Co-convenor: Rosie Peppin Vaughan, Institute of Education, London
The growth and evolution of international collaboration on education is one of the key characteristics of the current global educational context. The establishment of the United Nations and its key constituent agencies in the 1940s galvanised early efforts, and there are now a range of policy structures, organisations, campaigns and international NGOs working transnationally on education; along with a more recent growth in private foundations and research centres. Such forms include technical assistance, training and policy advice, partnerships, transnational advocacy groups; also raising the issue of global citizenship. The drive to understand the significance and workings of these dynamics has prompted a new wave of analyses drawing on diverse academic fields including international relations, political science, and history.
Further, recent events may prompt changes in existing ways of working internationally, offering both potential challenges and new opportunities for collaboration and coordination. The last decade has seen the ongoing rise of private organisations and philanthropic foundations working at the global level and varied forms of transnational activism. The financial crisis and austerity regimes in many traditional donor countries may have an impact on their educational activities in a number of ways; and the rise of emerging economies such as China and India has led to the growth of new donors to education, along both bilateral and multilateral pathways. Besides ongoing concerns over sensitivity to local contexts and reasserting national interests, there have also recently been renewed discussions about South-South collaboration and alternatives to traditional dynamics of global cooperation. We are also witnessing a number of changes in global information systems; the wide accessibility of electronic data on education through the internet has implications for monitoring, evaluation (e.g. PISA) and also international research.
This sub-theme includes critical reflections on international cooperation on education connected to the following questions: What are the implications of the increased opportunities for the sharing of information and ideas, and are we seeing the increasing emergence of common agendas or merely a new global arena for pursuing particular interests? How are local contexts engaging with global structures, are existing power structures being challenged or reinforced, and with what effects? What can be said about the prospects for capacity development in terms of supporting international collaboration; and what factors may help to foster global partnership and collaboration in policy formation, implementation and research? In what ways can education interact with other areas of focus in global development goals, including issues of peace-building and state-building? We also seek to scrutinise the political economy of ideas about education and development as global structures continue to evolve and change; and explore the transnational trajectory of intellectual activities.
Available Papers
‘I really appreciate you saying that’: The challenges of developing a partnership
Jane Cullen, the Open University, UK
Joyce Chitsulo, FAWEMA, Malawi
Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) is a community of teacher-educators in HEIs across Africa, led by the Open University UK. FAWEMA is the Malawian chapter of FAWE, the Forum for African Women Educationalists, committed to girls’ and women’s education in Malawi. TESSA/OU and FAWEMA have been working together since 2010, and in 2013 are beginning a new 4 year project, funded by DFID Malawi. The project is to facilitate rural women’s access to teacher education, by means of a 2 year ‘school experience programme’ where the women work as Teaching Assistants in local rural schools; and a programme of supported self-study, where the women take the secondary exams which could give them entry to teacher training college. The new project has provided a context for TESSA/OU and FAWEMA to interrogate how each constructs the partnership: the opportunity to look back and look forward. Negotiating the shape of the project, the share of the budget, and the parameters of responsibilities has allowed a much wider reflection on our relationship. The perspective of DfID Malawi has been key: their oversight is both of our project and of the ‘Keeping Girls in School’ programme, of which this project is one strand. This reflection by TESSA/OU and FAWEMA on our partnership has not been a particularly comfortable process, and this paper focuses on what continue to be some of the challenges ahead, as well as the opportunities.
‘One Programme Approach in Education’
Saeed ul Hassan, Programme Manager, Education, Oxfam, GB
The paper highlights key inferences drawn from the deliberate shift in programme implementation strategy from service delivery to more advocacy and policy change work undertaken by Oxfam’s Education Programme in Pakistan. This strategic shift promotes “One Programme Approach (OPA)” which is strongly embedded in the rights based framework systematically connecting well-informed rights holders with duty bearers at local, provincial and national levels. The OPA is aimed at bringing together diverse but inherently connected programme threads to ensure a meaningful change in the lives of communities and children especially girls living in challenging contexts. 2010-12 has been significant for Oxfam but also for other actors/stakeholders to revisit the broader advocacy agenda for education in Pakistan. Oxfam‟s Girls Education Program made conscious decisions to leverage and vertically link the ongoing community level programming with policy change work at the district, provincial and national levels. The ongoing process revolves around organising and mobilising poor women and men, empowering and thus placing children and youth at the centre to demand, assert, and ultimately claim their rights. Whole School Improvement Programme strategically provides evidence and legitimacy to our broader advocacy work which revolves around ensuring gender responsive education financing through active citizenship. The idea is to avoid traditional silos between ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ sides of governance, and between education programmes, campaigns, donors and other stakeholders.
Innovations in international cooperation with universities in countries emerging from conflict
Lynne Heslop, John Law & Liz Dempsey, British Council
This paper examines innovative and alternative ways of working internationally in higher education in countries emerging from conflict through two case studies. Two British Council-supported programmes involving cooperation between the UK and Iraq and the UK and Afghanistan are examined and contrasted:
1. Development of successor generation leaders in five universities in Afghanistan through ICT-enabled peer support and dialogue with UK higher education leaders: a grass-roots, culturally-centred apolitical approach
2. Multi-dimensional engagement at state and institutional levels between universities in Iraq and the UK – a politically-driven systems level approach
The study presents lessons learned from the two different approaches and explores future directions for international cooperation in higher education in conflict-affected states. Through the case studies, this paper explores the following questions:
1. In what ways can international partnerships support the development of higher education in countries affected by conflict?
