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MANAGING BASIC EDUCATION
Developing Local Government Capacity
An Introduction to the Program
What is the MBE Program?
The Managing Basic Education (MBE) Program is supported by USAID. The program builds capacity at district level to manage Basic Education and is part of a wider program of USAID to build local government capacity. Basic Education was chosen as the focus of this program as it is the largest sector managed by local government. Education is the key to social and economic development both now and for the future. The program is managed by RTI consultants.
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The program works mainly at district level. It is building on many existing best practices and encouraging the development and dissemination of these practices and the development of other innovations at local level. The best practices cover the areas of:
- Facilities and personnel management;
- School funding;
- School Based Management and Community Participation;
- Teaching and Learning.
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The Origins of MBE
MBE is essentially building on past innovations. The Active, Creative, Joyful and Effective Learning (PAKEM) program builds on work done by the Active Learning through Professional Support (ALPS – or CBSA in Bahasa Indonesia) program, which started in Cianjur in 1980 and ran until 1993. This also pioneered the school cluster and teachers’ working group system which has been universally adopted in Indonesia and is key pillar of support for teachers under the MBE program. A similar program for junior secondary schools (PKG – Peningkatan Kemampuan Guru) established the teachers’ working group system (MGMP) at that level.
School Based Management (SBM) became an increasingly important issue in the late 1990s. The School Committees were established to help manage and oversee school grant and scholarship programs and SBM was written into the government’s five year plan in 2000. Original concepts of SBM focused more on the management of funding than quality improvement. This changed with the development of the Creating Learning Communities for Children (CLCC) Program which was started by UNESCO and UNICEF in 1999, where the focus was on managing quality improvement. The CLCC program also sought to involve the community in supporting schools and making them more accountable. The incorporation of PAKEM in this program also served to revive active learning. The SBM, Community Participation and PAKEM approaches of CLCC are those being applied in the MBE program.
Funding of schools has long been an important issue and has become more so with the decentralisation of government, whereby district governments now manage schools. An initiative supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Decentralised Social Services Delivery (DSSD) program worked with three districts in 2000 to develop equitable ways of providing direct funding to schools to support SBM. MBE is building on this initiative in its formula funding component and is indeed working in two of the former DSSD districts.
Strengthening district management of education became a priority with the decentralisation of local government. MBE is building on initiatives started under the World Bank Basic Education Projects in 1997-8. These developed school mapping, data collection and planning for use of resources, especially buildings and teachers, based on the data collected.
Where is it working?
Currently the program is working in 10 districts in Central and East Java. (See map on page 2). It is planned to expand to a further 10 districts in 2005.
How are the districts selected?
The program works with districts who are committed to developing their basic education systems. In many cases the districts chosen are those which have proved this commitment by introducing their own innovations.
Building Models
The program works to build models of good management practice normally in two subdistricts within each district. Within these sub-districts it works in 20 schools - ten in each subdistrict, including primary and junior secondary schools, conventional and religious (SD, MI, SMP and MTs), state and private - to develop models of good practice in School Based Management, Community Participation and Active, Creative, Joyful and Effective Learning (PAKEM) - or Contextual Learning as it is called in secondary schools.
The program intentionally builds only models and builds up local government capacity to disseminate these models, including developing training teams. It is then expected that local government carries out dissemination with technical and manage-ment assistance from the RTI. This is an essential part of building local ownership and ensuring sustainability.
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Who does it work with?
The program works with a cross section of education stakeholders, including:
- The democratic institutions: Local Parliament (DPRD), Education Council (Dewan Pendidikan), School Committees;
- Local government institutions: The Local Development Agency (Bappeda), the Education Office (Dinas Pendidikan), Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Finance Department;
- Schools and Local Communities: school committees, parents, principals and teacher.
Activities generally include each of the groups of stakeholders, in order to develop a common vision, cooperative approaches and a well informed group of stakeholders.
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Even before the MBE program started in Batu, district and school staff and community members visited SBM schools in another district of their own accord. After the visit a number of schools formed parents' groups for each class, who have put up display boards, made teaching aids and taken action to follow up children who do not attend school.
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