

127

Strengthening Community
Participation in the Azeri School
Governance: Lessons Learned from
Some Project Experiences
Ulviyya Mikayilova

P

articipatory approaches that involve local communities in their own development have gained substantial support among international donor organizations over the past quarter-century.
Thus, the idea of community has become
an inspiration for reform and transformation ofsociety and the efforts of civil society to makethe community one of the civil society actors
have relevance to Azerbaijan situation.

To ensure “good governance” and participation of citizens in the development process,the main focus of the development process in
the global context has been primarily on civilsociety organizations (CSOs) such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
An assessment of civil society in Azerbaijan
indicated that traditional civil society actors suchas CSOs/NGOs have been operating without a“mobilized citizenry behind them”, and which“reveal the potential for synergistic interplays
between mobilized communities and formal
civil society entities” (USAID, 2005).
Why is the community such a significant
concept? Many definitions of community areoften related to connotations of good life,
quality of life. Community planners believethat the community contributes more to thequality of life than many other areas. But more
important than promoting the potential of thecommunity as a focus for improving life quality is the potential for meaningful change andimprovement that exists at the community level(Lyon, 1987).

Community Targeting in Azerbaijani
Context
In Azerbaijan, the community has becomea main target in the development agenda during the last ten to fifteen years. This process
began in Azerbaijan with the shift in focus by
the international aid community from shortterm relief to long-term development. “This is
critically important, as no country will develop
through external support alone; a proactiverole by the community in the development andmanagement of resources is essential” (Save theChildren, 2000).
Since the 1990s, a number of reform projects
in Azerbaijan targeting communities have been
implemented. From 1996, UNICEF, within
the framework of the Early Childhood Care127

128  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

and Development Project, has initiated the establishment of the Child Development Centers(CDC) in the camps for the internally displaced
people (IDP) for the purpose of ensuring earlychildhold education, and the development andcare opportunities for the children most affectedby the war in Azerbaijan and living in extremely
difficult conditions (the IDP children). Anotherbig initiative of UNICEF in partnership with
the Ministry of Education is establishing anational parent-teacher association aimed atcreating school-community partnership for
quality education.
The Save the Children implemented a
project funded by the USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance,
Displaced Children's and Orphan’s Fund withthe goal of promoting social integration andcommunity capacity to care for marginalized
children in Azerbaijan by mobilizing the target
communities in some districts where families
have limited resources at their disposal since
existing policies and community-based support
mechanisms are viewed with suspicion. Thisapproach also points to the overarching issue of
helping communities create more appropriate
care for the needs of at-risk children in order toprevent their being committed to institutions
and to enhance positive coping mechanismsthat promote social integration and community capacity to care for vulnerable children
in Azerbaijan.
An initiative of the Open Society Institute(OSI) has been working towards the social
inclusion of children with disabilities by promoting the provision of comprehensive, quality
community-based services as an alternative to
institutionalization. OSI envisions a society inwhich children with disabilities live as equalcitizens, with full respect for their human rights.
They and their families must have real choices
regarding where and with whom to live andget education, choices in their daily lives, andreal opportunities to be independent and to actively participate in their communities. Anotherprogram developed by the OSI was the Step by

Step Early Childhood Education which actively
engaged families and community involvement
into education. This program was based on theidea that families were the primary educators of
their children.
USAID-funded programs (Central Asia
Community Development Program, Azerbaijan Humanitarian Assistance Program, Social
Investment Initiatives Program, Civil Society
Building Assistance Project) that are managed
by its umbrella international NGOs and local
sub-contractors aim to decrease dependence on
relief aid by creating self-reliance among thecommunities through their direct involvementin planning, implementation, and managementof resources.
The School Grant Component within thesecond phase of the Education Sector Development Project of the World Bank has provided
funding in three pilot districts for school projects designed and implemented by the schoolcommunity (consisting of the school administrators, teachers, students, parents-teachers
association (PTA) members, representatives ofthe local authorities and businesses, and local
community leaders). Within that reform phasepilot schools received the full authority to develop and manage school budgets.
The formation and development of sociallyactive schools (SAS) is being considered by
Eurasia Foundation as one of the significant
directions of the process of improving the education system. A number of projects aimed atformation and development of SAS have been
implemented in Azerbaijan during the last
several years. The given model envisages availability of nine main components of SAS relatedwith targeting and involvement of the community such as community-related curriculum,“everyone is a teacher/ a learner,” community
use, involvement of citizens, interagency co-operation, community issues, collegiality, facility
adaptation, and sense of community.
In spite of differences in terms of funding
scale, implementing and funding agencies, target needs (marginalized children, children with

