This presentation highlights the role of government in monitoring an evaluation of public education and outlines the experience of Link Community Development working with state schools in Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa and Kenya.
The National School Performance Review – working with government education structures - Steve Blunden
1. Link Community Development:
Achievable Education for All
Long term district level programme
working in Ethiopia, Ghana,
Malawi, South Africa and Uganda
2. Kampala Conference
Kampala AEFA conference 18-22 June 2012 in
partnership with CCFE
Supported by the Commonwealth Foundation,
DFID Ethiopia, EU and the Open Society
Foundation
MoE and district representatives from Ethiopia,
Ghana, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda
4. Link Community Development in
Sub Saharan Africa
Education NGO working in Ethiopia Ghana
Malawi South Africa and Uganda
In partnership with MoE
Focus on District education office impact on
learner outcomes
Programme design is a 'two district' model,
engaging every school within two+ districts in
each country
5. Districts
Wolaita Zone in SNPPR in Ethiopia
Bolgatanga, Talensi Nabdaam (UER) and BAK
(Ashanti) in Ghana
Dedza and Mulanje in Malawi
E Cape and Limpopo in South Africa
Buiisa, Kamwenge, Katakwi and Masindi in
Uganda
6. LCD Interventions
1993-1996 Whole school development (South
Africa)
1997 – 2003 Whole district development (S Africa,
Ghana, Uganda)
2003 – 2012 School performance review (Ethiopia,
Ghana, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda)
7. Common Factors
Each country is trying to deliver universal primary
education
Each country has introduced a version of
decentralisation which requires district education offices
or their equivalent to take responsibility for school
performance
Each country is engaged with district level school
monitoring and support activities
Each country has developed their version of 'school
performance review'
8. School Performance Review
SPR identifies an achievable standard of school
performance
SPR measures school performance in all schools
against that standard
SPR provides diagnostics for school and district
planning to improve school performance
SPR reports are shared with parents who discuss
school performance at the School Performance
Appraisal Meeting
9. SPR cycle
Data Delivery , School based
analysis Circuit support, Monitoring,
& School reflection...
Circuit Conference
Planning
SPR School Visits
TERM 1 TERM 2
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
School
Performance
Appraisal
Meetings
10. TERM 3 TERM 4 TERM 1 TERM 2
10 weeks
The planning Phase The delivery phase
2007 June July Aug Sep Oct - Dec 2008 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
SCHOOL SCHOOL SUPPORT &
PERFORMANCE MONITORING
REVIEW &
INTEGRATED
PLANNING
11. SPR school visit
3 officials visit the school
School for one day to collect data
Performance
Review
school visits TERM 1 TERM 2
10 – 15 days
2007 June July Aug Sep Oct - Dec 2008 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
Every school visited and Open source database
performance
measured against SPR
indicators
13. District analysis of data
TERM 1 TERM 2
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
All data from any
source can be analysed
Data analysis – not just SPR. Include
5 days WSE, Systemic
evaluation etc
15. District Planning
Including
unions, selected Provincial policy
Provincial policy
Principals District & interventions feed into the
interventions feed into the
Circuit District workshop e.g.
District workshop e.g.
Planning Literacy strategy
Literacy strategy
workshop
TERM 1 TERM 2
5 days
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
Outputs: 1. District & Circuit SPR Report
2. District & Circuit Intervention plans
3. Draft school intervention plans
4. Timeframe for implementation
16. District Education Conference
All National & Provincial
policy changes and
planned interventions
are also presented to all
TERM 1 TERM 2
schools
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
District /
Circuit Schools SPR Reports & draft intervention
Conference
plans presented to all schools for
discussion
18. Developing plans which are delivered
At the end
At the end
of each
of each
term, we
term, we
SPR also informs the need for
SPR also informs the need for meet to
meet to
Centre based training to be reflect on
reflect on
Centre based training to be
delivery and
delivery and
delivered at the start of terms 1 &
delivered at the start of terms 1 & revisit plans
revisit plans
22
TERM 1 TERM 2
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
Interventions are only
Planned in Terms 1 & 2
19. School Performance Appraisal Meetings
Ensuring that School
schools have really performance
understood SPR appraisal
and have agreed meetings TERM 1 TERM 2
plans
May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June
Appraisal meeting has 2 parts:
1.School engages with District/Circuit Official
re planned interventions and agree SIP
2.School presents the SPR report and agreed
SIP to SGB and community in the presence of
the District/Circuit Official
21. Reality
Pupils are arriving at schools hungry
Attending classes with 100+ learners
Teaching in a language that teachers themselves are
not competent in
Drop out results especially after P1, P2 and P3
Focus on managing examination results masks the
true rate of failure in our schools
Even in SA, MoE states that 80% of schools are
dysfunctional
22. But what about policy makers
SPR was always going to have success with the
reporting phase and the engagement between school
and community.
