SECTION IV. PRESSURES FROM A GLOBAL ECONOMY

Stitching or schooling? - Children and football stitching - A case study from Pakistan
'The mirror of change'* - Kindergartens in a rapidly changing society - A case study from Mongolia

The problem: · A global economy leads to increased vulnerability · Pakistan: historical dependence on world markets · Mongolia: recent entry to the global market The approach: · Can schools contribute to reducing children's vulnerability? · The Pakistan case · The Mongolia case · Partnerships to tackle complex problems · Local analysis combined with international experience

THE PROBLEM:

Section 1 discussed the ways in which poverty and lack of educational opportunity interrelate, and highlighted the fact that economic vulnerability is created by large-scale forces -political, economic, environmental. The studies in this section are selected to give an insight into these processes through two cases of suddenly increased economic vulnerability, one affecting a district, and one a whole country. They give examples of how global trends affect children, and how this interacts with issues of school provision.

A global economy leads to increased vulnerability

As economic relations across the world are increasingly structured by the dominance of large, powerful, economies, there is an ever more obvious impact of external forces on what happens even in remote parts of poor countries. The framework of economic globalisation is a body of international agreements that has given greater freedom of operation to multinational companies but with a consequent loss of freedom for national governments to protect their economies against adverse terms of trade. There has been a similar loss of collective bargaining power by workers, since different parts of a production process are located in different countries and can be rapidly moved to take advantage of changing economic trends across countries. In the ethos of the global market, the aim of economic activity is to increase profits for companies; all other goals, such as national development, social advancement or protection against the effects of poverty, are secondary at best.

Children are the most vulnerable group in society and economically the most dependent. They are the most adversely affected at times of economic crisis. Adults having to work longer hours means less adequate care for young children. Loss of work for adults or diminishing value of what they can earn leads to an increase in child labour, and working children are even less protected against hazards and exploitation than adults. The trend to economic vulnerability manifests itself worldwide in more children malnurished, more children leaving home to find work, more children on the streets.

The very different political histories of the two studies highlights the fact that increased vulnerability is an issue both in countries with long standing economic dependence on the West, as well as those which have only recently entered the global market.

Pakistan: Historical dependence on world markets

The Pakistan case is typical of the situation in many poorer countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, whose economies have long been integrated into the western market economy. Trade patterns dating from colonial times have led to extreme forms of dependency on particular crops or exports, whose price is subject to fluctuations in the international market. This study illustrates the vulnerability that results from such over-specialisation. The Sialkot district in Pakistan produces the overwhelming majority of the world's league footballs and was thus highly vulnerable when an international decision that changed employment patterns. Many children were employed as football stitchers until consumer pressure led the international football industry to ban child labour.

Mongolia: Recent entry to the global market The Mongolia case describes a situation typical in countries in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union (and, in a somewhat different form, in parts of East Asia.) Opinion-leaders in these countries have been persuaded that the free market system generates wealth and is a natural partner of democratic freedoms. It came as a shock when, almost universally, countries that moved into the global market in the 1990s experienced a rapid growth of an underclass of unemployed, or of people whose incomes could no longer support them. This was accompanied by all the attendant social problems with which western societies are familiar.

THE APPROACH

Because the causes of economic vulnerability are essentially external to the society, it is not within its government's power to prevent them. But national governments nevertheless have to react to the problems caused, and increased poverty among children has obvious knock-on effects for education. The case studies give examples where an international NGO has attempted to support national and local education providers, together with vulnerable communities, to respond to these challenges.

Can schools contribute to reducing children's vulnerability?

In both cases Save the Children became involved because it was clear that international pressures had caused sudden vulnerability to children. Its concern was

· to work with local partners to reduce children's vulnerability where possible,

· to ensure that children's views were taken into account in whatever policies were being proposed,

· to press for policies and practice that were not narrowly sectoral but took account of the whole condition of children's lives.

While approaching poverty issues via education is one important strategy, it is only one, and it is important not to seem to claim too much for it. Improving schools will not change the underlying and continuing causes of vulnerability. And where schools are very ineffective and inappropriate to children's real needs, they would have to be massively improved to bring about any real change in life chances for the children who go through them. Nevertheless, in both cases Save the Children has been able to contribute to the development of policies and practice which offer some protection to children against the worst effects of the economic pressures. To do this it was necessary to consider:

· How poverty, child work and non-attendance at school interrelate.

· What school systems can do to prevent vulnerability, to diminish its ill effects, or to offer alternative futures to children.

· How school systems need to change in order to respond to changes in society.

· Whether school providers are equipped with the skills it will take to make these changes.

The ban on child labour in the football industry in Sialkot called into being a partnership of multi-national companies, government, local and international agencies. Save the Children joined this partnership to contribute its understanding of child labour issues in other countries, and to press for a programme that would take account of children's needs for both earning opportunities and schooling. Through asking children for their views it was able to challenge assumptions among decision makers about the relationship of child labour to school going, for it became clear that low quality of schooling rather than work was a primary reason for non-attendance. From experience in Bangladesh Save the Children argued that a ban on child labour in one sector could lead children into other more hazardous forms of work, and successfully advocated for a progressive phase out rather than an immediate ban. The research findings became a key input in the design of a programme to build up alternative livelihood options and improved schooling.

