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COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONIN EDUCATION REFORM IN

EGYPT

THE ROLE OF LOCAL NGOS

PPAD500

Faiza H. Y. AlArajiThe American University in Cairo

5/14/2012

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Community Intervention in Educational Reform AlAraji

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CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 2Literature Review: ..................................................................................................................... 4

What is the meaning of community intervention? ................................................................. 4Motives, Approaches, and Pushing Factors ........................................................................... 4Types of Community Intervention ......................................................................................... 6Community Intervention in Education (in an International Context) .................................... 7Successful Case Studies from an international context: ........................................................ 8Education reform and Community Intervention in the Egyptian Context ............................. 9

Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 13Sampling Strategy ................................................................................................................ 13Key Performance Indicators ................................................................................................ 13Data Collection Questions ................................................................................................... 14

References ................................................................................................................................ 15

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INTRODUCTION

Education reform was one of the priorities of the Egyptian governments over the three past

decades. The initial goal of reform was to expand capacity by building more schools. In the

beginning of the new millennium there was a shift. Policy makers began looking more

seriously at what was going inside the schools. How were students doing, what sort of

teaching was going on and was it effective?

The Ministry of education national strategic plan reports since 2002 reflect this shift and the

governments determination to improve the quality of basic education and better meet the

needs of students. In the strategic plan report of 2007/08 the Ministry of Education focused

on variety of qualitative factors. The plan called for more effective training to teachers,

reduced teacher pupil ratio and new educational strategies to reduce failure and dropout rates.

In addition, it called for a revision of both the education curricula and the exam system,

replacing memorization with the development of more critical thinking skills and increased

creativity in both the classroom and on the test. The report acknowledged the role of moderntechnology in the school, and the need for ongoing rehabilitation and maintenance of school

facilities.

The Egyptian government in partnership with large international donors and organizations

such as UNICEF, UNESCO, and USAID, has implemented many successful projects and

programs since the 1990s. Local communities and organizations working under the

supervision of international donors and organizations were participants in these projects.

Their goal was to empower school governance at a more local level, to make it more

responsive and thus more successful in meeting the needs of the communities. Some projects

targeted improved access to education for girls, especially in marginalized areas like Upper

Egypt.

The government faced new challenges as a result of the revolution of the 25th of January

2011. It has had to re-examine its longstanding relationship with the international donors and

international organizations that have worked in Egypt over many decades. This new

circumstance may empower the local NGOs in the coming years, giving them the opportunity

to become the primary partner with the national government in basic education reform in

their communities.

There are many international case studies documenting successful partnership, collaborations

between local NGOs and the national governments to implement education reform programs

especially in marginalized areas with the disadvantaged children. . In effect, by helpingcertain underachieving populations, by improving educational outcomes for the most

challenging students these programs raise the positive profile and standard of education

throughout the country. They serve as an example and inspiration to all teachers, to

administrators and policy makers. They are a source of pride, demonstrating a country's

capacity to meet international standards to provide quality education for all children.

This research will focus on the role of local Egyptian organizations that are involved with

education reform programs in marginalized areas with disadvantaged children in the greater

Cairo area. It will investigate their interventions, looking at the specific educational

approaches and strategies used to achieve higher quality, positive educational outcomes. Ourgoal is to assess the impact of their intervention on the children, schools, and communities

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they are working in. In addition, the research will look at the relationship between the NGOs

and the Egyptian government, to see how is it structured and what the level of government

involvement is. This research attempts to answer the following questions: What is the role of

local Egyptian Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in supporting the basic education

reform process? What approaches have been used by these organizations to improve

education quality? What is their impact on children, schools, and communities? What is theirrelationship with the government? What do they suggest to empower this relationship?

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LITERATURE REVIEW:

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF COMMUNITY INTERVENTION?

