Inviting parents to hold teachers to account in Honduras

This blog is written by the GEM Report and Megan R Gavin, Ph.D, also author of a case study on accountability and education in Honduras commissioned for the 2017/8 GEM Report. The blog is part of a series showing that accountability in education is shaped by a country’s history and political, social, and cultural context.

In the last couple of decades several far-reaching accountability reforms have been implemented in Honduras, most of which put parents front and centre in helping to address education challenges.

One of the most substantial reforms putting responsibility in the hands of parents was the Programa Hondureno de Educacion Comunitaria (Honduran Community Education Project) (PROHECO), which began in 1999 and is funded entirely by the World Bank. PROHECO follows similar reforms in Central America, namely the Community Education Program (EDUCO) in El Salvador and the Programa Nacional de Educacion (PRONADE). However, unlike these similar reforms in Central America, PROHECO in Honduras is the only one which remains active.

The project’s initial concern was to address primary enrolment in rural areas by increasing parental control via school-based management. Under the reform, decisions related to the salaries, hiring/firing and supervision/evaluation of teachers are put in the hands of parents on school councils.

While PROHECO is designed to hold teachers accountable, there are other legislative mechanisms and social pressures for parents to be actively involved as part of their responsibilities.

Analysing data from the Unidad de Medicion de la Calidad de la Educacion (UMCE) in 2003 showed that PROHECO teachers report fewer work hours per week, but spend more time on teaching activities. Their absences correspond with teacher training whereas traditional school teachers’ absences correspond with union participation; for this reason, PROHECO schools have remained open when other schools have closed over the last two years due to strikes. Some argue that the low capacity issues of teachers and parents in PROHECO schools are offset by the impact they are shown to have on teacher behaviour, in that they show teachers spend much more time on task.

From leadership bright spots to transformed school systems

By Kieran Cooke, Senior Development Consultant, Education Development Trust

“It was a privilege to support my fellow school leaders and this led to my own school and leadership competence benefitting too” – Mary

In the middle of the Kibera slum in Nairobi, amongst the rubbish dumps of an impoverished community, there is a school, which, despite the collapsing roofs and dusty floors, is achieving high student outcomes. This school is led by Mary, a committed and outstanding head teacher who has high ambitions, provides focused support to her teachers and rigorously monitors their performance and progress. Mary and her school are a ‘bright spot’, however her impact is confined to her own school and the students within it. Her high-impact practices and solutions are not being shared with her fellow head teachers in neighbouring schools who are facing similar challenges.

In every education system, there are similar high performing school leaders who have the potential to act as powerful change agents to support their peers and drive rapid and sustainable improvement beyond their own school. These ‘system leaders’ have the will and, with adequate and appropriate support, can develop the capability to enable high-performing, self-improving school systems.

Human rights at the heart of education: the role of strategic litigation (Part II)

By Meghan Campbell, Lecturer-in-Law, University of Birmingham. Deputy-Director, Oxford Human Rights Hub

Few people recognize that the courts can be an effective way to enable children to access inclusive, equitable education of good quality. However, to achieve this, human rights lawyers need to use the litigation path in a strategic way to take advantage of the opportunities the law provides.

Strategic litigation has predominantly focused on domestic legal processes. Learning Lessons from Litigators: Realising the Right to Education Through Public Interest Lawyering by the Oxford Human Rights Hub shares the experiences of litigators in Brazil, India, South Africa, and the United States on how to best use courts to overcome deficiencies in the delivery of education. This blog explores the findings, and how they can be used to achieve a right to education.

Human rights at the heart of education (Part I)

By Sandra Fredman, Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub, Rhodes Professor of the Laws of the British Commonwealth and the United States, University of Oxford

Education is at the heart of the global struggle to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality. It has been demonstrated that one extra year of education is associated with a reduction in inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) of 1.4 percentage points. Yet its achievement remains stubbornly out of reach. Although the Millennium Development Goals promised universal primary education by 2015, there were still as many as 61 million out-of-school children of primary school age at the end of that period. Many of these will never enter a classroom. In September 2015, the world committed itself to an even more ambitious agenda (SDG4): to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. How can we be sure that we do not, once again, fall short of our promises?