The key phase is the engagement with district planning
and at the macro level with MoE planning and
budgeting.
So how did SPR information inform discussion
between district and MoE teams in Kampala?
23. Key issues – from Kampala participants
during Simulation training:
Eth A Eth Gh Mal Ug S Afr
B
What is your 'effective' pupil teacher ratio? 70 60 58 108 100 40
What % of teachers have sufficient language 20% 40% 45% 60% 80% 20%
competence?
How many children arrive at school having eaten 20% 80% 40% 40% 20% 100%
'breakfast'?
Impact of engagement with District/Woreda 100% 75% 40% 75% 25% 85%
What % of school age children are in school at P4 99% 98% 75% 80% 60% 98%
age?
24. So we can collect data, we can share it,
but what does the data tell us?
In short, the majority of schools are failing to deliver anything
more than day care
If we can't place educated teachers in our classrooms in rural
schools, the current model of schooling is unlikely to succeed.
If we don't improve quality and transition to secondary
education, we won't produce enough educated students who
could become teachers.
If we can't produce enough Maths educated students, countries
won't have the educated workforce to enable economic growth.
Any parents who can afford to, send their children to private
schools
25. So what have we achieved with SPR?
So far we've:
Designed a process which enables district level staff to
collect and analyse data at school level and inform
school and district planning
Demonstrated that this can be delivered by existing
staffing
Demonstrated that this can be taken to scale
26. Next steps – School Report Cards
That 'school monitoring and support' processes are
now a key part of MoE and district delivery
All MoE teams wanted to learn more about the
effective use of school report cards and the potential
of web access to school report cards.
Ghana MoE has promised to invite MoE teams to a
workshop in Accra to learn more about their
approach to school report cards.
27.
28. So what next with SPR?
Most of the focus to date has been on producing SPR reports.
Current emphasis (School Report Cards) is on access to that
information by MoE
Key is: facing up to our reality regarding 'quality':
What macro and micro decisions need to be made to enable
'quality' to enable quality education to be achieved.
Kampala 'regional SPAM' was a demonstration of what a
'national SPAM' could represent.
29. Next Steps to develop SPR
1) Invest in web based school report card
demonstration
2) Invest in improved database to enable more flexible
application in each country
3) Invest in district and circuit performance report
cards
4) Review of Parent Participation and ‘rights and
responsibilities’ posters / training to enable ‘demand
pressure’ on school performance.
30. SPR and PERI
• MoE is normally responsible for monitoring State
and Private schools. This rarely happens .
• Parents have very poor school performance data to
inform their decisions about school choice.
• Parents have a lack of information about their
entitlements and responsibilities.
31. National SPR to measure performance of
all schools
• So our proposal is that the MoE should invest in
school performance review of every school, every
year, State or Private.
• That this information is used for national, district
and school planning
• That this information is available for every parent
• That this information is discussed at a school
‘SPAM’ enabling parents to ask questions and hold
the school accountable for performance.
32. Some questions for MoE
• What is the unit cost of delivering State education
compared with Private Schools?
• In many cases, the unit cost in Private schools is
lower.
• Is this a case for more private schools or is it a
challenge to improve the efficiency of the State
sector?