The term community can have different meanings to different people. Communities canexpand or contract due to their needs and situations. We can categorize many types of

communities based on different criteria: Geographic communities, ethnic and racial

communities, religious groups, communities based on shared families concerns, and

communities based on shared philanthropy (Bray, 2003).

In Hawes discussion (1994) of concept of community and community based intervention,

she mentioned three concepts of communities, the first of which described the community as

population. The idea of community intervention is connected with the concern to reach as

many people as possible and make the best use of program resources. The second concept is

that community is a form of setting that can be used to support and maintain individual

change. In this concept, organizations, groups, and individuals in the community are valuablebecause of their capacity to make the change. In the third concept she described the

community as a social system which can be referred to as an ecosystem, having the capacity

to resolve its own community problems.

Hatch and his colleagues suggested that there is also a fourth concept of community which is

more about psychological context that can be influenced by many social factors. They

defined community as people having shared interests, common fate, social and political

history, and cultural affinity. (Tony Whitehead, 2002).

Some communities have created a formal status after establishing Non Governmental

Organization (NGOs) or Community Based Organizations (CBO). In the education sector;

such bodies have become increasingly prominent (Bowden, 1997; Bartlett, 2000). In some

communities both the NGOs and CBOs operate in partnership with governments to

implement many programs or projects relevant to the process of education reform, but in

other countries NGOs and CBOs criticize their governments and see themselves as alternative

instruments for the delivery of education (Miller-Grandvaux & Yoder, 2002).

Community intervention is the general term used to cover the various forms of community

level practice (Jack Rothman, 1996). Community intervention has increased during the

process of improving the quality of life for the poor population. Planners and decision makers

who worked on human service delivery have, in the past three decades, moved away from thenotion of top-down programs to implement strategies which encourage the input from

organizations, leaders and individuals who have been targeted by these programs (Whitehead,

2002)

MOTIVES, APPROACHES, AND PUSHING FACTORS

The motives of communities for engaging in educational activities may differ significantly

from the motives of governments and international agencies which advocate community

participation (Bary, 2003).

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Goods are usually available in nature, but they are poorly distributed, not equally reaching all

people who are living in any given society. The role of social institutions is to redistribute

these goods in a more even way. The purpose and justification of social institutions is to

protect and enhance the well-being of individual human beings. Hence they are supposed to

have moral criteria which make them have deep concerns with what is good for human

beings. The Plowden Report (1967), which was about children and their primary schools inEngland, found that educational success and failure among children are linked to a childs

social, economic and cultural environment. The outcome was a set of financial and

institutional support for all children, especially those living in poverty, to support them and

their families so that they will be responsible about their individual success or failure. The

role of community can be considered only for the support it can offer to the individual.

Hence Communities can demonstrate their benefits and privileges through the achievement of

their individuals (Michael Strain, 1995).

Gilberto Arriaza (2004) discussed the role of community intervention and how it can be

considered as an external force for school improvement with lasting effects, not justtemporary ones, such that it would have higher chances to be institutionalized. Gilberto

argued that active community participation can be an empowering agent of change. This

agent can play an important role because public education in a democratic society is supposed

to be supported by local control and be responsive to the local political agenda. Putnam

(2000) has extended the idea about individual social capital. He analyzed the existing

connection between effective communities and social capital. The rise and decline of

community life is connected with social capital. When social capital is strong, the community

civic life will increase, but it decreases when social capital is weak. Putnam argued that the

social capital strengthens the interrelations among communitys individuals and facilitates the

exchange of services.

In many cases, community intervention in education systems happens as a response to lack of

government action. Communities feel that their governments should hold the main

responsibility for education, but if they perceive that the government is unable or unwilling to

provide adequate education services for its people then the community decides to intervene in

order to improve the quality of education and fill the gap. Community input in this situation

can be divided into two groups. One group provides additional resources to the states

education system, and the other group supports education outside of the states system. Many

successful examples are available on both sides, in different countries around the world

(Bray, 2003).

