Equity
Access is particularly constrained
for girls, poor children,
and children with
learning disabilities.
■ Two-thirds of out-of-school
children are girls, who are particularly
affected by poor families’
inability to pay school
charges for tuition, books, and
uniforms. Other barriers are
distance from school, poor sanitation,
household chores and
farm work, and culture
■ Women account for about twothirds
of all illiterate adults
■ An enormous digital divide, exacerbated by weak telecommunications
infrastructure and poor access to electricity, threatens to worsen inequity
in education across countries
Quality
Quality in the classroom is often low, resulting in high dropout rates
and low achievement.
■ Overcrowding, a lack of teaching materials, outdated or scarce textbooks,
irrelevant curricula, and ill-qualified—or absent—teachers weaken quality
and learning achievement
■ Given high opportunity costs of education, poor parents withdraw children
—especially girls—from low-quality schooling
■ Almost a third of all developing country pupils leave school before completing
the primary cycle. Even those who complete it fail to attain minimum
functional literacy
■ Incentives for students to learn are dampened by weak economies and
lack of jobs
■ Science education often lacks the needed laboratory materials; many
universities lack qualified professors, good libraries and access to international
periodicals
…and because countries continue to face enormous
access, equity, quality and resource challenges
in education
Access
Despite progress, over 113 million children aged 6 to 11 (about 1 in 5)
lack access to primary school.
■ Primary enrollment and completion rates are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia, which together account for most of the world’s out-ofschool
children
■ Pre-primary enrollment in
low-income countries is
well below rates in rich
countries (10% vs 70%)
■ Tertiary enrollment in
1997 was 10% in less
developed countries,
compared with 52% in
OECD countries
■ Nearly one billion adults are illiterate.
SOURCE: http://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/OpenDoors.pdf
World Bank
Support for
Education: Vision
and Goals
Already the world’s largest external financier of education,
the World Bank is today more committed than
ever to helping countries foster private investment and
economic growth, and empower poor people to participate
in that growth—through education.
The need for progress is urgent, and the stakes are high. Disparities in education
are already huge. Education is a dialogue between the present and the
future. The education choices countries make today will define their forward
path: growth and prosperity or stagnation and decline.
Our vision is one of cohesive societies and dynamic economies. How to
help make this vision a reality? By focusing on results. We can claim
success only if:
■ all children complete school, learn well, adopt healthy behaviors and
positive values, and eventually live well
■ more and more female, rural, poor, and vulnerable children are given
access to good education
■ more adults obtain skills—and gainful employment
■ more teachers are well-trained and well paid
■ more school curricula and learning materials are of good quality and relevant
to labor market and societal needs
■ more education systems are well resourced and managed, with active
community participation
■ more universities produce highly skilled graduates who add to national
and global knowledge
■ more countries use knowledge and technologies to leapfrog into a more
dynamic, higher-growth economy
Our overarching goals are to help countries:
■ Ensure that, by 2015, every girl and boy in the developing world has
access to and completes a free and compulsory primary education of
good quality
■ Compete successfully in global markets by building up a workforce of
skilled, dynamic people able to create and apply knowledge
World Bank Support for
Education: Our Work At
a Glance
What services does the World Bank provide?
Sound policies, strong institutions, and finance—all are crucial to progress.
The World Bank thus supports education in developing countries through
a mix of knowledge and
resource transfers, combining
lending with “non-lending”
services—policy advice and analytical,
knowledge-sharing, and
capacity building services. World
Bank lending for education averages
$1 billion a year and has
exceeded $30 billion since 1963,
when such funding first began.
Non-lending services are vital in
helping countries:
■ formulate policies and strategy
based on sound analysis and
the lessons of global experience
■ build national consensus around reforms
■ mobilize resources from other partners
■ build capacity to design and implement reform programs
. International Project Literature Review
You have been hired by an international project management company to gather background information for new project proposals. You are required to search every major donor organisation뭩 web resources and compile an overview of past and current project activities in one of the following nominated fields. These fields are:
Education (primary, secondary, tertiary & adult)
Public health
Civil society/governance
You should access published reports, aid and development project information pages of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, The United Nations Development Program, UN Environment Program or AusAID. Include information about one current or pipeline projects. In your analysis consider the following questions:
What kinds of projects are currently favoured/most prevalent or popular?
What do these projects entail? (combine generic and specific detail)
Who are the major players (governments, intergovernmental organizations, project management companies)
How much donor funding is directed towards your chosen field?
What project opportunities can you identify in one of the following countries?
Bangladesh
India
East Timor
Afghanistan
South Africa
China
Mongolia
Review Structure
Write as a report using neutral language. You can use tables and charts to condense information. Dot points are acceptable within reason - but there must be substantive discussion of key topics
Your review should include:
200 word executive summary
600 word background brief
600 word country brief
100 word statement of recommendations
Literature Review
Additional Guidelines from the Blackboard.
Please note that assignment two is designed to develop your literature search, document précis and data presentation skills. The exercise is based upon the kinds of basic tasks that you would be expected to perform were you employed as a project support officer for an international project management company, NGO, or government agency.
