Summary of E-Discussion on Universal Primary Education MDG and Task Force Report

Summary of E-discussion on Universal Primary Education MDG and Task Force Report

Acronyms

Executive Summary

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………5

Participant profiles and response volume…………………………………………………….…5

Summary of comments……………………………………………………………………………6

Analysis & Recommendations…………………………………………………………………..16

Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………..18

Annexes

1. Participant contact information……………………………………………………………..19

2. Original responses from e-discussion……………………………………………………..21

3. Summary of Spanish e-discussion…………………………………………………………86

4. Original responses from Spanish e-discussion…………………………………………...89

5. Other outreach (listservs, etc)……………………………………………………………..117

6. Terms of reference………………………………………………………………………….118

ActionAid would like to thank all who actively participated and followed this e-dialogue. This discussion would not have been possible without the technical support of OneWorld South Asia, who hosted the web platform. Both the Commonwealth Education Fund and Global Campaign on Education’s outreach to its global constituency and member participation livened the dialogue considerably. Finally, the Education and Gender Equality Task Force should be recognized for its’ desire and effort to solicit civil society comments. This report presents a compilation of messages exchanged during the three-week discussion. Please direct any comments you might have to this report to the moderator, Akanksha A. Marphatia.

Acronyms

CEF Commonwealth Education Fund

CGD Center for Global Development

CSO Civil Society Organisation

EFA Education for All

FLACSO Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences

FTI Fast Track Initiative

GCE Global Campaign on Education

GEM Gender Empowerment Measure

ICRW International Center for Research on Women

INGO International Non Governmental Organization

MDG Millennium Development Goal

NGO Non Governmental Organization

OWSA One World South Asia

PRIGEPP Regional Program for Training in Gender and Public Policy

TF Task Force on Education and Gender Equality

UK United Kingdom

UPE Universal Primary Education

USA United States of America

Executive Summary

The Millennium Project Task Force (TF) on Education and Gender Equality has written an interim report on achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of Universal Primary Education. The TF is gathering input from a variety of perspectives on the interim report, and will be preparing final reports by December 15, 2004. This e-discussion is one of the primary opportunities for civil society organizations around the world to influence these reports.

ActionAid International partnered with the Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF), the Global Campaign on Education (GCE) and One World South Asia (OWSA) to launch the e-discussion. As the lead partner, ActionAid International hired a moderator for the discussion and provided managerial support. The Commonwealth Education Fund participated by providing managerial support and by reaching out to its large constituency of staff worldwide. OWSA provided the discussion platform, training for the moderator and technical support for the website. Finally, this e-discussion group builds on the GCE’s consultation (and member list) on critical issues in basic education over the past year.

The universal primary education MDG and report e-discussion took place from July 12th to August 1st[1]. The dialogue attracted over 1,300 participants, although not all contributed to the e-forum. In total, 57 responses from 17 countries were received. Barring multiple messages sent by any one person, 51 people participated. Twenty-seven of these were male and 20 were female.

In addition, over 100 participants took part in the daylong Spanish (August 4th) discussion. Curiously enough the French (August 5th-6th) language discussions did not yield many responses. Both the gender equality and education reports were discussed and key documents were translated.

Discussion summary

Overall, participants applauded the TF’s call for making education transformative and there was excitement with the document calling for a change in how business is usually conducted. However, participants expressed hat the report fell short of guiding how to transform education and what needs to change. “This report should be the one that argues the essential and unique role of education both as a fundamental right and as the fundamental enabling right, which helps people, secure and enjoy other basic rights. This one intervention is critical to achievement of all the MDGs.” With past education targets having failed, this report should better guide how to achieve UPE by 2015.Governments sign on to commitments easily but there are no mechanisms to hold them accountable for delivering on these – no enforcement – these reports and the MDG Summit in 2005 should look at how to ensure enforcement and not just make new promises. The flip side is that in Latin America, most governments and decision-makers are simply not aware of the MDGs. So how can they be held accountable for achieving them?

Participants felt strongly that there should be both acknowledgement of the crucial role civil society can play in achieving UPE as well as specific recommendations on their role. Both history and contemporary experiences have shown strong social movements (including trade and teacher unions, NGOs, other CSOs) have motivated governments to ensure UPE. In Dakar it was agreed that governments would develop national EFA Plans in consultation with citizens/ civil society and that donors would then come in to provide consistent and coordinated support. A platform where parents, students and teachers can advocate changes with policy makers at local, district, national and even international level needs to exist.

Recommendation 1: support women’s right to education and not only as a means to an end for wider social change. The slogan ‘education a women and you educate a nation’ may have increased attention on women’s role and contribution to children’s education and well being, but it also has framed women’s value within the socio reproductive roles (and therefore reinforcing gender stereotypes).

Recommendation 2: support women’s education programs. The report needs to explicitly support flexible and participatory approaches to women’s education. As it stands now, the message is left “empty” – it justifies the important roles mothers’ play in children’s education and overall well-being but fails to follow through on a recommendation for supporting women’s literacy initiatives.

Recommendation 3: recognize the value in education and do not reduce it to a debate over a “number of years”. The TF is urged to recognize that a lot of work still needs to be done on primary education and that unless a drastic transformation takes place, UPE 2015 will be out of reach. Questions were asked over the congruity between this MDG target and the Dakar declaration, which provides a full agenda for education from early childhood to adult education.

Recommendation 4: propose changes to address the fundamental financing obstacles to achieving UPE. These include IMF conditionality limiting government expenditure on education, which may undermine the potential of new aid modalities such as the FTI. A criterion ensuring a transparent and accountable allocation of funds distributed via any funding channel was recommended. Civil society should be involved in monitoring and evaluating the use and impact of these funds. With an organized development compact, there are dangers over government being more accountable to donors than their own parliaments and citizens.