2. How do specific country contexts shape the design, development and implementation of international cooperation in higher education?
3. What innovations and alternative ways of working emerge from these case studies? What worked/didn’t work and what can we learn from them?
International agencies: What is their contribution to the future of Inclusive Education in Rwanda?
Evariste Karawanga, Director of Postgraduate Studies and Research, Kigali Institute of Education, Rwanda
Despite the increased government investment in education of all children for at least 9 years of basic education since 2007, International Agencies continue to dominate Rwandan education development, especially that of children with disabilities and other Special Educational Needs.In some communities, agency-led inclusive education projects have seen notable transformations, whereby schools have become more accommodating for learners with diverse special educational needs even where resources and awareness remain modest. Here, self-motivated ownership by local communities has generated home-grown and user-friendly innovations that benefit both mainstream and disadvantaged learners in their neighbourhood schools, with minimum support from international agencies. However, in other communities with similar agency-led projects, the tradition of leaving the children unschooled and/or dependent on charitable organizations’ services still prevails, resulting in their exclusion from education and related services.This paper will draw on two case studies, a UNICEF funded child-friendly school project, and an EU/ADDRA funded inclusive education project, to reflect on the contribution and capacity of international agencies to influence community transformations in relation to inclusive education development in Rwanda. It will briefly investigate whether the innovation fund launched jointly by DFID and the Rwandan Ministry of Education, is sufficiently nuanced to capture such community dynamics.This paper is an attempt to reflect on ways of working internationally and, in particular for Rwanda within a changing socio-political environment dominated by development agencies. The paper argues for the need to acknowledge and enlist local resources, to develop and sustain inclusive education in post-2015 Rwanda.
Information Politics and Transnational Activism in the Education for All Movement
Bronwen Magrath, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto, Canada
This paper explores transnational activism within the “Education for All” (EFA) movement, looking specifically at the strategic use of information and research by transnational advocacy organizations. Through a comparative case-study examination of two international NGOs within the EFA movement – the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) and ActionAid International – I will discuss how information about education is gathered, generated and disseminated for advocacy purposes, and what this tells us about the internal dynamics and strategies of these organizations. In particular, I will focus on the ways these organizations translate grassroots evidence into regional and global policy fora, and raise questions about how this translation process impacts the legitimacy of advocacy NGOs and the power structures between NGO headquarters and their grassroots membership.
The German BACKUP Initiative – Education in Africa: A bilateral way to better access and utilization of international funding for education
Anna Katharina Seeger, Education Advisor, GIZ with Caroline Schmidt, Education Advisor, GIZ, and Ronja Hölzer, Project Manager, GIZ
International funding mechanisms, such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the newly initiated Green Climate Fund (GCF) are the international community’s answer to tackle development hindrances in a globalized world. In 2002, the German government introduced a new route of working internationally by initiating the German BACKUP Initiative to support countries worldwide in the management of global financing from the GFATM. Based on the success of the BACKUP model, GIZ initiated in 2011 the German BACKUP Initiative – Education in Africa (BACKUP Education) to support the work of the GPE. This year an additional bilateral project was established by the GIZ, in addition to the setup of the Green Climate Fund. BACKUP Education is part of Germany’s contribution to the global effort to reach the EFA goals and to support the GPE to fulfill its mission to ensure quality education for all children, everywhere. The demand-driven initiative supports governments and civil society stakeholders in their efforts to access and effectively use international funding for education. To meet this objective, the German initiative offers rapid, flexible and tailor-made financial and technical assistance including training and South-South learning opportunities to its partners in Africa. The work of BACKUP Education is guided by the principles of aid effectiveness, conflict sensitivity, gender equality and participation by civil society organizations. This paper discusses strengths, challenges and lessons learnt of a bilateral model in support of a global fund in the education sector. The author hopes to spark a discussion on new models, methods and dynamics of development cooperation in education beyond 2015 by means of providing practical examples of supported measures.
Learning Across Borders: The collaborative creation of a monitoring, evaluation and learning framework for the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program
Clemencia Cosentino, Anca Dumitrescu, Aravind Moorthy, Anu Rangarajan, Arthur Shaw, Matt Sloan, Swetha Sridharan and Cicely Thomas: Mathematica Policy Research
Barry Burciul: The MasterCard Foundation
The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program is a secondary and university scholarship and support Program for economically disadvantaged but academically promising youth with a demonstrated commitment to social change. The Program is a $500 million, 10-year initiative to educate an estimated 15,000 young people, primarily in Africa. The Scholars Program is being implemented by a network of education institutions and non-profit organizations. The core Program interventions include comprehensive scholarships, leadership development and life skills training, academic and psychosocial support, mentorship, internships, and support for students transitioning from school to work. Evaluating a program with this wide variety of activities and partners presents a compelling case study of challenges commonly faced by program evaluators and implementers. How do evaluators ensure objectivity and independence while working closely enough with implementers to address their concerns and to efficiently leverage existing processes for data collection? How can a program-wide evaluation assess the impacts of activities that are carried out differently in each implementation context and adjusted over time to best serve the needs of participants? During the development of a monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework for the Program, Mathematica and The MasterCard Foundation addressed these challenges through an approach that strived to be collaborative and inclusive, while maintaining objectivity and rigor. The process encouraged partners to engage in every stage of the MEL development, distinguishes between Program- and partner-level measurement activities, and sought to ensure that data collection and measurement strategies would remain objective. This paper will describe the final evaluation design, critically assess the challenges and the approach taken, and will share lessons learned from the framework development process.