Taking account of culture: Lessons from Iraq Rebecca Ingram: Senior Schools Adviser, British Council Peter Fell: Consultant for the British Council Presented at UKFIET September 14 th 2015

3 Ignore culture at your own risk How can understanding culture help improve education programming? Why is it particularly important for fragile contexts and challenging environments?

Promoting a ‘friendly knowledge and understanding’ between the people of the UK and people worldwide

An increasing body of literature Drivers of Change (DFID, 2004) Problem Driven Political Economy (World Bank) Booth (2011)- idea of ‘working with the grain’- and a ‘practical hybrid’ ‘Doing development differently’ at ODI ‘Mind, Society and Behaviour’ (2015): people as ‘malleable and emotional actors whose decision-making is influenced by contextual cues, local social networks and norms and shared mental models….play a role in determining what individuals determine as desirable, possible or even thinkable for their lives’.

Key principles underpinning the project 1.School improvement is most effective when schools take responsibility for it themselves 2.The quality of leadership provided by headteachers is crucial to the school’s capacity for self-improvement 3.External support and challenge from supervisors can help schools improve, but supervisors need to work in new ways 4.Self-evaluation is a tool for self-improvement, for teachers, headteachers, supervisors and schools 5.Training is a process of active and interactive learning 6.Ideas from around the world are used, but the approach reflects the Iraqi context and meets Iraqi needs 7.Implementation of new methods is ‘step by step’ and will take time

The project interventions Standards Teaching and learning School leadership Supervision

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Project successes Strong evidence from evaluation of improved practice by teachers, headteachers and supervisors schools influenced, compared to a target of 2000, despite security challenges Significant Iraqi oversight of the project through a network of higher and technical committees Ministry commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the project demonstrated by: Taking the initiative to extend the project Financial and logistical support for distribution of standards throughout Iraq

Identifying the critical factors Theme or core principle Features Trust  Integrity (doing what you say you will)  Intent (do people believe you are there to help?)  Competence (being good at what you do)  Dependability (relied on to be consistent) Understanding  An observed level of coherence between the project design/assessment and the requirements defined by other actors  Behaviour and attitudes of and towards key stakeholders  Political awareness and knowledge of local context/constraints and power relations Collaboration  Extent to which project is co-created with stakeholders  Depth and frequency of engagement with key stakeholder groups  Extent of unmediated work between stakeholders  International collaboration  A defined model of collaboration and processes to support

Understanding National staff Relevance Policy environment Security realities

Collaboration Public sector International collaboration Collaboration with the UK

Trust History Other activities (embeddedness) Openness about change National consultants Longstanding personal relationships

For your consideration Is this just good development? What are the implications for agencies and practitioners What are the new and innovative ways people can collaborate? What roles can donors play?