Primary Education Survey Evaluation Report Somalia - Somali - JNA

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PES Evaluation Report, 2008 Currently common practice in agencies and NGOs is to sustain separateness between sectors such as education, health, water and sanitation, child protection etc. While attempts are made to have a more integrated approach to programme planning through constructs such as focusing on common regions or the identification of ‘cross cutting’ issues in an attempt to achieve synergies of programming effort, such attempts are not often reflected in systematic programme infrastructure and often have to be achieved through an additional layer of arrangements internal to an organisation. One approach to build a more systematic infrastructure to achieve cross sector cooperation is the DevInfo data base that stores key indices for all sectors across many countries to facilitate more holistic analyses. DevInfo tends to focus on macro level data with some disaggregation. There does appear to be an opportunity to further enhance impact through the programme infrastructure by allowing cross sector investigations to be made by linking the EMIS to the Health IMS at district, and community level to allow systematic investigations to be made in support of holistic programming activities. This together with a mapping process facilitated by the GPS coordinates being collected will allow for some detailed and holistic micro level reporting that will be particularly valuable in emergency situations. Hence, enhancing impact of the existing data collection and storage processes across sectors. Recommendation a. That impact of the PES be improved by implementation of the recommendations of this report in the areas of diversified reporting, capacity building on data use, broadening the scope of data collected, decentralisation of PES processes and linking PES to other data systems E. SUSTAINABILITY Findings and Analysis If sustainability of the process means that the MoEs can undertake the PES independently of outside technical assistance and funding support, then it is abundantly evident that the process is not sustainable now. Ministries are dependent on UNICEF for funding, organisation, conceptual overview, monitoring and much of the motivation for undertaking the annual survey. One Director General, while understanding the notion and need for sustainability sees UNICEF as part of that sustainability. UNICEF is not like a small NGO, it will be here in the future. Clearly the DG has a different concept of sustainability than that suggested above. The need has already been discussed for the carefully designed structures and capacity building procedures at ministry level. These are emerging and UNICEF contributions of Planning and EMIS technical assistance and the establishment of an EMIS unit for each of the three ministries will be important contributions to sustainability. The extent to which they are successful obviously will impact on sustainability. To the extent that lack of quality staff is seen as a threat to sustainability, it may be necessary to look for different arrangements that the traditional employment of staff to permanent positions within the MoEs to meet capacity demands of the EMIS. One possible alternative arrangement is to issue outsourcing tenders to undertake the work to suitable institutions that can exhibit the appropriate management and technical skills. Such an institution may be the local institutes of higher learning which might be expected to have suitable research, data collection and IT skills available. Such ‘outsourcing’ strategies would have the advantage of providing funding support for students and could assist in developing genuine research interest in the data to link with the concept of generating specialist reports on particular areas of the education sector. In addition to the above general concepts there are a number of perceived threats to sustainability specific to the local contexts that are listed here. 1. The EMIS units will have to be staffed with capable and professional local people. It was often said that trained local staff are hard to hold due to the demand to trained staff from other 36
PES Evaluation Report, 2008 organisations. This will be a threat to sustainability and reflects on the need to provide competitive salaries and incentives for the new recruits. There will be a need for assistance until such time as financial support for education, from the government, is adequate. In the short term, MoEs should provide evidence of their commitment to the EMIS process by accepting at least partial responsibility for staff salaries and have a plan to accept full responsibility in the foreseeable future. 2. The development of clear ethical standards and effective monitoring systems of staff will be required. These may include defined work hours and conditions, commitment to achievement of targets in a timely fashion, performance appraisal, and adequate reward for effort. 3. Transparent selection procedures of staff to ensure nepotism is avoided and that appropriate skill levels and potential are reflected in employees. 4. Coordination of EMIS across three ministries, especially as capacity grows within zones, will need to be carefully managed. Along with decentralisation, it is to be expected that greater autonomy of action will result, and hence differentiated EMIS practice may follow. 5. Establishment of communication and travel capacity is necessary for transfer of the PES to more usual structures of EMIS operations. While these are beginning to emerge, they need to be consolidated and encouraged. Regional level monitoring and quality assurance systems will be reflected in these developments. 6. In Puntland the restriction of movement for the technical assistance staff and current restrictions to compounds will impact adversely on capacity building plans. 7. In central south the current instability threatens sustainability. The technical assistance will probably need to be located in Nairobi. This will create challenges for the development of capacity in local staff, without which sustainability in the longer term becomes difficult. 8. Maintenance of computing facilities. Access to internet will be necessary for virus control, plus a regular maintenance contract and updating plan for computing equipment. Recommendations a. That employment conditions be such as to ensure the retention of professional staff b. That outsourcing some EMIS activities be considered in areas of staff shortage c. That merit based employment procedures be defined and implemented d. That effective work practices and standards be identified and made explicit e. That a mechanism to coordinate EMIS activities across the three zones be established f. That an effective quality assurance system be established that includes communication and travel arrangements g. That systems of EMIS implementation be differentiated across regions to reflect the differences in local conditions h. That a computer maintenance and replacement policy be developed and implemented F. COVERAGE Findings and Analysis Since the PES survey is a census, there can be no threats to validity derived from a sampling bias. There have been some questions as to the suitability of conducting the survey on a sample basis rather that the current census. This would not be consistent with the conceptual framework for an EMIS outlined here, and would severely limit the potential use of the EMIS as it grows to a complete system. While the priority for development in the recent past has been primary education, there have been several requests for the PES/EMIS to be expanded to include secondary education. While the secondary education system is currently relatively small, it still needs to be assessed and planned for, hence the necessity for a systematic data collection procedure to be implemented. UNESCO is currently beginning that implementation. Further comment on this issue is offered under the coordination section. One planning officer indicated that nomadic schools are included in the current PES, while another in a different zone indicated that there were no Nomadic schools. The Save the Children NGO has established 37
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Primary Education Survey Evaluation Report Somalia - Somali - JNA

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