summary
Seminar Title: Online Seminar on Sharing Experiences with Other Countries
Organized by PAQER-CEC
Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2024 (18:00-21:00 JST)
Method: Online
speaker
Innovations and Strategies for Strengthening the Networking and Monitoring of School Governing Boards (“COGES”) (Burkina Faso)
Mr. KABORE/COMPAORE Yabiri Directorate General of Public Education Access
Innovations and strategies for strengthening COGES networks, and the role of COGES in building peace through the care of internally displaced students and communities (Niger)
Mr. Abdou Hamidou and Ms. Fatouma Bayéro, School Administration Support Bureau, Secondary School Decentralization Division
Remote-assisted project implementation, a comprehensive, low-cost and sustainable approach (Mali)
Mr. Hassane SAMASSEKOU Decentralization/Decentralization Support Office
Innovations and strategies to strengthen the COGES network and to reduce the cost of project activities (Senegal)
Mr. Seck IBRAHIMA Department of Elementary Education
Background and Objectives
The purpose of the Online Seminar on Sharing Experiences with Other Countries (hereinafter referred to as “the Seminar”) is to provide an opportunity for stakeholders of the School for Everyone project in four countries (Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Senegal) to share achievements, good practices, and challenges of their activities and learn from each other.
Contents
Together with our counterparts in Burkina Faso, we have been preparing for the seminar since around August, discussing the theme setting and the outline of the seminar, and at the same time exchanging opinions with the project officials in each country. The counterparts in each country took the lead in preparing presentations on their country’s initiatives on the day of the seminar, and under their leadership, the content of the presentations was scrutinized step by step to improve their quality.
The program was divided into two parts, and in the first part, each country selected two themes and asked representatives to give presentations on their achievements, good practices, and challenges. Burkina Faso presented an online monitoring system and strategies to strengthen networking among COGES to enhance COGES monitoring; Niger presented efforts to support internally displaced persons and home visits as a dropout prevention measure; Mali presented a sustainable learning improvement system through community cooperation and Senegal introduced community-level education forums and an approach that utilizes cost-effective online tools.
The second part of the meeting consisted of a Q&A session related to the presentations and a discussion on best practices and challenges in their countries. Active comments and questions were raised from each country, and there was much interest in how to run a sustainable education forum and the importance of local community involvement. In particular, many participants expressed that cooperation between local governments and local communities is essential to the sustainability of the project.
On the other hand, the participants recognized that financial constraints, lack of local government and community resources, and large capacity gaps among municipalities could be barriers to project implementation. New models of cooperation involving local communities, such as home visits conducted for students who are leaving school and the hiring of facilitators for internally displaced persons, as well as the introduction of project management and monitoring methods using online tools, are innovations to provide more sustainable educational assistance and have the potential to be applied to future global They have the potential to be applied to future global educational assistance activities.
At the conclusion, participants called for the continuation of such exchanges and information sharing in the future. This will hopefully lead to further efforts to improve and sustainably develop educational projects.
Table 1: Presentation topics selected by countries
Burkina Faso – Innovations and strategies to strengthen the COGES1 network
- Innovations and Strategies to Enhance COGES Monitoring Niger – Innovations and Strategies to Enhance COGES Networks
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COGES’ role in caring for internally displaced students and building peace through community Mali – Project implementation through remote assistance
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Comprehensive, low-cost and sustainable approach Senegal – Innovations and strategies to strengthen the CGE network
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Devices and strategies for cost reduction of project activities
In a survey conducted after the online seminar, more than 90% of the 15 representatives of participants from each country responded that they were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the seminar content, and that they were able to notice commonalities in issues, solutions, and good practices in their countries. It was also confirmed that 87% of the respondents felt that some of the case studies from other countries could be applied to activities in their own countries.
We strongly feel that what made this seminar a meaningful opportunity was the cooperation and advice generously offered from the preparatory stage by everyone involved, despite their busy activities in their respective countries. The interest shown by more than 40 participants, including those from project countries other than the participating countries, was a great encouragement to our counterparts and project members in each country.
1 Name of the school governing board. In Burkina Faso and Niger, it is COGES; in Mali, CGS; and in Senegal, CGE.
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