The Mongolia case

The Mongolia study shows how an international NGO can draw on its understanding of international economic trends and their impact on children, to support more responsive policies at national government level. By working closely with the government during the critical period of rapid transition from a command to a market-based economy, Save the Children was able to strengthen government capacity to interpret and anticipate the impact of this transition, and to develop new strategies for pre-school provision to respond to changing external conditions.

Partnerships to tackle complex problems

Several themes run through both studies. One is that the complex nature of the challenges requires a style of working through a range of partnerships. The problems were clearly too broad to be effectively tackled by a narrow focus on education: it was necessary to make connections between school providers, communities, and other bodies that could affect what happened to children. And given the international issues involved it was essential in both cases to engage with the UN agencies, donors or multi-national companies who had a role in determining future policies.

· In Pakistan, Save the Children's decision to join the partnership that had been set up in the wake of the ban on child labour was seen by some as an unusual decision for an international NGO that had previously worked on education issues in Pakistan primarily at community level. The partnership included representatives from multi-nationals, local commercial interests, government, and UN agencies. It has attracted considerable attention because of the high profile nature of the industry, and provides a rare example of collaboration between what would normally be seen as disparate groups. Save the Children used its presence to bring into the partnership local NGOs that could contribute experience of livelihood and school issues. Together they were able to advocate for an approach which took account of all the demands on a child's life, and led to programmes that recognised the need to improve the quality of schooling. Potentially such a partnership provides a mechanism to press the corporations that drive economic changes to be more socially accountable to the communities they affect.

· The Mongolia study describes a role which involved liaison with many different groups. As one of the first international agencies in Mongolia, Save the Children adopted an explicitly low key approach, gradually building up relations of trust with government officials at different levels and identifying key people through whom to reach other levels. In the early stages it provided opportunities for decision makers to acquire new skills: to analyse the causal links between economic transition and poverty; to gain experience of participatory ways of tackling problems; and to define policy parameters within which international donor funding could operate. Save the Children also supported newly emerging groups of professionals who were taking on roles outside government, and in partnership with them initiated research into the impact of the economic changes on children. This was then used in problem analysis with officials. The context of rapid change also offered the opportunity to experiment with new ideas through a series of pilot projects to encourage community initiatives. The combination of these practical and analytical experiences created a situation where there is a national commitment to preserve state-supported pre-school education, and a conception of how it can be used it as a means to tackle increasing vulnerability of young children.

Another common feature is that in both of these cases Save the Children was a relatively new player. That it was nevertheless able to play a useful role was due to its philosophical approach and style of work:

· A belief in the need to retain diversity (see Section I)

The aim was to strengthen local stakeholders' ability to retain control of the direction of their own societies to the greatest extent possible, and to resist the negative impacts of economic globalisation.

· International experience

Save the Children staff in each country were in a position to contribute something of value to local decision makers because they had access to the international experience of the organisation, which had engaged with related problems elsewhere. They could share this understanding with local stakeholders, who had less access to relevant information, and less experience of negotiating with international bodies.

· Local analysis

Contributing an understanding of global issues did not mean presenting a 'global solution'. The programme approach evolved organically, responsive to what was culturally or politically possible, and support was given to local groups to find solutions appropriate to their context.

· Understanding what children experience In both cases documentation of children's experiences and views had a clear effect on policy, through challenging previously unquestioned assumptions.

Stitching or schooling? - Children and football stitching - A case study from Pakistan

analysis: Harris Khalique, Bahar Ali, Rachel Marcus
writing/editor: Rachel Marcus, Bridget Crumpton
contributors: Fiona King, Dave Walker

What are the problems for children?

The Child Labour/Education Debate

Throughout the world, education and work during childhood are widely seen as incompatible. Work is generally viewed as preventing children obtaining an education; compulsory schooling then becomes the 'solution' to child labour. This view of education and work as opposites is common both in national and international policy-making and debates. It is based on stereotypes of both work and education, and draws on an image of work as a full-time activity undertaken between certain fixed hours, usually at a workplace away from the home. This is contrasted with education, often seen entirely in terms of full-time school attendance. Of course, it is widely appreciated that meaningful education is much broader than school attendance. It is less commonly appreciated that children do an enormous range of work, by no means all of which prevents them accessing education. The majority is flexible, done for their families rather than for an external employer. In some contexts, working enables children to pay for parts of their education. In much of the world, work itself is considered an important part of education, enabling children to learn a valuable life skill. Rural children's work in agriculture, herding and domestic work in the Malian Sahel¹ and football stitching in Sialkot are good examples.

Furthermore, most children who work full-time and do not attend school do so because of poverty - their families cannot manage without their labour. Thus it is often not work that prevents children attending school but family poverty. Or as observed above the unattractiveness of education. It is probable that the kind of work that prevents children from accessing an education is the minority. However, it is this image of work that predominates in debates about child labour and education². Some of the pressure groups who raised the alarm about children's involvement in stitching footballs in Pakistan painted an inaccurate picture using images of children forced to work very long hours in factories, sometimes in order to pay back parents' debts, unable to obtain an education or to play. The intention was to 'give children back a childhood', taking them away from work and putting them into school, seen as the 'proper' place for children.

