Comments

Thank you, Bob, for this very interesting and thought-provoking review. While I have not had the opportunity to read the book yet, it is very true that culture is too often ignored by donors and outsiders. To adopt wholesale progressive approaches in the most challenging of contexts (such as Papua New Guinea) would most probably fail. However, I would not undersell the importance of "incremental" change if and when supporting more culturally accepted teacher-dominated approaches. In the case of Papua, Indonesia, whose circumstances are similar culturally though not politically, basic issues like classroom management and low teacher capacity often preclude adopting more "progressive" methodologies at the outset. But over time, with regular and consistent support to teachers and school leadership and provision of appropriate learning resources, I've seen some more "active" teaching and learning approaches begin to take root and do quite well. More importantly, the students were more interested in school, coming to school, and continuing their education. Unfortunately, these changes were far from the norm and were more easily achieved within the pockets of highly dedicated, faith-based private schools. Influencing the larger education system is still another matter in these most challenging contexts. I don't believe we can have a discussion on the place of progressive education approaches without knowing more about the goals for student achievement and learning – as defined by the local and national context. Whether those goals are being met through formalistic teacher-dominated approaches is the real question. How well do formalistic approaches promote critical and analytical thinking, creativity, and life skills? And are these even the goals for the country in question? That should be the starting point for determining how to best provide support. Chimi Thonden

Thanks Lyn, I don't think I agree with everything you say but I think you're definitely right that: 1. Most aid workers' lives are not easy when compared to their suburban contemporaries back home. and 2. The cost of keeping aid workers well is actually tiny compared to overall aid flows and certainly cannot be claimed to have a significant negative impact on overall aid effectiveness. Terence

Michelle, Apparently the ban on media has been lifted, as reported in The National 25 September 2012. But media personnel still have to seek official clearance. Too little, too late. Construction is underway. As usual we are observers in our own country, unable to engage meaningfully in debate, marginalised, illiterate and ignorant. Only a small proportion of the population have the luxury of being able to keep abreast of issues via e-media but millions in PNG whose lives are affected directly do not. Your blogs are brilliantly written, thought invoking, and very interesting. I am especially interested in changes in Australian foreign policy where it concerns PNG and how it affects Australian tax payers, and PNG. Laikim.

I’d like to support your statement (on last third para) on small victories. Sometime when we feel that no way to win ‘big battle’, small victories will be a perfect strategy. Unfortunately it is very often that we have lost when we busy fighting the ‘small battle’. We don’t realize that the ‘small battles’ that we fight were not lead to the big one. Good understanding on political environment, broader political and institutional reform therefore will help us not to lost in the ‘small victories’ strategy.

Bob/Mark/Sopantini Note your comments with interest - having just returned to Jakarta from a Project Completion Report Review Mission in Uzbekistan for ADB. In this ICT Education project, consultants were fielded almost three years after Project became effective and computers delivered to 860 "cluster" schools in Year 3 and Year 4. Teacher ownership and use of the new technology, and focus on teacher-generated materials for classroom use, were unexpected outcomes - even though internet access to central teaching resources was part of the Project design. Centralized materials risk being e-textbooks while teacher-developed (and shared) materials have greater potential as learning-centered and student-focused. Perhaps Uzbeks are fortunate that they did not have PAKEM! Will read Guthrie with interest!

