Capacity Development for Better Communciation on Education by African Ministries and the African Press Presentation by Lawalley Cole Coordinator, ADEA Working Group on Communication for Education and Development (WG COMED) World Bank – NETF Completion Seminar, Oslo, Norway October 4, 2007

CONTEXT

    Good quality education is essential for enabling countries to achieve the level of economic growth required to tackle poverty and make sustainable development a reality.

In 2000, global leaders set the first MDG to

achieve universal primary education – i.e. e

nsuring that by 2015 all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

In 2007, nearly two thirds of the 100 million children that are not in school are girls and over 70 countries (the majority in Sub-Saharan Africa) have failed to achieve this goal. To successfully educate their citizenry, countries will have to invest in the full “Education For All” agenda, as there is great inter dependency of different aspects of education.

    All this will require more and better allocation of resources than are currently available. The scarcity of domestic and external financing is a key challenge to achieving progress in education.

Countries must also adopt more ambitious expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to provide the fiscal space needed for increased spending to meet the MDGs. Countries must also change the way they manage their public sector expenditure, which until now has been incompatible with the big spending increases projected to be needed to fund the MDGs. It is with this in mind that a viable communication strategy will need to be developed and adopted to promote both dialogue and adequate service delivery in education.

COMED

 ADEA, the World Bank, with financial support from the NETF, and in collaboration with WANAD, have supported this initiative to promote the use of communication to support education.  The COMED Program started in 1998 to help build national consensus and enhance public support for education policies and programs.    The Program became an ADEA Working Group in April 2002.

COMED’s vision is to promote joint action for building confidence, trust and ownership. Ministries including of Education and Finance, the African media and all education stakeholders can work together towards a common objective of promoting education.

THE ROLE OF MINISTRIES OF EDUCATION

      Education ministries have a major responsibility for managing programs and for piloting reforms in their countries. They therefore need to establish multiple partnerships for education development and change. Parents, teachers unions, learners, civil society, faith-based and community organizations, media, universities and research institutions, proprietors, relevant arms of government, the private and voluntary sectors and development agencies are all partners in education.

Ministries should carry these varied groups along, in developing and implementing education reforms, in a process that is destined to become more participatory, democratic and accountable. Experiences from Africa point strongly to the importance of systematic, sustained and strategic communication as a major tool for ensuring successful education reforms. However, few African education ministries have invested in institutionalizing strategic communication activities.

     Ministerial communication units, where they exist, are weak, perform mostly protocol and peripheral management functions, and rarely have designated budgets or identified communication staff trained in relevant professional skills. Nevertheless, there is a will to change and move to a new paradigm. COMED is currently giving priority to working with education ministries to develop and reinforce their capacities for institutional communication. Previous COMED activities involving media and civil society will be refocused and programmed in the light of current and evolving needs. The Africa Education Journalism Award, managed by the ADEA Secretariat in collaboration with COMED, has been re-introduced after a one-year pause for review and redesign. It will continue to promote media excellence in reporting on education issues by awarding prizes to the best articles by African journalists writing in English, French and Portuguese.

MAIN OBJECTIVES OF WG COMED

    Strengthen the capacity of communication units in ministries of education in African countries to promote national dialogue and consensus for education policies and programs.

Develop a network of trained journalists within African media reporting on issues of education and development; Enhance the exchange and distribution of news and information among ADEA constituencies, including African education journalists, communication officers in education ministries and other relevant stakeholders through establishing an electronic-based communication system; Mobilize adequate resources for executing the programs and work plans of the Working Group.

MAIN CHALLENGES

There will be many challenges that would need to be addressed concurrently. The following are noted:   Mobilizing resources - Communication has costs: time, expertise, appropriate structures and technologies, including planning and organization. Therefore, communication requires resources material, human, financial, technical.

Diversifying resources base   Increasing national commitment to developing communication strategy for education/ EFA. Accessing national resources for COMED programmes.

COMED’S FUTURE DIRECTIONS

     Support country leaderships in education, strengthen local institutions and advocate for building efficient partnerships to serve national interests. Undertake an extensive consultation process involving countries, sub regions, and donor partners, UN agencies, evaluation bodies and centers of excellence and steering committee members.

COMED’s communication strategy will be linked to the overall ADEA strategic plan and its targets and will adequately reflect key international agreements and initiatives including the MDGs and the broader EFA agenda.

