Teorema Fundamental del C´ alculo

In the province of Balochistan a total of five interviews were conducted with

provincial and district education officials. The discussions focused upon provincial education indicators, donor funded programmes, issues of communication and coordination between donor and government and between province and districts, and issues of ownership and partnership.

According to one EDO there were numerous issues of coordination and

communication between the province and districts, and between the donor and provincial and district governments. Plans were made by donors or the provincial department unilaterally and then approved for implementation at the district level, with no consultation ever done with the district education authorities, which is in stark contrast to the principles of Paris Declaration and will lead to poor ownership of interventions at the district level. The absence of a vibrant or active public

sphere is visible in case of Balochistan, with widespread central or unilateral planning and decision making without any accountability to the stakeholders:

Some of the USAID funded Projects I have come across were EGRA, USAID Teacher Education Project, ED-LINKS and ESRA. I was working as EDO, DOE and Principal Government High School at that time. There was no consultation at all with any district authorities before launching these projects. They were planned in isolation and implemented without considering the ground realities.

EGRA tool was not shared with any of the district authorities or principals of the schools. The selection of schools had already been completed without the consultation and consent of district authorities. Although the team was led well and they achieved their targets efficiently yet they needed to consult district authorities much ahead of time to avoid any kind of issues.

The above quotes coincide with my experiences with the ESRA project where as part of the project team we had for a good part excluded the districts from any consultation and did the entire planning with the provincial authorities. This did change later in the project, or with the subsequent EDLINKS project, yet the way government hierarchy existed in the province, as in the rest of Pakistan, the provincial government did not deem it necessary to engage the districts, thus creating challenges for the project team. The absence of any public sphere further exacerbated the exclusion of stakeholders at the district and lower levels.

The quote below is a classic example of policy borrowing, wherein it is perceived that through ‘best practices’ improvements in the education system could be adopted to improve delivery of services without taking into account the realities of Balochistan, rural and urban distinctly:

The USAID Pre-Step included capacity building of pre-service teachers. New Degree Courses such as the ADE (2 years) and B. Ed (4 years) were

introduced in all the elementary colleges across the province without taking into account the challenges that they were facing; their faculty members were already facing many challenges while dealing with the B. Ed (1 year) degree course, to now implement the two and four year programmes. The

new programmes did not prescribe any textbooks, but recommended many, claiming that they are promoting independent learning and research culture. However, without any libraries and internet facility how could the students and teachers implement this programme. The teachers in Elementary Colleges faced severe difficulties in understanding the courses due to language barrier - the course guidelines were in English language. Most Elementary Colleges did not have sufficient teachers, to now handle three programmes simultaneously – the outgoing one year B.Ed., the two year ADE, and the four year B.Ed.

The above quote can be substantiated from the findings of another study (SAHE Pre-Step Study, 2014) that reviewed the Pre Step initiative in Punjab and Sindh and came up with similar findings.

A representative of the Bureau of Curriculum mentioned issues of coordination between the federal and provincial governments, and between provincial and district governments, and how this led to problems of sustainability and ownership:

Generally, all the donors come through the Federal Government21 _{with their}

plans for implementation in the provinces and areas. There is no

communication with provinces or districts. Federal and provincial government sign MOUs with the donors and allow them to work either directly or through local partners in the provinces. District authorities are bound to allow the donor to execute its activities without any delay or problem. International donors hardly focus on the government preferences. They have their own objectives. There is a little ownership within the concerned department because they are not involved in the planning of the activities.

In the absence of any provincial plan or framework, it is not easy for donors to align their work with the government priorities. It was only in 2013 that a provincial sector plan was developed for the first time.

21 _{This of course was a practice prior to the 18}th _{amendment. Post amendment the donors now contact the}

One NGO representative identified poor organization of the government as an issue with regards to effective coordination with the donors:

Unfortunately, there is no planning culture in the province, and it is only recently that the government has developed an Education Sector Plan; in the past all the interventions operated in isolation from each other and the

outcome was never encouraging. There is little ownership of donor interventions within the concerned department. It is because they are not involved in the implementation process and the NGOs’ services are used instead. However, due to lack of accountability everyone walks away freely even if the programme fails to achieve its objectives. I think the new projects should be planned after a thorough and detailed baseline survey in

accordance with the ground realities of that particular area.

The opinion of the NGO representative resonates with the situation on ground, particularly with regards to the absence of ownership of donor interventions and lack of accountability for the donors as well as government, both key principles of the Paris Declaration.