Prelims

Civil Society or Shadow State? State/NGO Relations in Education

A volume in Educational Policy in Practice: Critical Cultural Studies

Series Editors: Margaret Sutton Bradley A. U. Levinson

Civil Society or Shadow State? State/NGO Relations in Education

Edited by

Margaret Sutton and Robert F. Arnove

Indiana University

80 Mason Street • Greenwich, Connecticut 06830 • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Civil society or shadow state?: state/NGO relations in education / edited by Margaret Sutton and Robert F. Arnove.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-59311-201-7 (pbk.) — ISBN 1-59311-202-5 (hardcover)

1. Education—Developing countries—Case studies. 2. Non-governmental organizations—Developing countries—Case studies. 3. Education and state—Developing countries—Case studies. I. Sutton, Margaret. II. Arnove, Robert F.

LC2607.C52 2004

370’.9172’4—dc22

2004011542

Copyright © 2004 Information Age Publishing Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Margaret Sutton and Robert F. Arnove Indiana University

In the latter half of the twentieth century, three waves of geopolitical change profoundly altered the structures of society and the configuration of social institutions, including the provision of educational opportunities. Following World War II, the Asian and African colonies of European nations demanded and attained the status of sovereign nation states, a process begun in the prior century in Latin America. By the 1980s, the nation state had become the nearly universal form of government. As detailed in that decade by scholars of comparative education, one universal feature of the nation state is the provision of mass public schooling systems (Arnove, 1980; Boli & Ramirez, 1992). The second major geopolitical change, the demise of the Second World, began when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and soon resulted in the dismantling of the former Soviet Union. With these changes came a reconfiguration of international development assistance. Official Development Assistance (ODA) from Western nations to the poorer countries of the Third World now also encompassed the formerly communist nations, straining the capacity of international institutions to support adequately the development of schooling systems in the “developing world.” Finally, the intensification of economic and cultural globalization defined by a neoliberal agenda with its emphasis on decentralization and privatization of government functions has altered the role of the state in ways that we are only beginning to understand. One of the clearest impacts of globalization upon education has been the increasing prominence of civil society organizations in the provision of schooling around the world. Although NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have always included educational programming, in the form of faith-based schools and adult education, in most countries these programs historically have represented only a fraction of the educational effort made by states.

In the early twenty-first century, NGOs have gained a new prominence as educational service providers around the world, for several reasons (Arnove & Christina; 1998; Boli & Ramirez; 1992; Mundy, 2001; Klees, 1998). The neoliberal agenda has included an increasing emphasis on NGOs in the role of providing social services in fields such as health and education (Arnove & Torres, 2003; Stromquist & Monkman, 2001). The agenda calls for a diminished role of the state, which is often seen as inefficient and corrupt, combined with an expanded role for civil society. The argument is made that NGOs can be more responsive to local needs and more efficient in the delivery of basic social services than government agencies. By encouraging local participation in important decision-making processes and strengthening grassroots advocacy organizations, NGOs contribute to the building of social capital in impoverished communities and to greater levels of democracy (Putnam, 2000; Nel, Binns, & Motteux, 2001; Arnove, 1989; Osirim, 2001).

Support for an expanded role of NGOs has come from both powerful international institutions and militant grassroots agencies. The World Bank and regional development banks, as well as bilateral agencies such as USAID, increasingly have preferred to circumvent national governments to promote programs through NGOs, which they view as more efficient and accountable than the state. Thus, by 1996, 12 percent of official development assistance was channeled through nongovernmental organizations (Lensky). Increased levels of funding is matched by a more prominent role played by NGOs (local, national, and international) in major UN conferences, particularly in the fields of sustainable development and women’s rights (Manzo, 2000). In the field of education, the 1990 World Conference on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs, in Jomtien, Thailand marked the large-scale entry of NGOs into donor supported education programming. Their numbers were even greater at the 2000 follow-up conference, the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal (Mundy, 2001; World Education Forum, 2001). NGOs have also been prominent actors in parallel (Crossette, 1995) and alternative international meetings such as the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001 and subsequent forums, to express opposition to the concurrent meeting of the World Trade Organization.

