NGO provision of basic education: alternative or complementary service delivery to support access to the excluded?

Abstract

This paper focuses on approaches by non‐government organisations (NGOs) to reach primary school‐aged children excluded from access to the conventional state education system. It highlights recent shifts in international literature and agency priorities from the portrayal of NGO provision as a (non‐formal) ‘alternative’ to (formal) state schooling, towards developing approaches for ‘complementary’ provision. This shift is occurring as a means of making progress towards achieving Education for All (EFA) goals. The paper then compares these international trends with attention paid to NGO provision in national education plans across four countries (Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia and Ghana). Based on the analysis of international and national approaches, the paper argues that NGO provision continues to be seen as ‘second‐best’ to state schooling, with state schooling remaining the focus of attention for EFA.

Keywords:

• non‐government organisations
• non‐state providers
• developing countries
• sub‐Saharan Africa
• South Asia
• educational exclusion

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a paper commissioned by the DFID‐funded Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE http://www.create‐rpc.org). The findings draw on research undertaken as part of research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under the Non‐Governmental Public Action Programme (Project Number RES‐155‐25‐0045). The views

Notes

1. While NGO provision of adult education programmes is also important, it is beyond the scope of this paper.

2. One example of this is the Save the Children–US‐supported Village‐based Schools programme in Malawi which is not considered a success within the country (Kadzamira and Rose 2004), but is referred to in a positive light in a recent USAID document (DeStefano et al. 2006).

3. Developments in national planning approaches towards NGOs in education in Pakistan are, for example, closer to the experience of some sub‐Saharan African countries. This provision has mainly developed in the context of international agency prioritisation of ‘private–public partnerships’ (Bano 2008).

4. Quotes from Five Year Plans are taken from website sources; as such, page numbers are not available (Government of India, http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html, accessed January 18, 2008).