Community Participation in the Azeri School Governance  129

special needs, ECD [Early Childhood Development] services, local infrastructural needs, etc.),
all those projects were primarily focused oncommunity involvement and participation.
Community participatory projects in Azerbaijan were mostly unsustainable, rarely focusedon community-school connections, implemented on individual project-basis and have notgiven a valuable feedback at the policy level.
In our opinion, a “school budget formulae”
developed and piloted by the WB and the Ministry of Education within the education sector
reform project may be identified as an attempt
to reform school budget management without
reforming school governance.
We believe that school reform should startwith reform of school governance and community involvement. Our belief on democraticschool governance became the reason for a small
project on this issue.

Project experience and problem statement
Experts, researchers, school officials, andparents all confirm that students perform at ahigher educational level when there is an evidence of parent involvement in schools. Involvement of the parents/community and youth in
the decision-making process also gives them asense of ownership.
Through ownership and empowerment,
school communities develop the ability to act,
and ultimately, to influence and make changes.
The current national school governance systemdescribed in the education laws has only theschool principal as the main decision-maker andschool pedagogical councils mostly deal witheveryday teaching process, not overall school
problems, and without the involvement of thefamilies and community.
Community participation approach wasselected to try to solve the problem of parents’
informal payments in schools. Parents making
informal payments in schools have become
widespread practice within the national pub-lic education system during the last decade.
The public in general see informal payments
as among the biggest social problems of thenational public education system that block
the way to good school governance, quality
education and democracy.
Project implementers have assumed thatthe lack of community participation in theschool governance is among the main reasonsfor corruption in schools. These observations
indicate that:• There are no good school governance mechanisms at practice and policy levels• Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) aremostly formal entities not having a decisionmaking power at school level• Community, families and students are not involved in the solution of school problems anddo not participate in the school governance.
The Center for Innovations in Education(CIE) decided to design and implement a project that would encourage the school and thecommunity around it to work out and pilot a
Transparent and Accountable School model, anddevelop policy recommendations to the stateagencies such as the Ministry of Education and
the State Commission on Anti-Corruption forfurther analysis and institutionalization.
Achieving good governance in schools,
through partnership with PTAs and school
management councils, student participation
and/or other forms of citizen engagement,is supposed to be a very effective foundation
for wider work on improving governance anddemocratic decision-making. It may not be immediately obvious, but addressing the alienation
between schools and families/community canbe an essential means of deepening democracyin education.
We believe that this approach is in compliance with the human rights concept and themain human rights documents such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights andthe International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights.

130  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

Since the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states that “Everyone is entitled to all therights and freedoms…, without distinction of
any kind, such as … other opinion…” (Article2), and that “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled toprotection by society and the State” (Article 16),
why could family not have a right and freedom
to express its opinion on the education of theirchildren? If “Everyone has the right to freedomof opinion and expression….” (Article 19) why
should community members not have a rightto express their opinion about schools locatedin their community?
The provision of the Universal Declarationof Human Rights (UDHR) that “Everyone has
the right to peaceful assembly and association”(Article 20) means that the community members have the right to establish an associationthat promotes societal welfare through lawyful
activities such as participating in the decisionmaking process on school-related problems.
Following the UDHR provision that “In theexercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone
shall be subject only to such limitations as are
determined by law ….” there should not be limitations for community participation in a school
governance. Such a community participation inschool governance can be also considered as akind of protection and assistance to the families
in a community around the school in accordancewith Article 10 of the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which
confirms that the “widest possible protection
and assistance should be accorded to the family… particularly for its establishment and while
it is responsible for the care and education of
dependent children.”A specific difficulty for the development
and implementation of the community participatory school governance model is thefact that the national education law does notclearly identify the role of families and community in school functioning and does not givedecision-making power to the community inschool life.