Why an international/local partnership was formed

The pressure groups against child labour in football production arose from “labour rights” campaigning groups who mobilised American mothers around concern that their children were playing with footballs produced with child labour. Using the leverage of consumer power, these pressure groups effectively targeted international companies such as Nike and Adidas sourcing footballs in Pakistan, and football industry-associations such as FIFA. By mid-1997, under growing international pressure, the football industry formed a partnership to eliminate child labour from the Pakistani football industry with a range of international and local organisations. The key partners initially were the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry, representing manufacturers, the International Labour Organisation, UNICEF and Save the Children Fund (UK). Subsequently, a range of Pakistani NGOs and government departments joined the programme, implementing different components³.

Save the Children's main reason for entering the Sialkot partnership was to ensure that children displaced from football stitching would not be pushed into taking up other more hazardous or exploitative forms of work, as had happened when child labour was phased out of Bangladesh's garment industry. In this instance, the extent to which households relied on children's earnings from the garment industry had been severely underestimated and the majority of children had thus taken up other kinds of work⁴. In the Sialkot case, mounting consumer pressure to raise awareness of child labour in football production in the run up to the 1998 Football World Cup presented such a threat to the profile and profits of international companies that they would only accept a ban on child labour. With the support of Pakistani manufacturing groups, Save the Children was able to advocate for a gradual phase out of child labour and a programme of education and livelihood options as a realistic response in a context where a ban was inevitable.

Drawing from the experience of Bangladesh, Save the Children stressed the crucial need for a situation analysis to gain a thorough understanding of children's involvement in football stitching and feed this into programme design. Once the analysis was undertaken, Save the Children drew local NGOs, known to have relevant experience, into the partnership. The local NGO Sudhaar became the main partner to work on programme development and implementation, bringing in first hand experience of programming with working children in the education sector in the Kasur region.

Realities of Education and Work in Sialkot

The situation analysis examined children's involvement in football stitching, the reasons why they work and their experiences of work and school⁵. Broadly the research revealed:

· Children stitch footballs to supplement family income and because it represents a better option to poor quality schooling

While only twenty per cent of child football stitchers currently attended school, nearly two thirds had attended school in the past. Rather than football stitching preventing them from attending school, the majority had dropped out because their families needed their income or could not afford to pay schooling costs (fees, materials, and 'voluntary' contributions towards school upkeep), or because they saw work as a better option than poor quality schooling. Most of the children interviewed stitched footballs because their families needed the money. The situation analysis thus confirmed that Save the Children's initial concerns that children might be pushed into worse circumstances if they were banned from child labour were valid.

The analysis also reflects the wider national context. Although national statistics on education are notoriously inaccurate, it is clear that over half of school age children are out of school at any given time and that a high proportion of these are involved in some form of work, ranging from full-time employment to informal, home-based piece rate occupations and seasonal work which tends to get left out of government figures. With such limited life chances, it is little wonder that work is seen to offer a more viable livelihood opportunity than basic education and certainly than continuing beyond primary school⁶.

Box 1: How football stitching can help school attendance Twelve year old Asma is the oldest child in her family. She has two younger sisters, and all three girls go to school. Asma is in class seven. She earns about 240 Rupees per month stitching footballs. This helps to pay school expenses and allows her to have some money of her own. She is not skilled enough to stitch complete footballs, but helps her father and sometimes stitches half balls. Her father has been stitching footballs for twenty years and normally stitches three balls per day. With Asma's help, he can now produce four balls per day. If she is no longer allowed to stitch footballs, she thinks she will either do other home-based work or will study full-time. She would like to be a schoolteacher.

· Football-stitching is a flexible and desirable form, of labour in relation to alternative work options

The research also showed that children were not confined to one spot for long hours. Most children stitched footballs in their own homes in order to boost family production, and would intersperse this with other activities, such as agricultural work or household chores. This is not to say that they found football stitching unproblematic. Many of the children interviewed complained of eye strain and pain in their joints. They were, however, clear that football stitching was preferable to other work available to them in Sialkot, such as working in surgical instruments manufacture, in tea shops, agriculture or as domestics, and that work of some kind was a necessity.

The benefits of football stitching to the local economy of poor households is recognized nationally. It is well-adapted to the geography of small villages in the Sialkot areas because production can be home-based; because it can be done at home it is adapted to women who according to Muslim traditions are restricted to activities around the home and can combine it with domestic responsibilities, and helps prevent migration; it is relatively unhazardous; it does not require sophisticated methods of production and can be fitted around other commitments of workers which could include education activities. Neither the national economy, employers or employees want to lose this source of revenue.

· Poor quality of education is a higher deterrent to enrolment than availability

Children's school experiences were illuminating and contrasted with the benign image of education counterposed by campaigners to stitching footballs. The children interviewed complained of being beaten, of teachers not coming to class, or not teaching when they did, and of having to work in the teachers' fields after school. For some children, schools were also inaccessible in the rainy season due to lack of bridges. It was striking, however, that most villages had both a girls and a boys primary school; absolute lack of primary schooling facilities was not the problem, as a number of the partners in the programme had initially assumed, though access to middle and high schools was much more limited, particularly for girls.

