Sustaining School-Based Monitoring of Education Services

Lessons and Recommendations in

Sustaining School-Based Monitoring of Education Services

I. Background: Lessons from G-Watch Sustainability Efforts

The G-Watch Work in DepEd

Government Watch (G-Watch), the pioneering social accountability program of the Ateneo School of Government, has been engaging the Department of Education (DepEd) in monitoring the delivery of basic education services since 2001. For its pilot project, G-Watch focused on one of the most critical services by DepEd, a service which at that time has the most observed leakage in its implementation: textbooks.

With DepEd facingPhp 1.3 billion-worth procurement of about 37 million textbooks, a joint government-civil society monitoring of DepEd’s textbook procurementwas set up. G-Watch took the lead in designing and implementing the project called Textbook Count in 2002 in partnership with CSOs,some of them include the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP) and Girl Scouts of the Philippines (GSP).

The focus of Textbook Count then expanded as the successes of its pilot run were documented. From covering the procurement of textbooks, the coverage was then expanded to the production, (printing, binding and packaging), evaluation of the content, and finally the delivery of textbooks to beneficiary high schools and district offices. As the coverage of the project increases, there has also been a notable increase in the partner CSOs who joined the monitoring activities. A consortium of CSOs for Textbook Count was then formed to facilitate good coordination and information dissemination among the project partners.

On its fourth round, G-Watch introduced Textbook Walk. Deliveries of textbooks to elementary schools from their respective district offices have been found to be problematic every year. Meager resources provided by the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS), the unit within DepEd in charge of textbooks, were deemed insufficient for forwarding textbooks to its recipient elementary schools most especially to those in far-flung areas. In order to facilitate the delivery of textbooks from district offices to elementary schools, community stakeholders were tapped to help out in the process. Documented Textbook Walk implementations feature creative and ingenious ways that the communities have conceptualized to ease out the process of forwarding the textbooks. Such efforts include synchronizing the forwarding of textbooks with town festivities, creating human chains and conduct of parades in the process.

Textbook Count aims to ensures that the right quantity of textbooks with good physical quality are produced and delivered at the right time to the right beneficiaries following the right processes. After five rounds of successful implementation, G-Watch stepped back as the main implementer of the project. G-Watch, at this point, has seen the capacity of DepEd in taking the lead for Textbook Count and deemed it necessary to cover other critical service delivery of the Department.

In 2005, G-Watch started to engage the construction of school buildings projects (SBps) of both DepEd and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Bayanihang Eskwela (BayEsk) was successful in its pilot round attributable to the forged partnerships with the Physical Facilities and Schools Engineering Division of DepEd and the Task Force School Building of DPWH. G-Watch with the help of capacitated local civil society organizations has monitored the implementation of SBps in thirty randomly selected schools in the country.

The monitoring was facilitated through accomplishing an easy-to-use monitoring tool, which covers the critical stages of the contract implementation period/construction proper. The monitoring of SBps was again applied in other randomly selected recipient schools for the second round of implementation of BayEsk. More local stakeholders, who mainly come from PTAs, BSPs and GSPs – the same volunteers tapped for Textbook Count, were capacitated for the monitoring.

As for BayEsk’s third round of implementation, a comparative study on the different modes of SBps implementation was conducted. The monitoring component aided the study in coming up with data on how to fairly assess the implementer of each mode (DepEd, DPWH, KALAHI CIDS and Chamber of Commerce) in terms of five indicators: responsiveness to the need, cost – efficiency, consistency to the contract, quality and timeliness of the implementation. A policy paper was formulated out of this study. The policy recommendations were put forward to relevant national stakeholders.

Meanwhile, in 2009, the project “Protecting, Sustaining and Expanding the Gains of Civil Society Participation in the Department of Education” or also known as the “Protect Procurement Project” was conceptualized as a continuous effort to protect and sustain the gains of the Textbook Count and further expand G-Watch’s engagement in DepEd. The expansion came in the form of observing procurement stages of big-ticket projects of the department not limited to acquiring textbooks and instructional materials.

The big chunk of the project was devoted on the systematic mobilization, capacity building and accreditation of monitors (civil society organization representatives) to do procurement monitoring. During its first round of implementation in 2008, the project covered the monitoring of the procurement of DepEd Central Office, tapping on civil society organizations with national presence, specifically the PTA officers.

To further expand the coverage of the monitoring initiative, second round of the Protect Procurement Project was localized through its application in local DepEd offices namely in randomly selected divisions Region IV – A, Region III and Region VIII. Representatives from the PTAs, and BSP and GSP council executives in the pilot divisions, together with other local CSO were capacitated in procurement monitoring.

The long partnership between DepEd and G-Watch for the monitoring of education services has yielded notable successes. One of which is the drastic decrease in the unit price of the textbooks being procured. Prior to the implementation of Textbook Count, textbook prices ranged from Php 80 to Php 120 but after the participation of third party monitors, the unit prices of textbooks went down from a Php 30 – Php 45 range. Another milestone in the monitoring of textbooks is the shortened project cycle process, from the usual two years down to one year.

