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and initiatives that have received long-standing, iterative support from multiple system actors, including donors, have integrated themselves into the system DNA—becoming elements that are not a ‘part of the system’ but elements that help to identify and define the system. In both Namibia and Nicaragua, the process of deliberate and planned scaling up is instructive. The challenge is maintaining the central characteristics that enabled success at a smaller level. Both countries are facing an “implementation dip” as the nature of project support changes, and the responsibility for implementing the program moves to new players and new leaders. The challenges—political, institutional, and technical—faced in the scaling up process are substantially different than those faced in pilot implementation. What appear to be most easily lost in the scaling up are the process aspects that enabled success. In both the Namibia and Nicaragua cases, much of the deep learning and ownership at the school and district level was enabled by intensive support from technical supervisors, facilitators, or resource teachers, and reinforced with periodic conferences and workshops at the district and region level. In the rush to scale up in a cost effective way, there is a tendency to look for a formula, instead of recognizing that the human process of developing ownership, strengthening new behaviors, and changing systems is done at a school-by-school level. The substantive reforms that affect teacher and student behavior require not simply new knowledge, but as Michael Fullan points out, ‘reculturing.’ The most important lessons from the study on which we report here are about the process of reculturing education systems. Measuring Progress An interesting insight from the case studies is that the factors and events that had the greatest impact on successful reform efforts are often invisible from the official accounts and project reports. Although process and structures are the building blocks of sustainable system reform, they are often ignored or understated in the official histories of the reforms. The milestones of progress are often either measures of education progress (such as changes in enrollment, completion, equity, or learning outcomes) or, more frequently, are activity-level accomplishments such as teachers trained, materials distributed, or reports published. In some cases, indicators such as number of policies approved seek to get at system issues, but are also problematical, as they neither judge effectiveness or implementation. SECTION 3: SUMMARY fINdINGS ANd CONClUSIONS 155
IMPLICATIONS FOR USAID POLICy AND PROgRAMMINg The implications of the findings of these case studies for USAID policy and programming are expressed in this report as general guidelines. A primary finding of the case studies is that the specific context in each country will define opportunities as well as constraints—so it is not surprising that most concrete program recommendation is to preserve sufficient flexibility to allow programs to be customized to take advantage of the opportunities—and minimize the constraints—in each country. The factors that most influenced sustainable system reform and improvement are related to process and structures and their supporting activities and inputs, such as information, evaluation, technical assistance, and analysis. These interventions deal with the human aspects of development: ownership, commitment, engagement, and the kind of deep learning that stakeholder reflection can achieve. A caution about such a list is the tendency to think of such interventions as discrete events, or parts of a menu of activities. The single most important lesson from these case studies is that for effective and durable intervention, all project activities—service delivery, dialogue, information and analysis, training, workshops, and others—must be seen and strategized in the context of longer term goals and trends. The case studies encourage a USAID response that, through the agency’s programs, project design and implementation, exploits its particularly adept capability to: 1. Include an explicit strategy for engaging at the policy and system level, helping to establish and support the processes and structures needed for long-term development and sustainable improvement. Using the system reform framework, the context can be subject to a SWOT-type analysis that is sensitive to changing conditions and emerging opportunities. 2. Develop and foster a shared philosophy of development in USAID officers that helps to define in operational terms the role enabling development, and the implications for relationships with ministries, civil society, and other stakeholders. A good starting point for such a philosophy would be Easterly’s concept of the “seeker”, which captures the idea of deep learning and ownership. 3. Define partnership and strategies for what ‘accompanying reform’ means in each country. 156 SECTION 3: SUMMARY fINdINGS ANd CONClUSIONS
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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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militant groups (at least until 199
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the growing political will and capa
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political will and experience in bo
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EgyPT TIMELINE
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El Salvador: Summary COUNTRy CONTEx
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financing, and ensuring adequate le
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Impact Structurally, the education
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CASE ANALySIS: DIMENSIONS OF REFORM
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2005, USAID assistance further stre
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EDUCO’s success exemplifies a tec
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workshop with representatives of bo
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• The continuing commitment to th
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El Salvador Time Line Before 1988 1
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Strategies Especially in the early
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In terms of quality, the impact on
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The second aspect is that the profe
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• The complex and holistic nature
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efforts have been studied closely,
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NAMIBIA TIMELINE
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Nicaragua: Summary COUNTRy CONTExT
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ASP won the support of donor agenci
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Nicaragua Education Indicators Indi
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Though the strong leadership of Min
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
Page 138 and 139: the education system and have limit
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
Page 169: was beyond the mandate of the Minis
Page 173 and 174: Bibliography general References Alv
Page 175 and 176: UNESCO. 2007. EFA Global Monitoring
Page 177 and 178: Healy, F. & Crouch, L. (2007, Novem
Page 179 and 180: Sidhom, S. & Al-Fustat, A. (2004, J
Page 181 and 182: Crouch, L., J. Gillies, A. Florez.
Page 183 and 184: LLECE, “Conclusiones del estudio
Page 185 and 186: Miller-Grandvaux, Yolande and Karla
Page 188: 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW Washingto
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