Community Social Capital Performs a Miracle.
Bisoboka is a rural Universal Primary Education
school with 1,714 pupils, where the community and parents have embraced their
role to work with and/or support UPE activities. In their AGM, parents agreed
to voluntarily pay a contribution of 10,000/= per term to support the buying of
more scholastic materials, teacher welfare and general school maintenance.
Parents attend class meetings to follow up their children’s performance. The
PTA and SMC work in consultation and harmony with local communities to mobilize
resources. The school has realised high
level of pupil attendance. Parents encourage their children to come to school.
They agreed that slow achievers repeat the class. They object to automatic
promotion. 75% of the parents do not
oppose developmental ideas of the school (Wagumba, 2016).
A
delegate trainee from the Directorate of Basic Education collected the above
story as a demonstration of what evidence is available to policy makers. The
delegate selected a topic of concern from a list that the representatives of
the directorate had identified as requiring further scrutiny in the ongoing policy
process in basic education. She chose to identify and analyse data on school
and community social capital as an important area where formal policy is
required if UPE is to deliver on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Uganda.
The story lists challenges such as scholastic materials, a more involved PTA,
parents following up their children’s welfare at school, and automatic
promotion. More importantly for the Development
Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DRUSSA) Fellowship,
the case demonstrated that some delegate trainees were able to reflect at least
one of the competences the Fellowship was supposed to impart namely recognising
policy relevant data.
General
Background
Despite the increasing evidence
in Uganda that the universal education policy and its implementation are
failing to deliver on the second millennium goal of providing quality basic
education to all, stakeholders seem unable to find remedies to stem the downward
spiral of deteriorating education outcomes with special reference to learning
outcomes. The few detailed attempts at understanding the reasons for the
downward spiral such as Muwanga et al (2007) and Munene (2011) seem to have
little impact on the problem. This may be due to difficulties in generating and
implementing evidence based policy. The
broad objective of the Fellowship was to strengthen /enhance the use of
evidence within the on-going policy process and ultimately strengthening
capacity within the then Ministry of Education, Science and Sports (MoESTS) in
the use of research evidence to inform its policy formulation, implementation
and evaluation mandate. The objective
assumed that the Ministry was already actively engaged in the review and my
role would be that of facilitating the use of academic or rigorously assembled
data to guide the review in addressing quality consideration in education
service delivery in Uganda. The
fellowship proceeded in two phases: a case study and an informal survey of
existing policy relevant data.
Phase 1: Using a Case Study Approach
to Interrogate Academic Data for Policy Making
The traditional public service
context in which the fellowship was embedded, the overall objective of the
fellowship and the role definition of the fellow provided an opportunity to
re-engage our emerging, individually oriented theory of change. The local theory of change adopts
contextualised but known concepts in organisational and individual learning
such as reflection, situated learning and work based competences.[i]
Following the localised theory of
change, I set out to develop a concept paper focusing on a number of key performance
areas (KPAs) or key results areas (KRAs) that guided the fellowship. These are listed below:
1.
Build
organisational capacity by working with human resources directors to design
policies, which emphasize skills in using and valuing research evidence:
2.
Work
with MoESTS officials to develop practical guidelines addressing how to locate,
appraise and utilise research evidence effectively:
3.
Work
towards developing and aiding MoESTS to adopt approaches that embed evidence in
the policy making process
4.
Quality
assure DRUSSA project activities relating to the development of evidence based
policy within MoESTS
5.
Undertake literature searches,
including production of policy reports, policy briefs, and other MoESTS related
publications on quality of education and service delivery
6.
Provide
in-house technical support to MoESTS staff in processes that entail the
identification, analysis and communication of research evidence for policy and
planning purposes:
7.
Collect
and synthesize research evidence to support the review of Uganda’s National
Educational Policy especially in areas that address the existing quality
considerations in education service delivery
8.
Facilitate
the organisation of MoESTS symposia on topical issues pertaining to design and
implementation of evidence based policies:
Listing
the key results areas as above brought home an important fact namely that I
would not be able to get results in at least half of the above areas. Importantly to get credible results, I would
have to prioritise or redefine the opportunity (you could read problem) as
emerging through the lenses of the KRAs/KPAs. I also justified my self-criticism because I
developed a self-imposed latent questions that I really had to answer. The question was, “what activities delegates/
trainees would perform to feel confident that they can undertake evidence based
policy reviews and formulation after the fellowship”? This question was important to me because it
would respond to our local theory of change that is based on capacity to
demonstrate work based competences that are also defined more in terms of
operations than in knowledge or attitudes.
We refer to such competences as operant competences and are described
generally as the relationship between the individual and the task environment.
