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Though the strong leadership of Minister Belli put the Autonomous Schools Policy in place, he and the Ministers who followed did not garner broad-based support for the ASP. For example, the primary teacher’s union, ANDEN, strongly opposed ASP. No space for union voice was provided on the school councils, and the union felt that the ASP undermined their role. The ASP lacked the widespread support of teachers and when the Sandinistas returned to power in 2007, the new Minister of Education, Miguel de Castilla, ended the ASP based on concerns regarding the exclusionary aspect of school fees. Building gradually from a small, low-profile start working in 40 model schools in 1995, the EA reforms have spread, building deep national support at the school, municipal, and national level, and influencing national policy. One test of the sustainability of the reform efforts came with the change in administration in 2007. Minister de Castilla immediately began reversing course from the previous administration, ending the ASP and suspending all teacher-training programs. In response, actors at the various levels spoke up in support of the EA reforms. When Minister de Castilla visited schools, teachers explained to him what they gained from the active schools program. At public meetings, directors and teachers requested that the Minister allow the program to keep training teachers and to accept the new national curriculum. Ultimately, the Minister listened to the requests and after learning more about the methodology of the project, decided to scale up the active schools approach to all schools in the country (de Castilla, MINED 2009). Political Dimensions Education is and has been conflicted political terrain in Nicaragua. The trend over the last 30 years has been a change of platforms, rhetoric, policies and practice paralleling a change of political party in office. When a new party comes to power, it works to ‘undo’ or ‘fix’ the work of the previous administration due to ideological differences. When Violeta Chamorro was elected in Nicaragua in 1990, the country was emerging from a decade of war, natural disaster and severe economic decline. Education during the Somoza dictatorship (1936-1979) had been the privilege of a very small upper class that maintained power over Nicaragua’s political processes and economic resources (Arnove, 1986). As the FSLN took power, they confronted an education system that heavily favored more urban and developed areas, to the great neglect of the rural areas, where 75 percent of the population was not literate, and only just more than half of all primary age students were not enrolled in school (Arnove, 1986). The Sandinistas envisioned education as a tool to promote mass participation in the development of the country and to SECTION 2: lESSONS fROM COUNTRY CASE STUdIES 105
politically empower the population, the majority of whom had been marginalized by the Somozas (Arnove, 1995). They were tasked with rebuilding the entire system and had neither the experience or expertise, nor economic resources to take on such a task even though education was one of the government’s main priorities (Carnoy and Samoff, 1990). Still, early on the Sandinistas instituted popular education programs, special education programs, a widespread literacy campaign, among others, and focused heavily on increasing access to schooling for the most marginalized. The development of the RAAN and RAAS regions of the Atlantic Coast, separated along ethnic and geographic lines from the Pacific Coast, was a challenge for the FSLN since the region had functioned more or less autonomously throughout Nicaragua’s history (The Autonomy Commission, 1985). The FSLN launched bilingual education programs (Arnove, 1986) specifically conceived to reach the population of the Atlantic Coast, but were not able to establish broad political support, and in 1987 granted the Coast autonomy (MECD, 2004a; The Autonomy Commission, 1985). Nationally, in response to the Contra War, the government prioritized defense to the neglect of the social sectors. Violeta Chamorro, who espoused renewed relations with the international donor community and promised stability and economic development, inherited a system that still suffered many of the same challenges that the Sandinistas had encountered upon taking over leadership in 1979. Chamorro’s party, the UNO (National Opposition Union) was a coalition of 14 parties unified in political opposition to the FSLN, but lacking a coherent party policy platform. A recent example of the extent to which education has become politicized in Nicaragua is demonstrated in the recent changeover to a Sandinista administration. Within the first days of the Minister de Castilla’s term he put an end to autonomous schools, citing examples of corruption at the local level and the inequity of school fees. Even Ministry documents from the current administration often include subjective political commentary alongside technical education rhetoric. For example, the Minister de Castilla’s “Proposal for an Integrated and Global Model of Inclusive Basic and Middle Education” states that the Neo-Liberals’ ASP program has created “malignant tumors” in the administration of school centers (de Castilla, 2009). ThE ROLE OF DONORS The Ministry of Education of Nicaragua has relied heavily on the financial support of international donors over the years. While the education budget covers mainly salaries, the Ministry has traditionally relied on donors to help them carry out their initiatives. The international donors supported the decentralization 106 SECTION 2: lESSONS fROM COUNTRY CASE STUdIES
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The Power of Persistence Education
