Focus Areas

The Education Support Program has been developing strategies to further equity in education with a range of partners in Central Asia, Pakistan, South Eastern Europe, Southern & West Africa, Caucasus, and other regions.

Central Asia

Access to quality education for children with special education needs is a severely neglected issue in Central Asia and is in need of urgent attention. ESP has launched a joint program with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on review of education policies for children at risk and those with disabilities. These include children with physical disability, learning difficulty, and social disadvantage.

This initiative will be implemented in cooperation with Soros foundations, spin-off NGOs, and other local partners from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and the Central Asian Education Cooperation Network. Ministries of education have also expressed interest in participating in this initiative.

ESP is exploring opportunities to expand this project into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

For more information, please contact valya@soros.kg.

Pakistan

ESP has worked with a coalition of NGO partners in Pakistan to establish a Campaign for Quality Education. The goal is to build a sustainable campaign over the long term that furthers education values and goals in line with mission of OSI and ESP. These include creative and critical thinking, tolerance and anti-dogma, and social and civic responsibility. The Campaign for Quality Education has attracted partners in Pakistan, through which programs for quality education can be demonstrated and disseminated. The campaign draws direction from the findings of the recently completed What Works and Why in Education in Pakistan study. A coalition of education reform groups published the What Works and Why study of Pakistan schools, which laid the groundwork for public debate on education reform.

For more information, please contact abbasrh@gmail.com.

South Eastern Europe

In South Eastern Europe, ESP is working with regional partners to develop a region-wide advocacy initiative on equity issues in education. These include Soros foundations still active in education (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia), Soros foundations in Bulgaria and Albania, and OSI education spin-offs in the region, including members of the Network of Education Policy Centers.

An initial collaborative study targeting school pupils across 10 South Eastern European countries will identify advocacy priorities. A follow-on advocacy strategy will target teachers' unions, parents' and students' associations, and civil society organizations to enlist support against inequity in education and to enable more effective dissemination of good practice and policy.

For more information, please contact ceps.ljubljana@uni-lj.si.

Southern Africa

In Southern Africa, ESP is working closely with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) to develop a pilot program in the Lubombo region of Swaziland, using schools to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS. The strategy utilizes social mobilization around HIV/AIDS to promote inclusion of orphans and vulnerable children in local schools through extending counselling and care networks. These efforts will combine with local experience in school improvement. The project aims to harness best practice in both sectors to effect greater synergy and coordination at local levels. OSISA will extend the initiative to its 10 country partners in Southern Africa.

ESP and OSISA plan to strengthen education initiatives in Angola through the Angola Opportunity Fund. The Education Watch Project will monitor the allocation and management of finances and other inputs in the education sector; develop models for promoting “critical thinking” among teachers, and strive to demonstrate effective provision of quality education in impoverished areas through scholarships for vulnerable children and school feeding schemes. These activities will provide a support platform for an advocacy campaign that will engage and pressure the government to provide education opportunities for all citizens as a right, possibly through a constitutional amendment, which is contemplated in the international norms and standards on human rights to which Angola is a signatory.

West Africa

In West Africa, ESP is working closely with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, the World Bank, and UNICEF to contribute to the renewal of the education system in Liberia. ESP has helped complete the recent Education for All, Fast Track Initiative proposal. ESP has begun preparations to embed the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking program within the teacher-training system.

Caucasus

Caucasus Education Initiative

Conflict and the lack of cooperation leads to very uneven development in the Caucasian geographic area and in nearby countries; this poses both immediate and long-term threats to prospects for open, free societies. Education, despite its role in fostering tolerance and an understanding of the inescapability of a shared future, cannot provide solutions where politics have failed but active cooperation in education will help to build the precedents and relationships that are needed for lasting stability and peace in the region.

The Open Society Institute's Education Support Program (OSI-ESP), the Interkulturelles Zentrum (IZ) Austria, OSI National Foundations in the South Caucasus and New Eurasia Foundation are jointly carrying out the education initiative in the Caucasus, which will fund up to two-year local projects in the Caucasian regions.

The purpose of the initiative is twofold: to promote identified national priorities for education change, and to explore the potential for cooperation and mutual learning between countries and communities in the Caucasus. In line with ESP mission, the initiative aims to serve education justice, which places priority on access to quality education for excluded and vulnerable children, making this the key indicator for effectiveness and success within the education system.

For more information, please contact Natalia Shablya at nshablya@osi.hu or the following Foundation representatives responsible for the Caucasus Education Initiative:

Azerbaijan: Parviz Bagirov, pbagirov@osi-az.org
Georgia: Giga Zedania, giga@osgf.ge
Armenia: Armenuhi Tadevosyan, armenuhi@osi.am
Russia: Yelena Golovko: egolovko@neweurasia.ru

Other Regions

ESP is also exploring the strategic benefits of monitoring education for migrants, minorities, and other marginalized populations in Europe, and a future collaboration with the Roma Education Fund on the Monitoring of Education for Roma initiative.