The Roles And Contributions of Civil Society Organizations in Education Service Delivery: the Case of Arada Sub-City, Addis Ababa City Government
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Date
2011-04
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Abstract
Quality education has a role in the economic, social, and political life of any country
at various levels. Quality education can be improved if all stakeholders such as CSOs are
active participants. However, CSOs focus more on hard ware issues but less on software
issues of education quality such as curriculum development, teachers‟ development and
provision of educational materials. Therefore, the main objective of the study is to assess
and understand the roles, contributions, capacities and challenges of CSOs in the
education quality issues in Arada Sub-City.
To achieve these objectives both exploratory and descriptive research methods were
used. Therefore, the findings of the study revealed that the main roles and contributions
of CSOs in teachers‟ development include provision of in-service and pre-service
pedagogical training; giving awareness raising programs; conducting short term
training; coordinating, and financing for continuous professional developments. In
addition, CSOs are providing educational/school materials such as computers, stationery
and facilitating favorable reading materials outside schools for their own beneficiaries.
However, most CSOs have no roles and contributions in curriculum development because
of lack of invitation from the government and curriculum is developed at the central and
regional levels.
CSOs have the capacity of information, knowledge, expertise and motivation of their
staffs in curriculum development, teachers‟ development and provision of educational
material in Arada Sub-City. But, there is no empirical evidence on the capacities of CSOs
to deliver better services in curriculum development. Similarly, the main challenges of
CSOs in improving education quality include; they are donor dependent, not yet fully
recognized as actors in curriculum development, limited staff capacity, inadequate supply
of educational materials in the country, and competition between and among CSOs.
Finally, the study concludes that CSOs are working to fill up the gap and strengthen
between the government and the society by way of doing government jobs in teachers‟
development and provision of educational materials. In addition, they play a direct role
in the joint efforts to create learning societies
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Arada Sub-City