Discussion Paper on Education System Strengthening

Strengthening education systems through community development

It is a good and valuable paper. Definitely worth the time to read. I recommend.

I have some comments that hopefully will add some additional food for thought. I have formatted my comments by quoting in italics some important sentences I picked out of this paper (in order of appearance) and adding, in bold some words of mine that I will explore or explain.

The education system is what turns education policy and strategy into education and social outcomes.

Education needs to consider that its ultimate outcomes are the strengthening of the communities and of society as a whole. A community that educates its children but cannot offer these children a better life or job opportunities, that cannot reinsert them as a new asset, is failing these children. In a very short time this community will lose interest in the value of education. Thus countering sustained school enrolment goals.

In most developing countries there is a crying need for basic living skills in addition to, and in some cases in replacement of, some academic studies. For example, education on:

Nutrition that teaches how to produce and prepare local food,Sanitation that teaches how to build and keep a latrine (e.g. Arborloo),Ecology that teaches how to capture, use and conserve local water supplies,Healthy living that teaches do-it-yourself home construction and upkeep,Workshop skills that teach practical skills for house, furniture and boat construction.

In education outcomes one has to consider the employability of children. If a community is agrarian the education system needs to include agricultural skills. A child with great academic education that cannot make a decent living in his or her own community will migrate or revert to ancestral practices that the education system may have tried to overcome. This educated child is lost to the community and to the developing world.

The education system therefore includes the state, non-state providers and stakeholders (including civil society and private individuals and organizations) as well as the users of education services, the community, parents, their children and employers.

And this leads us to including the community as a target audience for the education system. Education has to go hand in hand with community development. Development has to go hand in hand with education. An education system in a community without development is a daunting if not impossible task for teachers. Hand washing with no water at home. Personal hygiene without a latrine at home. The importance of good nutrition with no nutritional food at home. A sleepy child in class because her home is hideously uncomfortable. A tired child who had to walk to school for two hours in the morning because there are no roads or public transportation. In developed countries we do take all of these complementary conditions for granted. But in developing countries these are crying necessities that in no way contribute to the success of any education system. Or the retention of any teacher no matter how motivated.

Most countries – developed and developing - have little problem in articulating education policy.

I cannot agree here. The overwhelming majority of education systems is not in synchronism with the needs of a large portion of social needs. I am referring to developing countries. There is way too much focus on academic skills suitable for developed countries and no attention given to more basic practical living skills. I constantly see education programs that fail to provide students with the practical skills needed for a healthy and improved insertion in society. In a developed society many of these skills are provided by the social fabric itself. Not so in societies where there are no newspapers, no magazines, no theaters and no daily examples of better ways to live and improve one’s life. In these societies the task falls on the education system and it is a proud and worthy task.

The quality of education and Learning for All is now the central agenda, and system strengthening needs to focus on enabling governments to deliver better services for better learning and social outcomes. This is proving far more difficult than expanding access.

I like this goal. I just would like to see the Learning for All to include ALL members of society. In many communities the professional skills level of carpenters, plumbers, builders, farmers, marketers, drivers, parents, care givers, is very limited. There are no daily stimuli, visual or otherwise, that can give these people new ideas and new skills. If we do not include these community members in the education system for ALL we run the risk of losing yet another generation or two before many countries see widespread social and community development.

Focusing on only one part of the system in isolation may trigger two possible risks: we ignore other parts that may also influence the expected success and we are not aware of possible (negative) consequences in other parts of the system.

And that is the danger of keeping education systems focused on school age children only. To treat the education system in isolation from the communities and societies where they are inserted is to run the risk of having the undesired practices learned at home to prevail over the desired practices that the education system is trying to instill into the promising new and growing members of society.

The existing paradigm needs to change. Life Long Learning for ALL members of society needs to be the call to arms in all countries and very particularly in developing countries. These have, in way too many cases, already lost 2 to 3 generations since their independence. Let us not lose any more. It is our children after all. It is our future and theirs we are talking about!