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Inter-agency
evaluation of development assistance to basic
education
A number of bilateral and multilateral donor
agencies have agreed to carry out an inter-agency
evaluation of development assistance to basic
education. During a meeting on 23 February
in The Hague, representatives of Canada, Denmark,
the European Commission, Germany, Ireland,
the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UNESCO, UNICEF,
United Kingdom and the World Bank decided
on the content and procedures for the proposed
evaluation.
The
meeting decided that the evaluation should
be a guiding post for the Dakar follow-up
process by analysing the processes and results
of development assistance to basic education
in partner countries.
The
results of the evaluation are expected to
be used in several ways: as inputs into the
design of agency strategies, in the context
of discussing specific management and partnership
issues, to improve practice in the field,
to identify best practices and to improve
aid efficiency and effectiveness.
Participants also stressed that basic education
should be seen in the wider context of poverty,
gender, HIV/AIDS, and sectoral and intersectoral
issues. Five countries will be invited to
participate in the evaluation.
As soon as the terms of reference for the
evaluation are finalized, an evaluation team
will be selected through an international
competitive bidding process. The evaluation
will be co-ordinated by an inter-agency steering
committee and a management group, lead by
the Netherlands.
Latin American and Caribbean nations adopt
Cochabamba Declaration on education
The
Cochabamba Declaration and a series of recommendations
concerning educational policies were adopted
by participants in the three-day meeting of
the Regional Intergovernmental Committee of
the Major Project for Education (PROMEDLAC
VII), organized by UNESCO in Bolivia from
5-7 March.
The
Conference, a landmark for the future of education
in Latin America and the Caribbean, brought
together delegations from most countries in
the region, including sixteen Ministers of
Education and fifteen Deputy Ministers. It
was opened on 5 March by the President of
Bolivia, Hugo Banzer.
The
Cochabamba Declaration reaffirms the determination
of countries to find new ways to achieve the
targets of Education for All. The Ministers
of Education of Latin America and the Caribbean
state that to achieve a qualitative leap in
education, "education systems must accelerate
the pace of change in order to not fall behind
changes that are taking place in other parts
of society."
Recalling
the irreplaceable part teachers play in achieving
quality learning, the signatories also stress
that "the participation of new actors and
the introduction of new technologies should
work to reinforce the professional role of
teachers." They add: "Within a region of growing
social inequality, the strengthening and the
transformation of public education represents
a key mechanism for effective social democratization."
Finally,
the Cochabamba Declaration requests UNESCO
to organize in co-operation with the region’s
ministers "a Regional Project with a fifteen-year
perspective", taking into account unattained
objectives and emerging challenges.
Ten
regional workshops on education data collection
The
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) this
week launches a second round of ten regional
workshops. The objective of the workshops
is to evaluate the education data collection
exercise for the school year 1998/99 called
Survey 2000 and to launch Survey 2001, the
data collection exercise for 1999/2000. Last
year a series of nine workshops brought together
some 240 education and statistics experts
from 130 countries.
Tentative
dates for the Survey 2001 workshops (to be
confirmed):
*
19-23 March 2001- Barbados (Caribbean)
* 26-30 March 2001- Panama (Latin America)
* 26-30 March 2001- Senegal (French-speaking
Africa)
* 1-5 April 2001- Zimbabwe (English-speaking
Africa)
* 23-27 April 2001- Gabon (French-speaking
Africa)
* 7-11 May 2001 - Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia)
* 14-18 May 2001- Morocco (Arab States)
* 28 May-1 June 2001- Lithuania (Central and
Eastern Europe)
* 4-8 June 2001 - Lao People's Democratic
Republic (South East Asia)
* 11-15 June 2001- Fiji (Pacific)
Survey
2001 (and Survey 2000 before it) aims to collect
the basic statistics necessary to calculate
the set of key education indicators that are
considered to be of highest priority. These
indicators were chosen on the basis of their
frequency of use by Member States, regional
and international organizations, and other
main users. The list includes indicators such
as gross and net enrolment ratios, student/staff
ratios and selected indicators on education
finance.
Contact: Alison Kennedy, UIS / E-mail:
a.kennedy@unesco.org
Expert meeting on funding needs in education
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
hosted an expert meeting on education finance
policy issues and data needs on 12-13 March.
Bringing together policy researchers, economists
and statisticians, the meeting discussed working
papers on the estimation of the additional
expenditure needed to achieve universal primary
education by 2015, the mobilization of external
resources for education and the obstacles
faced in financing education at the national
level.
One
important outcome of the meeting was the evaluation
of available indicators on education finance
and their deficiencies. Participants helped
to establish priorities to meet the demand
for policy-relevant data. They also gave valuable
input based on a draft strategy paper on improving
the quality of education finance data (which
was commissioned by UIS and discussed during
the meeting) and on concrete steps for moving
it forward (e.g. possible modalities of international
co-operation).
For more information on the outcomes of the
meeting, please contact Albert Motivans of
UIS (a.motivans@unesco.org).
