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Strengthening policy formulation and sector analysis in West Africa: Innovations as key drivers of educational reforms

Thu, March 14, 11:15am to 12:45pm, Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Tuttle Prefunction

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This panel session will discuss a metanalysis of innovations selected from among more than a hundred ones collected by ministries of education in an increasing number of countries in the West, Central and Indian Ocean regions of Africa. These innovations address key educational challenges that have eluded governments for decades. Among these challenges are inadequate teacher professional development, low quality literacy and numeracy, lack of learning and teaching resources, persisting gaps in gender equality both in terms of access and learning outcomes, inequities and exclusion of the most vulnerable groups, insufficient integration of technology, outdated assessment systems, etc. One major characteristic of these innovations selected by ministries of education across the regions is that, in most cases, they are homegrown and initiated by actors working in the burgeoning EdTech private sector and non-government actors such as teacher unions, and NGOs working in alternative forms of education.
The context in which this is happening is also very important in understanding the potential that the phenomenon holds for policy formulation, programming, and planning. Launched in 2019, the GPE Knowledge and Exchange Program (KIX) seeks to support and facilitate the implementation of a stronger culture of knowledge and innovations use in education policies and planning processes in GPE partner countries. The goal of KIX is to significantly transform education systems through evidence-informed policies and practices. Prior to the advent of KIX, innovations and knowledge were not considered as the departing point for programming and planning reforms. In most cases, the policy formulation and program development follow a linear process as dictated by the orthodoxy of sector analysis. As a first step, the educational challenges are subjected to a rigorous analysis to understand the root causes of visible and measurable symptoms of system’s dysfunctions such as learners’ poor achievements in reading and numeracy. Once the root causes have been identified a range of solutions is offered. These solutions are usually formulated as recommendations such as: improve teacher training, reduce the class size for better instruction, provide more reading materials to learners and teacher guides to teachers, etc. These recommendations are then refined into actionable reform programs that are often very costly and out of reach for many low-income countries.
The papers of this panel will argue that while this linear sector analysis approach is sound, the search for possible solutions should start within the national context before moving to the region. Through a series of national policy dialogue processes, KIX hubs have been discovering very promising innovations. There are many ingenious teachers, associations/NGOs and engineers who have developed educational innovations in their small corners of the world that are being used to provide cost-effective solutions to many of the identified educational challenges. The main challenge is to get governments identify and value existing and proven innovations within their national context.
The KIX National Policy Dialogue Process
The concept of policy dialogue developed by the KIX Africa 21 hub (the Africa 21 hub covers 18 French-speaking countries and 3 Portuguese-speaking countries) is an iterative process spread over a few months, the aim of which is to promote participatory and inclusive deliberations between all education stakeholders on innovations and knowledge that could lead to sectoral policies and plans that bring about systemic change. The idea is to facilitate dialogue at the national level whereby the KIX approach or culture consisting of mobilizing proven knowledge and innovations is integrated in the sector planning processes. A whole methodology is thus created that begins with a call for submissions of such innovations and knowledge is launched by the ministries of education. Once collected, these innovations and pieces of knowledge are subjected to an exchange (dialogue) and rigorous analysis by all education stakeholders in order to achieve the selection and validation of those that are most relevant to the educational challenges of the day.
It is also important to emphasize that this policy dialogue has benefitted from fertile ground in the member countries of the Africa 21 Center. In fact, for several years, education sector coordination committees (ESCC) and local education partner groups (LEGs) have been set up with the participation of all education stakeholders to initiate and facilitate policy dialogue at the national level. The spaces thus created allow for intra-sectoral and inter-sectoral consultation, the purpose of which is to affirm the role of the various entities involved in the choice of the priority reforms and the long-term vision of the education system. Unfortunately, this partnership dynamic does not always live up to expectations.
The policy dialogue of the KIX Africa 21 Center brings real added value to this national policy dialogue mechanisms. Indeed, the generation of evidence and knowledge, but also the identification of innovations bringing about qualitative change in education will make it possible to identify the various bottlenecks and contribute to providing adequate responses for an effective transformation of education systems. In addition to these national benefits, the selected innovations and knowledge will be shared at the regional level during intercountry exchanges.
Objective of the panel
The panel’s overall objective is to frame this bottom-approach to educational reforms within a policy formulation and programming perspective to explore how it could be integrated into education sector reviews and plans. More specifically, it will:
(i) Present the outcomes of a mapping exercise and a metanalysis of the innovations collected by the KIX Africa 21 countries in terms of thematic challenges, leading to a clear picture of what the countries priorities are and how they intend to address them.
(ii) Discuss the contextual factors that could facilitate or impede its adoption as an integral part of education sector analysis and policy formulation; and
(iii) Analyze how three countries (Burkina Faso, Niger and Senegal) are planning the integration of their selected innovations and knowledge in their sector plans and policies.

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