From another point of view, Jasmine Gideon (1998) argued that the new-liberalism

movement in Latin America had created interest in nongovernmental organizations as

agents of service delivery in their communities. The decision makers saw these organizations

as efficient, small-scale, and cost-effective, easily managed, less-corrupt entities, which were

able to decentralize policies, give strength to civil society and facilitate political participation

at the grassroots level.

Jack Rothman (1996) mentioned three approaches to community intervention; he referred to

them as modes A, B and C.

Mode A: Locality Development. In this approach, community change should be achievedthrough broad participation of different people existing at local community level. These

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people should have determined goals and clear means of civic actions; also they should make

initiatives to develop the economic and social conditions of their communities.

Mode B: Social Planning- Policy. This approach emphasizes a problem solving technique

regarding specific existing problems such as housing, mental health, delinquency and so on.

Mode C: Social Action. In this approach the marginalized part of the population needs to be

organized to address their demands for increased resources or equal treatment.

TYPES OF COMMUNITY INTERVENTION

Due to his long experience in the field, Tony Whitehead (2002) has seen seven different types

of community based intervention programs, and he has categorized them as follows:

Type 1 programs: indigenous individuals, groups, and organizations initiate programs or

services without any external support.

Type 2 programs: indigenous individuals, groups

and organizations initiate and recruit external

technical support.

Type 3 programs: indigenous individuals or

community based organizations searching for external

funding or financial support.

Type 4 programs: indigenous individuals and community

based organizations initiate and recruit external technical

and financial support.

Type 5 programs: the programs are initiated by external

agencies (University, public or private organization, a

foundation, a corporation, and so on) and the mission

is carried out without any input from individual

residents or organizations of that community, except

the program participants (recipients).

Type 6 programs: where the programs are initiated

and planned by external agencies, and some of the community members were a part of

advisory committee or as workers in low level staff positions or as volunteers.

Type 7 programs: where the programs are planned and implemented by partnership

between community-based organizations and external agents or technical organizations.

In the last six types of community intervention, there is some form of collaboration between

community-based groups and outside agents. According to Tony Whitehead (2002) these

kinds of collaborations have been stopped in the three decades where he was working on

planning, implementation and evaluation of these programs. And he has mentioned many

factors that can affect the success of any program: first is the level of strength and

comprehensive vision of the design, second is the strict restrictions during implementation

process, third is the socio-cultural effectiveness which includes the integration with the

Figure 1 - Types of Community Intervention

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context and sustainability of the programs, and fourth is the orientation of implementation

and evaluation processes.

Community intervention can be categorized to two main types: (Elbaradie & Amin, 2010)

Genuine Intervention: This means that all members in the community have theright to participate in the decision making process and governance. Also they have

the right to figure out the outcomes of decisions.

Pseudo Intervention: where the intervention can be done through a consultative

process and people will be kept informed about the development of the schools, and

be ready to accept decisions which have been already done.

On ground, community intervention can fall somewhere in between the above two limits

depending on the degree of involvement of community members in various schooling

functions such as policy design, curricula design and development, teachers payments,

school staff hiring and firing, supervision , building maintenance, text book design and

printing, and the allocation of resources (Rose,2003).

COMMUNITY INTERVENTION IN EDUCATION (IN AN INTERNATIONAL

CONTEXT)

Community intervention in education has a long history. Prior to the 20 th century, the

governments used to play a minor role in education. Schools were organized either by

churches or other voluntary agencies (Archer, 1984; Cummings & Riddel, 1994). After

World War II, governments expanded to take on the dominant role in providing education

services. Support for this role came from international resolutions such as 1948 United

Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1959 Declaration of Rights of the Child, and 1966International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Bary, 2003).

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, advocacy for community intervention or

participation became stronger again. The Declaration of the 1990 World Conference on

Education for All (WCEFA) states that: Partnership at the community level.... should be

encouraged; they can help harmonize activities, utilize resources more effectively, and

mobilize additional financial and human resources where necessary (WCEFA Secretariat,

1990, p.58).

