SAGA Progress Report - West Africa

SAGA
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SAGA Progress Report
October, 2003

II. RESEARCH
    F. West Africa

     1. Senegal — Education and Vulnerability

     Activities over the past 12 months

As noted in the previous annual report, our consultations in the West Africa region quickly focused our attention on issues of the low educational attainment in the region, lagging cognitive skill development, and the large gender bias in schooling. By the early 1990s, the education system in much of West Africa had fallen into a state of crisis. Reflecting resource inefficiencies and misallocations in the composition of public spending across educational levels, and substantial degradation in the quality of schooling from elementary to higher education, gross enrollment rates both at the primary and secondary levels fell to levels that were low even when compared with the averages for Sub-Saharan Africa. Teacher shortages are climbing along with the pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level. In addition to low initial enrollment, grade repetition and dropping out of primary school before completion are serious problems. Various stakeholders were also concerned with the lack of access to secondary schools that may be inhibiting primary, not just secondary, enrollments. Most important, perhaps, is the particular disadvantage of girls in all grades, as manifest by higher rates of repetition and dropout.

Thus, one of our major research foci is to investigate the household, community, and school-level determinants of the following education outcomes in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire: primary and secondary enrollment, school level transitions and progress through school, grade repetition and dropout rates, and learning—both academic (math and French test scores) and non-academic ("life-skills") to address the following types of questions.

What are the main determinants—at the household, school, and community levels—of primary and lower secondary enrollment? How do these factors affect the choice of school when there are different alternatives available to the households (e.g., public, private, community school)?
Why do so many children drop out of primary school before completion, or interrupt their primary schooling for significant periods? Do children drop out because they perform poorly in school, i.e., obtain low grades or test scores? Or do children stop going to school (permanently or temporarily) as a result of asset, income, or health shocks to the household, for example the illness of a parent that requires the child to work on the farm or in the home? Are the same factors also associated with grade repetition?
For those who complete primary school, what determines transition to lower secondary school and the progression through secondary school? That is, what is the importance of the distance to school or rationing of places? Of academic performance in primary school? Of household economic status (income, wealth)? How do girls’ probabilities of transition to, and continuation in, secondary school differ from boys, and why? Do children who do not continue in school enter the labor market or work in productive activities in the home, and if so, in what specific activities?

For student achievement, we seek to address the following questions:

What are the determinants of student learning as measured by test performance? For example, at the household/individual level, what are the roles of maternal and paternal schooling and household income? Is poor health and nutrition of the child a significant deterrent to learning?
What are the effects on learning of school and teacher factors such as teacher qualifications and gender, and how do these vary by grade level? Do girls who have a female teacher score better on tests? How do school and classroom management factors—staff management and monitoring practices, pedagogical practices, the use of double shifting and multi-grade systems, etc.—affect learning?
Beyond standard academic skills, is schooling effective at imparting knowledge of important 'life skills' such as good health practices that non-schooled children are not able to learn, or learn as well? What kinds of schools or school characteristics are associated with better acquisition of these skills?
Do children who stop their schooling after several years of primary education, or after completing primary school, retain the skills and knowledge they have learned, or is this knowledge lost?

The project is a collaborative research effort that will involve, in addition to Cornell, institutions in Senegal such as Confemen Education System Analysis Program (PASEC), Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée (CREA), the Ministry of Education, the national statistics agency (Direction de la Prevision et de la Statistique), and Institut National de l’Enseignement Appliqué et de la Didactique (INEAD); and in Côte d’Ivoire, Ivoirian researchers at Ecole Nationale supérieure de Statistique et d’Economie Appliqué (ENSEA) and Centre Ivoirien de Recherche Économique et Sociale (CIRES), as well as French researchers from Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA). Given the expense of data collection associated with this activity, we are also actively working with the French Ministry of Development Cooperation and the World Bank to secure funding for local survey costs.

Most of the previous 12 months was dedicated to working with our partners to design and implement the household survey described above. We have completed the survey, and the data entry is now in its final stages. In addition, we have begun to clean the data and prepare analysis files. We expect all the analysis files to be prepared by the end of the calendar year. Overall, the efforts involved in conducting this large and uniquely comprehensive survey were a major accomplishment. It involved over eight trips for the SAGA research team to Dakar in the past year, and approximately one person year of our team being on site during this period. In addition, numerous Senegalese institutions were engaged, as were some 50 enumerators and supervisors.

