Embedding Capacity-Building in Institutional Change Series
"What Strategies for Capacity-Building?"
Ko-Chih Tung
NESIS Coordinator
and Wim Renkema
NESIS Associate Expert
Experiences of many development programs focused on information system development have shown that merely providing tools and training individuals— valuable as these may be—is unlikely to lead to sustainable capacities. Realizing this, the National Education Statistical Information Systems (NESIS) program of the Working Group on Education Statistics (WGES) has developed an approach that embeds the development of human resources in a wider framework of institutional change. The following article is the third of the series“What Strategies for Capacity-Development?”(1) which highlights the different approaches used within ADEA to strengthen capacities in sub-Saharan Africa. The issue of partnerships for capacity-building will be discussed during the 1997 ADEA Biennial Meeting. The meeting is slated for October 14-18 in Dakar, Senegal.
The NESIS program of the Working Group on Education Statistics was established in 1991. The program is aimed at strengthening sustainable education statistical information systems in sub-Saharan Africa in support of policy-makers’ needs for relevant quantitative information. As of today, 21 countries participating in the NESIS program have conducted diagnostic surveys and formulated national action plans. Thirteen countries are hosting pilot projects aimed at developing methods and tools which address specific problems in data gathering and analysis and five countries have tested initial products. Modules designed by national experts have been published.
What has been the NESIS approach to capacity-building? The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the conceptual factors which are considered as responsible for the program’s effectiveness.
The systems approach
During the first stage of the NESIS program, 21 countries conducted a diagnosis of their national education statistical information system. Four dimensions were examined: (a) the data subsystems; (b) phases of the information cycle; (c) factors of production; and (d) strategic functions (see Diagram 1: Dimensions and Components of NESIS).
A thorough analysis of the diagnostic surveys detected many weaknesses responsible for the lack of good quality, timely and relevant educational statistics. Factors such as inadequate or inappropriate hardware, software, organizational structure and management, work procedures and human competencies were identified. It was found that, ultimately, many of these weaknesses were due to deficiencies in the strategic functions of the information systems. Hence, in addition to strengthening individual skills, the NESIS program is focused on reinforcing strategic functions of the information systems, in particular the directive, executive and reproductive functions.
The NESIS strategy
The strategy of the NESIS program is to introduce and activate catalytic processes that will lead to the self-managed and sustainable development of effective and policy-relevant statistical information systems for education. It addresses two mutually supportive and dependent dimensions of development: the first pertains to the institutions and human resources; the second, to the technical methods and tools. These dimensions are dealt with in three phases (see Diagram 2: NESIS Capacity-Building Program).
In the first phase, the directive capacity to lead and manage is built in by institutionalizing a policy-level framework in the form of a national advisory council. At this level, the tools used are a systems diagnosis and a national action plan.
The second phase addresses the executive capacity to implement. At this level, the practice of task-oriented teamwork among specialists and within institutions is institutionalized. The tools used are the “good-practices” technical modules.
In the third phase, the reproductive capacity for regenerating knowledge and skills is institutionalized as training programs are carried out by training institutes and centers of excellence using the training modules.
Country leadership
In participating NESIS countries, all of the major education stakeholders have been involved at some stage of the program. The NESIS Advisory Council responsible for setting priorities is composed of policy-level representatives of the major information producer and consumer departments and institutions as well as development agencies. This forum for consumer-producer dialogue enables key decision-makers and stakeholders to play a leading role, and has initiated institutional change in the area of information system development. National experts were involved in the design and analysis of the diagnostic survey and in the formulation of national action plans.
By involving all of the major education stakeholders, NESIS has fostered a process sensitizing the whole education community to the production and use of educational statistics.
Country ownership
Ownership is reflected at several stages. Priority areas are defined by the advisory council and dealt with by national technical teams. The technical teams are composed of specialists from the ministry of education, the central office of statistics, universities, teacher training colleges and other institutions.
A distinctive characteristic of the NESIS strategy is its innovative methodology in the development of technical modules, training packages and programs. The products resulting from the pilot project products are not designed by outside technical experts in foreign agencies, who may be far removed from day-to-day practice and reality. They are developed by African teams of specialists who design and test tools and methods in their own working environment. They are shared and improved during sub-regional workshops with specialists involved in other pilot projects . National team specialists become accomplished and recognized experts, capable of handling new assignments and assisting other specialists.