NGO
meeting in Nepal postponed
The
2001 Annual Meeting of the Collective Consultation
of NGOs on Education for All, originally planned
from 6-9 April in Kathmandu, has been postponed
for later this year. The postponement will
allow for more extensive consultations within
the NGO community to ensure that a broad consensus
is reached on the proposed reform of the Collective
Consultation. The new dates and the venue
will be communicated shortly.
The
South Asia Ministerial meeting on EFA will
take place in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 10-12
April, as planned.
Regional up-date on EFA activities
East and South East Asia: Practical
planning guide to be published
UNESCO Bangkok is preparing a "Basic Education
Planning Guide" to facilitate the preparation
of national EFA plans of action. It will provide
education planners and national co-ordinators
with some practical tools and instruments,
including checklists, structures of typical
EFA plans and EFA projection models.
The
guide has been prepared through a process
of consultations, most recently a regional
workshop organized by UNESCO from 19-21 February
in which seventeen participants from seven
countries participated.
The
final version of the Guide will be ready for
distribution by mid-April and will complement
the country guidelines for preparation of
national EFA plans of action, published by
UNESCO headquarters last year.
Contact:
The subregional EFA Forum (SRF) for East and
South East Asia / E-mail: srf@unesco-proap.org
Arab States: Second meeting of ARABEFA
ARABEFA, the regional mechanism to follow-up
to the Dakar Forum, has called its second
meeting on 29 March at UNESCO Beirut. Education
officers of UNESCO, UNICEF and UNDP in charge
of leading the United Nations support team
in each country are invited to attend the
meeting, in addition to the regular members
of ARABEFA (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, the
Economic and Social Commission for Western
Asia (ESCWA), the World Bank, Arab non-governmental
organizations and two education specialists).
The
meeting will discuss best ways to initiate
country support and how to ensure a good follow-up
network in the region. Other issues on the
agenda are the work plans of the four thematic
group established by ARAEFA (early childhood
development, primary education, literacy and
non-formal education, and girl's and women
education), the regional media strategy, financial
support to countries and the funding needs
of ARABEFA.
Contact:
Victor Billeh, Director, UNESCO Beirut / Email:
v.billeh@unesco.org
Africa: UNESCO/UNFPA Technical Consultation
in Dakar (15-18 May)
UNESCO
Dakar is organizing, in co-operation with
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),
a technical consultation on population and
family life education from 15-18 May at UNESCO
Dakar.
The consultation intends to mobilize and highlight
experiences in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically
to: (1) take stock of the what has been done
in population and family life education programmes;
(2) map out strategies to promote the effective
integration of population and family life
education in national EFA plans of action
in both formal and non-formal education; and
(3) define modalities for the inclusion of
new approaches such as those used in life
skills training and education programmes.
The
co-operation between UNESCO and UNFPA has
already lead to the development of population
education in education systems in over ninety
countries.
Contact: Susan Nkinyangi, Senior Education
Adviser, UNESCO/Dakar / E-mail: s.van-der-vynckt@unesco.org
Central Asia: UNESCO and UNICEF launch
series of meeting
UNESCO Almaty, in collaboration with UNICEF,
is planning to conduct five national roundtables
on Education and the United Nations Global
Movement for Children in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (late
March to early April).
The
outcomes will be presented at one of UNICEF's
consultative meetings in mid-May leading up
to the United Nations' Special Session on
Children in September. A three-day workshop,
organized by UNESCO Almaty and UNESCO Beijing,
took place in Mongolia in February.
UNESCO
Almaty is also planning to organize a subregional
workshop, with the participation of a broad
coalition of stakeholders, including governments,
media, NGOs and donors, from the same five
countries. This workshop will focus on the
progress made towards the preparation of national
EFA plans of action. It will take place in
June or September/October.
Finally, UNESCO and UNICEF plan to officially
launch the Central Asian Education Forum in
late October.
Contact:
Jorge Sequira, Director, UNESCO Almaty * E+mail:
j.sequira@unesco.org
Countries in action (in this issue: Brazil,
Morocco and Spain)
Brazil Brazil adopted a new National Education
Plan on 9 January, setting out the goals and
priorities to be met during the next ten year.
According
to the Plan, federal, state and municipal
administrations must adopt, before the decade
is over, measures to raise the schooling level
of the population, improve teaching quality
at all levels, reduce social and regional
inequalities, and increasingly democratize
the management of public education.
The
number one priority is to assure primary education
to all 7-to 14- year-old children, as well
as to youth and adults who have not yet had
a chance to attend school. The Plan demands
effective education policies to assure student's
performance and minimize drop-out. With a
school net enrolment rate of 96 per cent in
2000, Brazil is close to universal primary
education. The repetition rate, one of the
major causes for school drop-out, fell from
27 per cent to 21 per cent in the period 1996-1998.
The
eradication of illiteracy is another major
objective and the goal is to provide literacy
to 10 million youngsters and adults within
five years. In 1999, 13.3 per cent of the
population aged 15 years or older were illiterate,
amounting to some 15 million people. In 1991,
the illiteracy rate was around 20.1 per cent,
i.e. 19.2 million.
The
Brazilian Government will also continue the
expansion of secondary and higher education.
