Home > Revue internationale d'éducation Sèvres > n° 58 - NGOs and Education > Abstracts

Les ONG et l'éducation (NGOs and Education)
Issue 58, December 2011

NGOs, whether they operate in a single country or at international level, act as partners to States, sponsors, and peoples in a wide range of fields. Their presence is particularly felt in education, where it takes a great variety of forms.

Their contributions, along with the limits set on their intervention, are the subject of No.58 of the Revue Internationale d'Education de Sèvres, which is devoted to a topic that research has so far only barely touched upon.

With examples drawn from a variety of cases, geographies and contexts, mainly in the South, this special issue reflects the different questions and viewpoints of sponsors and NGOs themselves, as well as of French and foreign researchers.

What place do NGOs have today, how do they operate, and what is their intervention with regard to activities for which States are usually seen as being responsible?

What role do they play in the evolution of educational policies, in particular in developing countries, and in the lives of the peoples concerned? What new actors and innovative practices emerge in this vast sector of aid to development?

Coordination: Sandra Barlet (GRET), with Jean-Pierre Jarousse.

Abstracts

Introduction - NGOs and education in developing countries [pdf - 277 Ko]
Sandra Barlet, Jean-Pierre Jarousse

The impact of an NGO's action on national policy - The example of a teacher-training module in Cambodia
Nathalie Dupont, Sothik Hok
A 'Libraries and books for children' training module has been incorporated into initial training of primary school trainee teachers in Cambodia by the NGO SIPAR (Soutien à l'Initiative Privée pour l'Aide à la Reconstruction), in response to a request from the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. The project rests on observations of Cambodians' complex social, cultural and political relations to the written word. Three monitoring and advisory missions carried out since 2007 in the eighteen regional teacher-training colleges have led to proposals for the adjustment of training plans in accordance with needs. The SIPAR NGO can be said to play a key role in the development of education policies in Cambodia.

Promoting the economic independence of women - A training programme in India
P.B. Sajeev, Graciela Padoani
The iLEAD initiative (Initiative for Livelihood, Education and Development), instigated in 2005 by Aide et Action International (AEAI), an NGO active in India since 1981, seeks to improve the process of integration of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, girls in particular, by strengthening their social, financial and professional autonomy. Today, the programme covers nineteen Indian States and has led to the training of some hundred thousand young people, 75% of whom have gone on to obtain salaried jobs. The initiative also seeks to encourage the adoption of similar approaches in training programmes managed by the States and at federal government level.

Differing viewpoints on NGOs' educational activities in the South - Round table
Sandra Barlet, Roland Biache, Mahfou Diouf, Bernard Dumont, André Gauron, Valérie Huguenin, Jacques Marchand, Gilbert Migan
Representatives of NGOs, sponsors, a Ministry of a Southern country and experts discussed the developments characterising the actions and positioning of NGOs active in the South over the last ten years in the field of education, and on the new roles they will come to play by the year 2020. A number of themes were tackled: the mobilisation of civil society and local management of education; the conception of the State's role, and needs with regard to non-governmental intervention; the reinforcement of dialogue between civil society and the public authorities; the transition from innovation to public policy; the need to bring education systems in line with economic realities.

Civil society's role in tackling illiteracy in Morocco - What commitment for what results?
Sophie Cerbelle, Mohammed Bougroum
With over a third of its population unable to read or write, Morocco is faced with mass illiteracy that weighs heavily upon its economic and social development. To meet the challenge, the public authorities have sought to diversify the literacy training offer, in particular by involving civil society. Based on empirical research, the article focuses on the comparative effectiveness of NGOs with regard to other major actors in the campaign to eliminate illiteracy. The results highlight the individual and contextual characteristics most favourable to improving literacy. This "farming out" strategy must be consolidated by a proactive policy of professionalisation of the sector, by stabilising the training body as a whole and instituting proximity management based on permanent indicators of quality, both with regard to learning acquired and to its sustainability, use and impact.

Limits to the contribution made by civil society - Education in fragile States
Thomas Poirier
Across the world almost a third of children who do not go to school live in countries whose governments do not have the ability or the will to commit to anti-poverty policies. In such fragile States, the likelihood of achieving the goal of universal primary education remains highly uncertain. Faced with the failure of public authorities, the international community looks to organisations in civil society for the provision of an education whose recognition as a global public good may lead to new forms of international aid. However, the participative approach has its limits. It is therefore a matter of reconsidering the role played by the State, which, once its governmental functions are legitimised can symbolise the return to effective public power, a major factor in emerging from fragility.

French NGOs and education: marginalisation or reorganisation?
Philippe Ryfman
France's non-governmental community has particularities which differentiate it, for example, from that in Britain. A limited number of NGOs with major financial and human resources play a role in public affairs and on the international scene, those in the humanitarian field in particular. This context, unfavourable as it is to NGOs involved in education, is accentuated by strategies of multimandates, critical mass, and transnationalisation of leading NGOs. It may therefore be worth examining the possibility of reorganising non-specialist French NGOs according to their cause. Henceforth, educational projects would come first and foremost from local NGOs in the South. There would, however, be nothing to prevent greater reinvestment in the sector by international solidarity providing resources were available through efforts of mutualisation and consortium with specialised and Southern NGOs, and by building on the contributions made by research in education.

"New" philanthropy, social capitalism and international development New ways of conceiving the "gift"
Antonio Olmedo, Stephen J. Ball
We are experiencing a global paradigmatic change in the relationships between government(s), education, philanthropy and business. This article analyses the on-going changes and their consequences for educational access and opportunity. The shifts and moves involved here are made up of and driven by a complex set of advocacy networks, business interests, 'new' philanthropy, and changes in the form and modalities of the state. Finally, the authors present some examples that show how entrenched problems of educational development and educational quality and access are now being addressed in countries around the world by the involvement of private providers (edubusinesses)in the delivery of educational services.

Bibliographical references
Hélène Beaucher