In December 2011, a delegation of 21 Woreda Education Office and Teacher Training College officials from Kola Tembein & Abi Adi Woredas in the Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia made a visit to Wolaita Zone in SNNPRS specifically to visit LCD’s Woreda School Improvement Project.
This was a very exciting occurrence as the visit represented internal interest from within the Ethiopian education system regarding the innovations LCD is bringing to the Government’s SIP policy. It was also noteworthy since Tigray is a comparatively better performing region than SNNPRS (in terms of net enrollment rates, pupil teacher ratios, examination pass rates…)The visit was sponsored by VSO Ethiopia and two volunteers as well as VSO Ethiopia education programme staff also participated. The main purpose of the visit was to see and learn about LCD’s approach and the project strategy to support the implementation of SIP.
The visitors met project stakeholders at zone and woreda level and undertook school visits to get a sense of the structural and policy context of LCD’s work as well as activities and impact at grassroots level. The visitors were particularly impressed by how meaningful SIP has become to grassroots communities in terms of access to genuine school performance data, and how the accurate SIP data forms the basis for very targeted school, cluster and woreda improvement initiatives.
One woreda official stated: “We really thought our woreda was implementing the Government’s SIP policy successfully until this study tour. We now need to revise our old approach and apply what we have learned from this visit. What we have seen during school visits has shown us that we have a lot to do when we go back… We want LCD to support our various woredas and will approach those who can facilitate partnership”
LCD is hoping to maintain the relationship with our Tigray colleagues to ensure that we maximise the potential for sharing of best practise in the future. We are also discussing the potential for future partnerships with VSO Ethiopia.