The problems with the education system experienced by the Sialkot children are common throughout the country. Pakistan is at the extremes of education league tables. It has one of the lowest literacy rates (38% according to official statistics⁷), one of the lowest GDP expenditures on education, currently running at 2%, and dismally low levels of enrolment and completion. Almost 50% of primary aged children have no access to school whilst almost 50% of those who do enrol, dropout. The situation is worse in rural areas, where 65% of the population live, and for girls, who represent less than half of enrolments for boys”. The poor quality of education on offer, compounded by corruption, widespread teacher absenteeism and physical abuse of pupils is a key factor in whether children go to school or to work. It also explains the significant growth of private schools, particularly in urban areas, where parents who can afford to send their children in the belief that the quality of education is better.

The question has therefore become how to make education more attractive and relevant to children and improve household livelihood opportunities. Although Sialkot is a relatively better off part of Pakistan (where one might expect greater investment and thus higher quality education), the quality of education is uniformly low in spite of a reasonably high distribution of school infrastructure at village level.

The Response

The Sialkot education programme

Based on experience elsewhere in the world and on these research findings, Save the Children advocated the implementation of a programme that was developmental - that strove to improve the conditions of children's and families' lives in a sustainable manner. There are two main components to the Sialkot programme: the monitoring component that inspects workshops to verify that no children under 14 are involved in football production, and the social protection component which seeks to improve educational opportunities for children and to assist families to develop alternative sources of income. Save the Children, like the other NGO partners, is part of the social protection programme.

As the situation analysis revealed, enhancing household income is essential for children to access improved educational opportunities¹⁰. Save the Children and partners are tackling this in two main ways: firstly, through a partnership with an NGO which provides credit and savings facilities to families of child football stitchers, as well as the wider community, in order that they can develop or improve small businesses and agriculture; and secondly through ensuring that the phasing out of child labour does not lead to women losing stitching jobs as well.

Box 2: Importance of women's employment in football stitching In many households, women's income from football stitching is essential. Football stitching is an attractive job for women since it can be done at home and fitted around other chores. Thus women's reputations are not compromised by working outside the home, and they can combine paid work with other domestic duties. Football stitching also pays better than other home-based work, such as sewing cycle gloves. The move to centralise football stitching in a few large factories that could be easily monitored to ensure no children were present would have resulted in most women having to stop stitching footballs, and many households losing two or more incomes at once. Save the Children's engagement with companies both internationally and locally has therefore focused on the importance for children and families of ensuring that women's income is protected, and encouraging manufacturers to set up village-based units for women. Securing agreement that units of 3-4 women can be considered 'stitching centres' registered with the programme is an important breakthrough. Save the Children has also advocated, both in Pakistan and internationally, the importance of the sports goods industry paying higher wages, so that the need for children to work is reduced and eventually eliminated1.

The Education Programme

The intention of the education programme is that education should be both a positive alternative to work for children phased out of football stitching, and a means of preventing children starting other forms of work. The programme is set up to work with the government run primary schools in areas where the concentration of stitcher families is 25% or higher. There are two main aspects to Save the Children's work on education: the first concentrates on enhancing community involvement in school management; the second on improving the quality of education through teacher training¹¹.

School Management Committees

Pakistan has for several years nominally had a system of school management committees, consisting of the head teacher, other teachers, parents and community leaders, mandated to ensure the effective running of village schools. However, in practice these committees existed only on paper. Save the Children's partner for the education component, Sudhaar, is working with schools and communities to revive school management committees and to use them as a way of making education more attractive to children and families than entering the labour force. An effective mechanism it has found to achieve this revival is to encourage the participation of women on the committees. Formerly, even in the girls schools, the committees were primarily made up of men. In only a couple of months, women are starting to break with tradition and becoming active and regular members on the committees.

The school management committees are mobilising funds within villages for infrastructural improvements to schools; Save the Children has also been providing small grants to active school management committees to enable them to carry out these improvements. These include building walls or fences, building toilets, buying wood to construct benches or floor matting so that the children do not get so cold at school in the winter, making cemented blackboards and repairing broken handpumps so that schools have a water supply. All of these apparently minor issues in themselves can be the final straw that push children to drop out of school when they or their families feel that they are not learning anything useful. However, simply improving the school environment is insufficient to improve the quality of education which is commonly attributed to widespread teacher absenteeism and verbal and physical abuse of children by teachers. This is the other important aspect of Sudhaar's work in Sialkot and the committees have a role in this as monitors of what actually goes on in the classroom.

Teacher Training

Teacher training is the other main component of the programme. So far, training focusing on improving teachers' communication skills and improving teacher-student interaction has been provided to a small number of teachers and officials of the Punjab Department of Education. Unusually, the school management committees were involved in identifying training needs. Sudhaar is working to establish deeper linkages with the Department of Education, and with UNICEF, to develop a broader teacher training programme, which will eventually reach teachers in government schools throughout the district.

According to the first annual report of the programme, improvements in the attitude of teachers towards children are starting to be seen as a combined result of the committee organisation and teacher training. The common practice of physical and verbal ill-treatment of children is being tackled head-on in training modules and by the committees. A growing number of teachers have openly admitted to the use of violence for discipline and have committed never to use physical abuse as a means of discipline again. Similarly changes in teaching styles are being observed. In contrast to the traditional “chalk and talk from the front of the class” style of government teachers, teachers are increasingly seen to be engaging children more actively in the learning process, by standing up and moving among students while taking classes.

