EQUIP2 Final Report.pdf - Education Policy Data Center

28
teacher quality, fostering demand and support for education reforms,
decentralizing systems, and improving data quality.
EQUIP2 Leader Award Final Report
The second report in 2010 showed that between 2003 and 2009, the three
EQUIP LWA awards received 69 associate awards in 41 countries with a
total value of $783,997,740 in funding from various USAID missions and
bureaus. The awards were geographically diverse, with the greatest number
in Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by the Latin American and the Caribbean
region, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe and Eurasia. The three most
prominent themes across EQUIP projects were: policy (90 percent of
projects); developing and strengthening systems (83 percent); and public
demand and support (79 percent). Thirty seven percent of USAID funding
to the EQUIPs was allocated to two thematic areas: instructional quality (19
percent) and systems development and strengthening (18 percent). Fortysix
percent of the funding was dedicated to four thematic areas: policy (12
percent), school or institutional management and leadership (12 percent),
public demand and support (11 percent) and curriculum and materials
development (11 percent).
According to the education policy expert team, the patterns report had the
most impact internally among the EQUIP Leader awards and USAID. For
the Leader awards, the study made it possible to identify technical trends that
could in turn inform the research agenda. In addition, some members of the
education policy expert team felt that the study had considerable influence
on the direction of USAID’s strategic priorities. Demonstrating the breadth
of USAID’s education work across the many thematic areas may have helped
influence the current, more focused education strategy.
School Fees Abolition
In 2005, a new movement swept the international education development
field: the School Fee Abolition Initiative. An active policy issue in the U.S.
and the broader donor community, the removal of school fees was widely
seen as a silver bullet to achieve Education for All goals. There was also
pressure within the U.S. Congress to channel significant USAID education
funds into the movement. However, at the time, little was known about
the medium- and long-term impact of school fees elimination on school
quality, or the dynamic within communities and schools regarding education
finance. Preliminary evidence indicated that the elimination of school fees led
to quickly rising enrollment, yet school quality deteriorated just as rapidly.
Furthermore, school fees were only one of many barriers to schooling.
Therefore, USAID was compelled to examine more comprehensive strategies
in order to get the most vulnerable children into schools, keep them there,
and ensure that they learn.