Events » Budget Monitoring Research Exercise - [25 May 2004]
Through partnership with the Civil Society Coalition on Quality
and Basic Education (CSCQBE), AECL/CRIDOC, together with more than
48 other member orgnisations, has been actively involved in the
Budget Monitoring research exercise to track/monitor initiatives
aimed at ensuring that the government, civil society and local communities,
prioritise the educational needs and rights of poor people by strengthening
the capacity and voice of Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs)
and emerging civil society networks on education in all the districts.
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| AECL Coordinator (Left)
and CRIDOC Project Manager (right) were among those who
attended the workshop. |
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CSCQBE organised a seminar on 25 May 2004, to orient, train and
prepare coalition members for the survey on the budget monitoring
exercise. The initiative is expected to be one of the first major
research exercises to be documented within the CRIDOC 's Information
centre.
TRACKING EDUCATION SECTOR BUDGETS KEY TO ACHIEVING EFA GOALS IN
AFRICA:
Where is the Problem?
The power of the state to shape poor people’s lives for good
or for worse is nowhere more immediate and far-reaching than in
education since the school is one of the most visible and important
state institutions in any village or settlement. However, spending
in education has for along time been inequitable and inefficient,
learning outcomes dismal, schools have not been responsive to community
needs and education management has been inept, centralised and in
some cases corrupt.
Quality Education
Lacking the capacity, information & wherewithal to demand anything
better, poor parents often simply take children out of school or
do not enrol them at all – while better-off families abandon
the public system in favour of private schooling. In this way, the
quality of basic education deteriorates further and gaps in enrolment,
achievement and completion get entrenched. The incapacity of mainstream
civil society, local community groups and education authorities
to exercise control and oversight over education plans and budgets
continues to mar our efforts towards attainment of quality education
goals. Building the requisite capacity remains one of the most significant
challenges of our times, facing both Ministries of Education and
CSO coalitions.
Budget Information
The scarcity and unavailability of budget and management information
in terms of processes, structures, institutional mechanisms, functions
and opportunities for participation to education stakeholders undermines
their capacity to engage effectively in planning, budgeting and
management of education. On the other hand, the absence of critical
information and the exceptional centralization of decision making,
which has been characteristic of our governance structures, greatly
limit the degree to which, parents, local communities, children,
teachers, civic leaders, district education authorities and civil
society groups can analyze and influence budgeting processes and
make legitimate demands to improve quality.
Policy Influencing
Strengthening policy influencing techniques in order for stakeholders
(mainly teachers, parents, children, education officials, community
leaders and CSOs) to play an effective role in jointly deciding
priorities, designing interventions and monitoring the implementation
of education sector-policy frameworks is key to the attainment of
EFA goals. To achieve this, civil society organisations, parents
and education officials need to acquire new skills, gain access
to new information and to build new alliances. In particular for
civil society; budget audits, independent analysis of public expenditure,
working with policy makers and other elected bodies, strategic engagement
with reform initiatives are examples of the policy influencing tools
that education actors need to develop and bring to bear on education
policies.
Empowering Actors
In order to address these problems we must find it extremely necessary
to invent and innovate ways and means of empowering actors in the
education sector to plan, budget, track and monitor expenditure
patterns in education, particularly schools.
Purpose and Benefits
- Tracking/monitoring initiatives aim to ensure that the government,
civil society and local communities, prioritise the educational
needs and rights of poor people by strengthening the capacity
and voice of PTAs and emerging civil society networks on education
in all the provinces/district.
- At the regional, national, provincial and district levels,
the ability of pro-poor organisations to articulate local needs
and demands effectively, and to translate these concerns into
coherent and practical policy recommendations will be greatly
increased.
- At the grassroots level, public debate and citizen action will
be catalysed and poor people will be empowered to articulate their
own demands towards schools, local councils and district education
officials, elected representatives, provincial and national authorities.
- Capacity building is further expected to increase the advocacy
capacity, analytical skills and watchdog roles of civil society
groups working in education sector.
- Participatory strategies, if & when developed, should give
sufficient room for continued assessment and feedback as to how
far education policies are being implemented, and how far schools
are meeting concerns of parents and local communities.
- If the implementation of education and school budgets is adequately
monitored, then this will give a mutual advantage to education
authorities and civil society groups to assess performance of
policies and programmes of the central government, district boards,
local authorities and schools.
- This will further increase access to information and therefore
enhance the capabilities of citizens and education officials in
monitoring delivery of educational services at the district and
school levels.
How do we achieve this?
In order to build a constituency for policy reform, and to create
sustained pressure for change, civil society groups and education
officials need to foster a vigorous public debate on education problems,
and to create empowering opportunities for ordinary people to act
in concert with others in order to bring about change in our schools.
Both participatory methods in social audits and campaigning techniques
should be used to increase involvement of communities in monitoring
access, quality and equity of education through participatory indicators.
This can take the form of a training of trainers (TOT) in order
to develop a key advocacy/lobbying constituency - a core group of
monitors/trackers and trainers for every country, province or district.
The trainings should be organised in a workshop model, with presentations
from a specialist/s in education and expenditure monitoring. Syndicate
work groups should then follow. Since some organisations and or
individuals participating in this initiative are already strong
on policy analysis and quality assurance while others on popular
mobilisation and grassroots empowerment; through “horizontal”
exchange and “flat” sessions, stakeholders should be
able to benefit from the diverse skills and own experiences that
each of them can bring to bear in each domain.
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