A Developmental Approach to Education

Save the Children and Sudhaar's developmental approach to education in Sialkot contrasts with the prevailing NGO model in Pakistan (and elsewhere) which is one of 'rehabilitation', restoring child workers to a 'normal' childhood by taking them out of work and putting them into special schools. Whilst this may be appropriate for children who have had no education and are too old to join primary school classes, it is not necessarily the most appropriate solution in Sialkot, where many football stitchers have had some education, and are thus able to rejoin 'mainstream' classes. The strength of this model as a way to address child labour, and the degree of pressure on international companies and their suppliers to be seen to be acting quickly on the 'child labour problem', has resulted in several 'rehabilitative' schools being set up alongside government schools by companies and other NGOs in the programme.

'The issue is of relevance. Even if we take the working children out of football stitching, how would we be able to prevent new ones from joining the stitching industry? So we have tried to design our programme as a preventative mechanism rather than a rehabilitative one. We have also tried to hit the aggregate number of working children in all trades. Our component has to be understood in the context of the overall work done by various implementing agencies in the football industry of Sialkot. Its important linkage with the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry is to be recognised as well.' Bahar Ali, Project Manager, Save the Children Pakistan

Impact and Future Challenges

It is really too early to say what the project's impact has been in terms of changes in children's lives. Initial assessments point to an increase in school enrolment, an improvement in teaching styles and a dramatic fall in football stitching by children.

From the start, Save the Children has argued that the programme will only have been a success if it leads to sustainable improvements in the quality of life of child football stitchers and their families. Save the Children has therefore led the development of a system for monitoring the impact of the programme. At the time of writing, this has focused primarily on establishing basic data on school enrolment (which has increased) and changes in children's and families' occupations in a sample of households and villages throughout the district. The team now plans to develop ways of assessing what these changes mean for the children and families concerned, and to promote impact monitoring among the different partners in the programme. In addition to its value for the programme, this monitoring should enable analysis of the effectiveness of this approach to child labour issues.

The Sialkot programme is a flagship project for almost all the partners involved and is frequently presented as a model to be transferred to other areas and industries. It is an example of addressing child labour in a high profile industry and of working in partnership with the private sector, an increasing preoccupation of development organisations.

What has been learnt?

Improving education quality

The Sialkot programme and other studies in this book (Mali, Ethiopia, India) demonstrate how small inputs can help improve the quality of education and, in turn, the number of children attending school. Effective approaches include improving teaching/learning methodology through teacher training and increasing community participation in the identification of problems and solutions to school management and student enrolment issues. Where the Sialkot programme is weak is in tackling the substance of what children are learning and the structural problems at the root of an education system that persistently fails children. Any lasting changes in education quality would need to be backed up by a shift in political will to offset structural issues such as teacher absenteeism and corruption, and a change in the country's budgetary priorities. Piloting low-cost approaches that can be shown to improve teaching ability and promote community accountability and demand for education offer practical and potentially replicable ways of moving the process of change forward.

The contradictions of abolition

There is genuine incredulity in Sialkot that so much attention and resources have been devoted to phasing out child labour in what was seen by all as a relatively benign occupation, when children work in so many more hazardous occupations. In this context, phasing child labour out of football stitching was the only possible response to prevent a wholesale boycott of the Pakistani football industry, which would have had potentially disastrous consequences for families and communities as a whole, with a huge impact on children as a result. However, many observers believe that a better solution would have been to find ways in which children could attend improved schools, thus gaining the benefits of school education, while continuing to stitch part-time, thus learning useful skills for the future and making an immediate contribution to family income.

Adapting to the constraints of the operating environment

There is on-going debate about whether, from the outset, the project should have been broadened to address all forms of child labour in the district, rather than singling out child workers in one occupation, thereby avoiding a situation where children may simply shift from one form of work to another. Given the enormous pressures on the football stitching industry, such an approach would have been difficult in this context, but where time pressures are less acute, a more holistic approach would probably be more effective.

Replicability: problems and challenges

The extent to which the Sialkot programme could be replicated is questionable. Given its flagship nature for all concerned, the project has attracted extensive donor funding. This is clearly not replicable. It is ironic that while development organisations view working with the private sector as a way to reduce unsustainable dependence on aid funds, and despite substantial contributions from the industry, in this case most expenditure on the Social Protection programme comes from donor funding. The challenge is to develop solutions to child labour that depend less on external funding, and which promote the involvement of children, families and communities concerned in the analysis of problems and development of solutions, so that issues of genuine local concern are addressed effectively.

The role of the international NGO

The Sialkot partnership is an important example of the growing trend to bring together stakeholders from the private, international and local sectors and to forge links that can help action at the international level become more responsive to local conditions. It has been especially effective in the Sialkot case as the partnership involves all key players: the government, manufacturers, and relevant international and local agencies.

This case study illustrates four ways in which an INGO can play a key linking role between the relevant international, national and local actors.

· Understanding local issues: working in partnership with local NGOs and groups has given Save the Children an insight into the situation of children in Pakistan based on the realities of their experience. This creates the legitimacy and credibility of Save the Children to advocate on behalf of children at both the national and international level and to commission research around the target issue of children stitching footballs.