In my 25 year experience as both an aid worker's spouse and educator who has worked both in the classroom and in policy development and planning, I came to the conclusion that conditions for aid workers could be summed up as "deprived luxury". There was no place that I lived OS that compared to the wonderful freedom and comforts we have at home here in our average house in an average Australian suburb. The negotiations with contractors trying to screw the most value for the dollar from you, the uncertainty, often until the last minute, as to whether you would actually win the job and frequent delays in salary payments place great strain on relationships. I recall packing up our entire household - WE did the packing - only to get a phone call where my husband was told that the contract negotiated and signed off on was no longer valid because the contractor decided at the last minute that payment would only be two thirds the amount agreed. It would be interesting to survey aid workers on the topic of the breakdown of family relationships. If an aid worker takes on short term jobs, families lose their loved one and main support and provider for extended periods. When families do accompany the aid worker there are many distractions for the aid worker, many problems face the whole family, especially in terms of education for children and finding support systems that one can trust. In the end, as the children grow up, the husband is more likely to travel alone. Two households then become an added cost burden. It is at this point too, that marital relations often break down. The expat population is transient, one soon learns that this mean expat friendships are also transient, and finding acceptance with locals is a constant challenge. You talk about locals resenting the way expats live. Well, I recall on one long-term stint, we chose a very ordinary middle sized car as a practical way to get around a crowded city only to find it was frowned upon by my husband's local colleagues who bore no conscience in turning up in their chauffeur-driven latest model Mercedes. "Why doesn't your husband buy a decent car" one local official whispered in my ear. The biggest standard of living disparity in my view was between locals. Expat conditions were poor compared to the obscene luxury of the wealthy. Before people make broad-brush judgements about how much expats are paid and the "luxury" life they lead, they should look first at where most of the aid money goes. I think you will find it is into the pockets of government officials and their cronies who run the contracting businesses. These people can make the lives of expatriates a nightmare, no matter how dedicated an aid worker may be. Could it be for this reason that it is so difficult to find "stronger evidence that most consultants had a positive sustainable impact", as Garth Luke states? I think so. I always felt that if the wealth of the rich were fairly distributed via a decent tax system as it is in Australia, then it is unlikely foreign aid would be needed in third world countries. The question of salary and working conditions of expatriate aid workers is simply a convenient political distraction which takes away from the real, most apparent problem of aid - that the huge amounts money Australia spends on aid, simply does not get to to local people who need it most. That is the biggest challenge and governments choose to ignore it for face-saving reasons and to keep political peace with our neighbours.

Thank you, I support this

Sorry second to the last paragraph: Lessons must be learned from the effects of logging and government must come up with solutions to these problems and where suitable and appropriate apply them to the emerging industries

I believe the logging industry in Solomon Islands is in its phasing out period with no more new logging companies and this can be seen through its declining contribution towards the country's GDP. As logging a major contributing factor to Solomon Islands Growth declines, the country is expecting the minerals and agriculture and fishing industries to pick up and replace the lost benefits from the declining logging activities. This is good really good but what is the difference between logging and mining? logging and agriculture? logging and large scale fishing? all these industries are economically characterized as primary industries mostly dealing with the extraction of natural resources. Hence they all entail environmental degradation, conflict among rural people (who is the rightful landowner), involves huge sum of money - source of corruption, disruption of marine life - harmful fishing practices, clearing of large portions of land for agriculture which in turns causes soil erosion, and so forth u name the rest. But yet we need these industries in order for our economy to grow what is the solution here? I believe the government really needs to start reviewing the logging sector and identify problems associated with it in terms of landowners, distribution of wealth, percentage of shares, environmental problems, both terrestrial and along the coastlines. Assess all the negative impacts of logging and try to learn from them and apply them to the upcoming industries such as mines and energy, agriculture maybe tourism and so forth so that when these emerging industries head the economy of the country we will not be faced with similar problems as we have in the logging. After all they all primary industries extracting natural resources of the country from the people and within customary land.

Hi Jo nice blog and good points. It also reflects a large thread of the discussion prompted by Oxfam UK Duncan Green's blog you mention above. I recommend others to read it. I do want to pursue your last comment about the need for flexible, adaptive and risky activities to address the 'deep causes of poverty' and that this necessarily requires long-term trusting relationships and limits the articulation of potential outcomes in advance. I am concerned that this presumes too easily that we should start with ready-made practitioner 'solutions' to poverty (including standard formulas for process). I understand Hulme and Banks are challenging us to put all these aside if we are to really look afresh at our strategies for transformative change and our role in it. My problem with providing this kind of process solution from the start is that it too readily limits our thinking to what we already do. For instance, perhaps the most radical and transformative solutions have nothing to do with funding activities in communities but supporting nascent social movements that challenges rules and norms of capitalism. something that could unite the people, groups, political bodies and resources across borders. It would not be an aid movement but aid / development would be one part of that movement. My point is that leverage for change may well be more effectively gained well outside the usual aid/development scope of work and by working in partnership with more powerful donor country groups or people. ie something that is more overtly a political movement with political calculations. Funding risky activities and building trusting relationships (as opposed to identifying clear and realistic outcomes) may not be incompatible with other strategies but I don't think they are necessarily the most obvious or relevant process solution for the kinds of strategies that we may need to consider in order to transform our world in way that eradicates poverty. By the way, as an aside - you might be interested in this - or may well know all about it but was new to me until recently... There is a typology that has become popular in the leadership literature which identifies three styles : 1- administrative leadership (traditional accountability and hierachical authority); 2- adaptive leadership (flexible, adaptive, tactical practitioner style); and 3 - enabling leadership (which provides the enabling conditions for connecting up administrative leadership with adaptive leadership). The argument goes that all three are important but it is the enabling leadership (ie usually in bureaucracy) which has tended to be under-developed - thus failing to connect up admin and adaptive leadership with either one prevailing (or failing) to the detriment of common aims. More attention in public service (and so i presume in aid world) needs to be paid to developing the techniques and style of enabling leadership. Leadership in this stream of the lit does not refer to heroic individuals but to collective and possible also structural agency. Might be food for thought. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Kay

