NN37, May 2006
Special Theme on Education and Training out of Poverty? A Status Report
BASIC, POST-BASIC, OR SECTOR-WIDE: MAKING THE WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS
By Harvey Smith, C?WBT, Reading and Claver Yisa MINEDUC, Kigali
Before investing further large-scale funding in education systems, it makes sense to analyse the anticipated impact on socio-economic development of different scenarios, which would include showing various proportions of a population completing primary, lower secondary, upper secondary, vocational training and higher education. A disadvantage of recent attention to sub-sectors, however, is that it has led to claims for favouring one sub-sector or another, without necessarily taking into account the overall impact on future long-term planning and resourcing of the education sector as a whole. Given that total funding for the sector is relatively inflexible, increasing the proportion of funding allocated to any one sub-sector needs to be appraised, on the one hand, in terms of the anticipated impact on national poverty, growth and development and, on the other, in terms of the negative impact of the resulting reduced funding of other sub-sectors.However, research over a number of years finds no evidence that better education and training increases long-term national growth. What does appear to correlate with growth is an increase in the number of people with basic skills ¡V literacy, numeracy, other life skills. This implies that rather than promoting specific sub-sectors governments should be looking to develop skills across the population ¡V providing education and training relevant for the many, not for the few, making education more demand driven, and focusing on change in behaviour. However, basic skills are necessary but not sufficient conditions for growth, and human and social capital requires other initiatives targeted at economic improvement. At post-basic levels, the burden of achieving this need not and should not fall entirely on the education sector.
The main driving force behind the move to sector-wide approaches (SWAps) was dissatisfaction by donors with the impact of education sector outcomes on poverty reduction and the indications that poverty reduction had less to do with education spending volumes and more to do with spending effectiveness. The original intention of SWAps was that they would have a greater impact on pro-poor education development than the previous much less integrated attention to projects and sub-sectors. While this link was fundamental it was indirect, through developing strong education sector policy, partnerships, planning and performance monitoring. Impact therefore needs to be sought less in short-term financial indicators than in non-financial social development indicators, for example in post-conflict situations impact on peace and reconciliation (contributing to building social capital) or in contexts of weak capacity the extent to which structures are put in place for long-term human resource development.
The renewed focus on sub-sectors implies a loss of faith in SWAps. After some 10 years it is appropriate to review the claims originally made for SWAps and to compare theory with practice. A case in point is the extent to which a ministry pursuing the concept of a SWAp, MINEDUC in Rwanda, has (in its SWAp preparatory phase) been able to prioritise between sub-sectors in its policy development, planning and financial allocations, and attempts to identify what factors have influenced those decisions, including the strategies at policy, institutional but also pedagogical levels which appear to be fundamental to influencing Rwanda¡¦s development. Experience to date indicates that targeting the sector as a whole is laying a foundation which will contribute more to development than targeting sub-sectors, and the SWAp concept has offered a way of redefining education as a whole to target effectiveness.
In terms of poverty reduction the focus now needs to be on a sector-wide approach to skills development, putting into place effective teaching and learning strategies which will ensure skills for all. When this skills orientation is integrated into the concept of the sector-wide approach, the whole should indeed be greater than the sum of its parts.