· Wider perspective of issues such as child labour: as an international NGO working in a range of countries, Save the Children has built up a body of knowledge on specific issues, such as child labour or children in situations of conflict, which gives a broader perspective to localized issues. For example, Save the Children's advocacy on child labour is based on research and programme experience in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

· Advocacy role: the combination of understanding at the grassroots and a wider perspective allows Save the Children to advocate for children and encourage their direct representation in national and international policy-making. This has been especially valuable within the child labour debate, where Save the Children has taken a controversial position. In this case, Save the Children speaks out against bans on child labour where these would force children into more exploitative or hazardous work or would push them and their families further into poverty; and advocates for improved regulation and working conditions and against forms of labour which are exploitative and hazardous.

· Acting as a bridge: Save the Children operates at different points of a spectrum, working at the level of the international community, monitoring global and development assistance trends, as well as at the community level, supporting practical programme initiatives. This equips Save the Children to keep its partners abreast of changes in the international context and to act as a catalyst to bring different actors together, encourage dialogue and mutual understanding and explore new ways of working in partnership. This is a challenging role, which demands sensitivity to the different vested interests involved, and recognition of limitations of an international NGO's sphere of influence.

Editors' Conclusions · In Sialkot, the need to work is not the only reason why children do not attend school. Save the Children's analysis, based on consulting communities and children themselves, demonstrated that the reasons include both family poverty and the dismal quality of the education available. · In much of the world, work is seen as a valuable part of education, enabling children to learn essential life skills. · Campaigning needs to be based on communities' own understanding of their situation and needs. The well-intentioned international ban on child labour in football stitching threatened to push children into more hazardous forms of labour without addressing their need for education. · Save the Children combined practical initiatives to improve the quality of education at community level, with advocacy to create a better understanding of children's needs among the groups making decisions about their future. The advocacy ensured a gradual phase out of child labour, allowing time to develop alternative livelihood options. · Small inputs from Save the Children are beginning to change teachers' attitudes and develop systems for community participation in education. Simply promoting the participation of women on school management committees, for example, is having a clear effect in making local schools more responsive to children's needs. · Advocacy was successful only in minimising the immediate threats from the international ban: it was unable to address the structural problems at the root of an education system that persistently fails children.

Notes

¹ Tod, B., Sogoba, B, 1997. 'Preliminary Observations on the Reality of Children's Work in Mali'. Internal report. Save the Children, Mali

² The Child Labour/Education debate is covered in more detail in: Boyden, J., Ling, B., Myers, W, 1998. What works for working children. Radda Barnen, Stockholm & UNICEF, ICDC.

Marcus, R., Harper, C, 1997. Small Hands: Children in the working world. Save the Children, London.

Myers, W., Boyden, J, 1998. Child Labour: promoting the best interests of working children. Save the Children Alliance

Harper, C. 1999. 'Working paper on Children and Economics Framework'. Internal report. Save the Children, London.

³ Marcus, R., Husselbee, D., Shah, F., Harper, A & Ali, B. 1997, Stitching Footballs: voices of children in Sialkot, Pakistan. Save the Children, London and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Sudhaar, 1998. Sialkot Education Programme Annual report 1998: Preventing Child Labour in Sialkot. Opportunities & Challenges. Sudhaar & Save the Children, Pakistan.

⁴ Bissel, S., Sobhan, B, 1996. Child Labour and Education Programming in the Garment Industry of Bangladesh. UNICEF, Dhaka

⁵ Marcus, Husselbee, Shah, Harper, & Ali, 1997

⁶ Marcus, Husselbee, Shah, Harper, & Ali, 1997

⁷ UNICEF, 1999. The State of the World's Children

⁸ Khalique, H, 1998. 'Save the Children UK and Basic Education in Pakistan'. Internal report, Save the Children

Oxfam International, 1999. Education Now: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

⁹ Department for International Development & Save the Children, 1998. 'Project Memorandum: Protecting the Rights and Livelihoods of Working Children in Pakistan. London and Islamabad, Pakistan.

¹⁰ Marcus, Husselbee, Shah, Harper, & Ali, 1997

¹¹ Sudhaar, 1998 and Khalique, H, 1998. 'Education in Sialkot: a story of people thinking responsively'. Internal report, Save the Children

'The mirror of change'* - Kindergartens in a rapidly changing society - A case study from Mongolia

* 'Children are the mirror of the changes that Mongolian society has been experiencing.' Mandal Urtnasan

analysis: Helen Penn, Mandal Urtnasan, Tsendsuren Tumee, Enkhbat, John Beauclerk
writing: Helen Penn, Emma Cain
editor: Emma Cain
contributors: Norjkhorloo, Anna McCord

What are the problems for children?

The effects of economic transition

Under globalisation, no country is free from external economic forces which impact directly on the lives of citizens and the ability of governments to provide effective services. This is especially true for the group of countries undergoing economic transition from a centrally planned to a market driven economic system of which Mongolia is a part. The speed and extent of change in Mongolia since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc has had a profound impact on the economy, political thinking, the daily lives of the population, family coping mechanisms and the ability of government to support the vulnerable.

With the sudden removal of the Soviet ideology and practical economic support on which Mongolia had depended for nearly seventy years, everything is on shifting ground, being questioned, under threat. While this offers new opportunities for greater national responsibility and policy-making, the inherited Soviet system is notoriously ill-adapted to keep pace with the rapid speed of change.