Thank you for sharing this excellent review of Guthrie. I am familiar with the book. Guthrie’s basic argument does confirm some of my own thinking, based on 20 years of working in education in Indonesia. That is, that most efforts to implement change in teaching practice (i.e. implement the approach to active learning known here as 'PAKEM') fail – beyond achieving formalistic or cosmetic change. And that the reason for this is mainly cultural rather than to do with capacity, politics, economics or other oft cited reasons. The cultural reality is that most Indonesians see knowledge as a commodity – something possessed by experts – and the process of education as a handing over of knowledge from the teacher to the student. Of course, this didactic view of education was also the dominant view in the west until very recently. Essentially, the knowledge is sold. If you pay more for education you get more knowledge. In the traditional world of pesantren and most Indonesian villages, the knowledge is held by religious elders who hand it out in oral sermons or lessons. The starting point for scholarship is learning to recite the Qur’an. Within this cultural reality, PAKEM really doesn’t make much sense. Why would you encourage children to be active or joyful when the aim is to transfer knowledge to them in discrete packages so they can repeat it accurately in an exam or in the mosque? Having kids work in small teams, running around outdoors, writing creatively and so on makes little sense if this is how education is viewed. So our work as development consultants is about changing cultures, changing basic perceptions about the nature of knowledge, teaching and learning. Cultures are not static, nor are they inviolable. But employing foreign experts to change local cultures is a fraught endeavor! It can be done, and perhaps should be done, but it must be tackled with great sensitivity and realistic expectations. Cultural change takes time and may have unexpected consequences. It is worth remembering the story about how the CBSA project (Active Learning through Professional Support) was abandoned in the late eighties, reportedly after President Suharto was challenged by one his grandchildren. Apparently, or so the story goes, the old man was offended at the child’s effrontery and immediately called a halt to the education reforms which he took to be responsible for the rudeness. So there is another element: A good Indonesian citizen - and a good Indonesian school child – is one who is quiet, respectful, follows the rules. He/she is a member of a group and behaves according to the group norms. The aim of education, other than to impart knowledge, is to create good citizens, good Muslims (or Christians or whatever). And the process of learning is conceived primarily as a large group process not an individual one. Interesting issues to ponder as we charge ahead with the next project.

