Partnerships for Capacity Building and Quality ... - ADEA

similar principles, which include: mutual trust and respect; transparency; thefull involvement of all those who ride them; shared understandings of the operatingprocedures and the knowledge base that determines their operations; andcommon understandings of the destinations and the road maps used to get there.However, several contributions to this volume refer to partnerships that aremore than vehicles for getting us to a desired destination. Although we haveviewed “partnerships” as a means to an end (i.e., partnerships for quality improvementsand capacity building), a number of the contributions to this volumepoint to partnerships that are part and parcel of the goal itself. For example,the papers by Easton, Dembele, and by Volan and Namuddu suggest that thepartnerships used to attain goals of effective community participation, teacherin-service training, and sustainable SMT education for girls, respectively, areactually part of the result itself—especially if the result is to be sustained overtime. These examples demonstrate the power and importance of the process, andthe extent to which means and ends can be tightly linked.The role of Government in promoting and enabling partnerships can takevaried forms. On the one hand, Sawyerr’s paper shows that strong leadership isneeded to promote the effective Government-led donor coordination that will,in turn, lead to more cooperative, partnership relations between Ministries ofEducation and their external financing partners. On the other hand, the partnershipspresented by Easton and by Taylor flourish thanks to enabling environmentswhere Government has remained a relatively inactive player, thereby allowingsegments of civil society to play a lead role in forging partnerships forthe development of education.The variety of types and styles of partnerships presented here is typical ofeducation. If there are any common denominators to these partnerships, theywould be related to a high degree of openness of the process, full availability ofinformation, trust and mutual respect, and the active participation of all thepartners. Isn’t it interesting to note that these factors are also to be found in goodclassrooms where education (i.e., the learning process) is based on the partnershipbetween the teacher and the student/learner?ReferencesADEA, ADEA Newsletter, April-June 1998 (10,2:6-9)Evans, D. R (ed.), Education policy formation in Africa: A comparative study of fivecountries. Technical Paper No. 12. Office of Analysis, Research, and Technical Support,Bureau for Africa. Washington, D.C.: USAID, 1994.Evans D. R. , R. Sack & C. P. Shaw, “Overview and Analysis of the Case Studies—Lessons for Education Policy Formation” in Formulating Education Policy: Lessons andExperience from sub-Saharan Africa, Paris: DAE,1996.INTRODUCTION: MAKING PARTNERSHIP WORK 23