In 1994 Pakistan Announced That It Would Continue With Its Program
In the remote region of northern Pakistan, isolated mountain communities exhibit traditional values, a strong sense of self-reliance — and education statistics that are among the worst in the country. Extreme poverty, social conservatism, and inadequate facilities have played a large role in keeping the majority of children, and a disproportionate number of girls, out of school. While local social and economic factors have been a large part of the problem, an innovative new education program suggests that attitudes are changing, and that solutions can be found in the same place — the local communities. By enlisting village groups in the building and management of local schools, the Northern Areas Community Schools Program has tapped into a potentially powerful force for change: parents' increasing demand for education for their children, including their daughters, and an enthusiasm that seems to grow when communities have a hand in managing their local schools. Contributing to the potential success of this new program is the strength of its foundation: a unique partnership of local communities, national and local government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and members of the international donor community (the World Bank and the British Department for International Development). Since the program's beginning in 1995, 500 communities have opened community schools with girls making up over half of the new students. While the program has proven successful in increasing access to education, the challenges ahead include monitoring quality and sustainability — an effort that will require all the partners to continue working together as the program evolves.
Education in the Northern Areas
Educational indicators in the Northern Areas are among the worst in the country, and are especially low for girls and women. In 1981 the female literacy rate in the region was just 3 percent. The male literacy rate was not much better at 14.7 percent-well below the then national average of 26 percent. In 1995 national achievement surveys, children-and teachers — in the Northern Areas scored the lowest in the nation, and it was the only region in which girls scored lower than boys, reflecting serious gender equity issues.
It is not difficult to find reasons for the discouraging numbers. Government spending on education has been extremely low in the Northern Areas, as has support from the international donor community. A shortage of schools means many children have to travel long distances under harsh geographic and climactic conditions, and inadequate design and lack of maintenance funds have led to poor physical conditions in most schools. There is also a shortage of teachers. As of 1994, no additional teacher posts in the Northern Areas had been authorized by the government for eight years, seriously curtailing the opening of new schools or even adequate staffing of existing ones. The vast majority of teachers are teaching students spanning several grades in one classroom without materials other than a textbook. Many teachers have had little academic training and/or no formal teacher training, and for most, supervision or other academic support is infrequent, or non-existent. While educational gender inequity in the Northern Areas can be partly explained by conservative social attitudes, the complete explanation is not so simple. World Bank studies have shown that, contrary to popular belief about the extreme social conservatism of the North, parents from even the most traditional areas are eager to educate their girls. However several factors have discouraged them. Studies have shown that parents do not feel as comfortable sending their girls to schools where all the teachers are male. Of the teachers in government-run primary and middle schools in the Northern Areas, 86 percent are male. Other factors, such as sanitation and running water, have also been found important in the retention of girls in school. Very few existing schools have these facilities. Then there is the simple problem of school access for girls. In the Northern Areas, approximately 82 percent of government-run schools are for boys. Finally, while demand for education is higher than supply in the Northern Areas, studies show that some parents will keep their children, especially girls, out of school if they deem the quality of the education too low to make it worthwhile. Because of the many shortcomings of the public school system, a growing demand for wider access and higher quality education for children has remained unmet in the Northern Areas.
New Approach Fuels New Attitudes: NGO makes a difference in Northern Areas
The increased demand for education, notably for girls, can be traced in part to the efforts of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), the largest and most established NGO in the region. A creation of the Ismaili spiritual leader, the foundation's primary mission is the funding of programs for Ismaili communities worldwide.
The oldest of the AKDN programs in the Northern Areas is the Aga Khan Educational Service Program (AKESP), which runs 126 schools. Originally the schools were established as girls' schools in Ismaili communities. However recently the schools have begun accepting boys and non-Ismaili children. AKESP schools charge tuition and are generally considered to offer better quality education than government schools. AKESP schools have had a strong effect on increased demand for education in general and for girls in particular in the Northern Areas. Another AKDN organization, the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) has a 15-year history of mobilizing local communities and forming village organizations to undertake a range of self-help projects, including agriculture, water and sanitation, microenterprise schemes — and now community schools — in the Northern Areas.
Origins of the Community Schools Program
The AKRSP, with its close ties to the village organizations, sensed a growing unmet demand for education in the Northern Areas. When the federal government announced the beginning of its Social Action Program, with a component designed to improve education nationwide, the AKRSP saw an opportunity to try something completely different.