Recommendation 5: governments should be held accountable for providing education. The involvement of the private sector is inevitable and even successful in some countries. However, rarely do private schools open their doors to the poor. The government therefore has an even greater role to play in improving public school quality and holding private schools responsible for providing high quality education ant to more than just the elite.

Conclusion

The task force’s desire to collect civil society feedback on the report is encouraging. The goal of this consultation was to elicit perspectives from civil society organizations on the content of the report. The potential of CSO influence on this report would have been more likely if consultations had taken place earlier, when the report’s main tenets were being formulated and throughout the process of revisions. This is concerning not only because it questions the genuine space created for participation but also because participants challenged and disagreed with two of the report’s key strategic objectives.

Albeit these limitations, there is space for the TF to integrate the main recommendations of this consultation as they undertake final revisions in August 2004. The executive summary of this report could be presented somewhere in the main text of the report. Examples provided by participants could also substantiate, strengthen and diversify those currently presented in the report. Finally, this summary could be attached as an annex to the report. ActionAid welcomes the TF’s feedback - both directly to the agency and for the e-discussion group – on how this kind of dialogue can be more influential and valuable to the Millennium Development Project.

Finally, unavailability of the TF papers in different languages limits regional representation. The executive summary of the report is available in Spanish, but there is no document in French or Portuguese. This not only limit’s participation in the dialogue, but also limits the validity and to some extent, credibility of the report (and Millennium Project) in areas of the world that speak these languages. This French dialogue was based on ActionAid’s translation of the one-page MDG report summary. It is unfortunate however, that participants will not be able to read the details, and main thrust of the report. Although discussions were held in Spanish and French, a one-day dialogue barely skims the surface. To fully integrate regional perspectives into the report, the TF will need to reach out to groups and participants around the world in order to prove that the MDGs are a relevant and applicable policy movement. I. Introduction[2]

ActionAid International partnered with the Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF), the Global Campaign on Education (GCE) and One World South Asia (OWSA) to launch the e-discussion.[3] As the lead partner, ActionAid International hired a moderator for the discussion and provided managerial support. The Commonwealth Education Fund participated by providing managerial support and by reaching out to its large constituency of staff worldwide. OWSA provided the discussion platform, training for the moderator and technical support for the website. Finally, this e-discussion group builds on the GCE’s consultation (and member list) on critical issues in basic education over the past year.

The universal primary education MDG and report e-discussion took place from July 12th to August 1st. Discussion questions were sent to the group at the beginning of each week. A one-page summary of the report was provided for the discussion group and participants were also encouraged to read the executive summary and full report. The first week focused on the overall framing of the universal primary education (UPE) report. The second week focused on the six key messages of the report. The third and final week centred on the recommendations section. Weekly summaries prepared by the moderator were distributed to the group.

Day-long Spanish (August 4th) and French (August 5th-6th) language discussions were held on both the gender equality and education reports. Summaries of these dialogues, along with original responses can be found in the annexes.

The TF is encouraged to read the summary of the gender equality MDG consultation, where numerous messages on education were exchanged. This report integrates some of these messages.

II. Response volume and participant profiles

The dialogue attracted over 1,300 participants, although not all contributed to the e-forum. The majority of these participants were part of the previous on-line dialogue on the gender equality MDG report. One hundred and ninety-nine new people joined the group, while approximately 18 unsubscribed. [4]

The gender discussion ended with 1,272 subscribed members. On July 12th, the education discussion began with a total of 1,350 participants. On August 1st, at the end of the three-week discussion, a total of 1,312 members belonged to the group. Incorrect email addresses and those who unsubscribed explain the 55-member decrease.

In total, 57 responses from 17 countries were received. Barring multiple messages sent by any one person, 51 people participated (see Annex 1 for a list of contact information of these participants.) Twenty-seven of these were male and 20 were female.[5] They represented International Non Governmental Organization (INGO), local Civil Society Organizations (CSO), academics, and donor agencies. The regional breakdown is as follows:

§ Europe (Switzerland, UK)

§ Asia (India, Pakistan, South Pacific)

§ Latin America and Caribbean (Barbados, Ecuador, Uruguay)

§ Africa (Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia)

§ North America (USA)

III. Summary of Comments

This summary compiles messages in a parallel format to the TF report in order to facilitate CGD’s integration of comments.[6] Select project examples provided by participants are highlighted in this summary. The TF is encouraged to review the full transcript of original responses (Annex 2) for more project examples. Analysis and recommendations stemming from these responses are offered in section IV of this summary.

This first week of the dialogue was intentionally left “unstructured” to monitor the areas participants felt were important to discuss. A few questions on the overall framing of the report were asked in order to jump start discussions. The MDG target 2 is to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

§ The report states that education can be either about reproducing or transforming societies. Does the report succeed in illustrating how schools can be transformative? Please highlight any relevant examples you might have on programs that have made education transformative.

§ Is the overall framing of education in this report consistent with the education recommendations in the gender report? Do you have suggestions on how to strengthen coherency between the two documents?

§ It has been suggested that the goal of education all children by 2015 can be achieved with the right resources, political will and programs. In which ways does this report help governments, donor agencies and civil society to more effectively work toward this goal? How can it be strengthened?

§ Please share your reactions on how to reinforce or challenge this report so it can be more useful to you.

Responses on the Task Force contribution & perspective

The reports’ call for making education transformative was applauded and there was excitement with the document calling for a change in how business is usually conducted. However, participants expressed that the report fell short of guiding how to transform education, and what needs to change.

Summary of E-Discussion on Universal Primary Education MDG and Task Force Report