Box 1: A brief profile of Mongolia · population of 2.5 million, of whom the majority are under 25; · very sparsely inhabited, with the lowest global population density of 1.4 people per square km. 44% live in sparsely populated rural areas and 56% in the 3 main cities of Erdenet, Darhan and Ulaanbaatar; · 15% of the population live a nomadic/semi nomadic life, moving gers (circular felt and wood tents) short distances 2 or 3 times a year; · an extreme and hostile climate, ranging from -30C in winter to +30C in summer; · a peaceful and stable country, whose last civil war was in the 1920's, and where the use of firearms is rare; · although independent, from 1924 Mongolia was closely attached to the Soviet block which subsidised one third of its budget until 1991

The disintegration of the communist systems has hit children and vulnerable groups hardest. In addition to the loss of an annual subsidy from the former USSR of up to a third of GDP, Mongolia has suffered from the collapse of main trading partners and a dramatic drop in per capita GNP which, after 1991, fell from US$ 1,600 to US$ 463. Furthermore, structural adjustment policies needed to secure external loans have contributed to increased inequality and marginalisation in what was formerly a relatively equitable society. The immediate effects on most children are a rapid drop in family living standards as unemployment, falling wages, privatisation and disappearing subsidies have combined with drastic cuts in key public services, such as health and education, to deepen poverty and stretch family coping mechanisms to the limit¹.

‘I have read a lot in the papers about what happened in Mongolia and in my society after the upheavals of 1989. Before there was political oppression in our country - I know that now but I didn't know it before. Now we are free - but the prices are so high that people become poor. That is because we have a market economy... we are a little people if we don't develop our production, we will disappear as a people. You can already see this in lots of places - there are many people in the streets who are very drunk. It wasn't like that before and it makes me afraid.'²

'It's the only country in which I have worked that has not been at war. But take away the bullets and there is the same chaos. Market economics is a kind of undeclared war on children. The state is crumbling and families are in collapse - people are so poor here. Men shouldn't have to resort to the bottle as their only source of hope, and women shouldn't be left to shoulder all the responsibility of bringing up children. Family life is so difficult because basic conditions are so terrible.' John Beauclerk, Save the Children Programme Director

'Children are the mirror of the changes that Mongolian society has been experiencing. How their lives have changed and what prospects the market offers for them, could be argued, is the real measurement of the transition. What took Mongolia decades in improving conditions for children is now under the threat of being wiped away if urgent action is not undertaken.' Mandal Urtnasan, Save the Children Senior Project Officer³

The impact of transition on basic education

In common with other Soviet satellite countries, Mongolia enjoyed an extensive and well resourced education system under communism. The role of pre-school education within basic education services was particularly important in the case of Mongolia, where primary schooling does not formally start until age 8. This late start of primary education was due to harsh weather conditions and the isolation of many rural, pastoralist children, whose needs were addressed through a system of primary boarding schools. Mongolia therefore had an extensive kindergarten system modelled on Soviet lines, offering free day-care (including food) and education to the children of working parents (the majority of Mongolian women are employed).

Basic education provision before transition:

· education was well established in the communist era with an infrastructure of schools throughout the country

· the education sector received the largest share of government expenditure (17.6%)

· an adult literacy rate estimated at 93%

· enrolment of 98% at primary school level, with low levels of dropout

· Free boarding schools to ensure access for rural/nomadic children

· High levels of female participation: 54% at primary school level and more at higher levels

· sudden and severe contraction of education resources: a reduction of 56% in education spending between 1990 and 1992

· capital investment halted and non-teaching staff reduced

· huge increases in heating costs leading to use of fewer classrooms and school closures in winter months

· parental contributions introduced for food and clothing

· private, fee-paying schooling was encouraged and local education authorities were encouraged to generate their own income

· closure of many primary boarding schools and pre-schools

· kindergartens in particular were regarded as a non-essential service and many were either closed (reduced from a total of 900 in 1990 to 700 in 1993) or run down

· drop-out and non-enrolment soared to an estimated 23% of children, mainly in poor and rural regions

· attendance at pre-school decreased, particularly in rural and marginal urban areas

· fall in real value of teachers' incomes, leading to increased absenteeism and teachers taking second jobs

In urban areas, the numbers of children working (most noticeably on the streets) has boomed. The poorest children live in small settlements in the districts or on the edge of towns. Their families are too poor even to herd, and they frequently come from single parent households. These families cannot afford the new kindergarten costs - the food, enough clothing and footwear for the winter, pencils and exercise books.

Rural children, whilst not necessarily living in such dire poverty, present a different problem of inclusion. They are very isolated, and eight is late to start primary school. Where primary boarding schools are available, families are often unable to meet the new demands for contributions. Economic pressures and the privatisation of herds has also had an impact as family survival depends on building up and maintaining their own herds and children are increasingly called upon to work.