In the Delhi Declaration (UNESCO 1994), after a summit of leaders of nine high-population

countries, a related statement expressed a continuation of the concepts about communitypartnership:

Education is, and must be, a social responsibility, encompassing governments, families,

communities and non-governmental organizations alike; it requires the commitment and

participation of all

Similar statements have been made by other governments and agencies. In England, the

Department for International Development announced the desirability of: ...greater

participation of parents and communities in the education of their children which plays a

central role in stimulating education

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In 1997 South African government publication stated that: An important aspect of the

School Act is the principle that there must be a partnership between all stakeholders who

have an interest in education. These are the state, parents, learners, and educators... (Bray,

2003).

In education, the term community is considered by some scholars to have reached a criticalmass, so many of the world development organizations are using the concept of community

in their education development work that it is now considered a core component of the world

model of educational governance (Elbaradie & Amin, 2010). Some scholars saw the

community intervention as an indicator of the degree of influence, others consider it as a tool

of empowerment. While other groups use it as equivalent to the concept of democracy in

general. Community intervention is an important tool to decentralizing the education system.

Decentralization of education includes both administrative and political dimensions.

Administrative decentralization concentrates on decision making authority and responsibility

transformation to lower levels of administration. While political decentralization means

sharing local level and other stakeholders in the decision making process, which willimplement a greater degree of democracy (Elbaradie, 2005).

Many factors have raised the international interest in community intervention in education.

They constitute a mix of managerial, political, economic, development, pedagogical and

human rights factors. Managerial factors came from the shift in the public administration

paradigm to New Public Management theory which focuses on results and treats citizens as

customers. If this managerial theory is implemented in the education field it will change the

focus towards the school customers (the parents, the students, and the rest of the community)

in order to create successful partnership between them. The political and economic factors are

relevant to the global move towards liberal economy and the pressure from international

institutions like World Bank and IMF to accept their vision regarding economic structuraladjustment. Pedagogical factors can encourage building a collaborative relationship between

the school, the families and the community in order to provide adequate support for the

schools improvement. Development factors came from the recent discourse used by

international organizations like UNIESO, who asked for more community involvement in

educational development process so as to create the feeling of ownership of projects. Finally

the human rights factors consider the quality of education as a fundamental human right, so

that community involvement in education is a part of school performance-monitoring process

to guarantee the accountability of school officials and to ensure the results of getting more

effective education (Elbaradie & Amin, 2010).

SUCCESSFUL CASE STUDIES FROM AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT:

Shanti Jagannathan (2000) demonstrated in his study the role of six NGOs in India who have

initiated education reform program targeting most vulnerable children and schools in

hundreds of public and government-aided schools across India. The study has established that

local NGOs can play a strong role in the process of education reform. NGOs also can take

part in the education reform process as strategic partners to the government. The approaches

used by the six NGOs were:

Voluntary teaching,

Community schools,

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Training of administrative staff,

Financial training about using the budget of schools,

Leadership training,

Human resource management,

Decentralized teacher training model,

Training for parents and school staff about visionbuilding, and

Educational material.

This participation of the six NGOs has strengthened the community link, enhanced the

accountability of the schooling system and has increased the transparency of the government.

The author argued that these NGOs have influenced the education scenario in India through

the adaptation of their model. He recommended the government to raise the relation between

it and the local NGOs from being participants to partners.

In the report by the Africa Bureau Office of Sustainable Development of USAID (USAID

AFR/SD) (2003), the researchers have focused on the relation between governments andNGOs in the field of educational reform. The report argued that the governments and NGOs

should work together to create effective partnership especially in the reform of primary

education. NGOs can provide school teachers with training and learning material, supply

communities and their leaders with leadership and management skills to improve education,

as well as support schools with materials and equipment for proper infrastructure and

maintenance. However, there are different stands on how the role division of NGOs and

government can create friction between the two, especially when NGOs would aim to take

other activities but the government would not allow them. There are different perceptions to

partnership between the two sides.