Parents’ and community’s rights in education are reflected neither in existing Education
Law nor in the draft Education Bill being
discussed in the Parliament. The Education
Law declares that schools have to have a democratic governance system (Article 31), but legal
mechanisms on how to establish this system are
not defined. There is also contradiction in thelaw. For instance, while schools have a right toestablish governance and self-governance bodies, the highest governing body is the so-called
pedagogical council comprising of the school
administrators and teachers only. The relations
between the pedagogical council and othergovernance bodies are not defined. In Article
34 of the law about rights of the education
process participants, parents are mainly considered as school clients and not real stakeholders.
They have a right to be informed by the school
about the education of their children insteadof being participants in the education process;they have a right to participate in the school
governance but without clear mechanisms on
how to implement this right; parents’ right tochoose a school is merely declared; and finallythe rights of parents of children with disabilities
are not mentioned at all.
These gaps in the law constituted the context of the CIE agreement with the Ministryof Education allowing the piloting of the newschool governance model with community
participation.

Democratic school governance project
CIE started the project called “Towards
Transparency and Accountability in Azeri
Schools” in 2006 and funded by the Democracy
Small Grant Commission of the United States
Embassy.
This project aimed to develop a more democratic school governance model with active
community involvement into decision-making
process on school-related issues including school
finances.

Community Participation in the Azeri School Governance  131

The project staff expected that a comparisonof all models (including those of the WB and
Eurasia) especially the outcomes of their implementation in terms of school practices could
give a valuable input to the education policy
agenda and might promote further institutionalization of the community participatory school
governance model.
The project had the following specific objectives:
1. To involve the community in school governance and school development;
2. To create a transparent system of school
finances through community participationand monitoring.
The main project components were thefollowing:
1. School Governance�- School-community council selection- School council’s capacity building
2. School-Community Actions- School Actions design based on all
school discussion on the best ideas foractions- School Actions implementation.
The project activities were implemented inthree schools in Baku, Sumgayit and Lankaran
cities. The selection of the pilot schools was notaccidental. The project schools and CIE have
had long-term partnership relations throughthe implementation of innovative teachingapproaches; participation in the various CIE
projects related with the improvement of quality and raising civic issues in education, andschool’s staff professional development. All
three schools have parent-teachers associations(PTAs) that were not registered as legal entities[and were established according to the decisionof school’s pedagogical council] and were thus
well-prepared to implement the specific projected activities.
The selected schools also have a well-established reputation within the education
system which would assist in promoting the

project goals and ideas at the level of education
policy.
The target group of the project was represented by the selected school communities school youth, teachers, administrators and PTA
members, representatives of the local authorities
and businesses, and local community leaders.
The project was implemented for twelve
months starting October 2006.
A new legally and financially groundedmodel of transparent decision-making process in school was developed, with details for
implementation prescribed by legal and financeconsultants. Taking into account the not-so successful experience of the PTAs in country, theschool governance model of the project focusedon school councils with the participation of all
the educational stakeholders in the community.
The most active school PTA members were
expected to take a part in those councils.
The new school governance model wastested in each of three pilot schools.
The initial stage of project implementation
indicated a huge enthusiasm among the members of the school community to the idea ofparticipatory governance. This enthusiasm wasreflected in the results of a survey conductedamong the members of the school community.
School Councils were elected in each school
and were able to gain the cooperation of theschools’ PTAs and Student Parliaments. According to the developed criteria, school councils(with a maximum of nine members) should
be comprised of teachers, members of PTAs,
other community members, representatives of
local education department, local municipalities,
local businesses and school youth. The school
director is deliberately not invited to become aschool council member but given an advisoryrole at the council. School councils were electedwith the participation of all members of theschool community.
A sample School Board Charter was developed and circulated to the school councils.
The sample charter includes the procedures forestablishment and operation of school councils;