The increased level of activity by NGOs in international development has been analyzed in a proliferating body of literature concerning NGOs, the state, civil society and globalization (see Ferrington & Bab-bington; Sollis, 1995; Maclure, 2000; Atack, 1999). A common starting point of such literature is definitional work, in particular, the elaboration of typologies of NGOs. Edwards and Hulme (1995, 1997) go beyond the distinction between grassroots and international organizations to distinguish five categories of NGOs involved in international development, based on their size, location and primary sponsorship. Their categories are (1) BINGOS, or Big International NGOs (e.g., CARE and Oxfam); (2) DONGOS, or Donor-Sponsored NGOs (e.g., new national level organizations created to administer USAID-funded girls’ education activities); (3) GONGOS, meaning Government Oriented NGOs (the Indonesian Civil Service Wives Organization called Dharma Wanita); (4) Northern NGOs, NNGOs (i.e., agencies such as the Academy for Educational Development and World Learning that are heavily dependent on USAID funding to administer and evaluate projects for them around the world), and (5) SNGOs or Southern NGOs (such as SEWA, the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India as well as Grameen Banks in Bangladesh). The studies in this book encompass all five of these categories. As Manzo (2001) has noted, differences in scale and sponsorship intersect with varying approaches to social development creating myriad possible strategies and practices by different NGOs. What all NGOs have in common is their unique status as (usually) nonprofit, private sector actors located between the state and market institutions involved in the provision of educational, health, social, and economic services. In this space, as the various chapters illustrate, NGOs frequently depend upon, interact with, supplement, complement and sometimes substitute for the state and the market in the meeting of basic societal needs (Lew & Chang, 1998).

The growing prominence of NGOs in the delivery of educational programs around the world raises a set of complex and controversial issues. Do NGOs as educational service providers and innovators:

• Relieve the burden on the state to provide universal basic education as well as adult education and literacy programs?

• Erode the legitimacy of the state as the primary entity that establishes the goals, content, credentials, and materials of public schooling while also regulating key features of the system’s administration and financing?

• Erode the legitimacy and moral authority of the NGOs themselves as they assume the role of providing services as contractors to the state or international and binational donor agencies? (Hardt & Negri, 2000; Kamat, 2003)

• Diminish the flexibility of NGOs and their capacity to sensitively respond to local needs and be advocates of grassroots initiatives and movements?

• Display, not unlike the criticisms leveled at national governments and international financial and technical institutions, the negative features of partisanship, cronyism, and corruption? (Abramson, 1998)

As the chapters in this book show, all of the above concerns and charges may be valid, depending on the particular program, actors, and context. In a number of the case studies (Papua New Guinea, Mali, the West Bank and Gaza, Kenya) NGOs have either preceded effective state intervention in educational provision at all levels (from early childhood through adulthood) or have substituted where the state is unable or unwilling to act. To the extent that educational programs arise from social movements and are promoted and funded by external entities with condi-tionalities, the state is likely to feel vulnerable as well as threatened (i.e., particularly the cases of Mali and the West Bank and Gaza). Because NGOs are often viewed as instruments of civil society that are independent, more accountable to their constituencies, and a voice for marginalized populations, when they become too closely identified with the state (as in the Peruvian case) their own legitimacy becomes undermined. NGOs, particularly if they wish to expand or “go to scale,” almost invariably will have to form some type of partnerships, as in the Malian case (Uvin, 2000; Hulme & Edwards, 1997).

