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Key issues/dilemmas |
Recommendation |
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∙ Children's needs must be viewed holistically.
∙ Cognitive, psychological and physical indicators are essential components of education programs. Education programs must be cross-sectoral and multi-faceted to address these different domains of human development. |
∙ More needs to be done to identify the indicators that can be used to determine whether children's psychological, physical and protection needs are being met. |
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∙ Children, parents, teachers, administrators and donors may all have different definitions of what constitutes quality education. What does this mean in terms of designing education programs?
∙ There is a need for evolving indicators of quality in education programs yet there is also a need for baseline indicators to evaluate education programs against. |
∙ Define realistic, measurable indicators with all stakeholders through dialogue
∙ One possibility for NGOs is to define quality indicators as those that focus on developing local capacities.
∙ Monitor sites to measure educational attainment over life of project
∙ Evaluation should be worked into education program (i.e. how it will be done, based on what data, etc.) |
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∙ Whether situation is pre-crisis, during an emergency, in the transition stage or post-conflict, indicators need to reflect the changing social responsibilities and evolving learning needs of each segment of the affected population (young children, school age children, youth, and adults with attention to the special needs of traumatized children, single mothers, widows, girls responsible for families, children with disabilities, etc.)
∙ How transparent and open is dialogue with regard to setting the objectives for the education program? |
∙ Culture counts-expectations, values, what parents think will best socialize their children to "success"
∙ Adults play a key role in decision making and must be empowered to carry out sound decisions. |
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∙ Information collection
∙ In emergencies it is very difficult to find existing data collection systems or mechanisms for getting access to the data is very slow. The solution often is to set up new systems. |
∙ Information that we collect through process of dialogue with a community belongs to the community and must be shared with them. It is not ours.
∙ Information collection should be standardized so that each NGO is not collecting its own information thereby putting an undue burden on the community who cannot see the results of their information sharing
∙ Information collection is a skill that takes time to develop and must be practiced
∙ New and better tools for information collection, such as PRA, are now available
∙ Whenever possible, it is best to use existing data collection systems, however basic. Be creative about what types of data can be used or is already being collected. |
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∙ Security of girls is a key component of an education program; class plays an important role (i.e. low income girls are more at risk) |
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