     Activities anticipated over the next six months

Over the next three months, we will work with our collaborators to conduct the analysis. CREA, Cornell University-USAID, INRA, the World Bank, UNICEF and the Ministry of Education are planning two large conferences with a broad range of stakeholders, researchers, and policy-makers in the next year to disseminate the research results. The first is planned for March, 2004.

2. Community Schools and Distance Learning

The ongoing political conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire impeded progress on the research program for the community schools and distance learning. The research on community schools is to be conducted in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal and the distance learning in Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa as discussed below.

     A. Distance Education

During a recent visit to Abidjan, N’Dri Assie-Lumumba held a series of meetings with the team researching distance education and the development of human resources for education to support enrollment and internal efficiencies. This visit involved joint meetings, first with the Director of the Centre Ivoirien de Recherche Economiques et Sociales (CIRES), Professor Mama Ouattara, and the Director of the Centre d’Education à Distance-Côte d’Ivoire (CED-CI), Dr. Kouassi Yao, and then with Professor Ouattara, Dr. Yao, sixteen CIRES faculty and researchers, and the CIRES librarian. A concluding meeting was attended by Professor Ouattara, two senior CIRES faculty members, and Dr. Yao to summarize the main points raised and discussed so far and to design plans for moving forward.

The main purpose of these sessions was to identify topics for basic and applied research that will improve enrollment and internal efficiency through distance learning programs for teachers. An initial research topic that came up was to analyze the determinants of technological adoption before studying specifically distance learning and teacher training in order to improve educational output. It is also important that the research and proposals are tailored to the different capabilities as CIRES has a greater capacity for basic and empirical research while CED-CI is more involved in technical work. It was agreed that a joint proposal would be prepared in the coming weeks. As research on distance education will also be conducted in South Africa, members of the Ivorian team are looking forward to establishing working relationships with their South African counterparts.

The prospect for institutional collaboration at both the national level and with South African institutions was very well received. Although the political situation is a major hindrance to most of our activities, unlike in the case of the community schools research, it is possible to start the research on distance learning right away. There was a shared sentiment that given the devastating impact of the conflict on the educational system — including the refusal of displaced teachers to return to their previous posts coupled with the impact of HIV/AIDS on morbidity and mortality among the teachers — it is critical that they make preparations to provide qualified teachers in the near future. Thus our research agenda, given its applied component, is considered by the Ivorian team to be right on the mark.

     B. Community Schools

The ongoing political context in Côte d’Ivoire and the fact that the schools and localities to be included in the study are in the areas still controlled by the "rebels" has adversely affected progress in this area as well. However, contacts have been maintained with the Ministry of Education in Abidjan, especially the unit in charge of the community school (écoles non-formelles). Continued work on mapping the needs has been shared. For instance statistical representation of the different regions based on socio-economic capacity and hitherto enrollment rates. Additional work will be needed to fully assess the actual needs following the destructive impact of the armed conflicts.

More preparatory work was done in the case of Senegal under the direction of Dr. Assie-Lumumba by a Senegalese researcher, Marième Lo. She visited a variety of sites with the purpose of locating the community school within its social environment and to draw a situation analysis, assessing challenges and potentialities of current programs, as well as areas of innovations. A wide spectrum of actors, stakeholders and intended beneficiaries were interviewed primarily to revisit assumptions about community schools and obtain a first-hand account of the prevailing situation regarding the development of community schools and update about the current and emerging issues.

The actors who are key players at various degrees in the conceptualization, implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the community schools activities and who were interviewed include:

The Association des Parents d’Elèves, members of the management committee;
Teachers of the community schools often referred to as volunteers given their status in the education system and their precarious situation;
The donors that provide most of the funding as well as orientation of the community school;
The local authorities that enable the establishment of the community school, oversee its relationship with the community and exercise decision making prerogatives;
The operators which serve as a liaison between the community school and the donor community and the IDEN (Inspection Départementale de l’Education);
The IDEN that oversees the set-up, operation and maintenance of the community school in compliance with the national regulatory guideline and protocol. It also provides training of teachers, and ensures quality of the teaching. It serves as a liaison between the community school and the central education system and Ministry;
Youth graduates of the community schools;
Enrolled students; and
Community school administration.

Several options of the community school concept are being tested.