With the advent of new initiatives such as SFAI, ADEA and COMED must maintain and increase their international advocacy role for the promotion of all aspects of education in Africa, while allowing other partners international level.

– UN agencies, NGOs, the World Bank to assume a more aggressive role in terms of supporting financing, and service delivery at (regional/national) The COMED Working Group will be more explicit on how to work with civil society to achieve its goals.

      COMED’s strategy will also reflect the new aid agenda and the changes associated with move away from individual projects to a more strategic sectoral approach. It will focus on some specific results-based planning and reporting, specify how this will be done, and elaborate on modalities for funding the various COMED-related activities on the continent. It will also indicate potential areas of conflict in programming, especially as related to the work of the other 10 ADEA Working Groups and other institutions with similar types of agenda.

More emphasis will be put on improved quality in education, further focus on education for disadvantaged groups, girls and children from economically and socially deprived communities.

Education in emergencies is also an essential part of the overall strategy. Such education should be seen as a protection mechanism for children and adolescents and should extend in the longer term to education for peace building. ADEA and COMED’s advocacy role in policy dialogue in education in fragile states will be clearly defined. Technical and vocational education in programming for adolescents will also be considered.

 In view of the above broad strategies, COMED intends in 2008 to focus on the following areas:  Provide information   Enhance dialogue and debate Advocate more on education issues and promote understanding of the cost barriers to education   Promote visibility and image of education and its direct correlation to development Promote enrolment, retention and achievement  Give priority to national capacity building: - Support Ministries of Education (strategic communication) - Support the media (education specialization) - Support parents, communities etc (Communication/advocacy strategy) - Enhance EFA policy dialogue (with new communication strategy) Foster “Institutional Communication” - Make ourselves known and appreciated – gain the understanding, support and sympathy of various groups in order to attain given objectives.

- Ensure full participation of all partners – this should be regarded as an indispensable pre-requisite to success. The concept of participation is at the root of any communication process

NEED FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE COMED PROGRAMME

 COMED need financial support as funding seems to be inadequate.

   COMED has received funding for the objectives and scope of its work from the NETF over the years.

COMED is now applying to benefit from the EPDF transferred from the NETF. COMED’s programme in 2008 and 2009 is likely to be an ambitious one due to the current circumstances and scope of work to meet given objectives and defined strategies.

   Fund-raising will become a major priority. Achieving our fund-raising objectives requires innovative as well as cohesive and co-ordinated fund-raising. The fund-raising environment is more challenging and competitive than ever before. The international consensus around the Millennium Development Goals help to focus our efforts.

We intend to demonstrate to donors how aid through us will directly support achievement of the MDGs. and how, in the context of our communication for education and development work, we are promoting policy dialogue and consensus for education and development in African states.

        The COMED Coordinator will pursue fund-raising activities with the following in mind as part of an established program for fund-raising:  approach the traditional donors Review funding targets vis à-vis past funding levels Review current major donor and its contributions in the past Review the possibility of the continuation of key bilateral and multi lateral partnership to support COMED’s Program objectives and interests in specific programs Work locally with Ministries of Education Advocacy – thus fundraise as in Mali Bring in the private sector and see the possibilities of them providing funding at local level in the various countries The strategy should outline the main existing and potential governmental and inter-governmental funding sources, and any other opportunities in the private sector including new aid modalities (such as global funds and foundations).

The maintenance of contacts with representatives of donor countries based in the various countries and in the region, and with the concerned donor focal points (government donors/global funds and foundations).

WORK WITH MINISTRIES OF EDUCATION

COMED will continue to work with Ministries of Education and will promote and enhance ministerial capacity for institutional communication on educational issues through the following:           National training for communication officers, and other media practitioners Widespread use of the COMED Curriculum for communication officers Use of new modules for designing and managing communication strategies Use of other communication techniques and tools Find new techniques in institutional communication program design and management Use of more internal communications mechanisms Promote public/external relations in Ministries of Education Maintain a viable media/press relations - enhance media understanding of education issues in general Support public affairs communication and advocacy – in particular advocacy with media leaders/gatekeepers Help to design ministerial communication strategies

