NORRAG - Network for Policy Research, Review and Advice on Education and Training

HISTORY OF NORRAG

NORRAG has been an attempt to pursue in a particular region of the world (the North as opposed to the South) some of the insights that had been gained through the work of the Research Review and Advisory Group (RRAG). The latter had been a 12 person advisory group set up and funded by Canada's IDRC in 1977, in the hope that it might review a great deal of the existing educational research (and especially that located in the developing world), and come up with advice to the donor agencies on educational investment. It was a group drawn more from the developing countries than the North.

The mechanism selected for RRAG was the state of the art review, a way of synthesising and providing policy advice.

After a few years, RRAG felt it might have greater impact regionally if money could be found to carry on some of the work of review and advice in different regions. This led to the idea of South East Asian Research Review and Advisory Group (SEARRAG) from the early 1980s, and to the Education Research Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ERNESA) from late 1985. In Latin America, there already existed a network of centres that collaborated in abstracting educational research for a common database. This Latin American network (REDUC) felt itself also to be a regional exemplification of the RRAG principle of emphasising the existence of local research, and synthesising it for policy.

Kenneth King had been the co-ordinator of RRAG from late 1983, and increasingly felt that there would be value in exploring a network that could access information across Northern research centres and donor agencies. Important encouragement came from both CIDA and SIDA to pursue this notion. IDRC meanwhile had been funding SEARRAG and had also agreed to fund ERNESA. Thus in late 1985 in Stockholm, there was the first meeting to examine the feasibility of NORRAG. This Stockholm meeting gathered together those in the North who had been involved in the international RRAG and those from the South who were co-ordinating or exploring regional RRAG networks. The meeting backed the idea of a Northern Research Review and Advisory Group, which could expect initial funding from SIDA.

Given what has been said above about the dissemination of information to Southern networks and to agencies, it should not be surprising that a dossier for distributing this kind of material should be the most obvious product of NORRAG in the early years. NORRAG NEWS (hereafter NN) thus was born. Getting the balance right between merely reporting, on the one hand, and offering an analytical account of a particular development, on the other, is something that has concerned NN. Consequently, the intention has never been to become the mouthpiece of the donor agencies, but when many of the earlier issues of NN were dedicated to agency profiles, it was possible to regard NORRAG as being almost too close to the agency world. Therefore, a decision was taken after 6 issues of NN to develop a somewhat more judgmental editorial policy, to follow through on major themes, and to establish a somewhat longer time horizon. These decisions were greatly helped by the onset of the World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) in 1990 with its succession of drafts requiring rapid comment and feedback. NN was close enough to the whole Jomtien process to follow and comment on its developments before, during and after WCEFA.

The original rationale for NN was for it to go to Southern researchers as an information service. In particular it was designed to go to all the members of SEARRAG, to the directors of REDUC research centres, and to the ERNESA national contact points. Later it was sent to the ERNWACA network in West and Central Africa. A second clear constituency was the donors. This too involved named individuals usually located in education and training divisions. The third grouping were originally those contact points, often just one or two per country, who represented NORRAG outside the agency world. We have already noted that their role was initially seen as feeding information into the newsletter. Originally, there was a disinclination to spread NN more widely in the North, since the primary audience was the South, and it was felt that the North was already information-rich.

Gradually, there was some development of this third category as national NORRAG contacts took the decision to share the contents more widely. In 1992 it was decided to encourage direct membership of NORRAG in OECD countries. NORRAG constituted itself as an Association under Swiss law - a network is supposed to take advantage of the best of two worlds - the individuals and the organisations.

NORRAG is more than just NN. NORRAG has been at its best in pulling together meetings like the one that reviewed the penultimate draft of the World Bank’s mid 1990s policy paper on Higher Education. The follow-up to this meeting became a book – perhaps the only book length critique of a World Bank policy paper! Similarly, books have emerged from NORRAG conferences which were associated with the biennial Oxford International Conference on Educational Development, e.g. Changing international aid to education and training (UNESCO 1998). And in 2001, there was a NORRAG international conference in Bonn which led to an issue of NORRAG NEWS and then to a book – all in the space of 5 months. It should be acknowledged that several meetings and subsequent books were supported by DSE in Bonn.

Over time, the old rationale for NORRAG has changed. The emphasis now, following a good deal of discussion with other regional network co-ordinators, is that NORRAG should operate in the same way as these Southern groups. In other words, it should develop and pursue those priorities it feels to be important. If these are well done, they will almost by definition be of value to the other networks, without them having to be justified as being ‘for the benefit of the South’.

Deliberately much of this account has focused on the early history, as it may be interesting to know where this organisation came from and what its principal rationale has been.

During the second half of the 1990s, NORRAG broke new ground in its role of policy review and advice by becoming one of the organisers, with ILO and Swiss Development Cooperation, of the Working Group on International Cooperation in Skills Development.

NORRAG has also been aware that its largest challenge is to expand its work in the developing world. That challenge is at the centre of its vision of being a New NORRAG with an expanded vision.

The decision, in 2003, to put NORRAG online has led to a rapid expansion in membership in both the north and south; Norrag members worldwide increased from 170 in 2003 to over 1,700 by October 2007.

It would not be appropriate to close this account without mentioning a word on the agencies that have supported NORRAG. Originally supported by Swedish Sida, DFID (from the late 1990s) and Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) (since 1992), NORRAG is currently (2007) funded by SDC and DFID. SDC has been the leading supporter of NORRAG’s work in catalysing the Working Group for Skills Development.

We owe a considerable debt of gratitude to these three bilateral agencies.