Synergetic partnership
By pooling together efforts and resources, the partnership approach aims to achieve more than what would be achieved if each partner worked separately. National experts, institutions and local agencies work together in task-oriented teams and networks, share experiences, expertise, training and other forms of support related to project management and technical know-how.
Based on the principles of partnership (between and among national professionals, institutions and external facilitators) and African ownership, this methodology is a “bottom-up”, process-oriented strategy.
Self-regeneration
The shortage of skilled staff and venues for training in the region has been identified as one of the main obstacles to developing sustainable capacity. Staff turn-over is relatively high among those with professional skills and individual-oriented training—especially that received abroad. This situation often accelerates brain-drain, thus exacerbating shortage of skilled staff. How is it then possible to develop venues for human resources development when skilled staff and venues of training are lacking?
There exist highly trained Africans whose knowledge and skills are under-employed. As the biggest employer in many African countries, the ministry of education commands a vast corps of subject specialists and trainers—in universities, technical colleges, professional schools, research institutes, etc.—spread across the whole country and the region. The strategy of self-regeneration looks to national and regional institutions as sources of experts and trainers to serve on advisory councils, to implement task groups and to train and manage their human resources. The objective is to create a corps of indigenous experts, trainers and training institutions, who are apt to play a key role in national capacity building.
Guidelines for capacity-building
In accordance with this strategy, guidelines for capacity-building have been formulated recently .
Concerning the institutional framework, it is proposed that capacity-building functions be integrated into existing structures. For example, school records management for teachers can be introduced as a subject in national teacher training programs. Highly technical subjects, such as computer applications development, can be more effectively managed through a cooperative approach within a regional or sub-regional context. A more rapid, cost-effective and wider impact can be achieved by creating a forum that would enable the best specialists, trainers and institutions in the sub-region to conduct a training of trainers program.
Training packages shall be developed by “course development” teams, consisting of subject specialists, trainers, training managers and training material/media specialists. Aside from the technical subjects, the core curriculum would consist of how to use the training modules to organize and manage national training programs. The printed media should be supplemented with teaching-learning aids and support, using video, computer software, Internet, etc.
As for the mode of diffusion, a “multiplier” method shall spread innovations from pilot countries to other countries. Experienced teams will train trainers and managers on how to use the technical modules and the training packages in training programs. Subsequently, a “cascade” method shall disseminate the training programs from national central institutions to provinces, districts and schools. On-going training activities that could host such a sub-regional program already exist. For example, the Ethiopian Education Management Information System Center, has since long trained ministry and provincial staff in education planning and statistics. Zambia has introduced school records management as a subject in its teacher training curriculum. These trainers and course managers could host a sub-regional “summer session” for the training of trainers and managers coming from other countries.
A catalyst for change
The role of the NESIS program has been to play a catalytic role in the process of development. This has been done by fusing together institutions, agencies and experts in joint ventures and networks as agents of change. The goal is to build national capacities in directive, executive and reproductive functions, to enable policy-makers to lead and manage, specialists and agencies to implement, and training institutes and centers of excellence to regenerate knowledge and skills of human resources needed for development.
Referring to the NESIS program, Ingemar Gustafsson, Chair of ADEA said “The promotion and development of national educational statistical information systems is a long-term continuous process. The exchange of experiences has emerged as one of the program’s key strategies and NESIS as the engine of networking.”
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have also come to this conclusion. Capitalizing on the good working relations established through NESIS regional activities, the WGES, meeting held in Abidjan May 14-16, 1997 decided to establish a regional network with sub-regional nodes. This structure will support activities relating to capacity-building and country implementation, the exchange of experiences. It will act as a clearing-house for mutual assistance and training opportunities, in collaboration with training institutions and centers in the sub-regions. Taking into consideration the available staff, the expected support from funding agencies and the desirability of participating countries’ input, it was decided to establish a structure consisting of an overall coordination unit and network nodes in three sub-regions —West, Central and Eastern-and-Southern Africa.
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