Majgaard, Kirsten; Mingat, Alain. 2012. Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : a comparative analysis

Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : a comparative analysis: As in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.

No upward mobility

In Latin America, only children from well to-do families tend to get a chance to study. Lacking access to higher learning has become a mobilising issue for social activists.

Interview with Ramón Garcia-Ziemsenhttp://www.dandc.eu/articles/220521/index.en.shtml

2012 OER Paris Declaration

2012 OER Paris Declaration: On June 22, 2012 the World OER Congress (held in Paris from June 20 to 22 , 2012) has approved the ‘2012 OER Paris Declaration’. The declaration contains recommendations to:
a. Foster awareness and use of OER.
b. Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)
c. Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER
d. Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks
e. Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials
f. Foster strategic alliances for OER
g. Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts
h. Encourage research on OER.
i. Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER.
j. Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds

Private Schooling for the Public Good

Private Schooling for the Public Good:

Michael Lisman, an education advisor in USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbea and former coordinator of PREAL’s Central America Program, recently wrote an article in USAID’s “Frontiers in Development” publication, entitled “Private Schooling for the Public Good.” The article argues that private sector options in the education sector, from private schools to private service delivery, have been underutilized in the region, and that international organizations have traditionally shied away supporting such options in favor of public schools. Lisman argues that aid organizations and Latin American governments should take steps to promote competition in the education sector and to better integrate both private sector options and influences.

To access the article directly, click here. Frontiers in Development is a publication produced in conjunction with the upcoming Frontiers in Development Conference, June 11-13, at Georgetown University.

SABER: World Bank develops new tool to assess education systems

SABER: World Bank develops new tool to assess education systems:

The eight policy goals of the SABER-teachers program. Image from the World Bank website.

In response to growing awareness of the impact that teachers have on the quality of education and student learning, the Human Development Network’s Education Sector at the World Bank recently launched the teachers’ component of its System Assessment and Benchmarking for Education Results (SABER).

SABER-teachers focuses on collecting data about teacher policies around the globe, analyzing it, and then disseminating it through user-friendly tools. The primary output will be a set of 10-page country reports that classifies education systems according to eight policy goals for which all countries should aim. Other soon-to-be-released SABER products include a database allowing countries to compare teachers’ policies and a website providing access to all country reports.

A draft paper entitled "What are the teacher policies of top-performing and rapidly-improving education systems?" (PDF) by Emiliana Vegas and Alejandro Ganimian uses previous ‘benchmarking’ research to understand how top-performing and rapidly-improving education systems perform on SABER-Teachers. [...]

These results will be complemented with additional data collected by SABER in the near future. In the meantime, the new SABER-teachers program promises to be a valuable and innovative tool for education policy research. It will enable countries to evaluate their systems and implement best practices to improve the quality of education worldwide.

Managing Education in Colombia

PREAL Working Paper No. 60: “Managing Education in Colombia 2002-2010” by Cecilia María Vélez, former minister of education of Colombia.

Vélez begins by listing what she believes to be the positive results achieved during her tenure: increased enrollments and access at all levels, and an improvement in the quality of primary and secondary education, as measured by international student achievement tests. She notes that Colombia was fortunate to have continuity in its education policies (Velez served as the Secretary of Education of Bogotá for four years, and then as Minister of Education for eight years).

She argues that establishing a clear vision of the goals to be reached, implementing incentives, creating a systematic approach to improving quality, reorganizing the ministry’s administration, and developing clear, appropriate and timely information systems, along with a coherent, sector-wide communication strategy, were all keys to success.

National Conference on Teacher Policy in Costa Rica

National Conference on Teacher Policy in Costa Rica:

Sparking National Debate and Consultations on Education in Central America

On March 13 and 14 in San Jose, Costa Rica, the Central America and Dominican Republic Chapter of PREAL’s Working Group on the Teaching Profession (CCAD-GTD) held, in collaboration with the Central American Integration System’s Education Coordination (CECC/SICA), the first of seven national workshops on the teaching profession that PREAL will organize throughout the region. These workshops seek to promote debate on teacher policy and showcase innovative policies, such as standards for entry into the profession, systematic induction of novice teachers, and performance evaluations. [...]

Local experts Luis Carlos Morales, a sociologist at the University of Costa Rica, and Soledad Chavarria, owner of an educational consulting firm, opened the second day’s activities as part of a panel moderated by Juan Manuel Esquivel, an expert in student assessment [...]

Chavarria highlighted key findings from the third report of “Estado de la Educación,” which is produced by the State of the Nation Program (Programa Estado de la Nación) and assesses the state of schools and education in Costa Rica. Like Morales, she focused her discussion on teachers and their working conditions, institutional accreditation, and government efforts to improve education. She emphasized that the lack of a target profile for teacher candidates, unacceptable teaching conditions, the lack of an official induction period, and a negative view of teaching as a profession all hinder the quality of education. Generating effective school leadership and establishing an organization to define and monitor the quality of education are crucial to developing high-quality teachers. By strengthening teacher opportunities and working with actors from various social sectors – such as training institutions, teachers unions, and the ministry of education – Costa Rica can work to raise the status of the teaching profession.