You should look at projects listed on the World Bank, ADB, UNESCO, and AusAID web sites. The number of education projects either current or future is quite small. NOTE THAT YOU ARE NOT EXPECTED TO INCLUDE DATA ON PROJECTS MARKED ‘CLOSED’. Funding levels are listed on the World Bank project schedule. For the ADB you need to read the project documents but note that summaries of expenditure by sector are available at http://www.adb.org/Documents/reports/operations/2002/default.asp
AusAID is currently tendering for one education project but has two PNG education projects in the pipeline. Forget about the European Union - their TED site is not very user friendly. I have attached a link to the UNESCO project schedule below.
http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/erd/english/ear/text/earlist.html
You are expected to ascertain how much funding is allocated to current projects, and pipeline projects. I WILL ACCEPT A MARGIN OF ERROR – GIVEN THE NATURE OF THIS EXERCISE AND BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT TAUGHT YOU THE FINER POINTS OF QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS. How this information should be broken down and presented is for you to decide. You could do a sectoral analysis distinguishing between project funding (current and future) for school buildings, or for teacher training, curriculum development etc. across all organisations if you wish. Or you could specify how much the ADB, World Bank or UNESCO is currently allocating to projects in your chosen sector.
Note that ‘governance’ encompasses gender equity.
Note that you only need to address details of current projects in your sector in summary form. I do not expect or want you to become bogged down in minutae. This is a general survey which should serve as a background briefing document for strategic planning purposes.
As you read through your selection of projects, a ‘generic’ picture should form in your mind as to what major international agencies are interested in funding. Your ‘generic picture’ will suffice.
‘Identify funding opportunities’ means the identification of future ‘pipeline’ projects. You are also entitled to use your imaginations and suggest some specific needs for one of the target countries. Note these countries are currently of interest to NGOs and project management companies – which I why they were selected. I have also given approval for PNG to be included in this target country list.
This practical exercise is designed to heighten your awareness of specific skills required of people working in any project management role. For reasons that will be discussed in the June workshops, funding is a major issue in contemporary professional practice.
FROM THE UNDP - http://www.unchina.org/undp/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=107&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Project Number: CPR/01/403
1. UNDP Practice Area ICT
2. Project Number: CPR/01/403
3. Project Title: Using Distance Education and ICT to Improve Teacher Quality in Poor Areas of Western China
3. Project Budget: US$9.4 million
4. Government cost-sharing: US$3 million
5. Third-party cost-sharing: US$5.2 million (DFID)
6. Executing Agency: CICETE
7. Implementing Agency: Ministry of Education
8. Project Duration: 5 years
9. Project Sites: Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu
10. Brief Description
This project aims at increasing educational equity and improving teachers’ quality at the primary level in three western provinces of China through delivering high-quality, distance teacher training for 20,000 in-service teachers in poor rural communities within the nine selected counties of Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. The project design and implementation will meet the particular learning needs of the target group of teachers including subgroups such as female teachers, dai ke teachers and ethnic/language minority teachers.
11. Background:
The importance of teachers in determining the quality of education is emphasized and reflected in government policies and regulations in China. Raising the standards of teacher qualifications, and continuing professional development of teachers are the priorities in China’s educational development strategies. It is especially true in the western China where poor rural teachers, particularly woman teachers and minority teacher find little means to improve themselves.
Ongoing professional development for teachers in western China faces two major challenges: funding constraints, and the need for more appropriate training to meet the needs of the most remote and underqualified teachers. There are increasing demands for professional development from central government directives. Concurrently, there are new developments in the provision of ICT equipment and their applications for educational purposes. This project will capitalise on new opportunities to focus on teachers in the poorer rural areas and to strengthen capacity in distance education and ICT as a vehicle for professional development for such teachers. The project is therefore extending current government initiatives and strategies to reach teachers and communities not yet benefiting from these initiatives. By doing so, the project will pilot innovative approaches in professional development for teachers in poor and remote communities.
Adequate cost-recovery models are lacking in distance teacher education, making sustainability difficult. For the current project, a strategy is to pilot innovative and sustainable cost-recovery models of distance teacher education.
11. Outputs
Output 1: The quality of primary school teachers is improved in terms of their professional knowledge and skills through piloting and implementing new models for teachers’ professional development
Output 2: The number of primary teachers with the requisite qualifications is increased through their achieving required certificates/diplomas. In particular, dai ke teachers as well as female, and minority language teachers (if any) will be targeted.
Output 3: A cadre of primary backbone teachers and school heads able to lead and support curriculum reform and professional development in schools is developed.
Output 4: The capacity of teacher trainers is strengthened, particularly in the design and use of ICT and distance education for teacher education at the levels of normal university, county and school.
Output 5: Access to learning opportunities and materials is increased for all primary teachers and networks of professional development and resource centres at township central primary schools are established. Primary teachers working in remote areas are provided with assistance in accessing the resource centres
Output 6: Cost recovery mechanisms of distance learning services for primary teacher education piloted involving innovative public- private partnership (PPP) and partnerships with the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)/Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).
Output 7: Experience and materials from the project are shared beyond the project and evidence-based policy recommendations on the use of ICT and distance mechanisms for primary teacher education, with special reference to poor rural areas, are produced and disseminated nationally.
12. Project Strategy
Thoughtful application of the best international and national practices in distance teacher education for Large-Scale Teacher Training
Utilizing flexible distance-learning mechanisms, including information and communication technology (ICT) to create a teacher professional development network and a cost-effective model for distance teacher education
Customizing the design and delivery of teacher training according to baseline data and needs analysis, focusing on the least-qualified teachers serving children in the poorest communities
Producing policy recommendations on cost-efficiency and cost-recovery strategies in the application of ICT for teacher education, particularly in the context of poor rural areas.