It is here that a human rights approach to education can make a real difference. Human rights differ from development goals in several crucial respects. Human rights are not hand-outs or charity. They are entitlements. They are not policy commitments, which can change with the vagaries of time. Human rights are legally enforceable duties. Under a human rights approach, it is not good enough to say that 90% of children are in school. Every child out of school has had her right to education violated. That is 61 million rights to education breached.

The right to education is multi-faceted. It is a social right, a freedom right and an equality right. As a social right, it entitles individuals to free and compulsory education provided by the State. As a freedom right, it protects individuals against interference by the State with their freedom of speech, religion, language and political. In particular, it prevents the State from using education to promote state propaganda or to impose the dominant culture, language or religion. Education is also an equality right, as demonstrated by the famous US Supreme Court desegregation case, Brown v Board of Education. All these components should be considered simultaneously.

Why we need student advocacy

by Viktor Grønne – student, activist, and Danish UNESCO Youth Representative

As we launch the 2017/8 youth version of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report on how youth can help hold governments to account for education, the discussion naturally centred on youth, as a key constituency, and strategies on how youth can be mobilized to take actions. However, to me, there is an equally important discussion on why we want to mobilize youth. Far too often the answer is that “youth are the future” or that we “need to empower the future leaders”. Both statements fail to recognize the agency young individuals, and – not least – movements, possess and the inalienable impact agency has on quality learning. Beyond the moral necessity to engage youth better, a point often overlooked is that engaged youth can also lead to improved quality in learning.

After all, in the words of the Delors Report, “quality education enables people to develop all of their attributes and skills to achieve their potential as human beings and members of society.” It is a recognition that learning is about more than merely numeracy and literacy. Learning needs to take a empower the learner, whether a child, young person, or adult, to engage in our societies. If we are serious about not only getting every child into school, but also actually ensuring quality education that caters to the ambition of the SDG agenda, the first step we need to take is to engage students.

I believe my grandfather when he said ‘education will help you be whoever you want to be’

By Pegah Moulana, youth ambassador for the GEM Report Right to Education campaign

When I was young, my grandfather once told me: “Education will help you to be whoever you want to be”. Looking back 10 years on, I know he was right. As a young girl my family migrated in order to provide us with better life opportunities, which included access to well-functioning schools. We were lucky; access to education played a big part in improving our lives. Education is not there to make our CV look attractive but to help us with self and world awareness.

Having said that, access to education is very unevenly distributed across the world. The disparity is truly felt when you look at places where access to education can easily be taken for granted, and in comparison, places where access and staying in education consists of fighting endless battles.

Access to education still remains a privilege and the main players behind these gaps are the governments. But how can we make governments more accountable for meeting their education commitments? My answer is, we need young people involved.

#FeesMustFall: Developments in South African Fees Struggles

by Dylan Barry, a post-graduate physics student at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He headed up the #FeesMustFall News Media task team in 2015, and the #FeesMustFall Economic Research task team in 2016 at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a Youth Ambassador for the GEM Report’s Right to Education Campaign that calls on young people to come together, exercise their collective voice, and call on governments to make sure the right to education is enforced.

After two years of mass national #FeesMustFall protests, which I described in an earlier post on this blog, the year 2017 has been a relatively calm one on South Africa’s university campuses. However, despite the lack of protest, the last few weeks have been significant for South African higher education. This weekend, South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, announced that the state would commit to subsidise free higher education for poor and working class students from 2018. The announcement confirmed rumours that had circulated since November when an article in South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper suggested that President Zuma had attempted to announce the provision of free education across the board as early as February of this year.