NGOs have been notable in struggles to extend human rights, to provide spaces for democratic dialogue and have championed progressive causes around the world. However, NGOs are not always what we consider to be progressive entities pursuing a universalistic agenda benefiting the neediest. They are of all types and frequently can be extremely sectarian, if not reactionary, and subject to the same vices that are attributed to the state as well as international agencies. Many governments view NGOs with some trepidation, fearing that they are breeding grounds of opposi-tional movements, as has been the case in Egypt (Sebeh, 1994). Some of them (for example Save the Children, CARE, Oxfam) in many respects are international agencies themselves with national and local affiliates and are very dependent on binational, philanthropic, and international agencies for their own funding. The chapters in this volume describe these different actors and the complex negotiations involved in attempting to design, implement, and evaluate promising educational policies and programs that may succeed as well as fail depending on how successful these tensions and relations are resolved. The chapters described below are all based on case studies of NGO activities in the field of education that form the core of doctoral dissertations by the respective authors. Each provides a “thick description” (Geertz,1983) of specific NGOs based on intimate familiarity with the contexts and actors that they analyze. The educational institutions and programs they describe range from early childhood to adult basic education and literacy. These are areas that have often been neglected by the state and have depended upon the private sector and local actors for their existence.

Basic literacy provision in Papua New Guinea offers a fascinating case of strengths and limitations of NGO involvement and of potential tensions within the NGO community. In PNG, a country of approximately 4 million people with over 860 different languages, NGO literacy efforts increasingly involve cooperation between the state and the NGO community. Malone points out the complexity of examining state-NGO relations in developing and assuring maternal language literacy programs for children and adults. Defining NGOs is central to this examination. As Edwards and Hulme (1995) point out, it is crucial to differentiate NGOs from community or grassroots organizations (GROs) and clarify the roles they can play relative to one another as well as to the state. Although NGOs may be international, national, and also regional/local, they are frequently international agencies beholden to trustees, not to local members. In addition, they frequently compete with one another and have differing notions of literacy and how best to provide it, making the design of coherent national programming difficult. Yet local NGOs with strong ties to their communities can be instrumental in overcoming obstacles to national policymaking and in launching successful programs in the midst of language diversity.

In assessing the potential for state-NGO complementarily, Malone in various writings (1997) uses the metaphor of a group of PNG villagers coming together to construct a house and achieving in a relatively short time what no single person or family alone could accomplish. Cooperative work among individuals with differing skills is common within the social structures of PNG, and she argues that it can be extended to the provision of literacy services. She proposes providing community-based literacy, connecting learner-identified needs with appropriate assistance, which is accepted and supported by the government agencies responsible for educational standards. Her case study provides valuable insights into the way diverse NGOs, with different resources and skills, can collaborate with the state to increase accomplishments in the critical area of maternal language literacy provision. The “complementary cooperative model” which she advocates ultimately hinges on a process that requires different literacy providers “trusting each other to do what is best for the program and, most importantly, for the people they all claim to serve.”

Such trusting relationships, however, were problematic in the educational reform examined by Boukary. His case study of “The Village Schools of Save the Children/USA in Mali” illustrates how various elements of civil society, particularly teacher unions, opposed what they saw as a top-down imposed reform about which they had not been consulted. Similarly, the Malian General Assembly objected to its exclusion from the decision-making process and the conditionality attached to the funds provided by the World Bank and USAID for reform of the education system. The Malian government itself viewed the rapid expansion of a parallel primary education system largely outside its control as an erosion of state authority. In turn, the grassroots reform initiatives of NGOs like Save the Children, without state support, soon realized that their efforts would be limited in scale. As Boukary aptly points out, significant issues with regard to effective linkages between reform elements of the innovative village schools and the more traditional public school system remain to be resolved.

Stacki’s case study of a UNICEF-funded teacher empowerment project in Uttar Pradesh, India, does suggest that, despite the fragility of donor-recipient partnerships and the often unequal power relationships between various stakeholders, it is possible to establish trusting relationships and achieve successful implementation of a very promising educational reform. In this particular case, the support of teacher unions was gained and was critical to the forward momentum of the project. Similar to the other chapters in this edited volume, Stacki’s study provides a multiple layered, detailed account of the role of different agencies and actors, from the international technical assistance agencies, through different echelons of the Indian State bureaucracy, to actions of individual teachers in the formulation and appropriation of an education reform that not only accorded a greater role to teachers in decision-making but also opened opportunities for the most marginalized rural populations, especially female students. The term appropriation is used (Sutton & Levinson, 2001), because the dynamics of the project were such that those involved with its implementation, the village teachers, took possession of the project itself. In this chapter, as in others, human agency is stressed.

