
for well-functioning government, business and civil society.
What can a country's external partners (intergovernmental, bilateral
and non-governmental organizations, as well as businesses) do
to help turn this situation around by supporting and complementing
its own efforts to expand and improve its education system? |
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| This Strategy
Session will explore three interdependent areas that should
provide the background for answers to this question: |
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(i)
Educational content and materials. Who produces them? Who
pays for them? Who can drive the cooperation among partners
to produce and finance and deliver them?
(ii)
Stimulation from the financial sector. What funding mechanisms
work, and can work better with more creativity and commitment,
to expand infrastructures, reduce the burdens on public
coffers and provide the needed technical assistance?
(iii)
Communication systems. How best to take advantage of information
technology to underpin efforts towards educating and informing
the public?
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In all three of these areas, the players involved exhibit fierce
rivalries for markets, innovation, expansion and rugged competition
to hire and keep the best people. With new technologies and
ways of providing and attracting monies being invented almost
daily, and with the concomitant increase in global systemic
pressures on local communities, education systems find it hard
to meet the many changing demands and learning needs. External
partners also find it difficult to keep up, to hit this moving
target -- the "strengthening of basic education" - since they
are also in a state of flux and businesses depend on profits
to stay alive. |
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| 1. Cooperation
in basic education content and materials |
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What can be done in respect to the first of the above areas
- basic education materials - which is so often prohibitively
costly in the developing world? One possibility would be to
marry change (inevitable) with sustainability (not inevitable)
by sponsoring the creation and interchange of school-created
materials that reflect the realities and concerns of local communities
and that can also generate revenues. |
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This
implies the design and implementation of local solutions to
local problems. Rather than thinking in terms of transferring
technology and skills between schools in the "north" and schools
in the "south", this other approach would seek the efficient
sharing of experiences and materials among schools in the
same region, across borders, via "south to south" cooperation.
In this manner the participating schools could reduce costs
and avoid duplication of effort, but this would require cooperation
among the education authorities, which could be actively supported
by the various external partners.
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Here, there would be a need for specific actors - "producers"
or "project promoters" - to manage the setting of common goals,
the overall production, the evaluation and promotional activities,
thereby creating the working space necessary so that each partner
can do what it does best, with a view to meeting basic learning
needs more efficiently and productively. |
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An ideal "project promoter" would bring four skills
to the table: (i)cross-cultural skills, including working proficiency
in the language used among partners and schools; (ii) technical
skills and expertise in publishing, multi-media productions,
or Internet-based communications; (iii) promotional skills,
working with communications or marketing departments in the
public and private sectors, promoting mutual confidence and
trust; and (iv) collaborative and reciprocal leadership skills,
valuing diversity, inclusion and shared power. |
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The premise here is that the school should no longer be a mere
receptor of educational contents; rather it should be a producer
of new ideas and contents, getting support among a range of
partners, who in turn can see the benefits of building education-based
capacities. As such, the role of the project promoter is to
construct and sustain this "community" of interested parties,
creating a "cooperation platform" that delivers contents from
the external world to the schools and channels each school's
own contribution back to the external world. |
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In recent years there has been a range of innovative initiatives
that illustrate kinds of cooperation possible between the business
community, civil society and local education authorities. Some
use new technologies and the Internet, such as the World Bank's
"World Links for Development Program", the projects within the
I*EARN framework and those created and carried out by non-profit
organizations such as the Concord Consortium in Massachusetts,
USA, which promotes science and math and literacy programs using
a variety of software and communications technology. |
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Others are more decidedly geared towards the "low-tech" end
of the spectrum, such as UNHCR's "home-based school for girls"
in Pakistan, which focuses on developing education materials
for a specific group of learners - in this case, girls unable
to attend schools - with the support of Save the Children. |
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Using either high or low tech, one way to enable schools to
work on themes of interest to their community is the creation
of "local educative kits". Earth Action, an NGO, uses an advocacy
approach to doing this, whereas the World Wide Fund for Nature,
in partnership with the World Bank, works with governments,
the private sector and civil society to produce materials for
the education of students and teachers with a view to reducing
the loss and degradation of all forest types world-wide. |
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The fact that educational materials are being produced and made
available in this way - the fruit of the cooperation between
NGOs, financial institutions, and public authorities -- points
to the benefits that can be achieved when all parties recognize
the pedagogical value, and the added value for the community,
of creating such educational materials. |
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The fundamental issue here is helping the local community to
take more control of and responsibility for its schools and
the quality of education. This entails finding ways for the
local community to contribute to providing and paying for its
own education services and materials. |
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The national EFA assessments that preceded the World Education
Forum show the need for closer cooperation between the public
and private sectors in order to move more rapidly towards EFA
goals. |
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| 2. Funding
for education |
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Despite the clear connection between the level of financial
support to basic education and performance outcomes, the possibilities
for increased public spending on education are limited and fluctuate
according to economic conditions. Nevertheless, there are opportunities
