The Power of Persistence: Education System ... - EQUIP123.net

actors is a never-ending process. The evidence of the case studies indicates that
while individual ministers’ initiatives can be vulnerable to change, a broad-based
consensus and support reduces that vulnerability and supports a useful degree
of stability and sustainability. USAID projects have been in a unique position to
facilitate that interaction from a system perspective, engaging the Ministry as the
central, but not the only, actor in the system.
It is clear from these cases that there are both advantages and limitations to
using projects as vehicles for supporting sustainable reform. In many cases, these
limitations are not due to the project modality itself, but rather to the nature of
system change and reform. An argument sometimes made against projects is that
they create an unsustainable project bubble, and project activities end abruptly
when funding ends, particularly when they are involved in service delivery.
Critics argue that projects are inherently unsustainable. This valid concern is
often reduced to a simplistic view that misunderstands the role that projects
can play in a systems approach.
When a pilot or school project is implemented in isolation on the assumption
that successful activities will be picked up and replicated by the MOE, it is easy
to see why they can fail. Implemented on a short-term, small-scale basis, they
can easily disappear without a trace. However, in the context of a coordinated
systems approach to development, pilot and field projects can play an invaluable
role in providing visible and effective models, creating confidence in solutions,
generating deep support, ownership, and capacity at the school level, and
providing an input into national policy dialogue. When projects have a coherent
and coordinated mechanism for communications, policy dialogue, and
engagement, these efforts can have a deep effect.
In both Namibia and Nicaragua, consistent and focused support for
implementing the SIP/SSA and Active Schools approaches over a period of
time resulted in genuine, on-going, system reform. In Egypt, the lengthy
donor support for New Schools and Community Schools provided a basis for
understanding how community involvement could work, and provided political
confidence that enabled and informed reforms—once the conditions were
conducive to reform.
Sustainability
In the context of system reform, sustainability is more complex that simply
continuing project activities or initiatives. It is one thing to initiate reforms and
introduce changes at some level in the system—even if at the level of activities
and schools. The important changes, however, are in people’s attitudes and
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SECTION 3: SUMMARY fINdINGS ANd CONClUSIONS