In the diagnosis of the community schools, key thematic issues and enduring concerns not bounded by time or location are the following:

Entrance and exit conditions and criteria:

Official documents codify the structure, form, content and mechanisms of operation of the community schools and the community schools devise internal strategies and adopt regulatory frameworks as prescribed by the Ministry of Education. It is common to observe rules and regulations, mobilization strategies and alternative mechanisms devised by communities to meet the unaccounted demands of the local community, respond to social situation that even jeopardize the very existence of the community school.

The structure of the community school and the role of the "comité de Gestion," management task force in decision making regarding the school location, enrollment fees, teacher hiring and salary, as well monitoring enrollment and maintaining children in school, sanctions. It seems that the community members, the comité de gestion and the APE exercise power in specific domains, such as deciding the amount of the enrollment fees, disciplinary measures, teachers salary of which the communities are partially or entirely responsible of, but they not have so much influence in the areas of curriculum and school calendar.

Comité de gestion is elected and consists of 5 to 6 members, among which one or two women in most cases. Thus a number of questions can be raised as to whom the community represents, who has voice in decision making, and where do women stand on the decision ladder.

The school social environment:

The interrelation between the school physical environment, learning environment, population, facilities and their incidence on the learning /teaching transactions and the overall performance of the community schools. The existence of an enabling and constricting socio-economic environment contribute to the success or failure of the community school, which relies on accessible and flexible delivery mode of education, cost effective and beneficial to the whole community. The typology of the community, its degree of homogeneity or diversity level of motivation and mobilization capacities are identified as elements that have an incidence on the school functioning, financing, parents association leadership, enrollment and maintenance level.

Community resources mobilization strategies to support basic education, the community schools in particular, existing cases of community self-reliance in the financial management, and short term sustainability of the school. The motivation and sacrifice of the community to successfully establish a community school and provide the labor and material resources for its maintenance through collective endeavors (collective gardens, income generating activities) is a case in point, the exception but not the rule in communities where human and material resources are scarce.

This exemplifies, to some extent, the connection between women’s associations, income generation activities and the community school and it also suggests alternative strategies especially the community-based resource mobilization strategies toward education finance. It raises, however, the question of the preconditions and potentials of alternative community-based resource (human, material and social) mobilization strategies for education and also an ethical question of equity, mainly the extra burden on communities at grips with competing demands for survival to devote scare resource to education at the expense of other life threatening needs.

Community differential resource base and assets seem to have differential impacts on community school functioning, staffing, administration and sustainability, quality of instruction and results.

The role of income generation activities in the community school:

Most people interviewed are in favor of embedded income generating activities to the community schools for pedagogical purposes, to provide hands-on learning experiences to the learners/students and bring a stronger linkage between the community school and the community.

This aspect is highly debated among the donor community. Some support the development of income generation activities as an additional source of funding while others support the income generation activities for a pedagogical support of classroom instruction. This debate is anchored also in the overall vision of the community school finality as passerelle or insertion. The donors who support the passerelle option seem less inclined to supporting the development of income generation activities.

The passerelle option also reflects specific donors’ reaction to the use and maintenance of local languages, and encourage official languages, French in the case, as a medium of instruction.

The options are mostly based on policy and decisions of the government in cases where the community school is funded bilaterally. It is left to the discretion of international NGO to promote either passerelle or insertion. Some donors prefer the passerelle option and impose such vision through funding mechanisms.

In contrast, others suggest a new form of community schools, a format in which promotes the professional insertion in the labor market and the acquisition of practical skills for workforce development (new USAID pilot programs in Saint Louis).

"Innovation." The new concept of community schools is referred to as "Ecole Communautaure de Base Articulée" a school better adapted to the community’s needs, the learning needs and the opportunities for a "formation diplomante," qualification for the job market.

The "Ecole Articulée" is presented as an innovation based on lessons learned from the previous mid-term evaluation of the PAPA program.

Typically, the school is set up within Centre Régional d’Enseignement Technique Féminin. So far, 20 centers exist in Senegal at an experimental phase. The question that was asked was whether the center will replace the ECB in the long term; there was no definitive answer. It seems that both the ECB and the "Ecole Articulée" will exist concomitantly until a decision is made about which one to promote, or which one will prevail and survive as a desirable alternative.

Most people interviewed from the Ministry are in favor of the "Ecole Articulée." However, by its very location, mostly in urban centers, and attached to an exiting institution, the community’s influence becomes marginal. There is no agreement among the donor community to support the "Ecole Articulee" as the prototype.

