発展途上国への基礎教育協力における事業実施システムに関する一考察 : ガーナ・プロジェクトの事例から <調査研究報告>

A Study on the Organization of a Supporting System for Implementing a Basic Education Project for a Developing Country : A Case of a Project for Ghana <Research Reports>

Kuroda Norihiro

国際教育協力論集

Journal of International Cooperation in Education

[PISSN] 1344-2996

[EISSN] 1344-7998

[NCID] AA11281847

This paper describes the process that has been taken for organizing a supporting system for a basic education project by taking a JICA project in Ghana as an example. The organization of a supporting system in the area of basic education is a very important issue for Japan now. It is only since the "Education for All" Conference in 1990 that Japan has embarked upon, in earnest, so called "software" type of projects in education including one in basic education as contrasted with "hardware" projects such as the construction of school buildings, and thus it is now her urgent task to explore possible ways and means of mobilizing, organizing and utilizing Japanese expertise for such projects, particularly that of national universities which are a rich source of it.

At the request of the Ministry of Education, CICE has been attempting, as an experimental case, to organize a supporting system for a five-year basic education project in Ghana that has just officially started since March 2000, involving experts from several national universities. This paper therefore is a very first report on the CICE's attempt that should be followed by further monitoring and evaluation as the project goes on. The main issues that have emanated from the CICE's experience in this undertaking for the last two and half years are summarized below.

1. Although there may be enormous human resources in universities, particularly in national universities, it is a hard task to mobilize them for an educational project in developing countries. Because under the present Japanese ODA system where little financial and other incentive is provided for national university professors who assist in implementing such a project, Japan's education project cannot but heavily rely on those academics who are dedicated to and interested in educational development in developing countries.

2. Since those academics assisting in the projects are generally dedicated as mentioned above, it is very important not to employ them as if they are short time expertise providers for particular needs of the projects, but to adopt a sort of participatory approach by which to involve them in the project formulation process at as an early stage as possible and solicit their long term commitment to the project.

3. It is also indispensable to secure the institutional commitment of the university to which these professors belong, so that their participation in the projects can be recognized as one of their primary duties in the university, not as a private extra job. This may in turn create a favorable condition in the university to organize cooperation of their colleagues as well as the university authorities. In order to solicit this institutional commitment, it is very important to have consultation, well in advance, with the university authorities and people concerned.

4. Finally this experiment has been successful in creating an official consortium of four national universities to assist in the implementation of the project in Ghana, but there still remain many issues and problems to overcome in generalizing this consortium model. The most important one is the issue of incentives to attract universities and individual professors to educational projects in developing countries.

Education [ 370 ]

jpn

広島大学教育開発国際協力研究センター

[ISSN] 1344-2996

[NCID] AA11281847