The Social Action Program (SAP) , begun in 1993, is the federal government's main vehicle for improving social services — including basic health, population, water supply and primary education — nationwide. The SAP carries a mandate for increased collaboration with local communities and NGOs, and in the area of education, a mandate to focus on improving the situation for girls. Working together, the AKRSP and the government developed a proposal to use SAP funds to establish "community schools" in partnership with the village organizations. Under the program, the government advertised the availability of funds to help communities willing to start their own school. Once communities had expressed interest, a series of dialogues was conducted regarding program guidelines and mutual responsibilities. The dialogue process is a technique developed by AKRSP, whose local social organizers were frequently involved in the dialogues between village organizations and the government.
Criteria for eligibility included:
- all community schools to be established were to be either co-educational or girls' primary schools
- schools would only be established where no school currently existed, there existed only a boys' school to which parents were unwilling to send their girls, geographical, political or sectarian constraints prevented parents from sending their children to the local school, or a school was available but did not satisfy demand
- communities would have to provide a building for classes
- the community would have to hire a teacher who met the criteria of the Directorate of Education (DOE) for the Northern Areas. The criteria included the stipulation that a female teacher must be hired over a male unless there were no female meeting minimum academic requirements, which was reduced to a grade eight pass versus a grade ten pass for males.
In return, the DOE would:
- deposit a "grant" of Rs. 100,000 in an interest-bearing account in the name of the community
- the interest from which (about Rs. 1,400 per month) would help pay the salary of the teacher
- provide training for the teacher
- provide academic supervision.
The above agreements and responsibilities were incorporated into a Terms of Partnership to be signed by community representatives and the DOE.
Initial Results Encouraging
Public response to the program was overwhelmingly positive. Over approximately a ten- month period (between January and October 1995) a first round of 250 community schools were opened — a 57 percent increase in the number of elementary schools under some form of government auspices in the Northern Areas. Partnerships continued to multiply and to date 500 community schools have been opened. By March 1996, enrollment in the first 250 schools had reached 12,088 students, or approximately 16 percent of primary enrollment in the regular government system. Of these new enrollments, almost 61 percent were girls, and just under half of the teachers were female. Besides working to meet demand for girls education, the program has found that the majority of parents were seemingly comfortable having boys and girls attend school together, as long the teacher was chosen by the community. As a result of the program's initial success, the DOE has made community participation a cornerstone of its educational priorities and strategies. In addition to the community schools program, the DOE is actively trying to encourage more community participation in "regular" government schools through the formation of parent-teacher associations (PTAs). Management tasks for which both village education committees and PTAs will be responsible include building maintenance and small repairs, monitoring both teacher and student absenteeism, keeping records and accounts, small-scale fundraising, and providing a communication link between the school and the larger community. Village education committees will have the additional responsibilities of purchasing materials for the classroom, hiring and firing teachers, and negotiating salaries, raises and other aspects of the teacher's employment.
A Role for the World Bank: The Northern Education Project
The initial implementation phase of the SAP community schools program in the Northern Areas happened to coincide with the early preparation phase of a World Bank-financed education project for the Northern Areas and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) — another remote, disadvantaged region in northern Pakistan.
The Northern Education Project (NEP) is funded by a US$22.8 million credit provided by the International Development Association (IDA) _ the concessional lending arm of the World Bank Group. Its focus is to provide financing and technical support for primary education to the northern regions which had been previously under-served by the government and donor community. Like the SAP, the NEP carried a mandate to promote greater community participation in the provision of education. IDA experience in Pakistan thus far included an ongoing program to establish girls' schools through government-community participation in Balochistan, and recent studies had shown that community involvement in school management helped to improve student attendance, reduce teacher absenteeism, and improve children's academic learning. The existence and early success of the SAP community schools program put the NEP preparation team in an unusual and enviable position. Rather than having to convince reluctant government officials of the potential benefits of community participation, the team found itself urging a slow-down in the rapid expansion of the community school program in the face of unbridled government enthusiasm. The risk was that too many schools would be opened too quickly without enough attention given to quality of education or sustainability of the schools in the long run. The NEP team conducted a field-based review of the community schools program during project preparation. The review confirmed that the SAP program criteria had, on the whole been applied as advertised, and that the program enjoyed widespread support among participating communities and within the DOE. The review also confirmed that the program needed additional support (and in some cases redesign) if the initial enthusiasm was not to give way to frustration and disillusionment. Accordingly, support for the community schools program was made a central element in the design of the NEP, as the main avenue for expansion of access to primary schooling in the Northern Areas.
