|
|
IAU Capacity Building Project
|
Higher education needs to be drawn more effectively
into EFA strategies and activities and recognised as a concrete partner
in this process. Its expertise should be engaged and actively sought
out by Ministries, local educational administrative bodies,
nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), schools, etc. But higher
education also needs to see itself as a viable and invaluable partner
and to examine its own instruction, research and outreach activities
and how these could relate to EFA and related MDGs.
It is the IAU belief that information sharing and capacity building
activities could reinforce partnerships between higher education and
other stakeholders. It is for this reason IAU has designed this locally
driven capacity building project
which directly targets higher education and research entities and a
country’s key EFA stakeholders, to involve them collectively in an
intensive exercise of developing concrete tools to strengthen higher
education participation at the local level.
The first capacity building session was organised with the University
Autonoma del Estado de Morelos, at the invitation of Alejandro Chao
Barona, an expert from our Reference Group on HE and EFA. It was held
in Cuernavaca, Mexico on 25-26 May, 2010, bringing together over 100
local stakeholders representing the higher education community,
governmental educational bodies, teachers, NGOs and students.
During two days, participants exchanged ideas, brainstormed and
identified ways on how to strengthen higher education’s engagement in
EFA. The session successfully ended with the adoption of the Cuernavaca Declaration that
recognized the importance of EFA and the need to greater implicate
higher education in EFA and the creation of several committees linked
to identified EFA priorities to map out steps forward.
The second session immediately followed on 8-9 July 2010 in
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in cooperation with the University of
Ouagadougou and the Ministry of Basic Education and Literacy. Invited
representatives from the Universities of Ouagadougou and Koudougou and
the Université Polytechnique de Bobo-Dioulasso worked
collectively for the first time with different local EFA stakeholders.
40 participants were challenged to “think out of the box” and see
universities in a new light in order to strengthen higher education’s
contribution in Burkina Faso’s efforts to achieve EFA.
Other participants included representatives from the Ministry of Basic
Education and Literacy, primary and secondary schools, parent and
student associations and the Director of the Regional UNESCO Office who
is also a member of the IAU Reference Group on Higher Education and EFA.
Working in groups, participants reflected upon and exchanged ideas
regarding a questionnaire developed by the IAU on links between higher
education and EFA. The workshops were carried out in three steps:
first, a thesis was developed on how to reinforce higher education in
EFA, followed by an anti-thesis which included counter arguments and
new propositions, and then a synthesis of the two previous workshops. A
final consensus on the replies was reached during the plenary session
which fostered the development and validation of recommendations for
future actions to draw higher education more closely in EFA.
Download the working documents for Mexico
and Burkina Faso to read more
about the programme, results and participants. These will be updated
over time.
|
|
