World Bank Multi-stakeholder and Ministerial Consultations on the Education Strategy for 2020 Date: April 7, 2010 Location: Skopje, Macedonia General information The discussion brought together high officials from the Education Ministries from Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey as well as young people and donor community in providing feedback on the World Bank's approach to education. After plenary session two additional sessions were carried out at which the Countries representatives and donors, organized in three groups shared their thoughts. Challenges and obstacles Countries Representatives Summary: Access: Increase access to different levels of the education system increasing the numbers in pre-school, primary school, secondary education, vocational training, and higher education. Access to education for those groups of the population that are no longer included in the regular school system, especially target the vulnerable groups. Pre-school/Early child education is very important. Adult education in terms of lifelong learning. Quality: The improvement of the quality of learning and the acquisition of skills is important for every phase of the educational system. Internal and external quality assurance for the system in general including tertiary education. A national (and perhaps even regional?) qualification framework needs to be established. Relevance: Links to the labor market and growth. Enabling the education system to respond to the needs of industry and the private sector. Countries need the research capability to support industry growth. Ranking and accreditation of universities. Support higher education with aim to establish a knowledge-based economy and technologically based economic growth.
Encourage learning foreign languages in pre-school institutions. M&E: Countries recognize the need for high quality data to enable them to monitor standards and to base reforms on sound evidence, especially in a decentralized education environment. Creating the systems for collecting and using data effectively. External and internal evaluation is important Establishing mechanisms for monitoring outcomes, such as national assessment and external exams. Teachers: Investments should be made for pre-service and in-service training. Digital competences: not only kids using computers, but firstly train teachers in this area. Obstacle for this challenge is the mismatch between knowledge of teachers and knowledge of students. Creating higher trained and skilled teachers, finding ways of motivating the quality teachers. Management: Need to build the capacity to manage and plan education systems at different levels. School management Tertiary education: Bologna process implementation of its requirements How to improve the governance structures and processes within each university (autonomy of higher educational institutions). Systems: Multi-sectoral approach is very important. Financing: Fair distribution of public funds for education between the age quintiles is a critical factor. Look for greater efficiency in the use of funds. Financing of tertiary education successful and sustainable models. Increase international aid. Context: Flexibility of learning according to diverse contexts. E.g. Language of instruction: Multilingual education. Consider local context: Need to achieve European Union standards. TVET: Reform of the vocational education and training system. Politics:
Cooperation, harmonization and coordination of donors aid. Coordination between institutions (national, international, civil society, etc) Public-private partnerships. Governments should regulate the private sector. Decentralization of the Bank: The establishment of regional Center of the Word Bank would provide the region with effective assistance in management issues, public-private issues, quality assurance, especially support of management of decentralized governance. Need of faster intervention in education reforms. How can the World Bank best support the generation and dissemination of evidence about education issues? (e.g. research, best practice, comparative approaches) The initiative for regional meetings regarding the educational sector was also stressed out as a key tool for information exchange and functional and continual communication between the countries for the region accompanied by on-line communication through a web portal. Sharing the knowledge that comes from experience is as important as providing finance. Support different international assessments and analyses, especially the ones concerning comparative approaches. Establishment of a very open database system with the best practices, good researchers and comparative and interdisciplinary approaches. The database could also include negative examples. Encourage the use of existing Data Base System. WB role in delivering of advice, taking into consideration international best practice and fitting it into the national context, as well as monitoring. Building the capacity of for use of evidence based policy. How should the World Bank work with the countries to strengthen their education institutions and systems? Answers were given on two levels. Strategic level 1.Most support for networking 2. Bringing knowledge like pure to pure learning 3. Creating a facility to join EU effectively like fast track initiatives 4. Funding facility to be more flexible. Practical level 1. Simplifying procedures and process by being little more decentralized. Donors Summary: Participants: UNICEF, Delegation of the European Commission, USAID, Youth Education Forum
Challenges: Access: Early childhood development as foundation of learning. Inclusiveness of education (education limitations) - lack of knowledge in the educational system to recognize disability. Quality: The quality of education opposite to achievements. Development of more generic skills within the educational process in the context of lifelong learning. Relevance: Investment in highly skilled professionals in IT Sector and Communication. Fostering link between the educational process and the labor market. Funding: Involvement of the business sector. Efficiency of the educational system (the way of investing the money in education). Balance between the efficiency and the effectiveness of the educational system Management: Consistency in long term planning. Teachers: Retraining of the teachers Enabling pre-service teacher training to obtain sustainability teachers in primary and secondary schools as well as the teachers at the faculties. Politics: Improved cooperation with the other institutions. Systems: Enable cooperation between the formal, non-formal and informal education. Certified providers for informal education. What are the obstacles to meeting those challenges? Resistance and politization of the educational system. Weak in-service and pre-service training system. Budget issues (amounts and allocations). How should the World Bank work with countries to strengthen their education institutions and systems? Quality of learning to be taken into consideration when negotiating with Governments. Setting up mechanisms for allocation of budgets, creating strategy, planning, making decisions. Building the government capacity.
Trying to provide sustainability of the activities (reforms). Implementation of strategies that are already written on the paper. Helping the countries to identify the weak points in the institutions that should be strengthened. How can the World Bank best support the generation and dissemination of evidence about education issues? (e.g. research, best practice, comparative approaches) Consultation and participation about the appropriate international testing for the country. Dissemination of information and making them friendly to the users. Data collection, monitoring and evaluation.