for governments and development agencies and financial institutions
to devise plans and practices to cushion investments in social
development, such as education, against the fluctuations in
markets and volatile national economies. There can also be some
creative uses of finances that add value to the private sector
in operations with the public sector in the area of education
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The possibility exists of organizing national capital markets
to serve the long-term finance of education services, or of
issuing of municipal bonds to attract private sector money for
education projects. The key shift in finance will take place
as cities, states and national governments issue bonds for dedicated
purposes, including education. Though this is an ideal way in
many economies to raise funds for capital expansion of school
systems and public universities, there are caveats. |
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One is the degree to which the processes of due diligence --
by which borrowers organize themselves for scrutiny of the financial
markets -- will force the financial community and the public
authorities to ensure that sound plans and management practices
are in place. Another relates to foreign debt: the G-7 Cologne
agreement (1999) opens the door even more to debt reduction
linked to added domestic finance for education, but debt reduction
on these terms could be accompanied by conditionalities. |
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What, then, are the implications for national education authorities
and for their external partners? While public authorities need
to view the private financial community as a potential ally
and to anticipate a growing market for privately financed and
even privately run education, external partners need to work
with the domestic partners to set a common agenda that ensures
that external investments make a positive contribution to the
development of education. |
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At present, the pace of interest and activity among leading
donors in the fostering of national debt markets is unacceptably
low. The World Bank ought to place as much priority on fostering
ways for private finance to help the public sector in developing
countries as it has placed on encouraging private finance to
help the relatively better off private sector. Although the
first aim of the donor community is to work on poverty reduction,
education is clearly the most important factor we know of that
can help reduce poverty and increase well being. |
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Multilateral development banks could help provide collateralized
bond obligations (CBOs) for social development, including education,
in part by leveraging their own substantial reserves. Also,
an aid agency, or a consortium of aid agencies, could provide
the equity, e.g., the seed capital, to 'collateralize' it and
to cushion against cash flow uncertainties on loan repayment.
In other words, debt can be issued in the market backed by future
inflows of the projects financed by it and by equity. |
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All in all, a more aggressive view could and should be taken
to expand resources for education systems, with financial engineers
crafting ways for education to move ahead within the whole of
social development. And in keeping with this view, bold business
inputs from the information sectors are required, as access
to knowledge and the ability to make informed decisions based
on that knowledge are the cornerstone of healthy democracies
and market economies. |
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| 3. Using
the new information technologies |
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Fortunately, for the most part it is true that businesses and
their philanthropic foundations are becoming more environmentally
and socially responsible for their actions. For many different
reasons they see the need for sharing their values with their
workers, clients and the local community; for exploring new
ways to communicate their messages to create favorable public
opinion, and for transmitting their pluri -dimensional commitment
to the society in which they work. The telecommunications industry
is no exception, creating networks for teaching and learning
and the platforms for building educational content and delivering
it to schools and universities. |
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However, beyond the delivery of educational content, a key question
is how can telecommunications companies and their foundations
provide efficient, non-discriminatory access to learning opportunities
without alienating the public education system? How can they
complement public efforts to improve the quality of education?
Some of the more common options are distance learning programmes
backed by public authorities, training in information technologies,
fostering of cross-sectoral partnerships, adopting or sponsoring
schools, providing scholarships, and contributing to the professional
development of teachers. |
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| 4. New
ideas and new approaches |
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Arguably, there needs to be more forward-looking thinking, more
attention to the interactions between diverse business cultures
in setting standards and measuring the social returns for business'
investments and activities in education. Perhaps there is still
too much reliance on traditional Anglo-Saxon approaches and
solutions, whereas efforts could be made to enhance the communication
capacities and problem-solving styles in the Latin American
countries, the Arab States, the Pacific Rim countries, Eastern
and Central European countries, and in Asian and African countries. |
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The point here is that other models need to be encouraged,
which requires not only a better understanding between commercial
and education interests, but a more forward-looking approach
regarding the funding and initiative that developing countries
will need.
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To help effect this kind of change, countries' external partners
can serve as catalysts for ideas and actions, working with a
wide range of local public and private actors, universities,
"think tanks", NGOs and development agencies, to carry out impartial
research and facilitate much-needed and healthy debate on change
and what it entails. |
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Foundations should be at the forefront in stimulating this kind
of reflection and action. For example, through their sponsorship,
greater interaction between the communications industry and
the education system could take place, which could tackle issues
ranging from laws on intellectual property to tax laws to encourage
philanthropy. Through their support for such cross-pollination
of ideas and practices between the business and education communities,
some of the financial and intellectual burden on governments
could be reduced. |
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Clearly, government has the primary responsibility for funding
basic education, but other actors in each country need to become
more involved, both in providing additional financial resources
and also in bringing diverse approaches, experience and innovation
to improve and strengthen the provision of basic education. |
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