132  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

criteria for school council membership; duties
and responsibilities of school councils; andinternal regulations for school council’s operations. A school fund model, developed with theassistance of a finance consultant, provides theprocedures for fund management. School council members actively participated in all these
activities since the beginning of the project.
Further professional development of members of the school councils was recognized asnecessary and constituted an important direction to take.
Invited experts, professionally dealing withschool governance and finance issues, gave
presentations to the project’s school councils
and representatives of the school PTAs. Experts
from CIE, Transparency Azerbaijan, State Commission on Anti-Corruption and Economic
Research Center gave presentations on thefoundations and principles of transparent, accountable and community participatory school
governance. The experts drew attention to thenecessity of collaboration of all the stakeholders
and clients in education to work towards moredemocratic and transparent school governance.
CIE provided training for school council members and representatives of the school PTAs on
various school governance models, decentralization, community participation, school governance improvement practices, budget literacy,transparent school budget, and procedures that
promote transparency in schools.
A special resource package for school councils and PTAs was prepared and disseminated.
The resource package included carefully selectedmaterials on ethics and corruption in education presented at the international workshop
held by the CIE in partnership with Institutefor Educational Planning/UNESCO, resultsof the national researches on private tutoringand informal payments in Azerbaijani schools,
selected case studies on good school governanceand budgeting presented by the members of
the international networks of CIE, and otherrelevant materials such as local mass media
materials. Resource packages were preparedby CIE experts to educate school councils
and PTAs and were distributed to the school
council members and project school libraries tomake them available to all readers interested in
knowing the foundations of good governancein education.
Quarterly school council reports were
provided to the school and stakeholders on
the results of the quarterly governance decisions and spending. All the legal and financial
procedures and regulations were reflected in
the recommendations on revision of the pilot
school charters to provide involvement of more
stakeholders in the decision-making process,and to make school governance legally moretransparent and accountable towards direct
beneficiaries-students, and parents and community members.
The election of school councils and theiroperation set the stage for the implementationof joint actions directed at school improvement.
These actions were expected to be good exercise
for school councils, and the best way to implement a pilot governance model.
The ideas for school action plans were received through school referendum. The mostimportant features of school action plans was
not their content (renovation of school roof,
creating a school sports yard, establishingstudents’ self-governance, creating students’
discussion club, etc.), but the transparency inmaking managerial decisions and the accountability to the stakeholders in both designing andimplementation of the action plans.
Based on the information received during
the training session and on the frameworkprovided by the projects’ experts, the school
councils developed the school action plans. A
special school action fund was established andwas managed by the school council in eachpilot school.
From the perspective of CIE, the design
and implementation of the school action plans
should depend on the nature and needs of theschools. For these action plans to become effective, they should be developed and implemented

Community Participation in the Azeri School Governance  133

by the whole school community. CIE sees better
understanding and support for the implementation of the school action plans to occur whenrepresentatives of students and PTAs together
with other stakeholders in preparing the plans
are involved.
The varying concepts of community wereused frequently in the discussions between the
project staff and school councils on the problems
and in project proposals to address them.
The project implementation made necessary
the analysis of the community concept and theanalysis of the potential for creating viable andmeaningful community in Azeri schools.
The project implementation experience
provided some lessons learned.

Legal Constraints
The fact that school councils did not havelegal power to act on school matters was oneof the main obstacles towards creating viable
school-community connections. Both school
councils and school principals knew that legally
the latter has all the authority to act on school
matters, that the former did not have. This legal
constraint reflected the whole experience andmood of the school councils. School councils’
actions depended on the school principals’ opinion, and very often the latter’s views concluded
all debates among school council members.
This hierarchical situation reflects the hierarchy
existing in the huge public education system.
The school itself has limited authority on many
issues in a highly centralized national public
education system.
Another factor that could legally prevent
community involvement was the idea of creating a School Fund Charter, which was recommended by a legal consultant, rather than a new
School Charter. A new School Charter would
not be legally feasible without the necessary
national legislative framework. But a School
Fund Charter was a feasible model that could
be implemented and sustained during the proj-

ect period. The School Fund Charter proposal
was submitted to, and accepted by, the School
Boards, but was never implemented.
The project sensitized the project staff onnational and international legal contexts. The
project staff studied education laws of othercountries such as Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Great Britain, and made a comparative
analysis. Based on this analysis and project
findings, recommendations related to the rights
and responsibilities of schools and education
process participants were made for draft bill on
Education Law which was under discussion at
the National Parliament. The recommendations
were also presented at the public hearings on
the draft bill on Education Law.
If a new Education Law is adopted incorporating the CIE’s recommendations, the newschool governance model (with some improvements if necessary) may be replicated by otherschools.

