Education is one of the best ways for people to lift themselves out of poverty, and a powerful weapon in the fight against AIDS. Education is often seen as a privilege. It is not. It is one of many human rights that poor people are denied every day.
Eight year old Sima during lessons in class three of a government primary school in Chandpur, Bangladesh
However, 72 million children in the world’s poorest countries – 57% of them girls – are denied a primary education while around 750 million adults are considered illiterate.
We’ve learned a lot over the last 30 years and you might be surprised to learn this, but building schools has no notable impact on school enrolments.
The one exception to that finding is that NGO’s building schools can lead to 50% of children being excluded from schools in that area due to costs such as school fees.
Over the last 10 years ActionAid’s approach shifted away from providing education services to enabling communities to demand quality education and enabling government to effectively deliver.
What does this mean in practice? I like to explain this by comparing the “old school” and “new school” approaches to education.
Using the “old school” approach, US$2,000 could be used to build an extra classroom in Tanzania that would benefit about 100 children. That’s about US$20 per child enrolled. Arguably, pretty good value for money.
Okay, so what about the “new school” approach? Well, what ActionAid actually did with that US$2,000 was to fund a national Tanzanian organisation called Maarifa, which undertook research into why children were not going to school. The research showed user fees were the problem. A subsequent campaign to abolish user-fees led to an extra 1 million children enrolling the next year. That’s a cost of about 0.2 cents per child.
I’ll give you another example.
For US$20,000 an “old school” approach would be to fund the opening of a non-formal education centre for two years in Bangladesh reaching 100 poor children who do not have access to schooling.
The “new school” approach, on the other hand, which ActionAid actually implemented, was to train community audit groups in districts across Bangladesh to monitor whether the existing education budget arrived at school level and whether it was used appropriately. This approach improved the performance of government schools, benefitting millions of children.
Let’s up the anti even more and see what US$200,000 might do using the different approaches.
An “old school” approach could have used the money to rebuild a primary school in Pakistan following the earthquake
Displaced children in a Pakistan camp following the 2005 earthquake
of 2005. ActionAid’s “new school” approach, however, was to build a broad national alliance, The Pakistan Coalition for Education, to help make education a top national priority. This helped to secure an increase in the government budget to education from 2% to 4% of gross domestic product – that’s close to an additional US$2.5 billion per year spent on education by the government.
One last example. This time, what could be achieved with US$2 million.
The “old school” approach would use this money to support one private secondary school for girls in South Africa for one year – for example Oprah Winfrey’s School For Girls.
A “new school” approach would use that money to support the whole Global Campaign for Education for an entire year, including Global Action Week in April, which actively engages over 10 million people in 120 countries and attracts support from figures suck as Queen Rania and Nelson Mandela.
So if you donated $100 towards an education project, how would you want the money spent?
Tags: actionaid, Bangladesh, Education, global campaign for education, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania
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#TheNewSchool Archie@ActionAid · How would you want your $100 spent?: Okay, so what about the “new school” approac… http://bit.ly/87uHyJ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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A very illustrative posting on how to leverage resources as well gaining an appreciation for some of the remarkable outcomes achieved.
The question of how to spend a $100 dollar donation certainly has more answers than ‘buy more books.’
Excellent work.
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Are you old school or new school? ActionAid’s CEO wants to know how you would prefer your $100 spent: http://bit.ly/4papLI
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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“You may be surprised to learn this but building schools has no notable impact on school enrolments.” http://ow.ly/TsX0
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Old school new school – which are you? Read Archie’s blog fm ActionAid Australia http://bit.ly/75K8tP
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Building schools in poor countries has little impact on school enrolments. Great insights on aid. http://bit.ly/75K8tP (via @jane_moyo)
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Great article! “Old School” vs “New School” http://blogs.actionaid.org.au/archie/2010/01/06/how-would-you-want-your-100-spent/
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Are you old school or new school. http://blogs.actionaid.org.au/archie/2010/01/06/how-would-you-want-your-100-spent/
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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In fact, if you look at a lot of people that we consider successful, very few were motivated purely by the money. People who are successful usually get lots of material rewards, which are hard to not be attached to, even when they weren’t the original reasons for them striving for success.
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Great article! I am just starting out in all this and trying to learn more about it – resources like this article are incredibly helpful.
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Hey! I simply wanted to say your blog is one of the nicely laid out, most inspirational I’ve come across in quite a while. Thx!
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Thanks so much for the fantastic feedback on this article and the blog in general. It’s great to hear that people are getting something useful out of this! All the best, Archie
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Very informative content. I’ve found your site via Google and I’m really glad about the information you provide in your posts. Keep up the good work!
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This is some great photography related info. I really like the layout of your blog also. It makes it easy to read and follow the content of your blog.
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you old school or new school? ActionAid’s CEO wants to know how you would prefer your $100 spent:
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Hi, I use word press and they’re at wordpress.org. It seems a pretty good system to me as I’m an absolute novice and seem to more or less be able to navigate my way around. Must improve on learning how to tag and categorise!!
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Thanks for the great feedback and for the support. The research for this article is from our International Education Team and most of the research I use for our work is from the ActionAid Policy Teams although there are times when I use other sources such as the recent ODI/UN Millennium Campaign report on progress against the MDGs which is an excellent read.
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Thanks Patrick and it’s fantastic that you’re going to join our fight against poverty!! the best way to do this is to hit our website http://www.actionaid.org.au and take it from there.
All the best, Archie
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Thanks Rachelle and this post has certainly generated a lot of attention which is terrific. This is telling us a few things but primarily that people are looking for new solutions to fighting the tragedy of global poverty. Thanks for all the interest!!
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