Typology of the community school:

What are the determinants of an effective community school? What criteria to measure success? It seems that the only criteria to assess students’ performance, quality of instruction, and teachers’ performance are the entrance exams. They mark a turning point and are an essential benchmark in the life of the community school and the future prospects of its students.

It is also a yardstick that the management committee comprised of students’ parents, to assess the performance of the staff, teachers in particular. The school environment, provision of learning material, the material conditions of instruction, internal and external factors are not broached in the evaluation of performance.

No evaluations aimed at locating and tracing the graduates have been systematically conducted. Little attention or follow up seems to be devoted to the cohort once it graduates. The question of options and opportunities offered or not to the graduates from the community schools and assessment of the impacts and relevance of the community schools attract little attention from the decision makers.

Determinants of quality:

Social environment of the schools, quality of instruction, teachers’ education level, training and development/motivation.

Life history of the community schools along with a longitudinal study of the community school over a four year period, a generation, will certainly provide a sound basis for analysis of a) the survival mechanisms of community schools; b) the chances of survival of community schools after the withdrawal of PAPA and the operators; c) follow up graduate students, their insertion in formal public schools or insertion in the labor market, and d) Community readiness and strategies for l school maintenance and sustainability.

Fundamental questions of inequality and equity are not solved by the mere existence of the community schools in underserved areas. Overriding concerns pertain to the lack of sense of ownership of the community members, lack of capacities to manage efficiently the community schools and long-term vision for sustainability. Instructional support is limited.

Community level of information and involvement in the community school:

In most cases, the community school is externally driven from its inception. The community is not fully aware to support the school, bear the long-term cost of the school. Hence the opportunity cost incurred to farming families, and the enduring debate over the relevance of school. The issues identified relate to the lack of sense of ownership of the community members, subsequent lack of capacities to manage efficiently the community schools and long-term vision for sustainability.

The presence of the school in a community may bridge the physical distance but the psychological distance still prevail. There are cases of creative solutions that emanate from communities: community collective cereal banking systems; collective gardens; homestay village feeding programs to create the enabling conditions for students’ maintenance in school and completion and to reduce dropout rates and promote access to education for all.

Curriculum in the community school:

In Senegal, curriculum is supervised by the IDEN (Inspection Départementale de l’Education). Yet flexibility is encouraged. However, access to teaching material, textbooks are problematic. Also the emphasis on the community needs, the relevance of the teaching to the milieu and community priorities are formidable challenges to reconcile quality and relevance.

Aide et Action is conceptualizing a manual. Another question concerns the articulation of the curriculum to provide life skills to the youth, and to prepare them to entrepreneurship. The linkage between micro-project, youth entrepreneurship and curriculum is attracting increasing attention especially in the new concept of the community school, the "Ecole Communautaire de Base Articulée," in light of the poor insertion potentials of the first generation of community schools student in Senegal.

Evaluation of impacts: what are the impacts of the community school?

Several success stories were told and important information has been collected from them. But the criteria to measure success are subjective to interpretation. In Senegal the enrollment level is still very low to really have an impact in the overall national enrollment rate. Gender equity in enrollment seems to be a concern and completion rate are still lower among girls.

Relationship and degree of mobilization of local communities seem to be a measure of success. The level of internal resources mobilized is mentioned as a predictor of success. Quality of education, performance, admission rate to formal school system and secondary school are mentioned as critical factor of success. But community level impacts do not prevail in the impact analysis.

Seizing opportunities for Actions:

The engagement and collaboration with the key stakeholders were invaluable to enhance the relevance of the research, to contribute to the on-going initiatives and reflect on new alternatives and practices.

Since elements of participatory learning approaches were integrated in the research methodology, it was possible to engage in problem solving activities, mainly with the parents’ associations of community schools students, the APE, the management committee, and school directors, to address constructively some of the issues they were grappling with. The expressed mutual interest provides a unique opportunity to integrate action, participatory learning exercises, brainstorming, strategic planning and problem solving exercises.

There seems to be great potential for multi-stakeholder partnership for education, to reach out to all segments of the population, the private sectors as well as individual good will and volunteer to bring a building block in the enduring challenge to provide quality education to underserved students in marginalized areas.

Planned Activities

The research proposals for the distance education will be finalized in the next few weeks. As soon as the situation in Côte d’Ivoire permits we will proceed with the study in both countries (Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal). Likewise, the work on Community Schools is set to continue and expand over the next year.

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