Moving from evidence to policy and practice: Improving urban education in East Africa

• In Event: From research to practice

Proposal

Background: The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 underscores the need to provide quality and equitable basic education to all children of school going age irrespective of gender, disability, and social economic status. However, barriers to access among segments of the populations such as the marginalized, the poor and girls still remain. In addition, access to government-provided education in some contexts is limited. For instance, among the urban poor in Kenya, one in every three children are enrolled in the so-called low-cost private schools and do not benefit from government-provided capitation grants. The schools are of poor quality in terms of the physical environment and sanitation facilities, the quality of teachers they attract as well as lack of teaching and learning materials. Following this, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) has been implementing an urban education project with an aim of contributing to improved access to quality education among the urban poor through evidenced-based advocacy in three East African countries—Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. In the intermediate, we hope to achieve improved policymaker understanding of education and schooling and create a coordinated policy agenda for the promotion of quality education for the urban poor.
In order to be impactful, we adopted an innovative approach of developing a policy engagement strategy which clearly defined the objectives, activities, key messages and tools that guided discussions with targeted policymakers. The approach involved bringing together CSOs and research institutions, targeted government officials at both the national and regional level to develop the strategy based on existing research evidence.
During the implementation phase, we periodically refined the strategy based on lessons learnt, reflections from stakeholders and the country contexts. The process of engagement was then documented culminating to a model that can be customized by education stakeholders to influence policies within the region.
The model includes five key steps: Mapping of key education stakeholders; Identification of key education issues in these settlements; consolidating existing evidence to highlight potential gaps, success, implementation challenges faced especially in the provision of education services; undertaking an intensive review of evidence and documentation; development and implementation of the policy engagement strategy; and monitoring and evaluation of the process.
Achievements: As a result of the urban education project, a common voice has been established through the creation of Urban Education Groups (UEGs) in each country, with key institutions passionate about the urban education agenda and currently championing the cause. Other than Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda had not thought of the education of the urban poor as a priority issue. The engagements were, therefore, an eye-opener for non-state actors, especially in Tanzania.

Authors

• Catherine S. Asego, APHRC

• Maurice Mutisya, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)