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August 2004 |
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Improving Education Decision Making
School systems in developing nations are often asked to increase the quality and quantity of basic education despite limited resources. Achieving quality education requires careful system management, planning, and evaluation, but many education ministries fail to use information to guide their decision making. Often, good data do not exist, and where information is available, there may be limited incentive or ability to use it.
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| Zakariya Zakari (at right), Project Coordinator for the Kano EMIS effort, and Haladu Mohammed, Policy Coordinator for RTI’s ongoing Literacy Enhancement Assistance Project (LEAP), will coordinate to ensure that accurate and reliable education data are being shared across the Nigerian education sector. [PHOTO: Jonathan Mitchell] |
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In Nigeria's Kano state, that situation is changing as education officials--and stakeholders such as parents and students--begin reaping the benefits of more informed decision making.
Under the Kano State EMIS (Education Management Information System) Capacity-Building Project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, experts from RTI are helping to develop a computer-based information system for the State Primary Education Board (SPEB) and training its staff in the use of data for analysis, budgeting, modeling, and education research.
As important, RTI is working with SPEB staff to build an organizational structure and culture that rely on hard data for decision making. This institutional shift is necessary to support the introduction of new information tools, including a dynamic personnel management database and a teacher salary and benefits expenditure model. These tools, which will be developed by RTI collaboratively with counterparts in Kano, will allow the SPEB to more accurately track staffing needs and to project salary costs.
"It’s one thing for education managers to say 'We need to provide more benches for students, or we need to reduce dropout,'" explained Jon Herstein, RTI Education Information and Planning Specialist. "But without good data informing policy, you end up trying to fix problems through random decisions. We're helping to ensure that the necessary data are available, and that they are being used."
Transparency of system management will be one important outcome of the Kano EMIS project, enabling system clients to hold decision makers accountable. Greater participation of stakeholders will be another, particularly as Kano decentralizes responsibility for education system management. "By making information available and understandable, we place more power into the hands of the people most affected by education policy decisions," said Herstein.
More information:
Jon Herstein,
e-mail jherstein@rti.org;
Amy Mulcahy-Dunn,
e-mail adm@rti.org
Improving Control of Malaria and Other Infectious Diseases
RTI has been awarded a new U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project on Integrated Vector Management for Improved Control of Malaria and Other Infectious Diseases (IVM). RTI will lead this two-year task-order contract and has assembled a team of experts from several of the world’s leading tropical disease institutes to support the program.
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| Entomologists inspect for mosquito larvae as part of a multifaceted approach to combat malaria. [PHOTO: Gene Brantly] |
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The key concepts behind IVM are simple: controlling disease vectors such as mosquitoes is an integral part of preventing and controlling vector-borne diseases, and using a variety of methods will, over time, reduce dependence on chemical insecticides and avoid severe problems with insecticide resistance.
This new program will provide management support for IVM activities at global and country levels and expert technical assistance to national malaria control programs. It will also support continued technical development of IVM through collaboration with international institutions, operations research, and dissemination of research and program results. RTI and its partners have worked together previously on studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of biological larvicides and environmental management for reducing malaria transmission in Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The IVM project will focus on helping countries implement such methods at an appropriate scale in fully operational programs.
The World Health Organization has recently adopted a Global Strategic Framework for IVM as a key input to policy discussions on malaria and other vector-borne diseases. Funding for malaria control programs has increased through initiatives such as the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. "We anticipate a steady growth in demand for IVM technical support and expect this project will help set best practices for the future," says Gene Brantly, RTI's technical manager.
This effort continues work RTI has carried out in international environmental health for over 20 years as part of consortia for the Water and Sanitation for Health Project (WASH) and the Environmental Health Project (EHP; see www.ehproject.org), both sponsored by USAID.
More information: Gene Brantly,
e-mail epb@rti.org
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Strengthening Local Government
This is a critical time for Kosovo, scene of devastating armed conflict in the 1990s. The former Yugoslav province is now embarked on efforts to meet United Nations standards such as democratic institutions, rule of law, freedom of movement, and a functioning economy.
RTI is assisting those efforts through a
local governance initiative
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RTI's core staff for the Kosovo local governance initiative are, left to right: Michael Palmbach, Dorina Dakoli, Chris Kaczmarski, Tyler McMillan, and Basri Zuka. [PHOTO: Litafete Ponosheci] |
funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). RTI's tasks are to improve the legislative framework for local governmental reform; to improve the professionalism of local officials and municipal assemblies; to increase transparency, accountability, and public participation in local governance; and to foster local economic development.
As a first--and key--step, RTI has recruited municipal advisors who will be placed in five competitively chosen pilot municipalities. Based on carefully assembled criteria, RTI has evaluated municipalities across Kosovo for their suitability as pilot sites, and the final selections will be announced soon.
The municipal advisors will assist community leaders in the pilot localities to improve the management and provision of services to their citizens. It is hoped that through this process a set of "best management practices" will be developed that can be rolled out to all Kosovar municipalities by the final year of the three-year project.
RTI will collaborate with local leaders and technical experts, nongovernmental organizations, and institutions such as the University of Pristina, through every phase of the project. "This will further the sustainability of those Kosovar institutions that are committed to strengthening local government and decentralization," said Bohdan Radejko, home office project manager.
RTI has subcontracted with RTI–Polska, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Worldwide Strategies, Inc., to implement local economic development (LED) workshops leading to the drafting of LED strategic plans for each pilot municipality. "These partners bring to the project valuable prior knowledge of the local government situation in Kosovo and in the former Republic of Yugoslavia," said Radejko.
"This initiative should help lay the foundation for a peaceful and democratic society in Kosovo that could serve as a model for other regions rebuilding in a post-conflict environment," Radejko added.
More information: Bohdan Radejko,
e-mail bradejko@rti.org
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Nigeria: Improving Education Decision Making
Improving Control of Malaria and Other Infectious Diseases
Kosovo: Strengthening Local Government
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©2004 RTI, Research Triangle
Park, NC. All rights reserved.
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