Nevertheless, the report has documented many successful stories about NGOs intervention ineducation reform in many African courtiers. For example, Save the Children worked in

primary education reform in three countries: Mali, Malawi, and Ethiopia. In Mali, the

community schools were established to provide access to education in remote areas. The

program grew from three schools in 1991 to 800 in 2000, despite of the government

resistance in the beginning, but the expansion of the project led to the support of the

government. In Malawi, Save the Children focused on quality, and has developed an

experimental curriculum and provided teacher training with emphasis on the standards of the

government to reduce the conflict with the government. Meanwhile in Ethiopia, Save the

Children focused on areas where the government has not reached out, and worked on

strengthening ten local NGOs to become major education actors in the future. They offeredsupport to these organizations such as capacity building, training, networking skills, and

negotiating with the government.

EDUCATION REFORM AND COMMUNITY INTERVENTION IN THE

EGYPTIAN CONTEXT

Due to the Egypt Human Development Report (UNDP, 2010), The Egyptian pre-university

education system is one of the largest in the region. It encompasses more than 43,000 schools

with 1.6 million personnel from teachers to administrators and serves more than 16 million

students.

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In the beginning of the 1980s, the Law no.139 was issued by the Ministry of Education,

which stipulated the responsibility of the government to provide basic education to all

children aged 6 years, for nine compulsory academic years. From that time the priority was

increasing the enrollment of Egyptian children in schools. The focusing was on quantitative

growth in the education system. In the last three decades of the 20th century, more attention

was directed to qualitative growth of education in Egypt, and numerous efforts were taken toimprove the quality of education (The National Plan for Education for All, 2003).

In the context of the Gometien Declaration principles concerning Education for All (1990),

the Egyptian government has focused on available opportunities besides improving the

quality of education in schools. A document entitled Egypt and the Twenty First Century

was issued by the Cabinet of Ministries in 1997 which has stressed the importance of

education and learning both to the country and citizen. On the other hand the document was

an indicator of a new concept which has portrayed the education as national security, this

concept came out from another document entitled Mubarak and Education a Vision for the

Future issued in 1992. The document considered education as the national project of Egypttill the end of that decade, which means the continuity of the education reform process on all

levels especially on the basic education level.

Basic education in Egypt is compulsory for all children between 6 and 14 years according to

the new Law no.139, for the year 1981. Basic education was only five years, but due to Low

no.123 for the year 1999; basic education became six years and comprised two stages: the

first stage is primary education which lasts for six years, and the second stage is preparatory

education which lasts for three years (UNESCO, 2000).

One of the critical challenges relevant to education in Egypt in 1990s was the quality

improvement of education and creating better access to education for marginalized areas inthe country. Due to the adoption of resolutions from the International Conference on

Education for All held in (Gometien, Thailand, 1990), and has focused on provision of

basic learning needs of children, youth, and adults as well, the Egyptian Ministry of

Education has signed in 1992 an agreement with UNICEF to launch the community school

initiative in three Upper Egypt governorates. In 1993 the government has implement the

project of one- class schools. Ministry of Education agreed to pay the salaries of the teachers,

provide supplies, teacher training and curriculum support. In this model UNICEF have

provide a quality community based education, which was designed to respond to the needs of

Upper Egypts marginalized areas. (UNESCO, 2000)

In the National Egyptian Plan for Education (2003), the plan mentioned many strategic plansto improve quality of basic education and one of them was in page 48: enhance the role of

civil society in educational planning, management and evaluation. In the National Report

about Development of Education in Egypt (2008), examples of national education projects

were mentioned in page 28, where it was about UNICEF community schools and one class

models, plus New school project (NSP) which was another implemented in 50 schools in

Fayoum, Beni Suef and Menia governorates in collaboration with USAID including

community participation. In page 66, the report mentioned the role of community education

schools as an important part in the education reform process in Egypt.