Your perceptions and attitudes about migrants matter for their inclusion

Credit: John Englart (Takver)

Today, as we honour international migrants day, it is important to remember that the way people perceive migration and displacement in receiving countries, and how they react to demographic changes, has a major impact on the wellbeing of millions of people.  The way information is disseminated is also vital. How a child is first received in a new country, and whether he or she is welcomed or not in school, and in school discourse, is vital too. The way we are educated, therefore, in school and out, is a clinch factor for inclusion.

Just last week, Minority Rights Group International, an NGO, released a new report, ‘No escape from discrimination’, which shows that negative portrayals of particular communities infiltrate migration and displacement perceptions from start to finish. You only have to look at the Rohingya, whose persecution has its roots in their exclusion from the list of ethnicities in Myanmar. Look at the persecution of the Yezidis fleeing from Iraq and the Muslim minorities in the Central African Republic.

In fact, you don’t need to look any further than London, Paris or New York. A thought provoking way to view the power of attitudes on migration is shown in the fact that the international migrant population has remained stable since 1990 as a proportion of the world’s population. Compare this with the stories in the news presenting a ‘global refugee crisis’ and ask yourself how much of the backlash against migration is because of false information and uncritical education, which generate biased perceptions.

“Education is far too important to be left solely to the government or educational institutions”

“I believe that it is no longer enough for us to pay lip service to education; now is the time to insist on transparency and accountability in education,” said Victoria Ibiwoye, youth representative of the SDG Education 2030 Steering Committee from Nigeria.

Less than five days after the launch of the youth version of the GEM Report, Victoria joined Dr Koumbou Boly Barry, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, the GEM Report Director Manos Antoninis, and fellow youth ambassadors Helge Schwitters and Dylan Barry for a digital launch event. The 2017/8 Youth Report addresses the theme of accountability in education and the role of students in upholding and championing the right to education.

“We are joined here today by a wonderful group of young activists for education,” said Dr Bolly Barry as she opened the event. She spoke of the importance for all youth to advocate for the right to education, to raise awareness among their peers that they have this right, and to empower them to claim it.

Demanding real accountability for real schooling in Pakistan

This blog is written by Dr Jamila Razzaq, Co-founding President Aappa Aziz Trust Pakistan and Haider Fancy, Chief of Strategy, Planning, and Development, Nasra Public Schools, also authors of a case study on accountability and education in Pakistan commissioned for the 2017/8 GEM Report. The blog is part of a series showing that accountability in education is shaped by a country’s history and political, social, and cultural context.

Background: Pakistan’s education system

Since the creation of the state of Pakistan in 1947, there has been a four-tier education system: madrassas (religious schools), private schools (English and Urdu), public schools, and army schools. Pakistan followed a centralised education system until the passage of the 18^th amendment in April 2010, which decentralized education, limited the role of the federal government, and expanded the purview of provinces.

 

Pakistan has seen many improvements in its public education system over the past few years in line with the increased in the share of total government expenditure on education to 13.2%. The teacher recruitment process has steadily drifted towards merit based hiring, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, where the introduction of improved monitoring processes has also reduced unauthorized absenteeism and the phenomenon of Large government and donor-funded initiatives have also improved school infrastructure.

Yet, at the same time, the growth of enrolment in private primary schools from about 18 million students in 2010 to about 20 million in 2015-16 is proof that families are willing and able to pay for schooling.

Still, there remain at least 24 million children, adolescents and youth out of school. Even more alarming is the fact that basic literacy and numeracy skills leave much to be desired. The latest Annual Status of Education Report demonstrates that only about 15% of grade 2 students had grade level competency in English or arithmetic and about 17% had grade level competencies in their local languages.

To achieve meaningful improvements in access to education and the quality of education, systems of accountability need to identify the gaps in education provision at local, regional and national levels. There is investment in monitoring mechanisms but their focus on enrolment and physical infrastructure is narrow.