Strenghening education CSOs initiative

The relationship between the third and public sectors is undergoing fundamental changes, creating challenges and opportunities for education civil society organizations (CSOs) that were unimaginable a few decades ago. The public sector has resorted to mechanisms involving competitive tendering and public-private partnership schemes that effectively outsource responsibilities for social service provision to CSOs in education and other social sectors. Education CSOs are thus increasingly responsible for crucial education and social issues such as improving access and equity, social integration and various remedial interventions. This has resulted in a fragmentation of the social data that informs progress on social justice – including information on how education integration works for individuals and at community level. In addition to these disconnections, social data, evidence for effective policy making is under-documented due to the limited institutional capacities of CSOs and their inexperience in handling the management challenges associated with the comprehensive data that emerge from their work.

As a response, the Education Support Program of the Open Society Foundations has launched the Strengthening Education CSOs’ Evidence Based Practice Initiative. 11 organizations are participating in the initiative: Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth, Argentina; Center for Innovations in Education, Azerbaijan; FAR Association for Democratic Education, Bulgaria; Kurt Lewin Foundation, Hungary; Performing Arts Center Multimedia, Macedonia; Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) – the “Centre of Education and Consciousness”, Pakistan; Educational Society for Malopolska, Poland; Namibia Paralegal Association, Namibia; The Romanian Foundation for Children, Community and Family, Romania; Institute for Educational Research, Serbia and Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy, South Africa.

This work is being implemented between January-July 2011, and it comprises the joint development and testing of comprehensive research methodologies and related instruments by education CSOs on education integration intervention of their own.

For further information visit the initiative’s website: http://access.educationdevelopment.org or contact Nora Henter at nhenter@osi.hu or Daniel Pop at dpop@osieurope.org.

 

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