In terms of civil society engagement, G-Watch was the first to spearhead partnership for performance monitoring with DepEd. G-Watch’s continuous engagement with DepEd has also led to the institutionalization of the CSO participatory mechanisms within the department. Though not completely attributable to the engagements of G-Watch with the department, DepEd’s confidence rating went up: from being one of the most corrupt government agencies to one of the most trusted ones.

On questions of sustainability and the attempts to address them

With the successful implementation of pioneering projects, the challenge of sustainability has become a major concern. G-Watch, like the rest of the non-government organizations are often limited by issues on resources and time thus the need to prioritize, while strategically addressing the issue of sustainability.

In order to sustain and increase the gains, the hindrances to state institutionalization and societal institutionalization must be identified and addressed. Achieving state institutionalization depends on the general potential to practice transparency and accountability beyond leaders and personalities, while success in societal institutionalization is measured by how much willingness of the citizens to volunteer can be sustained. The former is aimed at avoiding centralized coordination, while the latter highlights the need to ensure credibility and proper orientation of CSOs. G-Watch thought the government has to come up with ways to institutionalize the existing processes of monitoring in the communities in which CSOs are to be perpetually mobilized.

G-Watch and DepEd are faced with three practical questions in addressing the issue of sustainability and expansion of gains namely: (1) how do we avoid duplication of efforts and maximize resources available? (2) How do we avoid confusion in the field where the same set of CSOs is mobilized for the monitoring of different services? (3) How to make use of the situation as an opportunity for convergence and synchronization?

With these questions at hand, G-Watch had introduced several measures for ensuring the sustainability of the projects in DepEd. These are the following:

1. Institutionalization of engagements through policies.

Civil society engagements in participatory mechanisms were greatly encouraged during the passage of Department Order no. 59 series of 2007 which institutionalizes the non-government organization (NGO) and Private Sector participation in the procurement processes of the department and Department Order no. 21 series of 2011 which institutionalizes Bayanihang Eskwela as the community monitoring of the department’s school building programs. Even without a department order, the Department of Education has institutionalized Textbook Count as its own project in 2009.

2. Capacity building of CSOs for a steady supply of procurement observers

In support to the issuance of DepEd Order 59 s. 2007, G-Watch has introduced the “PRO – Protect Procurement Project (Institutionalizing the Capacity-Building of CSO Procurement Observers)” which seeks to capacitate the CSOs in the procurement monitoring. The capacity building includes introduction to the Government Procurement Reform Act; the government procurement process; procurement monitoring and the roles of CSOs; red flags in procurement; and reporting and documentation.

3. Regional coordination mechanism for Bayanihang Eskwela and Textbook Count

Centralized coordination in monitoring school-level projects are both time consuming and expensive. The setting up for a regional coordination mechanism for BayEsk and Textbook Count is deemed necessary for the better facilitation of concerns on monitoring. During the Nationwide Roll Out of Bayanihang Eskwela and re-launch of Textbook Count in 2011, participating CSOs/CSOs who committed to be part of the projects were asked to identify the areas/regions which they will serve as coordinators.

Results of the Sustainability Efforts

The sustainability efforts implemented yielded the following results:

• In terms of the coverage of the monitoring, the projects, during its various rounds of implementation, have monitored the following amounts:

• As for the monitors/observers mobilized and capacitated to do the monitoring:

On limitations and challenges

Despite the continuous efforts to sustain the gains of the monitoring projects, the following limitations and challenges were observed:

1. There is limited coverage of CSO monitoring vis-à-vis the total amount of service delivery being monitored.

• Textbook Count: Php 1.8B (Out of Php 2.2B)
• Bayanihang Eskwela: Php 122M (Out of: Php 56B)
• Protect Procurement Project: Php 1.5B (no data for total procurement)

2. Through the years of implementation, there is a noticeable decline in the turnout of monitors and procurement observers.

For Textbook Count:

• From 40 CSO members in 2003, only 16 CSOs renewed their commitments to be part of the Textbook Count Consortium of CSOs during its re-launch in 2011.
• Coverage of Textbook Count per round:
• Textbook Count 1: 68% of 5,613 delivery points
• Textbook Count 2: 85% of 7,656 delivery points
• Textbook Count 3: 77% of 4,844 delivery points
• Textbook Count 4: 70% of 4,844 delivery points
• Textbook Count 5: (no data for CSO coverage)

For PRO:

• Out of the 31 CSOs capacitated in 2010 who covered for the monitoring of the Php 1.3B, only nine (9) remained active after the project.
• From the accounts of members of DepEd Bids and Awards Committees, there had been difficulty in mobilizing observers in the different bidding processes.

For Bayanihang Eskwela

During the National Roll Out of Bayanihang Eskwela, local CSOs were capacitated and were assigned per DepEd division. These capacitated CSOs were expected to be tapped for SBP monitoring. During contract implementation period, PFSED reported difficulty on inviting CSOs.

3. Report generation has been a challenge

To facilitate the generation of reports from the field offices on the implementation of the monitoring initiatives, memos from the higher ups of DepEd were secured. Despite the presence of such memos, report generation is still a challenge.

