Thoughts before the GMR slides into oblivion

Now that the fireworks set off at the launch of the 2013/14 Education for All Global Monitoring Report ( GMR) have died down, the GMR, as most publications of similar nature, begins to slowly slide into oblivion. There are good reasons why we should rescue it though. It is beyond dispute that the report draws the attention to many issues that are fundamental to us, teachers. Consequently, we can only benefit from disseminating its recommendations and using it to further our cause. Nevertheless, there is no rose – no pun with the former report’s director name intended-  without a thorn and certain GMR conclusions, if unchallenged, risk sending policy makers in the wrong direction.

Let me be honest with you, from the start. I am not any people actually read it. One of the things that always called my attention about it is its tendency to serve as a platform for publicity of NGOs. Year after year, the report highlights successful examples of programmes run by NGOs in different countries and presents them as either innovative or “best practice”. Of course, the source of such a conclusion is, more often than not, a report submitted by the very same organisation. One can only wonder if an NGO would voluntarily submit a report that says a given intervention failed. This raises concerns about whether the GMR team looks critically at such programmes. This, per se, is not a major problem, but it does gain importance if we fail to take an in-depth look as to why a programme is considered successful and what lessons we can learn from it.  After all, as stated in the report’s foreword, we must learn from evidence. 

The GMR team is entitled to throwing a spotlight on interventions they consider successful.  Nevertheless, when a report that aims to influence public policy fails to see that what is presented as a successful NGO intervention is nothing more than what governments should be doing in the first place, and what teachers’ unions advocate for on a daily basis, I get worried. I get even more worried when the report makes the case that you can learn faster in an NGO-run school than in formal government schools. What is the policy recommendation such a conclusion implies?

When the GMR does not look further into why the students of a certain NGO-run school, where the maximum number of students per class is 25 - less than half the nation’s official , not the real pupil teacher ratio-  learn better than those who attend government schools, it is missing an opportunity. Clearly, smaller number of students in a classroom allow for better learning. When the GMR says that students who attended an NGO literacy programme which provided teachers with adequate materials and training perform better than students whose teachers did not receive any, it is missing another opportunity to say that adequately trained and supported teachers will perform better. 

It seems that NGO best practice thrives when government worst practice is in place. Maybe the GMR could focus less on what the NGOS are doing right and more on what the governments are doing wrong?