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table of Contents Acknowledgments F
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generously granted us their time an
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Foreword The United States Agency f
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Executive Summary EQUIP2 Education
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local points of contact. In fact, b
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Namibia has successfully developed
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Sustainability in the context of sy
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• Manage policy engagement and re
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After more than 50 years of develop
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to the point of functional literacy
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An obvious question for donors is
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• Was the investment in education
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A final perspective on ownership, a
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and recipients. The World Bank has
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the term differently. Donors someti
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Country commitment to improving pol
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The importance of these insights, b
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Table: Simple, Complicated, and Com
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Basic principles of systems thinkin
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Among the many aspects of systems t
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EQUIP2 Education Systems Reform Fra
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may or may not be influenced by the
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• There are no magic bullets. Par
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These case studies look at educatio
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El Salvador Egypt Namibia Nicaragua
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eform support during the 1980s and
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system. In the same year, the USAID
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CASE ANALySIS: DIMENSIONS OF REFORM
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increased during this period, parti
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Page 70 and 71: the growing political will and capa
Page 72 and 73: political will and experience in bo
Page 75 and 76: EgyPT TIMELINE
Page 78 and 79: El Salvador: Summary COUNTRy CONTEx
Page 80 and 81: financing, and ensuring adequate le
Page 82 and 83: Impact Structurally, the education
Page 84 and 85: CASE ANALySIS: DIMENSIONS OF REFORM
Page 86 and 87: 2005, USAID assistance further stre
Page 88 and 89: EDUCO’s success exemplifies a tec
Page 90 and 91: workshop with representatives of bo
Page 92: • The continuing commitment to th
Page 95: El Salvador Time Line Before 1988 1
Page 98 and 99: Strategies Especially in the early
Page 100 and 101: In terms of quality, the impact on
Page 102 and 103: The second aspect is that the profe
Page 104 and 105: • The complex and holistic nature
Page 106 and 107: efforts have been studied closely,
Page 109 and 110: NAMIBIA TIMELINE
Page 112 and 113: Nicaragua: Summary COUNTRy CONTExT
Page 114 and 115: ASP won the support of donor agenci
Page 116 and 117: Nicaragua Education Indicators Indi
Page 120: eform. Starting from the early 1990
Page 123: Nicaragua Time Line Before 1986 198
Page 126 and 127: growth; primary enrollment expanded
Page 128 and 129: accountability and corruption led d
Page 130 and 131: Selected Reform goals, Policy Chang
Page 132 and 133: Increased sector leadership from MO
Page 134 and 135: it have to cope with major governme
Page 136 and 137: management and administration that
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Page 140 and 141: help an overextended MOE to meet se
Page 143 and 144: ZAMBIA TIMELINE
Page 146: 3 summary Findings and Conclusions
Page 149 and 150: In addition to an EFA-inspired emph
Page 151 and 152: from political changes. After 15 ye
Page 153 and 154: ased management, but were limited t
Page 155 and 156: is not necessarily limited to indiv
Page 157 and 158: sector limited the agenda-setting m
Page 159 and 160: and every new government seeks its
Page 161 and 162: 8. USAID and other donors have been
Page 163 and 164: CONCLUSIONS This review of five cou
Page 165 and 166: Ownership It is a central tenet of
Page 167 and 168: actors is a never-ending process. T
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was beyond the mandate of the Minis
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IMPLICATIONS FOR USAID POLICy AND P
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Bibliography general References Alv
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UNESCO. 2007. EFA Global Monitoring
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Healy, F. & Crouch, L. (2007, Novem
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Sidhom, S. & Al-Fustat, A. (2004, J
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Crouch, L., J. Gillies, A. Florez.
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LLECE, “Conclusiones del estudio
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Miller-Grandvaux, Yolande and Karla
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1875 Connecticut Ave., NW Washingto
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