IDCR works with civil society in Mozambique
Professor Todd Landman (IDCR Director) and Dr Tom Scotto (Department of Government and Assistant Dean of the Graduate School) travelled to Maputo 27-31 August 2012 to work with civil society organisations working on education in Mozambique. The Education for All Movement is a coalition of various non-governmental organisations working with youth, women, and teachers to improve educational quality and raise rates of attendance and literacy across the country. The movement has already successfully lobbied for the government to increase its investment in education from 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) per year to 4.5%.
The sessions in Maputo focused on the use of social science research methods to provide evidence-based advocacy in the area of education for groups seeking to engage with the Parliament (Assembleia da República) and bring about new legislation that reforms the sector. Participants learned about the fundamental principles of research design, theory and propositions, data collection and analysis, measurement, and writing effective reports.
The key issues discussed included attendance rates (particularly among young girls), quality of schools, number of schools, distance of schools from households, teacher training, teacher satisfaction and teacher motivations. The sessions are part of the ongoing work coordinated by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and will include follow up mentoring of projects undertaken by the groups that attended this week.
