T

he World Bank held an education conference in Jakarta on March 21 to 23 entitled Learning for All: Shared principles for Equitable and Excellent Basic Education Systems. Supporting this conference was the Indonesian Education Ministry and the Australian government.

A line in the invitation said this would be a great opportunity to “facilitate new networks and partnerships.” Indeed it was.

I met World Bank officials, think-tank executives, policymakers and government officials (past and present) from all over the world.

I saw statistics after statistics being presented. Why early childhood initiatives are important, how much Indonesia has increased in its allocation of operational grants to schools, government initiatives, examination of PISA results and much more. Questions were asked and almost all panel sessions ended on time.

But I recall the invitation also said that this would be an opportunity to “share lessons from best practices and excellent systems.” Sadly to say, besides the insight provided by former Peruvian education minister Jaime Saavedra on how Peru has improved its systems, there was little “sharing of best practices”.

Mr Saavedra had so much to share and there were so many questions from the floor, that he went well beyond the time set for his session.

The fact is, the audience wanted to hear more practical ideas and see less statistics.

Ideas of best practices, as we all know, often exist in the more nimble private sector.

Unfortunately there was no representation from this sector. I may have been the only one there, given the many ideas I shared openly in the interactive sessions.

I had several senior government officials from as far away as Brazil and India subsequently exchanging ideas with me.

In fact one even replied, “I never thought of that,” when I shared what some private schools do as far as teacher quality is concerned.

Public-private partnerships in the education sector bring with them skepticism, suspicion and fear.

Skepticism largely comes from thoughts that “educating people” is far more complicated in the public sector than in the private. So the ideas from the latter are often inapplicable, so they need to be left out in such meetings.

Suspicion because government officials often think that in a public-private partnership the formula is one of “win-winner.”

That no private player will want to genuinely partner with the public sector unless it can make some money out of it.

Fear because someone in the public sector may lose his/her job for trying something new. Or not be recognized for trying to swim against the tide.

Point taken.

But here is something I shared with a government official after a session around “Teacher quality” and the perennial question of “How to identify a good teacher.”

This was after a panel which threw up ideas of classroom observations, peer supervision, biannual assessments and in-house teacher competency tests, all of which I found very traditional.

I argued that none of these took into account the “real time voices of the students” who they teach.

The world has changed, I noted. We need to hear what our students are thinking and saying.

I said that I had tried an initiative where “Middle school students survey their teachers.”

And I remarked that there was a direct co-relation between the first quarter survey results to where that class ended a year later. Students will tell you honestly and early what they think of their teacher. Are we listening?

The government official found this interesting and I am now in touch with her sharing more of these ideas.

Some of these ideas don’t require a PPP MOU. They will not bring forth sentiments of skepticism, suspicion or fear.

They are very simple, practical ideas that public schools can look at and try.

There were more than 10 speeches and panel sessions in this conference, but no voices from the private sector.

Perhaps future conferences should include at least one panel of private sector players with practical ideas that public schools can go home with, or at least provide a thought process to start conversations back home.

An opportunity missed here in this conference, I believe.
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The writer is founder and CEO of Singapore Interculture School group of schools.