From 1994 to 2000, Brazil increased enrolment
in secondary education by 3.7 million or 81.6%.
Finally,
the new Plan puts forward the ambitious goals
of improving the access to and better quality
of early childhood education. It is expected
that by the end of the decade, 50 per cent
of 0- to 3-year-old children and 80 per cent
of 4- to 5-year-olds participate in early
childhood education programmes.
The
Brazilian National Education Plan was elaborated
in close consultation with members of civil
society, local governing bodies and the National
Congress.
Contact: Maria Helena Guimarães de Castro,
President, National Institute for Educational
Studies and Research - INEP/Brazil E-mail:
mhelena@inep.gov.br
Morocco
In Morocco the existing United Nations Theme
Group on Education, Training and Literacy
is serving as support team for the Dakar follow-up
process. In April, UNESCO and UNICEF -- on
behalf of the team -- will organize a meeting
to brief all concerned staff in the Ministry
of National Education about the Dakar objectives
and strategies.
There
will be no National EFA Forum in Morocco as
the "Charte de l'Education", currently being
adopted, involved a long series of consultations
in the preparation phase. However, it has
been proposed, as a next step, that a national
consultant will analyse the Charter and on-going
activities, etc., to extract what is appropriate
in line with the Dakar objectives/deadlines,
identify what, if any, lacunas need to be
filled in and then propose a calendar of action
and a joint programme of support to the Ministry
by the Theme Group.
Contact:
Alexis Pokrovsky, Head of UNESCO Rabat / E-mail:
a.pokrovsky@acdim.net.ma
Spain
Following
a major decentralization reform, Spain's seventeen
Autonomous Communities have, since January
2000, been responsible for managing the education
system. They are now, in close collaboration
with the central government, engaged in the
development of a national EFA plan of action.
A first meeting between the various stakeholders
was held on 27 February to decide on a calendar
and the first actions to be taken. It was
agreed to set up three sub-commissions working
on different aspects of the six Dakar goals
and to elaborate indicators to facilitate
the monitoring of progress towards achieving
these goals.
The
sub-commissions include representatives from
the Autonomous Communities, as well as from
the ministries of education, work and social
affairs. The Instituto Nacional de Evaluación
y Calidad (INCE) is collaborating closely
with the sub-commissions. The national action
plan will be finalized and presented at a
conference in December.
Dakar
follow-up on the agenda
MOBILIZING AFRICAN PARENTS -- The Fédération
Africaine des Parents d’Eleve (FAPE) organized
a workshop on the implications of the Dakar
Framework for Action for African parents (26-28
February at UNESCO Dakar). The subsequent
meeting of FAPE’s governing board adopted
a declaration urging governments in sub-Saharan
Africa to take the necessary steps to implement
the Dakar Framework and underlining FAPE's
firm commitment to actively engage in the
achievements of the Dakar goals.
IMPROVING LOCAL GOVERNANCE -- UNESCO,
in collaboration with the World Bank, organized
an international consultation on educational
governance at local levels, and more specifically,
on “what role educational governance can play
to provide access to quality education for
all by 2015" (27-28 February at UNESCO Paris).
It was agreed, inter alia, to develop a Framework
for Action and Co-operation to address priority
areas in educational governance and to conduct
an international survey to gather information
on key matters concerning local governance
in education. Contact: F. Khan, UNESCO Paris
(f.khan@unesco.org)
BASIC EDUCATION EDUCATORS -- An Experts
Meeting for the Norwegian Funds-in-Trust Project,
Basic Education Educators: Integrated Policy
and Training, was organized to review national
action plans of nine countries on how to improve
linkage between formal and non-formal sectors
in training of basic education educators (26-28
February, UNESCO Paris). Contact: Choi, Soo
Hyang, UNESCO Paris (sh.choi@unesco.org)
CIES 2001 -- The 45th annual meeting of the
Comparative and International Education Society
(CIES) took place from 14-17 March in Washington
D.C. UNESCO organized several panels on issues
including information technologies, education
policies and strategies: challenges for the
future and Education for All: linkages between
formal and non-formal education.
HIV/AIDS AND EDUCATION IN WEST AFRICA
-- A senior experts conference on HIV/AIDS
and education in West African countries will
take place 19-24 March in Accra, Ghana. Organized
by UNESCO Ghana, in co-operation with UNAIDS
Geneva and its partner organizations, the
conference will, among other things, formulate
a strategic framework for national and regional
action to support national policies and programmes,
speed up the delivery of HIV/AIDS preventive
education services to the communities and
formulate a series of regional projects to
reach these goals.
EVALUATING THE USE OF ICTs IN EDUCATION
-- An international expert meeting on "ICTs
in Education: State-of-the-Art, Needs and
Perspectives - Indicators and Information
Systems" will be held 28-30 March at the UNESCO
Institute for Information Technologies in
Education (IITE) in Moscow. Gathering some
ten to fifteen experts from Europe, Africa,
Asia and the Pacific, the meeting will seek
to evaluate the educational use of information
and communication technologies in education.
Contact: Boris Kotsik, IITE (Boris.Kotsik@iite.ru).
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