33. Ghana – quick reflection
• Growing Private School sector
• MoE/GES supply not responding to population
shifts and urban development
• Actual/Transaction cost of attending private schools
can be lower than actual/transaction cost of
attending State schools
• Few MoE/GES/District officials place their kids in
State schools
• But education may become an election issue…
Notes de l'éditeur
Thank you. Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues – to borrow a phrase from our South African colleagues 'all protocol observed'. I am here to share we have called 'Achievable Education for All'. What we mean by that is, given the reality of resources – budget, people, levels of education, infrastructure – what is the reality facing the majority of countries in Sub Saharan Africa with regard to their goal of achieving education for all? What is the best they can achieve?
Much of what I am presenting is drawn from a seminar which LCD co-facilitated, with the support of CCFE and with financial support from CF, OSF, DFID Ethiopia and EU. The Seminar brought together key MoE officials and district education managers from five countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda. Each one of these countries reflecting internally on their own LCD facilitated district improvement projects. They presented their case studies and areas of common challenge and common learning were discussed.
Andthese are the participants:
First, who do I work for? Link Community Development is an international family of local NGOs registered in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda, supported by organisations in England/Wales, Ireland, Scotland and USA. And what do we do? We work in partnership with MoE, supporting their EFA agenda. We focus specifically on selected districts, normally two, and support the district education office in its attempt to improve education quality in all schools within the district.
The districts where we operate include: Wolaita Zone in Southern Region in Ethiopia Bolgatanga and Talensi Nabdam in Upper East in Ghana Dedza and Mulanje in Malawi Eastern Cape and Limpopo in South Africa Buiisa, Kamwenge, Katakwi and Masindi in Uganda.
Link has been operating since 1989. Our initial focus was in South Africa, focusing on rural primary schools that were starved of investment and support by the Apartheid government With the political change in South Africa, Link registered as a local NGO there and began to engage directly with the new Department of Education, now responsible for the entire country's schools. We initially focused on a 'whole school development' model with input from Hopkins, Heargreaves and others and adapted this into a 'whole district development' model which takes much more account of the policy environment and the MoE role in ensuring school functionality. We expanded to Ghana, Uganda, Malawi and Ethiopia an applied 'whole district' learning.
Each of the countries where we are working has some common factors: They are all attempting to achieve universal primary education The are all involved in some form of restructuring and decentralisation including specific focus on the role of the district education office. And with Link, they have developed approaches to measuring school performance and utilising that information to inform planning at school and district level.
School Performance Review, is an attempt to enable MoE to improve school performance by measuring performance of all schools against a benchmark created from assessing the indicators of success in the best performing schools in the district. In other words, within the current budget and policy environment, some schools are performing better than others. Achieveable Education for All focuses on how we use performance measurement to drive change in all schools in an attempt to achieve the benchmark. So SPR identified the highest standard. Sets that as the benchmark. Develops indicators and collection instruments to enable collection of data. And a whole cycle of engagement which I will describe to engage with the reports at school, community and district level.
This is a generic SPR cycle. It isn't applied in this form in any one of the countries but this cycle is drawn from each of the countries, each of whom have some or all of the above elements. Key is that this is a total district management cycle – SPR is not a one off bolt on. That is the main difference between SPR and many donor driven school report card processes which, unintentionally perhaps, become separate silos, often managed outside of MoE, with separate accountability processes to those managed by MoE and districts. I will take you through each step now.
One of the first aspects of SPR design is to separate school performance appraisal and planning from delivery and to have a clear planning process with a clear start and end period, which can involve all district staff, even if they are normally fulfilling a specialist role.
Before we have the school visit, we will of course have the process for developing the collection instruments and training of district officials to prepare for SPR visits to schools. One part of the SPR collection process is data management. We've designed an open source database that allows district officials to input their own data, in some cases in schools on the day of the review, and to produce a range of simple reports to inform discussion with the school and to later inform both the district report and school performance report. The actual SPR visit normally involves a team of 2 or 3 staff for one day. So it is a snapshot, delivered in every school to give an overall summary view of performance.
This is typical of an SPR report for a school in Limpopo. You will see that it is in graph form, with bars indicating the school performance, district average and best school in the district to give some comparison. The indicators are prime indicators with a range of sub indicators informing the prime indicators. Schools receive the SPR framework with indicators and collection criteria in advance so they are aware of the process and each collection process.
