GRIPS Development Forum Seminar
Comparative Study on the Local Meanings of Educating All and the Processof Adopting EFA Development Goals in Three East African Countries- The Case of Kenya -●Date and Time: March 24 (Fri) 16:00-18:00●Venue: GRIPS conference room 3C●Speaker¾ Guest Speaker: Dr. Fatuma Chege
Senior Lecturer and Chairperson, Department of Educational Foundation,Kenyatta University, Kenya¾ Moderator: Dr. Shoko Yamada
Associate Professor, GRIPS Development Forum● Participants¾ About 25 people from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, JICA, universities, and NGOs.
● Background and objective of the seminar
GRIPS Development Forum, together with a team of researchers from Kenya, Tanzania,
and Ethiopia, has initiated a study to investigate the process and ways of adopting theEducation for All development goals (EFA goals), which were agreed in the international
arena, into the educational thoughts and programmes of these three East African countries.
The study explores the range of ideas on “educating all” which is not necessarily tied to theinternational goals of Education for All. By doing so, the research team has tried tounderstand to what extent educational changes represent locally developed educational
thoughts and system and to what extent these changes represent views generated throughinternational discourse.
The research is composed of three country studies in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, so thatthe team can find factors which are specific to a certain context and which are common
across different contexts. The research team has interviewed key officials of the Ministryof Education, staff of NGOs and donors, who are involved in the policy-making andprogramme implementation in the field of education.
Dr. Fatuma Chege has been leading the Kenyan group of this project. On the occasion ofher stay in Japan, GRIPS Development Forum asked her to present the interim findings
from the research done by the Kenyan team. To give the whole picture of the research tothe audience, Dr. Yamada of GRIPS, as coordinator of this comparative study of threecountries presented the methodologies commonly used by country teams, general findings
and issues to be overcome.

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zProfile of the speaker: Dr. Fatuma Chege
Ph.D. in Education from Cambridge University, UK. Areas of specialization are: Girls’education, HIV/AIDS education, educational policy studies. Dr. Chege has much
experience in ethnographic qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interview andobservation.
Major works:¾ “Gender and Education for All: the leap to equality – Review of UNESCO EFA
Global Monitoring Report 2003/4” British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 26,
No. 5, 2005.
¾ “Life Skills and HIV/AIDS Education for Young People: A Handbook for Learners,”
UNICEF, ESARO, 2004.
¾ “Constructing Femininities and Masculinities within the Framework of Domestic
Labour: The Experience of Kenyan Schoolchildren,” Journal of Educational Focus,
Vol. 4, 2003.

Summary of Presentation(1) Overall explanation of the research project and presentation of generalfindings(document 2)<Preliminary overall findings>
Inclusiveness vs. primary enrolment- As many respondents pointed out, World Charter for Children’s Rights declares thateverybody has the right to education, regardless of age or location. On the other hand,
EFA gives narrower focus to the national governments on enrolment and gender equity.
Partnership/participation- It depends on the political situation and historical relationship between the civil society
and the government to what extent the government involves stakeholders into
decision-making. Ethiopia is less open than Kenya and Tanzania. There is atendency that a few NGOs – advocacy NGOs or NGO’s federation – which always
represent the civil society in the dialogue with the government. But they do notnecessarily speak for all NGOs. The issue which needs more investigation is whose
voices are heard and whose are not heard.
Disconnection between diplomatic for a and implementation- Relatively small number of Ministry officials are involved in tasks related to EFA andthe majority of operation are consistent before and after EFA. Many respondents
pointed out the need to think of the holistic development of education system, instead ofconcentrating on a few areas.
(2) Presentation of the Kenyan case (Dr. Fatuma Chege) (document 3)“Education for all” and EFA- Occasionally, EFA goals and MDGs were portrayed as synonymous in defining EFA .
This means, even though the EFA have 6 goals, two of them, which were integrated intoMDGs – universal primary education and gender equality – are more visible to people2-than the remaining four.
Long history of “education for all” in Kenya (document 3: pp. 1-3)

What ALL means in EFA?
- Inclusive education and discourse of rights – When people are asked what they think“ALL” means in the context of education for all, many people talked about
inclusiveness, from early childhood to adult, non-formal and formal. It is alsomentioned to be one of human rights. There are occasionally mismatches between
what people conceptualize “education for all”, which is very inclusive, and what people
perceive as EFA goals.
What is new about EFA goals?
- Some respondents claimed that EFA goals were not new. See for example the quotes
in page 9, document 3.
- What is new is the new ways of responding to the goals e.g. institutional goals on
infrastructure
Stakeholders’ influence in the policy process- Generally, external stakeholders have more chances to influence policy decision than
before – various forms of influence (see page 10-11, document 3).
Emergent issues and implications for EFA- Linking EFA with MDGs
- Education for refugees in camps- Parental education on EFA and EFA goals- Strengthening guidance and counseling in schools and refugee camps- Out of school children should be attended- Need to address poverty reduction- There is a lack of planning and tending to talk a lot on what we want to achieve but notmuch on resources

Main points of discussion
Scope of analysis of this research
There are suggestions about the kind of issues which this study can look at and about thekind of data we can integrate to strengthen the argument of this study:¾ To illuminate the process of formulating sector development policy with focus onNGOs and other stakeholders’ participation¾ To examine the trends of external influences over time (longitudinal analysis)¾ To expand the scope of study to include the interviews with rural individuals who are
the beneficiaries of EFA policy¾ To integrate statistical data; for example, argument about quality of education can beback-upped by regional common examination scores such as SAQMEC.
¾ To integrate the data on governmental expenses to education sector to see the trendsof governmental focus

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→In response to these questions about the scope of the study, the researchers responded:(1) the process of participation of different stakeholders is exactly one of the issues
which this study is concerned about. In fact, the interview data from Kenya tells very
eloquently who were included and who were excluded from the decision-making
process and how it happened. Since our analysis is still at the preliminary stage, wewere not ready to present it well today, but that is one of the issues which will becovered in the final paper(2) Statistics and other kinds of data will be integrated when we present our findings.
It is a matter of presentation and quantitative data will be useful to backup ourargument, but analysis itself should be done with the qualitative data which is collectedby the research team through interviews.
(3) The research team had decided to focus on the central policy-making level at thisstage. We may look at the local government officials or final beneficiaries in laterstage of this study, but we decided it is not a good idea to mix up data from different
levels.

Academic contribution of this study
This study is policy study, which utilize various kinds of useful research methods regardlessof narrow disciplinary framework. While we basically rely on qualitative data frominterviews, it is important to triangulate the analysis from one research methods with others
so as to ensure the quality of analysis. Multi-disciplinary approach is suited to get aholistic picture of the issues we are investigating, and policy-study itself is a distinct
academic field.
Situation of community participation
From the floor, there was a comment that SWAPs may sideline the community with its
stronger control of financial resources and by not releasing the funds for school
construction to the communities which are, according to the government’s judgment, readyfor its responsibility.
Response 1: On the side of the government, too, there is a financial motivation of
involving community and parents.
Outsiders tend to assume thatgovernment takes care of all costs about public basic education, but in many
developing countries which are rushing to achieve universal primaryeducation, the governments have far less financial capacity than they need tomaintain the expanding system. Therefore, community participation iscounted on as an important financial source.
Response 2: Without involving parents and communities, EFA cannot be achieved.
Raising parents’ awareness about importance of education is crucial.

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