Presented by Graham Lang,
Deputy Director VSO
on behalf of
The interim Board of the NGO Education Partnership
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of NGOs involved in education I would like to offer a few comments on how we propose to support the government through the on-going development of NGO-Government-Donor partnerships as part of the ESP, and associated ESSP.
As we have said previously, we have very much welcomed the opportunities, particularly over the last 6 months, to contribute, comment, input, analyse and evaluate on the development of the ESP and ESSP. Although consultation on these plans and strategies has been within a very challenging time-frame, we applaud the efforts of ministry staff, donor representatives and NGOs in responding in such a positive way and enabling us to be where we are today.
As a group we are in full agreement with the broad direction and principles on which this process has been founded, namely a pro-poor focus and a move towards decentralisation. The process has opened many doors and also broken down many barriers between the various stakeholders in education and re-affirmed our commitment to strengthening the partnership with the government and donors. It is up to all of us now to take this forward and build on these new partnerships to realise the potential of the ambitious plans in the ESP and ESSP.
From an NGO perspective probably the most important development in our improving relations with the government and donors has been the creation of the NGO Education Partnership, or NEP. NEP grew out of a study proposed by the joint working group on NGO relations, from an initiative by HE Tol Lah. However it was the ESP process that really galvanised us into forming this group and provided us with the mechanism to co-ordinate and manage our communications and dialogue with the government and donors.
Since our inception as an informal body earlier this year we have already made some significant progress towards engaging more fully with the government and attempting to represent, and advocate on behalf of, NGOs involved in education.
To date we have
• brought together a group of 12 NGOs who have formed an interim board
• made three presentations at the sectoral information meeting, Educam
• held a workshop for NGOs to contribute and feedback on the first draft of the ESP
• produced a statement, on behalf of NGOs, for the Cambodian Co-operation Committee's submission to the CG meeting in Tokyo earlier this month
• co-ordinated inputs to the draft of the ESSP used for this appraisal exercise
• provided various experts to participate in the appraisal process as part of the appraisal teams
We are now in the process of formalising the NEP and starting to embark on some further activities and development of mechanisms to allow us to continue to play an active part in education development.
As with any partnership, each side brings with a different set of strengths and competencies. NGOs are no exception to this and we feel strongly that we have an important, and valuable role to play in education across Cambodia.
In particular we believe that our key strengths, which are all interdependent, lie in our ability to be flexible and adapt to new changes
• diversity of approaches
• independence
• impartiality
However we believe our biggest asset is our ability to effectively contribute ideas and experience from a grass-roots perspective, as this is where we have our greatest impact. Combined with our willingness to pilot new ideas and innovations, we feel that this is an area where we can build the strongest link with the government and donors.
For example the concept of multi-grade teaching is a strategy that seems to satisfy many of the administrative and resource constraints in schools in terms of optimum efficiency of inputs. However there are also many problems associated with it that are best identified through a pilot programme. NGOs could provide such a pilot programme and trial it in a variety of situations to learn lessons from the approach to feed back into the development of the overall national policy.
There are variety of other innovative opportunities identified in the ESSP, and which NGOs are already doing, which would enable us to assist the government, including
• Early Childhood Care and Development
• Life skills
• Girls Education
• Scholarships
• Programmes for indigenous people/remote areas
• Inclusive Education
• Literacy programmes
• Library development
Given our unique competency to pilot and learn from innovative projects, the NEP feels we have a responsibility to gather together case studies of these approaches from NGOs and feed them back into the development of government policy at a national level.
We would therefore like to take this opportunity to make this offer to the government in the spirit of a stronger NGO-Government partnership and commit to documenting these lessons over the latter part of this year, possibly through a national conference of NGOs.
We would also like to take this opportunity to re-affirm and publicly re-state our commitment to supporting the government through these major reforms. We want to work as part of a co-ordinated effort in Cambodia. This is exactly why the NEP formed and why we have been such an active supporter of these consultation processes thus far. We believe a healthy and productive partnership is achieved through a frank and open exchange of views, with a level of mutual respect and trust, that values diversity and encourages new ideas.
However we would also like to remind everyone that at first, it will be
difficult for us to keep up with the timelines because we have no secretariat
and all the work is done by volunteers from the various NGOs. Our members have
their own program responsibilities and try to fit NEP work into their existing
heavy workloads.
Our contribution to this partnership is our full support to these new strategies
that allow us the flexibility to meet the needs we feel we can address, within
this broad framework. We sincerely hope that our contributions will be valued
because of the very nature of who we are, and how we operate. It is also
important to remember that NGOs are, as their name implies, NON-GOVERNMENT
agencies. This is important for people who work for them and it is often the
main reason why some people like to work for them. It means they have a degree
of independence, flexibility and accountability that other organisations and
government do not have.
So there will probably always be limitations on the extent to which NGOs can make their resources available under a plan like the ESSP. Many will choose to participate and many will participate strongly. But others may choose a more limited participation, perform very valuable work and bring fresh insights into the national education system from a position largely outside it.
We believe independence and diversity is worth encouraging as well as partnership and co-operation.
Our greatest challenge though, which we feel faces all of the various stakeholders in this process, is to take the complexity of the ESP and ESSP and promote, explain and disseminate it in such a way as to enable people at several different levels, to fully understand and support the changes that will shape the system over the next few years.
Now that we have all contributed so extensively to the development of these plans, it is up to all of us to continue this process and maintain our enthusiasm so that our collective efforts have the greatest possible impact to improve the management, quality, resources and access to education that Cambodia's students of today so badly deserve.
We look forward to working as partners with you on these future programmes and activities, to being included and consulted as partners as we have done in this process thus far, and hope that you will continue to value our views and experiences, as much as we value and appreciate yours.
Thank you.