In the paper of (Elbaradie & Amin 2010) another type of community participation projectwas mentioned as a case study in Fayoum governorate and its experience in developing

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Board of Trustees in public schools in 2005. This successful experience also was established

and fostered by the Egyptian government to improve the quality of education in pre-

university education with the participation of community members from parents and teachers.

Also this experience was implemented to ensure the decentralization concept in Egypt.

In the National Strategic Plan for pre-University Education Reform in Egypt (2007-2012 (, theMinistry of Education has determined Twelve Priority Programs to be implemented in the

process of strategic education reform planning:

1. Comprehensive curriculum and instructional technology Reform

2. School-Based Reform of Accreditation

3. Human Resource and Professional Development

4. Institutionalization of decentralization

5. Technology Development and Information System

6. Modernization of Monitoring and Evaluation Systems

7. School Construction and Maintenance

8. Early Childhood Education9. Basic Education Reform

10.Modernization of Secondary Education

11.Community Based Education for Girls and Out-of-Schools Children

12.Education for Special Groups: Children with Special Needs

The report mentioned in page 77 the Key Principles and Values of Pre-University Education,

which can be considered as the framework of education reform in Primary level:

Social Justice

Excellent and continuous improvement

Students and School Empowerment

Professional Teachers and Leadership

Human Development

Citizenship, civil society, and NGOs

Participation

Dialogue, tolerance, and accepting the other

Democracy

Enhancing Egyptian values and culture

Public-Private Partnerships

Accountability and Transparency

Decentralization

The report diagnosed the challenges facing the quality of Education in Egypt with many

dimensions such as; there is a need for comprehensive revision of educational curricula,

there is overall teacher shortage, the return of training programs were not able to improve the

quality of education, high ratio of teacher to pupil, high rates of dropouts and failure, high

number of textbooks to the basic education without any justification , final exams for pupils

are considered traditional tests which only measuring ability to retrieve memorized facts

without measuring other skills such as critical thinking and problem solving skills. Private

lessons are another problem prevents children especially from poor families from enrolling in

the schools. Such lessons encouraged bad performance from teacher as they will focus on theprovision of private lessons rather than the children have learned more knowledge and skills

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during class lesson. A research conducted by the Central Authority for Inspection in

2004/2005 showed that 30% of basic education pupils had not mastered reading and writing

skills. Educational authorities in Egypt stress the importance of monitoring and evaluation

process in the schools.

In the Egypt Human Development Report (2010) the same argument about education reformand improving quality of education was displayed. This report emphasized on major pillars of

reform such as school empowerment and great autonomy (decentralization process) is

essential so that schools will be accountable for their process and results, Monitoring and

Evaluation is needed, Teacher training is a must, Rehabilitation and development of schools

in poor areas is a priority, modernizing and strengthening the technology infrastructure in all

schools is also one of the pillars of education reform in Egypt.

In Magdy Amins paper, NGOs and Education reform in Egypt: Shared and Contested

Views (2008), he demonstrated many problems facing the education system in Egypt. He

mentioned the shortage of financial resources as the main factor which has affected the

improvement of the education system in Egypt since decades. Teachers salaries are verylow, making it difficult to attract qualified staff to the education system. Limited financial

resources also caused the lack of maintenance for school buildings. Teaching and the learning

process needs continuous improvement which is not always available. The low level of

teaching hence caused the need for private tutoring which makes another financial burden on

poor families. There are high drop-outs and repetition in primary schools. According to

UNICEF report (2009), youth (15-24 old) literacy rate in Egypt is 88% among male, and 82%

among female. The NGOs sector in Egypt is represented by 15,000 community based

organizations that concentrates on social assistance and service delivery. Over the past three

decades, many NGOs have succeeded contracting with Ministry of Education to participate

with public schools educational projects and activities. The number of non-profitorganizations working in the field of education is estimated by approximately 1310

organizations (Elbaradie, 2004). The MoE has established the department of non-profit

organizations in 1998 in order to coordinate the relations between these organizations and

schools. From 1999-2005, the MOE has achieved 1212 educational projects with 619

organizations to serve 19,000 students in public schools with a total fund of $17 million (the

MoE, 2006).