WORK WITH OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

       With the use of social mobilization techniques, COMED will strive to create social consensus at all levels on new education initiatives such as SFAI and UNGEI. Communication activities can also be organized to create consensus between NGOs on modalities to support the new initiatives in a collective manner in each country. There is also the aspect of community mobilization where communication activities, on a smaller scale, may be geared towards mobilizing a community to share a vision, promote dialogue within the community, facilitate the emergence of consensus within a group or arouse individual and collective actions needed to address the problem affecting the entire community. Communication activities may be geared towards influencing decision making mechanisms, acting on decision makers or those that influence them, and can contribute to initiating, changing or enforcing laws, regulations, procedure, social norms or supporting schemes aimed at addressing a problem facing the community or society. A number of concrete initiatives should be encouraged and promoted. The FAPE – Fédération des Associations des Parents d’Élèves - project where parents talk to parents is helping to increase access (especially for girls) as well as increase parents’ participation in schools. Radio based strategy that constituted radio programs and parent’s listening groups also proved to be effective in some countries.

COMED will in the long term also make use of social marketing techniques. Models from the business sector, (advertising, public relations and communication agencies), can contribute to communication for education by emphasizing strategic and results-oriented institutional communication by Ministries of Education.

EMPHASIS ON CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

In order to proceed, COMED will necessarily need to address the following issues:  Strengthen capacity development at national level and to make this cut across all COMED activities.

      Establish a series of collaborative agreements with all national training institutions in the area of communication that are dealing with communication and development activities.

Address two or more levels of capacity development. 1. at the individual level with the acquisition of skills and knowledge on information use that may be obtained through technical and non-technical workshops, and 2. Supporting the building up of capacities of Ministries of Education and other organizational capacities such as internal structures, and collective capacities of staff to enable responsiveness to communication activities vis à-vis education.. Establish formalized partnerships with other African institutions and the private press. Smart partnerships between public, private and non-profit organizations are critical at this stage. Collaboration with each of these sectors adds value to the work of COMED and its local partners in many ways. These enabling partners are likely to share expertise and contribute financially to help ensure that local activities are sustainable. With strong partnerships, we will provide education information services, advice on educational developments and access to expert networks and local websites.

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

     The results of applied research on all educational issues on the continent are important and must be shared with partners, and made practical use of. The collection and dissemination of best practices and lessons learned in the various areas are an important tool. We do have ample opportunities for knowledge sharing at the international level, but there is not much at the local level. Support local initiatives to share knowledge and experiences on educational issues most likely with the use of information and communication technology Make use of grassroots tools and media. When empowered, grassroots organizations may be able to achieve a more participatory process, and undertake communications-related activities for education and development that are grounded in public opinion research.

Evaluations should be done more regularly. This is essential in order to ensure that COMED's activities are effective, and that all partners learn from our experiences.

      Together with partners, develop user-friendly monitoring and evaluation system that will be able to evaluate COMED's roles, its level and user satisfaction and the developmental impact of its activities.

Each country can have its independent local partner organization that would help in monitoring and evaluating the local country programme on communication for education and development. Professional communications organizations need to be included in communication for education efforts. Many sources of education information are largely untapped because unknown. What is known is generally regarded as inaccessible or uninteresting. Research institutions, their activities and data-bases in education need to become better promoted among journalists and other communicators Training in the use of educational statistics and other data-related experiences for reporters and correspondents are necessary, as is the creation of user-friendly Education Management Information Systems (EMIS).

Exposure, through the COMED regional workshops, to information and communication technologies, especially access to the Internet, and its use as a research tool, provides much-appreciated opportunities for professional enhancement for both communication officers and journalists. This should be reinforced and sustained.

IN CONCLUSION :

     Reinforce COMED’s activities with Ministries of Education in sub-Saharan Africa. Such activities will also be extended to NGOs and Civil Society Organizations. Establish a continental network of journalists on education and strengthen existing national networks – Ghana, Benin, Congo, Senegal have networks that are deemed to be rather fragile. Strong networks must be developed in the short and medium terms in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Senegal.

The development of a COMED website. This is crucial at this stage and must be given top priority. We will need to find a way of making this operational as soon as possible.

Establish and strengthen links with universities and research institutions. Educational journalism will be brought into the programs of university departments and schools of journalism in Africa.

The Africa Educational Journalism Award will in the long term be consolidated and further expanded to audio-visual journalism. A new proposal will be developed that will detail the merits of this award. A pilot project to include radio will be considered for the next award. The technology already exists in Africa as radio is widely used throughout the continent and its importance cannot be underrated.