This activity focuses on harnessing resources from the communities in order to deliver on the provision of educational services in pastoral areas.

It consists of:

• conducting ‘continuous awareness activities to improve communities’ participation and ownership of education’;
• ‘empowering communities to participate and develop sense of ownership in students’ affairs; educational administration; educational planning, implementation, and monitoring; building and expanding schools; revenue generation; and in fulfilling educational inputs’;
• ‘improving structures at all levels to ensure transformation of pastoralists’ participation and sense of ownership to higher level’;
• coordinating ‘customary, religious, and clan organizations of communities in order to ensure that they are beneficiaries’;
• ‘establishing [an] effective and transparent system that enables schools and training institutions to generate income; and increase their performance in education’.

COMMENTARY

1. Participation. The description of this activity opens by stating the intention to give pastoralists a voice in key aspects of educational services: ‘students’ affairs; educational administration; educational planning, implementation, and monitoring; building and expanding schools; revenue generation; and in fulfilling educational inputs’. This is consistent with the strategy this activity is part of, and with Specific Objective (a), which is about ‘responding to the demands of pastoralists … by taking their livelihood system as the basis’ (p.26).
2. Late service with a fee? As in the case of the health service – see Activity (f) under Strategy 1 of this policy issue – the accessibility of educational services in pastoral areas is below the national average as a consequence of the lack of adequate consideration in previous policies for the living conditions of people in pastoral systems (p.56). Also in this case, this means that for decades pastoralists have done without being able to access services that were accessible to the rest of the country, decades during which the services were free. It is reasonable to expect that lack of access to educational services had a negative impact on the pastoral economy while access to it had a positive impact elsewhere. Now that this service is finally to be extended to pastoralist communities, ‘schools and training institutions’ are asked ‘to generate income’, and communities are asked to ‘participate in revenue generation’ – i.e. pay for the service. How are they ever supposed to catch up following decades of neglect?

g. Strengthen coordination and participation of stakeholders (p.60) »