Lack of community commitment
School Boards were not so active and to someextent were dependent on project staff recommendations and instructions. Being a memberof school council meant a commitment to workfor common and shared goal. The enthusiasm at
the initial stages significantly decreased toward
the later stages of project implementation when
it was time, for instance, to adapt sample School
Charter for a particular school, or to develop a
School–Community Fund as a public association established to support the school. In theprocess of project implementation, the school
council members and project staff realized thatbeing a school council member was almost a fulltime job and required commitment. The community did not have well-developed administrative resources and human capacity necessary toparticipate in school governance or to create an
association to support it. Another trend was thelack of community trust on the school. Highlybureaucratic schools with widespread corrup-

134  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

tion and authoritarian style of governance havelost credibility among community members.
People could not provide the needed commitment if they did not trust the institution thatshould be implementing the project.

School in Azeri context
At present, schools are primarily focusedon their educational function, while neglecting
the community and families of the students.
Azeri schools do not allow the parents to cometo school during school days and limit theirinvolvement to very few parents’ conferences
a year. The agenda of the parents’ conferenceswere also mainly focused on the academic
achievements of the children.
Azeri schools operate to prepare students foradmission to higher education institutions, andare rated based on the number of their students
going to higher education. The school has
become a “collection” of professionals serving
the “student-clients,” rather than an extensionof the community. For parents in the local community, the school is a “state institution run byprofessionals, in the service of the interests of thechildren.”(C. Mertz and G.C. Furman, 1997)
Since there is no established tradition of
local community control over the school it isextremely difficult to create it with one or several
projects. And since there is no age-old traditionof community ownership over the school it is
impossible to suddenly create it.

Community in Azeri context: can it act
for a public good?
In the process of project implementation,
we realized that the community was not homogenous, and was actually a very complex
social construct. Since the focus of our project
was creating school-community partnershipit was necessary to analyze the community in
Azeri context.

The Azeri context provides three different
experiences of communal life.
Legally, municipalities are elected bodies
in local communities with defined territorialboundaries. The empowering effect of participation in local government is expected toincrease the citizen’s competence to judge theperformance of its representatives.
The traditional community in Azerbaijan
has virtually disappeared except as a moral
community. The pressure of collectivism during the Soviet period and the adoption of laws
on municipalities during independence did not
get rid of mahallah, a traditional community in
Azerbaijan. But compared with the countries
of Central Asia, mahallah in Azerbaijan has
basically lost its meaning as moral communityand became more of a neighborhood, a community of locality. We prefer to consider thecurrent mahallah in Azerbaijan as an informal
community in name rather than a real social
construct.
Considering the community in terms of social networks, we suppose that in Azeri context
the only living community is a community ofextended kinship relations, an important factor in both formal and informal lives of Azeris.
Families both single and extended have always
been a powerful center in the lives of the Azeris
that keep a hidden identity that governments
attempted to erase. They are a tool to preserve
individuality in the midst of the collectivity ofpeople.
The community of extended kinship relations
is a very specific social construct which usuallyacts not with the whole community but aloof
from it. Governments can be replaced, powers
can be shifted, ideologies can be changed, but
individuality should survive, and support tothat individual survival is the ultimate goal of
the kinship community.
This brief analysis indicates that perhaps
there is no community around the school thatis a valuable and active social network, whose
members share common goals and values andCommunity Participation in the Azeri School Governance  135

are committed to public good. “Lacking sharedvalues, the local community lacks a coherent
voice to influence the school.” (Mertz, Furman, 1997)
Addressing the alienation between schools
and parents is an essential means of deepening
democracy in education. The lessons learned
from this project indicate a potential for thecreation of viable and meaningful school-community connections, and might be a ground forfurther development attempts.

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