In the Palestinian case, the evolving relationships between NGOs and the state as well as the international donor community are particularly problematic. The long history of NGO responsibility for social service planning and provision in the absence of an indigenous Palestinian government, and the complicated arrangements for the funding of development initiatives in the newly autonomous areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip magnify tensions. Negotiation for power, finances, and control over the nature and extent of programming, as well as the amount of regulation to be applied to NGO activities by the state, is contentious. Christina’s case study of a prominent early childhood NGO assesses the potential for local agency and control as an outcome of greater cooperation between the governmental and non-governmental sectors. She examines the interaction of the state, local and international actors in meeting local needs and responding to global influences, such as the internationalization of norms within the field of early childhood education and development. Christina posits that increased collaboration in the areas of teacher education, curriculum design, and community outreach, as well as greater integration of strong NGO voices into the policymaking process, can contribute significantly to the development of holistic, progressive and locally-relevant early care and education for Palestinian children. However, collaboration must not be achieved at the expense of the independence of individual NGOs or national sovereignty.

As Christina points out, the Palestine case, while unique in many respects, also shares many characteristics with other developing countries that struggle to balance “dreams of independence with a need for interdependence.” The concluding statement of this chapter reinforces a recurring theme throughout this edited collection that “policy is ‘made’ in a variety of ways and in complex contexts, and encourage flexibility and creativity in the relationships among players in each particular case.”

The Kenyan case presented by Auma Okwany shares elements with the Palestinian case while reflecting peculiarities of that country. In Palestine, the absence of a strong government has resulted in the need for civil society actors to assume responsibilities normally undertaken by the state. In Kenya, though there is an internationally recognized central authority and state boundaries, years of endemic corruption and clientelism favoring certain ethnic groups have rendered the government incapable of providing for the basic needs of all citizens. NGOs in Kenya consequently have become increasingly prominent in the provision of basic education. As Okwany observes, however, the educational services provided by NGOs are inconsistent in quality and do not encompass some of the neediest of Kenya’s children, notably slum-dwelling girls. Paradoxically, despite it’s inability to provide comprehensive educational services, the Kenyan government has undertaken efforts to regulate NGO-provided education that hamper the ability of NGOs to meet the real needs of their intended clients. In particular, government efforts to regulate the curriculum of nonformal education centers prevent the very flexibility and responsiveness that are two primary strengths of private organizations active in education, concerns similarly expressed by Christina in regard to the Palestinian case.

As in the Malian case with the rapid expansion and copying of the Village School’s model, Kenya has experienced a proliferation of low quality educational programs and local profit-making enterprises that do not reflect the true spirit of the original project. Sadly, these enterprises are particularly prominent in the poorest neighborhoods of Nairobi, where desperate parents and children seek meaningful educational opportunities that are unlikely to materialize.

McCabe’s discussion of a special education program for autistic children in China illustrates the blurry line between nongovernmental organizations and private enterprise. The Chinese state has only recently and reluctantly passed legislation enabling the creation of NGOs. These organizations are highly regulated, requiring that they affiliate with a state entity. In the field of education, only schools offering the state-approved curriculum are eligible to receive NGO status. This normative situation leaves organizations such as the NGO examined in this chapter, Stars and Rain, in a peculiar legal bind. Designed specifically to serve children with special educational needs, Stars and Rain necessarily has created a unique curriculum of parent education, which does not mesh with the national basic education curriculum. Unable to register as an NGO, this organization therefore has incorporated as a business and is required to pay corporate taxes like any other business. While successful in obtaining external support for its exemplary program for educating parents of autistic children (otherwise unavailable in China), the program’s anomalous legal status threatens its ongoing financial viability.