To
begin to answer the latent question, I discovered that I already enjoyed a head
start when the Programme Officer at UNCST advised strongly that I focus on a
book I published in 2009 on the Management of UPE and was reprinted in
2011. The book based on earlier efforts
by USAID to improve education quality, in which I had had the privilege to be a
key investigator, had explored in five chapters the role of a number of social
cognitive factors in school performance measured in terms of literacy and
numeracy scores at various levels including Primary Leaving Examinations. These social cognitive factors had emerged in
the work that had been commissioned by USAID to examine the factors that were
attendant on the efforts the Agency had undertaken to improve the quality of
education several years before the introduction of Universal Primary Education. The social cognitive factors the book focused
on included School Community Social Capital, School Social Capital and School
Climate, and Pupils’ Learning Readiness. The book ends with a chapter outlining policy
implications directly drawing from data on the identified social cognitive
factors.
With
the ready made source of “academic research” data now found in one source, I
set out to implement a modified Action Learning approach based broadly on Marquardt model that we had recently tested in an
educational setting in Uganda. I started
by explaining briefly that action learning was an approach of acquiring work
based competences by working on a real work problem that has consequences on
one’s immediate job and task results. I then
made a presentation on the objectives of the DRUSSA Fellowship where I outlined
the facilitation or coaching method I would use to execute the task at hand.
1) I would request members of Basic Education to take
charge of learning about evidence policy making rather than listening to me lecturing
them on how one utilises academic data to interrogate existing policy or
practices on UPE.
2) The members of the Department of Basic Education would
individually and as team members extract academic and any other systematically
collected data on the performance of UPE for the purpose of reviewing the
current UPE policy and guidelines.
3) The starting point of learning about recognising,
extracting, interpreting and utilising academic data to review and formulate
policy would be conducting a symposium on the status of UPE as captured in a
book I had published on the subject. I
also added that the book was available at $20 a copy since I had distributed
free copies in 2010 including five copies sent to the Department of Basic
Education.
4) The Commissioner, Basic Education would appoint a team
leader whose role would be to organise preparatory and reflection meetings on conducting
the symposium and addressing any ongoing concern about the exercise.
The Commissioner, Basic Education, who had owned a
copy of the book bought at least three copies for his team and I encouraged
everyone to purchase their copies as a personal commitment to the exercise. At
least three other members of a team of ten that the Commissioner had identified
as most relevant for the fellowship purchased copies. In the meantime, the
Deputy Commissioner was assigned the task of coordinator and proceeded to lead
the process of organising how the team would distribute themselves so that each
of the five chapters would constitute an oral presentation paper during the
symposium to be held within the next two months. In addition the team formed themselves into a
working group with a dedicated email address where information about group
activities would be sent to every one.
The purpose of the dedicated email was one way of converting the group
of ten into a temporary community of practice.
To continue building a community of practice the team
agreed on a fortnightly meeting with the broad objective of tracking each other
on the task at hand. As it turned out, the meetings provided opportunities to
reflect on what to do to formulate and or review policy using systematically
collected data including but not exclusive to academic data. In the process,
the team members understood the need to interpret data with a central social
reality in mind. In their case the
social reality was the title of the chapter each team was addressing. They reflected on why it was important to
calibrate each figure or story of interest back to the chapter title and
especially to the meaning of the title with reference to the performance of the
UPE policy or guidelines. It would be
only in this sense that they would see that the numbers or stories have
meanings, that data could “talk” to each team or team member, and that if they
listen to the message behind the numbers or stories, they would be tacitly
starting on the process of reviewing existing policy and guidelines. We reflected
on a practice of continuously creating working hypotheses as we examine the
available data and to reject or uphold such informal hypotheses depending on
whether data emerges in a pattern or without a pattern and to keep looking for
patterns until we are confident that data are random rather than patterned. We reflected
on the obvious reality that data could come in a form of numbers or in stories.
We were able to achieve this precisely since the book under review was composed
of case studies, vignettes as well as numerical tables.
One unanticipated outcome of the reflective meetings
was the need to include a presentation on critical linkages between early childhood
education performance and UPE. This
topic had been treated indirectly in the chapter on Learning Readiness, but it
was deemed too important to be presented under the same chapter during the
symposium because of what UPE schools were experiencing with special reference
to underage enrollment. Finally members of the teams made power point
presentations in readiness for the symposium as a rehearsal as well as
identifying areas that needed fixing either in terms of emphasis or
interpretation. Interestingly, the
reflection may have opened a wider understanding of what Education in Uganda is
facing in terms of implementable policies as the following remark implies:
“As
a result of your coming we are realising more and more that we have “mouth”
policies. We have little statistics to back these policies that emerge from
policy statements. The science policy
for instance assumes that there are data. No science teacher numbers are known,
no numbers were anticipated.”
The realization contained in the above observation
suggests that to a certain extent, the experiential learning approach was
delivering some of the intended objectives of the Fellowship. We now briefly
summarise the results of the first symposium.
The symposium attracted 35 participants composed of
practitioners in education and generally responsible for generating data
related to UPE performance. These included District Education Officers.