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METHODOLOGY

This research attempts to answer the following questions: What is the role of local Egyptian

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in supporting the basic education reform process?

What approaches have been used by these organizations to improve education quality? What

is their impact on children, schools, and communities? What is their relationship with the

government? What do they suggest to empower this relationship?

The study will focus on the experience of existing local NGOs and their ongoing work in the

field of education reform in some of the most vulnerable areas around Cairo. Qualitative

research approaches will be used in this research. Data will be collected either by interviews

or focus- group discussions with three parties who are involved in these types of projects:

NGOs- Staff who are (were) involved with such projects.

Schools- Staff, including principles, administrators, and teachers who were involved

in education reform projects in their schools.

Parents of the children attending these schools.

SAMPLING STRATEGY

NGOs will be selected from three marginalized areas around big Cairo (slums) such as Ezbet

Elhaggana, Manshiet Nasir and Elmasara. Data will be collected about the experience of

these organizations in the field of education reform including data about the profile of every

NGO and its programs. The research will investigate every organizations approach and

impact on the school, students and communities they are working in. Also the research aims

to determine the nature of the relation between these organizations and the government.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

How can the process of education reform be examined, and what kind of indicators can be

used in this regard? The answer depends on what kinds of interventions and approaches the

NGOs have used. For instance, some NGOs made interventions in the schools infrastructure.

The indicators in this case would be clear such as building extra classrooms, fixing the

sanitary system of the school, rehabilitating the playground of the school and so on. For other

NGOs, intervention is on the level of the social relationship between teachers and students.

For example, they aimed to reduce violence and conflict among students and between

students and teachers in order to improve the social and education environment in theschools. Other organizations worked on drop-outs reduction. In these cases one can ask for

tables and figures either from schools or NGOs while other NGOs provides training for

teachers to improve their performance and teaching methods. The researcher always needs to

identify specific performance indicators to assess how well the organization is progressing

towards achieving its strategic goals such as balance score cards, logical framework analyses

and generic program logic models. It would be better if the researcher obtains additional data

from parents through interviews. Additional data collection and performance indicators also

include:

Documented data from NGOs archives about their intervention such as photos,narratives, or statistics reports about the changes in the schools (before and after).

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Data from schools can also be collected by using official notebooks, tables, reports, if

available, or taking oral notes from the principle and other teachers from the school

staff.

Notes from families and parents of the students, to hear their feedback and to examine

their level ofsatisfaction about the reform taken place in their childrens schools.

DATA COLLECTION QUESTIONS

The questions for collecting data should be specific to assessing the impact of the

intervention. The following are samples of questions can be used with NGOs staff:

1. What type of approach did they undertake?

2. Was there a formal group to guide the collaboration and who was it?

3. What benefits did they hope to achieve?

4. Why did they agree to participate?

5. What problems were encountered and how were these overcome?6. How was the program managed?

7. What changes were introduced during the implementation of the program?

8. What indicators did they use to measure their success?

9. What indicators did they use to measure the impact on the schools and surrounding

communities?

10.Did the outcome of this intervention meet their expectation?

11.What have the results of their experimentation been? (Have they developed new

design for further testing? Have they achieved positive educational results? Have they

considered wider application?)

12.How is the relationship with the Egyptian government? is there any collaboration?13.What do they suggest to empower this relationship?