Following data collection, the data needs to be collated and analysed. When this is done properly, the data analysis includes data from all sources including EMIS and any other source of school performance data. To be frank, without SPR applied, districts we've worked with were rarely reviewing data in advance of planning.
And this is what a circuit summary of SPR data looked like in a Limpopo circuit. Of course the data could be presented looking at all schools performance against one indicator and other derivations.
Obviously the data analysis informs district planning. An essential process here is to undertake an audit of district capacity – what resources are available for them to utilise. In environments where plans tend not to materialise, it is key that district plans are deliverable, delivered and reflected upon. All basic planning requirements! Demonstrating that monitoring takes place and results in change is key for longer term confidence in the process and the MoE.
Once we've reflected and planned – now we have to share our reports and plans. This is normally achieved in a district or circuit education conference involving all head teachers and representatives of school governing bodies.
A brief look into a circuit conference which took place earlier this year in Vhumbedzi Circuit in Limpopo to give you an idea of the participants.
A key part of the conference is sign off on district plans – and in particular where those plans engage schools either with centre based training or school based support. At their best, district planned activities are included in the school improvement plans.
The school performance appraisal meeting – helps parents understand What schools should be offering their children What their responsibilities are to support their children's education The quality of education their school is providing School Improvement Plan District or MoE planned interventions Note that in many cases, parents didn't go to school – their children are the first generation to attend school in their family.
An example of a SPAM in Wolaita Zone in Ethiopia
We started this investment in SPR because schools we've come across appeared largely dysfunctional and without a target to improve or any direction or monitoring. It is no great surprise then if we are identifying dysfunctionality. Here are some of the findings...
Most of the countries participating are excited about SPR application. However, in practice, things tend to stop with the SPR report. Interpretation of the report and plans to change are often weak. A key ambition of course is for SPR to be taken to scale and for the diagnostics to be applied at MoE level. In Kampala, MoE teams did start to reflect on what the data, and their own knowledge of context, was saying about school performance and the reality for pupils.
Following a simulation training exercise, using a simulation game Link has developed to engage school management teams and school governing bodies with school management, the following questions were posed to six groups, 2 from Ethiopia and one each from Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and South Africa. Some of the questions brought different responses from the two Ethiopian groups. For example, when the question was raised 'what percentage of your children arrive at school having had a full breakfast', apart from discussion about what constitutes a full breakfast, it was only after SA initially said that before their school feeding scheme that their levels of pupil nourishment were so low, that Ethiopia felt able to suggest that nutrition was an issue for them.
One of the dangers of the SPR process is that the process becomes the focus and the report becomes the end product. Key in Kampala was a discussion about whether children are getting any educational benefit from attending school. Here are a summary of some of the key points raised.
Despite perhaps some of the pitfalls of the SPR process, most interest was in taking one aspect of the SPR process to a higher level – the school report card. Participants expressed an interest in different forms of school report card which could be shared widely and which could also be available on the web and inform MoE planning. Clearly the quality of data that informs the school report card is critical if the SRC is to inform wider decisions. Currently most SRC processes are utilising school self assessment of performance rather than district verified data as has been tested by SPR.
And here is Charles Aheto-Tsega DDG of GES in Ghana, presenting the school report card model as applied by GES in Ghana.
So what next? Well as I've said, as you'd expect, most of the focus has been on the process of SPR itself rather than interpretation of results and policy impleications. What Kampala provided was chance to reflect on the reality and barriers to delivering 'quality'. We hope that the 'Regional SPAM'' which we facilitated in Kampala will inform national SPAMs in the participating countries, to reflect on their realities. We are pleased to see that South Africa has already developed a new plan in Limpopo to take the SPR learning to scale.
And to end, there is no question that bringing together teams from different countries creates different dynamics. For example, the willingness of South Africa to be open about its challenges, even with its fiscal advantage, encouraged more openness in other teams than perhaps would be seen publicly. People worked hard and as you can see, were 'together' by the time the workshop ended.