Planned project support includes the following:
Teacher Training:
Few if any of the community school teachers have received any teacher training, and training of teachers in traditional government schools was found to be inadequate. The project would provide training for both groups of teachers in cooperation with the DOE staff and the AKESP.Self-Help Construction Support:
Most of the buildings donated by communities for community school classes are physically inadequate for learning. Often they are rented, representing a permanent drain on educational funds, or they are donated, making the school dependent upon the whims and needs of the donor. The NEP will provide school construction support to communities who meet eligibility requirements proving the need for the school and the community's ability to sustain the school.Additional Financial Support:
The NEP includes funds to support community schools in the form of yearly grants to eligible schools. The grants may be used for teacher salaries, school supplies, building rental and/or maintenance. Separate funds have also been budgeted for ongoing maintenance of buildings constructed under the project.Institutional Development/Support:
With the addition of 500 community schools, the DOE has increased by two-thirds the number of schools over which it exercises academic supervision. Yet by all accounts, supervision of even "regular" government schools has been woefully inadequate due to understaffing, lack of training and lack of dependable transport. Most DOE field staff also have limited experience in engaging parents and community members in school affairs. The NEP will provide supplemental supervisory staff, additional vehicles, non-salary budget resources for petrol and maintenance, training for supervisory staff in both academic and social organization/mobilization issues, technical assistance including providing expertise in school finance / sustainability, and a new position of Deputy Director for SAP and Community Mobilization within the DOE. All technical assistance for the project is being funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by the British Council.The Challenges Ahead
There are many positive indications of success for the community schools program, but also questionable areas to which NEP may help to find solutions. Are these schools financially sustainable, and on what basis? Can they maintain some degree of autonomy (in teacher selection, for example) or will they gradually tend to be "mainstreamed" into the regular government system? What is the quality of the education children are receiving? Is it better than in regular government schools? Will the community school model (because it relies on community initiative and contributions of time and space) inadvertently serve to exacerbate disparities between poor, disorganized communities and their better-off counterparts?
It is far too early to make predictions about the success or failure of NEP. The project became effective in February 1998 and is just getting off the ground. Factors that could jeopardize its success include Pakistan's worsening macroeconomic situation, continued flair-ups of sectarian violence, and the heightened tensions with India. It will be a challenge for the Bank to monitor and try to minimize the effect of budget cuts on the social sectors, and to provide sufficient support to the DOE in the first year of project implementation to clarify and simplify at least some of IDA's policies and requirements. There are also a number of factors that increase the project's chances of success. First is the prodigious energy, commitment and political acumen of several key members of the Northern Areas Administration who have a significant stake in making the project work and have demonstrated their ability to cut through government and donor red tape and regulations in order to get things done. Second, there is the fact that the government is working closely with the AKDN agencies in project preparation, design and implementation. Furthermore, these roles are explicit in the IDA Development Credit Agreement. As an added measure of stability, outside donors can help by facilitating sometimes delicate negotiations where areas of operation between the government and NGO may overlap. Finally, the community schools initiative enjoys substantial ownership at the grassroots level, as well as within the DOE. The 500 communities who have opened community schools with DOE assistance form a strong natural constituency for both continuation and improvements to the program. To the extent that the NEP contains actions and activities designed to make the community schools program work better, that constituency also gives political clout to the project. Parents, teachers, community members and their representatives will continue to exert pressure on the DOE no matter who is there, and in that the project has both its greatest ally and challenge. "What is amazing about the community schools is the sense of ownership", says Ana Maria Jeria, Task Leader for the preparation of the NEP. "You walk into these schools and, although the actual conditions may be just as difficult as in the government school in the next village, the feeling is totally different. If the kids do not have desks, they will bring in mats from home to sit on. You meet with parents, and rather than bemoaning the condition of the school, they are proudly telling you about their plans for improvement. It's both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring."
The Northern Areas
Standing at the junction of four of the world's highest mountain ranges, the Northern Areas of Pakistan present an enormous developmental challenge in geography alone. Over 90 percent of the region's 800,000 people live in small villages scattered along valleys carved by glacial streams and rivers. Subsistence agriculture is the norm, and access to basic social services is often limited or unavailable. Roads are few, with one highway as virtually the only link to the rest of Pakistan. Physical isolation has fostered a strong tradition of community self-reliance, and helped sustain many of the region's distinct ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities. There are at least 12 different language groups, and the three major Islamic sects (Sunni, Shia, and Ismaili) are represented in the region.
January 1999
In the shelterless school of the remote Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) region, children enjoy their studies and eagerly await a school house.
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Source: http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00811/WEB/OTHER/908FC4-2.HTM?OpenDocument
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