The following are questions that may be used with school staff and parents to measure the

impact of this intervention:

1. What do they think this intervention has brought to the school and the students?

2. Has it positively affected the performance of the teachers and the students?

3. Did it improve the quality of education in the school?

4. What are the indicators?

5. Has it reduced the problems encountered in the schools and by students?

6. What suggestions do they have for improving the intervention process and gainingbetter outcomes?

Collecting different points of view from the three parties involved in the project and the

process will allow for the deep understanding of how the process of intervention was carried

out, what was the approaches being used? What were the results? Were and how the process

may be improved in the future.

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15

REFERENCES

1. Egyptian Ministry of Education, 2003.The National Plan For All (2002/2003-

2015/2016)

2. Egyptian Ministry of Education, 2008. The Development of Education in Egypt

(2004-2008) A National Report.

3. Egyptian Ministry of Education, 2007. National Strategic Plan for Pre-University

Education Reform in Egypt 2007/08-2011/12

4. Egypt Human Development Report, 2010.

5. Elbaradei, Laila, and Amin, Khalid. 2010. Community participation in education: A

case stsudy of the Board of Trustees experience in the Fayoum governorate in Egypt.

6. Jagannathan, Shanti. 2000. The role of nongovernmental organizations in primary

school education, a study of six NGOs in India.

7. Amen, Magdy, 2008. NGOs and education reform in Egypt: Shared and Contested

views.

8. Africa Bureau Office of Sustainable Development of USAID, January 2003. Creatingeffective partnership: interactions between governments and NGOs in basic education

in Africa.

9. Bray, Mark. 2003. Community Initiatives in education: Goals, dimensions and

linkage with government. The University of Hong Kong.

10.UNICEF-Egypt-Statistics .2010.

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_statistics.html

11.Strain, Michael. 1995. Autonomy, Schools and the Constructive Role of Community:

Towards a New Moral and Political Order for Education. British Journal of

Educational Studies, Vol.43, No.1 (March 1995), pp.4-20. Published by Taylor &

Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Society for Education Studies.12.Arriaza, Gilberto. 2004. Making Changes That Stay Made: School Reform and

Community Involvement. The High school Journal, Vo. 87. No.4.Chicana/o Activism

in Education: Theories and Pedagogies of Trans/ formation (April-May, 2004),

PP.10-24. University of North Carolina Press.

13.Gideon, Jasmine.1998. The Politics of Social Services Provision through NGOs: A

study of Latin America. Bulletin of Latin American Research. Vol. 17.No 3 (Sept.

1998). Pp303-321. Published by Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for Latin

American Studies (SLAS).

14.Rothman, Jack. 1996. The interweaving of Community Intervention Approaches.

Journal of Community Practice.Vil.3. Issues 3-4.pp69-99.

15.Whitehead, L. Toney, 2002. Community Based Interventions, definitions and Types.

Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland.

16.USAID. 2007. Reaching the Underserved: Complementary Models of Effective

schooling .Case Study; Meeting EFA: Egypt Community School. EQUIP 2 Working

paper.

17.World Education Forum, 2000. Egypt National report. Education for All 2000

Assessment.

http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/countryreports/egypt/contents.html

18.Elbaradie, Laila and Mouna, 2004. Needs assessment of the Education sector in

Egypt.

19.Demarest, J. Elizabeth, 2010. LearningCentered Framework for education Reform.Teachers College Press. Teachers College, Columbia University.
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_statistics.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_statistics.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_statistics.html

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20.Cardoso, Ana Bonn, and Verner, Dorte. 2007. School dropouts factors in Brazil: The

role of early parenthood, child labor, and poverty. IZA Bonn and University of Minho

and World Bank, Latin American and the Caribbean region. World Bank Policy

Research working paper 4178, march 2007.

21. Ginsburg, Mark; Megahed, Nagwa; Elmeski, Mohammed; Tanaka, Nobuyuki. 2010.

Reforming Educational Governance and Management in Egypt: national andInternational actors and dynamics. Education Policy Analysis Archives. 2010 pp1-54.

Arizona State University.

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