Supporting national education reform in Sub-Saharan Africa
Michael Latham
Michael has been working in the field of education development for more than 30 years in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. His special area of focus is in education policy and practice particularly around issues pertaining to public-private partnerships in the delivery of education services in low- and middle-income country environments. As s senior member of the Education Development Trust's international consultancy unit, he works for multilateral and bilateral agencies in providing technical assistance on all aspects of PPP programmes ranging from regulatory frameworks and school assessments to the role of low-cost private providers and the use of school vouchers.
Susy Ndaruhutse
Susy's first 'proper job' involved her being sent to work in Rwanda's Ministry of Education for four years on behalf of Education Development Trust; unsurprisingly, today, she is Education Development Trust's authority on providing technical assistance to low- and middle-income countries and has particular expertise in fragile and conflict-affected states. Along with her team and associate consultants, she provides strategic policy, advisory and capacity building services and works with donors, developing-country governments and non-governmental organisations in the education sector.
Harvey Smith
This study aims to consolidate and analyse what has been achieved in Rwanda through the Rwandan Education Sector Support Programme.
Over the last decade, Education Development Trust (at the time known as CfBT Education Trust) has been supporting the reform of education systems in various countries across the world (developing countries, middle-income countries and the UK) from school or sub-sector level through to sector-wide level. This work has occurred at the same time as changes in the way funding agencies operate in the education systems of developing countries, with the move away from the provision of teachers to schools, towards providing support and advisory services directly to ministries of education on areas of national educational reform.
One of the largest recent donor-funded programmes of support for education sector reform has been the Rwandan Education Sector Support Programme (RESSP), funded by the United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by CfBT on behalf of DFID and the Rwandan Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Scientific Research (MINEDUC). This ran from June 2001 until June 2006, during which Education Development Trust provided strategic advice to the Government of Rwanda (GoR) on the development of the Rwandan education system.
What follows is not the story of the RESSP but uses the RESSP and other experience in an attempt to illuminate some of the processes underlying reform in practice. All of the authors are practitioners who contributed directly to the RESSP as well as to other education sector reform programmes in Africa and elsewhere.