The reply piece I wrote below highlights a prevalence in the thinking of so called education reformers in Indonesian schools many of which are self proclaimed ones. By reformers I refer to individuals all across the board; from teachers, principals, local education administrators, district and national bureaucrats and foreign consultants included. Model berpikir 'meniru dan mengekor' alias 'copy and paste' . This seems to be rather prevalence among these reformers. Some illustration I made below in Indonesian language - my mother tongue may help those with high competence in Indonesian language. Agenda reformasi pendidikan (di Indonesia) terlalu sesak dipenuhi dengan 'copy and paste'. Program dari tempat/negara lain di 'copy' lalu di-'paste' ke sekolah sekolah di Indonesia. Boleh-boleh saja karena 'copy' and 'paste' terjadi dimana-mana termasuk di Amerika, Australia, Inggris dsb. Sayang disayang, kalau sudah di Indonesia, yang meng 'copy' tidak selalu sadar dan tahu bahwa, 'copy' tidak boleh sembarang 'copy'. Tidak boleh juga sembarang 'paste' Kalau sudah di Indonesia, 'copy dan paste' dianggap seperti sudah biasa dan wajar - semua merasa tidak ada masalah. Biasa-biasa, seperti penjual jamu: 'Ini jamu paling manjur menyembuhkan semua penyakit'. Yang menerima 'paste' juga langsung percaya bahwa jamu yang didapat pasti manjur. Dua-duanya merasa bergembira karena merasa sudah ada dan dapat jamu yang manjur. Apakah nantinya penyakitnya akan sembuh? Keduanya percaya ya, akan sembuh. Memang semua sistem pernah melakukan 'copy and paste' tetapi sistem yang baik adalah sistem yang punya pikiran. Sistem yang bisa belajar dan yang bisa: (1) menjawab mengapa dan untuk tujuan apa harus 'copy', (2) menelaah dan memilah bagian mana yang harus di 'copy', (3) mencari cara yang baik untuk mem 'paste' Sayang disayang, sistem yang ada sudah kehilangan kemampuan belajarnya. Hanya beberapa saja yang masih ada daya dan upaya untuk tetap mau belajar. Sayangnya mereka kelompok yang terpinggirkan. One thing to add to here - is that, compounding the problem is what I see as the 'complicit' role of majority of foreign experts who have been engaged in the development of education in Indonesia. I don't know all of them but I do know few of them. It is no surprise to learn that in project reports after reports albeit in Indonesia, the message repeats that 'the innovation indeed works. The questions worth asking are who wrote the reports and what agenda do they serve? While not dismissing the fact that some innovations may indeed work, to date there has not been any independent research which focus on investigating whether active learning -a child of constructivist instruction as a pedagogical innovation to change didactic teaching practices does work, and if it does in what way, and if it does not - what explanation there are. In my earlier project involvement introducing Active learning in eastern Indonesia, I have some experience to share and I would like to share my intimate knowledge as teachers adviser in the project. It is important to note that I was working in the project for over one year - a sort time to make a permanent conclusion about the whole project. Did Active learning or locally known as PAKEM work then, especially during my tenure? For me, within the short-lived involvement in the project, my comment on hindsight is as follows: In the earlier years, it did work. It worked to answer one of the so many learning issues as experienced by both teachers and students in Flores. One issue that have long posed as a psychological barrier in children learning in these schools is the 'fear' factor or known as takut dengan guru. On reflection, the way PAKEM was introduced to teachers then was decidedly gradual - from concrete to abstract. From what we, consultants could show and demonstrate to our then constraint teachers - to an introduction of discussion of abstract concepts including all the dilemmas faced by teachers when implementing a constructivist instruction from which PAKEM is a child. These dilemmas as elaborated by Windschtil ( 2002) include conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political For what we, advisers in the project knew, few of then our consultants shared an understanding of the messages as contained in the article written by Mark Windschtil ( 2002) which emphasize that even in developed nations schools, teachers find various dilemma when implementing this innovation. The questions that I had no knowledge to answer then due to my discontinued engagement in the project include - did these Indonesian teachers get adequate help to be aware of the dilemmas they faced or even whether the dilemmas they faced were similar or different, were they able to build a good understanding of these dilemmas, were they trained to acquire good strategies to overcome the dilemma they face. All these questions are technical in nature and must at least be familiar in the ear of teacher trainers. I did not know the answer of many of these questions. What I did know then was, back to my early years in NTTPEP, without doubt, almost all of these early grades-teachers soon became expert in running PAKEM in their classes, in the sense that in their teaching: they incorporated song - harus ada lagu-lagu they use local teaching aid self-made - media belajar sendiri they incorporated games - permainan they incorporated dance - tari-tarian But PAKEM let alone constructivist pedagogy is a lot more than the above strategies of course. However, having mentioned these strategies as employed by many teachers in the project, I do not dismiss that they are not good strategies. They are indeed, at least good for these children in the rural area of Flores where intake of nutrients in children is a common health issue. These activities, apart from relaxing the normally constricted atmosphere of instruction typical of traditional teaching and learning in many Indonesian schools, are successful in getting these children engaged. Engagement is a prerequisite for any learning to take place, PAKEM is no exception. As I said though, PAKEM is a lot more than just these strategies. Sopantini