Education Sector Development Program - VLIR-UOS

Education Sector Development Program IV
be reviewed to ensure a similar focus, based on
the implementation of a relevant framework and
guidelines.
The curriculum revision will ensure that
Population and Family Life Education (POP/
FLE) be addressed. Issues such as the effects
of teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation
(FGM), early marriage, sexually transmitted
infections, abduction and other harmful
traditional practices (HTP) that affect retention,
increase dropout and repetition rates and widen
the gender gap will be included in subjects such
as Civics, Languages, Biology, etc. of the teacher
training curricula.
School improvement Program
For schools to experience sustained improvement,
it is probably necessary that school staff and their
surrounding communities take responsibility for
their own improvement. But for schools to be
able to take such improvement actions they need
to be supported by the experts and supervisors in
the administration and they need to receive some
basic funds.
The strategies on which ESDP IV will focus
will therefore consist of the following. Firstly,
guidelines and instruments on how to prepare
a school improvement plan will be prepared
and distributed to schools. In each woreda and
regional bureau a few experts will be trained
so that they can give the necessary support to
schools and communities. Training will also be
extended to stakeholders at the school level, in
particular principals, teachers and members of
parents’ associations and school management
committees. As a result, school leadership and
management and competency of teachers at all
levels will be improved.
For schools to be able to implement their
strategic plans, most will need to receive some
financial resources. Under GEQIP therefore, a
“school grants” program has started which will
be an integral part of ESDP IV. The disbursement
of school grants will be accompanied by a public
information campaign about the purpose and
use of school grants to be dedicated to education
quality improvement activities like teaching aids,
science & math laboratories, libraries established
in line with the revised curriculum, and provision
of ICT, etc. Training will be organized for school
staff and for staff in regional and woreda offices
in some basic financial management and in the
use of the school grant.
Continuous assessment accompanied with action
research, strengthening co-curricular activities
and school-parent-community relations as well
as scaling up best practices in SIP will also be
strategies of maximizing student achievement in
ESDP IV.
Information Communications Technology
The government will continue the expansion
of ICT use in education in order to improve the
quality of teaching and learning. For such quality
improvement to occur, it is necessary to go
beyond the provision of more ICT infrastructure.
Strategies under ESDP IV will therefore cover
three main areas to improve the linkage between
ICT and quality.
Firstly, it is the intention to develop and implement
a technology responsive ICT national curriculum
for primary, secondary and higher education as
well as for other educational institutions. New TV
programs will be prepared in line with the revised
curriculum. A second area of great importance
concerns teacher training and awarenessraising.
Efforts will be continued to reinforce
the skills of teachers to use ICT efficiently and a
program will be developed to train a critical mass
of computer literacy teachers.
Thirdly, further work will need to be done to
expand access of schools to ICT infrastructure to
allow more students and teachers to benefit from
the more widely available global information
sources. This will help the development of an
e-learning culture among students and teachers.
In this regard, the national school net project
needs to be further expanded. At the same time,
high capacity content servers will be installed
in more secondary schools. The educational
television programs will be broadcasted through
12 satellite channels. Problems of maintenance
may occur and therefore the technical capacity in
maintenance of ICT equipment at regional level
will be expanded.
Quality of school infrastructure and
facilities
Few data are available on the quality of school
infrastructure and facilities. A first step in an
improvement strategy therefore consists of
collecting more comprehensive data on this
issue. This data collection needs to be guided
by minimum standards on the quality of school
infrastructure and on the availability and quality
of facilities. This will allow a comparison between
and within regions and a better selection of the
schools where repairs, upgrading or construction
of facilities are most needed.
The improvement of facilities should focus
on those which have the greatest impact on
improving access, equity and quality, such as the
provision of latrines for girls in primary schools
and libraries in secondary schools.
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