Capacity Development for Education Systems in Fragile Contexts

1. Capacity Development for Education Systems in Fragile Contexts Lynn Davies Centre for International Education and Research, University of Birmingham in collaboration with the European Training Foundation (ETF) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)

2. Outline • The fragility debate • Education issues in fragile contexts • Dimensions of CD improvement • Choices in state-building • Roles and positioning of donors • Ways forward at country, regional and global level

4. Features of fragility • Deficits in governance • Inability to maintain security • Inability to meet essential needs • Polarisation of identities • Opaque decision making • Erosion of people’s trust in government and its institutions

5. Two key gaps in fragile contexts • Lack of capacity (territorial control and presence; competence in economic and administrative management) • Lack of political will to perform key functions for human welfare NB: Capacity development is about both of these

6. Education issues in fragile contexts • Legitimacy of the state and state institutions – competing goals for education • Extremes of inequality and inequity • Education governance, corruption • Conflict and security: the contribution of education to both

7. Dimensions of CD ‘improvement’

8. Which dimension to tackle? • Organisational change (regulation, efficiency, budgeting, hiring of staff, job descriptions, decentralisation) • Institutional change (hidden cultures of work and relationships, deference/authority patterns, nepotism, ‘allowance cultures’) • Dis/enabling environment (political will, ethnic/religious tensions, community contestation, corruption)

9. State-building • Increasing difficulty as move from individual CD to political CD, but crucial that ‘outer layer’ is not ignored • State building has to be the major task • CD is thus about delicate choices and combinations of dimension • CD choices are also about which sector to focus on • Building of social capital equally important to human/economic capital

11. Administrative sites for CD • Planning realistic national policies • Drawing up workable regulatory and legal frameworks for schools • Mechanisms for accountability, information flows • Independent Service Authorities? • Building local capacity and leadership, child-friendly schools/community initiatives

12. Educational sites for CD • Teacher professional development (pedagogy, professionalism, non-violence, incentives) • Curriculum development (Disaster Risk Reduction, history, citizenship, rights, entrepreneurship) • Skills and capital (youth, vocational education, women, adult literacy)

13. Roles and positioning of donors • Methodological responses: • Principles; processes; levels; entry points; assessment tools • Building back better, spaces for intervention

14. 2. Choices around donor alignment • Systems and policy alignment • Systems alignment (where governments lack legitimacy) • Policy alignment (where institutions have disintegrated, but government have embarked on reforms) • Shadow alignment (institutional and political breakdown advanced)

15. 3. Working with non-state actors • ‘Representatives’ of civil society, change agents, unions, scholars, journalists, NGOs • But may be conflict between stakeholders; religion versus secular forces; capital versus rural areas; legitimacy of NGOs • CD for opposition groups?

16. Ways forward 1: Country level • Analysis, identifying fragile characteristics and how education intervention and education CD might tackle them • Standards, indicators and monitoring, for example of safe schools, non-violence, peace-building, vocational education

17. Issue based CD across levels

18. Issue based CD across levels

19. Ways forward 2: Regional level • CD in dealing with refugees, cross-border movements, ex-combatants, labour migration, accreditation • Establishing and supporting regional networks • Regional initiatives can address national issues in a less politically sensitive way

20. Ways forward 3: Global level • Global networks • Minimum Standards • Cluster approaches • CD in working with international organisations • Networks of ‘experts’ in CD? • FTI, global conditionalities?

21. ConclusionsPrinciples: More sustainable CD needs: • Honest analyses of fragility across all dimensions – and existing capacity • Initiatives linked to target of breaking cycles and amplifications of fragility and restoring core state functions; coherence • Recognition that CD is social-psychological, not just systems, about behaviour, status and survival, agendas • Targeting people who can effect change • Having indicators of success, m&e, linked to wider state-building indicators; research.

22. Areas for action • Tackling regulation, but also workplace culture • CD for those in youth employment, women’s groups etc, but also labour market analysis • CD for teachers must include how to promote political literacy, media analysis and dealing with controversial issues

23. Areas for reflection: 1 • Which dimensions, focus points, stakeholders, methodological responses? • How to put into place a research programme? • How can regulation of educational institutions be improved? Should there be new regulatory bodies?

24. Areas for reflection: 2 4. What are long and short term indicators of success in CD for state-building? 5. Could cross-sectoral CD be more effective than just education? 6. How can incentives be assured for recipients of CD – people and governments? 7. Should FTI be extended to fragile states? Who owns CD?