To return to the theme of state-NGO collaboration in the provision of maternal language/bilingual education, the Peruvian case presented by Maria Elena Garcia shows how closely intermeshed the interests of NGOs can become with those of the state to the point that it is difficult to discern the independence of the entity. As so often happens in efforts to mount maternal language or bilingual programs, the very recipients of the efforts reject its premises and programs on the grounds that it is an inferior education. Whether or not indigenous populations recognize the value of maternal language literacy programs in their desire to learn the dominant language, there is a need to make these opportunities available. Unfortunately, the tendency of NGOs to rely on the state to bolster the legitimacy of the bilingual education program has also diverted its attention from the concrete needs and wishes of the intended beneficiaries. Only if these needs and wishes are recognized and addressed can the tensions inherent in maternal language instruction be effectively resolved.

Estonia provides a different perspective on the role of NGOs in maternal language provision. Like Quechua speakers in Peru, the Voro speaking people of Southern Estonia in the chapter by Kara Brown are ambivalent about the value of providing formal education in what has been a neglected language. Paradoxically, the Estonian state promoted a revival of maternal language programs, regardless of the small number of native speakers, in efforts to satisfy requirements for joining the European Economic Community. Facilitating instruction in Voro, as well as in languages such as Russian (spoken by a substantial plurality), is also believed to serve the purpose of promoting economic development in impoverished regions of the country. Specifically, the Estonian government views the revitalization of Voro culture and language as a means of promoting economic development through cultural tourism in impoverished Southern Estonia. Due to this political-economic agenda of the Estonian state, a relatively unknown NGO (the Voro Language Institute), which began operations exclusively on a voluntary basis, has become a prominent player in national language education policy.

Civil Society or Shadow State? builds on the precursor Ablex publication, Policy as Practice by Sutton and Levinson (2001). The various chapters in this book illustrate the complex negotiations of major educational policy stakeholders at all levels from the international to the local and individual, as they document the need to take into account historical and structural factors as well as local cultural patterns in understanding whether educational reforms will be achieved. They point out areas for fruitful collaboration between the international donor community, the State, NGOs, and grassroots organizations, as well as what may be reasonably expected of each while also indicating areas of potential conflict and possible pitfalls based on unrealistic goals.

These studies represent a major contribution to our understanding of NGOs as providers of educational services. As noted by Mundy (2001), although international NGOs have long been involved in advocacy of educational access and reform, only in the past decade have they begun to assume the role of the state in establishing and running schools, often with public funds.¹ This trend is likely to continue as states following a neoliberal education agenda reconfigure what role they are willing to play in meeting the basic educational needs of their citizens. This role is increasingly becoming that of setting a normative and evaluative framework for education policy, while relinquishing the historic functions of financing and administering schooling at subnational levels.

Like other volumes in the former Ablex series, Sociocultural Approaches to Educational Policy, this one focuses on human agency in the processes of policy formation and appropriation. The chapters illustrate very promising pedagogical practices, school-community relations, and ways in which local culture is taken into account by variours actors in shaping school curricula and academic calendars. The various authors also focus on ways in which previously disenfranchised and marginalized populations may be empowered to play a more active role in designing and running education programs (whether formal or nonformal) that meet their own defined goals. In this way, NGO education programs arguably contribute to the democratization of society. However, this process is uneven and unpredictable. Moreover, communities like cultures are not homogeneous. Various stakeholders have differing agendas, and NGOs themselves are often rent by division and sometimes paralyzed by the conflicting demands of the various donor agencies and constituencies to which they are responsible. In some cases, success may become a problem as more is demanded of individual NGOS and the private sector than they are capable of delivering. These tensions, conflicts, and negotiations form the substance of Civil Society or Shadow State and, we believe, are at the heart of the policy appropriation process.