One specific example, in the case of Bayanihang Eskwela, former PFSED director Oliver Hernandez issued a memo to DepEd project engineers to check on the functionality of BayEsk. Only one division was able to submit a report. PFSED National had to reiterate the issuance of the memo, but to no avail, no reports were generated.

Without a central coordinating mechanism, no independent report from CSOs on the ground can be generated, leaving no means to validate the reports from DepEd.

Pilot-testing of Local Hubs

To address the challenge of sustaining the monitoring initiatives, G-Watch deemed the need for a coordinating body at the division level. In 2012, G-Watch has pilot-tested the setting up and operationalization of a division-level coordinating mechanism that is tasked to facilitate a comprehensive school-based monitoring of education services namely textbooks, school buildings and school furniture.

These division-level coordinating mechanisms, called Local Hubs, are intermediary mechanisms expected to provide capacity-building, tools for monitoring, and serve as transmission belts for reports and feedbacks to school-based monitoring teams.

Two to three divisions in three regions were chosen for the pilot-testing of Local Hubs. These areas were chosen according to the following criteria (1) highest allocation of textbooks, school building and school furniture (2) presence/non-presence of G-Watch partners (3) challenges of misallocation and education outcomes and (4) non-coverage of G-Watch networks.

The pilot divisions for the Local Hubs are the following: for Region IV – A are Antipolo City, Cavite Province; for Region VIII are Calbayog City, Leyte and for ARMM are Maguindanao I, Maguindanao II and Marawi City.

Emerging Lessons Learned

With its twelve years of engagement with the DepEd and experiences of implementing various monitoring initiatives, G-Watch has learned that:

•Volunteers can be counted on to carry out monitoring activities especially in services with several irregularities or perceived irregularities. However, it appears that as irregularities diminish over time (a targeted result of monitoring), so is the volunteers’ drive to monitor government processes. The reality is, as the government becomes more open to CSO participation, the more that the people do not see the need to monitor anymore.

•Sustainability, in the monitoring initiatives spearheaded by G-Watch, is premised in the spirit of volunteerism. Though the spirit of volunteerism is still highly evident, it is not well met with monetary support, which is a pre-requisite in order to sustain coordination, aid in the preparation of reports and conduct of capacity building activities for civil society organizations. It is a concern that has yet to be addressed.

•CSO monitoring cannot aim to be at par with the bureaucracy in terms of achieving regularity, stability and extensiveness. CSO participation must be sustained, not to be bureaucratized but in order to take on a supplementary monitoring once deemed necessary. The accountability efforts of the government must not be hampered by the presence or absence of CSO participation.

•Monitors monitor when mobilized, capacitated, coordinated and followed up; thus, the need for a coordinating body that will enable monitors to carry out monitoring activities and ensure that.

II. Strategy for Sustainability: Enable School-Based Monitoring

Past experiences show that centralized coordination of institutionalized projects still requires substantial resources in sustaining the monitoring initiatives. CSO participation in Textbook Count, for instance, in all the 190 divisions cannot be coordinated by G-Watch forever. DepEd was given this task starting with Textbook Count 5.

Similarly, as Bayanihang Eskwela has been rolled out on a nationwide-scale through a Department Order, G-Watch similarly experienced the challenge of coordinating CSOs’ participation nationwide. Capacitating community monitors nationwide in utilizing the BayEsk tools and technology was one of the core challenges. Difficulties in gathering all the monitoring reports –and even responding to all the issues encountered by the community monitoring teams were noted by G-Watch.

With such a centralized set up, it is thus evident that it would be difficult to sustain the following processes and activities in CSO monitoring without ample resources: mobilization and capacity-building of monitors, transmission of information and tools and processing of monitoring results.

Addressing this would be most critical as G-Watch believes that social accountability mechanisms should be closer to the beneficiaries where corruption is most likely to occur. Corruption happens when contractors and frontline service providers feel they can short-change beneficiaries who do not know what they should receive. This was the case in the past that led to sub-standard materials being used in school-building projects, persistence of ghost projects and ghost textbook deliveries, and contracts not being followed in terms of quantity and quality, among others.

Social accountability mechanisms that are nearer the implementation process also ensures faster transmission of information and reporting system. In monitoring services, ensuring quick response from agencies would be most important to ensure that deviations are corrected immediately with minimal cost from the government.

Decentralization seems the most promising set up as it would (1) ensure that minimum resources are needed, and that (2) coordination and information transfer happens closer to the ground, ensuring quicker feedback and more responsive governance.

In decentralizing social accountability efforts, school-based monitoring is the best design to ensure sustained transparency and accountability in education service delivery given the following reasons:

There is presence of a steady supply of monitors in the schools who have a major stake in the functioning of their school. This answers the question of sustainability as it eliminates costly transportation expenses to the project sites;

Tapping the beneficiaries to serve as monitors. This is empowering for the community as to they are transformed from being mere recipients of the services to monitors who ensure the quality and quantity of the services being provided to them;

This allows a comprehensive look at education services such as textbooks delivery, school building projects, and furniture, among others.