District Inspectors of Schools, and Assistant Commissioners as well as officers
below these grades. The participants listened to and reflected on the following
book chapters:
1) Critical
Factors in Primary School Performance in Ugandan Schools (Chapter 1)
2) School
Community Social Capital and Education Quality in UPE (Chapter 2)
3) Social
Capital and School climate under the UPE Policy (Chapter 3)
4) Learning
Readiness and Universal Primary Education in Uganda (Chapter 4)
5) The
Relevance of Social Capital and its Policy Implications at the Community and
School Levels (Chapter 5) and
6) Critical
Linkages between Early Childhood Education performance and UPE
The
symposium lasted five hours after which individuals were requested to evaluate
the experience.
Generally,
learning seemed to have taken place in reference to the main objective of the
fellowship, at least at the level of appreciation of the relevance of rigorous
data in policy making. The extracts below are examples:
It is a timely intervention. A lot has
been going on failing the implementation of UPE and discussions at various
levels held without referring to existing data. Using available data to solve
issues affecting UPE implementation is very good.
(I have) Learnt
how to extract academic data to generate policy direction; Learnt how to Use
research findings/monitoring reports findings to write policies.
The symposium is timely as it handles
the management of UPE in Uganda since its inception in 1997. I have learnt
about the social cognitive factors that had hither to not been emphasised yet
they are very crucial. I have learnt about the use of data and how critical
this is in coming up with relevant and successful policies that will positively
enhance the education sector. I have also learnt about incorporating the
emerging issues for the future policy making
Phase 2: Deepening Practical
Understanding of UPE Implementation Practices
The
first symposium demonstrated that delegates who participated in the reflective
groups and studied the data examined on UPE as presented in the book they were
required to use as a base had indeed learned to appreciate what policy relevant
data were. The next phase required them
to go beyond the five chapters in the book and identify issues of concern to
UPE performance, seek out policy relevant data, analyse the data, and provide policy
points from data on education outcomes and outputs.
The
relative success of the first symposium appropriately energised the emerging
Community of Practice to list nine UPE practice guidelines and policy areas that
they thought required robust policy. The list below presents what the group
wanted to concentrate on in the second phase:
1. School feeding,
2. Instructional materials;
3. Classrooms, infrastructure,
4. Financing including capitation
grant
5. Book policy
6. The teacher factor
7. Engaging the community i.e. the
social capital (i.e. PTA)
8. Transition from Early Childhood
setting to primary education
9. Assessment and automatic
promotion
Continuing
with the fortnightly reflective meetings the Community of Practice agreed on
the following steps:
1) Allocate all nine topics to
relevant individuals including one or two interested parties from the Policy
Directorate
2) Assemble sources of data for
each topic
3) Extract and present the
relevant data for vetting by the Learning Team (Community of Practice) before
detailed analysis and interpretation of what the data means in terms of UPE
performance
4) Attend a presentation on
components of policy making by a willing member of the Policy Directorate
5) Review the data vetted by the
Learning Team and make a presentation of what the data means in relation to the
relevant UPE component
6) Draw lessons for reviewing
existing policy, policy guidelines and the relevant aspect of the Education Act
7) Present in the second Symposium
whose theme would be: “Deepening Practical Understanding of UPE Implementation
Practices and their Impact on Existing Policy
Overall, the Community of
Practice had mastered the process and the reflective groups continued to operate
though with relatively less frequency since the government financial year was
coming to the end. Despite the timing,
the Team members where able to find the required data to address each of the
nine topics, analyse and present the data during the reflective sessions and
prepare for the second symposium which they managed as flawlessly as the first
one. I also believe that by the second symposium,
the experiential learning method I had selected had delivered on the reframed
question namely: “what activities delegates/
trainees would perform to feel confident that they can undertake evidence based
policy reviews and formulation after the fellowship?” The case study that opened this article is
part of the testimony to this relative success.
John C Munene,
DRUSSA Fellow on 20th
July, 2017
[i]
Bwegyeme, J.; Munene, J.C. (2015); Account of practice: Action learning, the
tool for problem-solving
in universities; Action Learning: Research and Practice,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2015.1001551
Kasekende, F.; Munene, J.C.; Otengei, O.M.; and
Ntayi, J.M (2016); Linking teacher competences to organizational citizenship
behaviour: The role of empowerment; International Journal of Educational
Management; Vol. 30 No. 2, 2016; pp. 252-270
Marquardt, M., and D.
Waddil. 2010. “The Power of Learning in Action Learning a Conceptual Analysis
of How Five Schools of Adult Learning Theories are Incorporated within the
Practice of Action Learning.” Action Learning; Research and Practice 1 (2):
185–202.
Munene, J.C. (2011). The Management of Universal
Primary Education in Uganda. OSSREA, Ethiopia.
Muwanga,
N.K.; Aguti, J.N.; Mugisha, J.F..; Ndidde,
A.N.; Simunyu, S.N.(2007). Literacy Practices in Primary Schools in
Uganda: Lessons for Future Interventions; Fountain Bookshop; Kampala
Nansubuga, F.; Munene, John C. and Ntayi Joseph M.
(2015); Can reflection boost competences development in organizations? European
Journal of Training and Development;
Vol. 39 No. 6, 2015; pp. 504-521