'When there is a market economy there is also democracy. I read that in the paper. It's us who are going to decide. But we can't decide very much if we don't know what to decide about. That's why education is so important.... Lots of pupils have dropped out of school. There was one boy who was very clever but his family decided that he had to tend the... animals. That's because some people think that if children don't get good marks they might as well leave school. But they get bad marks because they don't have the textbooks, or because they don't have time to do their homework. So they just have to leave, I think it's very unfair. It's very very bad for the children and for our country.' 13 year old child

In addition to changes in the ability of the state to provide basic education and the ability of poor and marginalized children to access those services, fundamental changes are under way in the concept of and attitudes towards education. The existing pre-school and primary systems were heavily influenced by the Soviet model which can be characterised as hierarchical, centralised, inflexible and exclusive of marginalized children (poor, vulnerable, disabled). Under transition, the soviet approach which emphasizes the collective character of education and the transmission of subject based knowledge is being questioned in some quarters, and more child-centred education, reflecting the values of a more individualistic, Western society, is being explored as the alternative.

'There is some ambiguity about the quality of the service. On the one hand it is perceived to be very good, and worth going to considerable lengths to maintain. On the other hand there are uncertainties about the curriculum, and in particular whether or not a more child-centred, Westernized curriculum should be adopted. This dilemma is common to many countries in transition. Experiments are underway... to gradually introduce child-centred methods.' Helen Penn, External Consultant to Save the Children in Mongolia⁴

The response

What can an international NGO offer?

Save the Children's programme in Mongolia was set up in 1993/4, shortly after the transition process started and when the effects were at their worst. From the start, Save the Children's programme focused on the impact of transition on vulnerable children, pursuing a number of strategies to address Mongolia's transition-related difficulties by not only providing immediate relief, but also by seeking to address the root causes of vulnerability for children and their caregivers. This approach included programmes for street and working children as well as working with the government to develop a poverty alleviation programme. The emphasis on basic education as a key to tackling poverty and marginalization was identified from the outset:

'Save the Children's focus on education stems from the conviction that Mongolia's schools and kindergartens can play a major preventative role in countering vulnerability among children during and after transition. Through its work Save the Children seeks to reverse the accelerating process of exclusion of vulnerable children so that, whatever their home circumstances, children can be assured of a place in society through the educational system.'⁵

Acting as a bridge/motivator

The international perspective and experience which Save the Children as an international NGO was able to bring to its new programme in Mongolia was a defining element in strategic and operational decisions taken. The initial decision to explore the needs of children in Mongolia in the immediate post-communist period was based on an understanding of the processes of economic and political transition and their potentially devastating effect on all areas of society and particularly on children.

Based on this global perspective, the organisation was able, principally through the Programme Director, to see the impact of transition at the local level within the wider international framework. Save the Children subsequently played a key role in communicating this perspective to local actors and decision-makers, and was well placed to do this as one of the few international agencies operating in the country during the early phases of transition.

In its Mongolia programme, Save the Children has operated at all levels: within national policy making; with government institutions at a provincial and district level; and within individual schools and households. The breadth of the programme has been based on a sound understanding of local politics and administration gained through working contacts at the different levels. Having a small population has made this coverage easier, although the difficulties of travelling vast distances in subzero temperatures have had to be overcome.

Through dialogue, Save the Children has played an important part in redefining poverty in a transitional country. Under communism, jobs and services were available for everyone, and anyone who did not work was seen as merely lazy or foolish. Under transition and structural adjustment, the nature of poverty changed: people lost their jobs, and services shrank or became costly. But many people held and still hold onto their old attitudes that poverty is a self-inflicted disgrace. Defining who the poor are, how they are identified, and who is responsible for ameliorating poverty, has been a central theme in dialogue with actors at all levels. Save the Children has been pivotal in working with the Government to help it develop its Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAP) and in mobilizing external and internal support for them. Throughout, Save the Children liaised closely with the PAP Director and together identified research and training needs. On the research side, this included commissioning an initial report on vulnerable groups in transitional Mongolia⁶ and a training manual on monitoring. On the training side, a social work course was launched at the university which included training in child rights for staff working at a local level. In addition, many training packages associated with the programme and its implementation and monitoring were implemented by Save the Children staff for administrators, at national and local level. This in turn has generated wider discussion about poverty and its effects at national and local level.

Through the PAP, Save the Children has helped to raise awareness of the links between poverty alleviation and basic education provision. This was achieved through dialogue with different actors/policymakers and a range of activities including, in 1995, commissioning a key report which was submitted by officials to the Ministry of Education and Science (MOSE). The report outlined ways in which the pre-school sector could be developed to provide more places and address poverty, at little extra cost to the system.⁷ These suggestions were adopted by the government under Resolution 46 in April 1995, known as the National Pre-school Strengthening Programme (NPPS). The NPPS aims to support, transform and extend access to the kindergartens, and to use them explicitly as an inclusionary measure to protect poor and vulnerable children against the worst effects of transition through the following policy objectives:

· to create a relevant educational structure for the children of both nomadic and settled areas;

· to improve pre-school education content and methodology, and to improve the provision of training materials;

· to offer support for non-state kindergartens;

· to increase parental roles and responsibilities for pre-school child development, and promote home pre-school education;

· to improve teacher's skills and capabilities.

By 1996 the NPPS programme was well established under MOSTEC and kindergartens were slowly re-opening. Through a combination of a small grants programme and other pilot initiatives, Save the Children has been involved in developing schemes to promote the inclusion of poor and marginalized children in pre-schools.

The provision of grants to cover the food costs of poor children attending kindergartens was an initiative started in 1994 in response to a request to cover the food costs of a group of poor children to enable them to attend kindergarten. Save the Children extended this initiative and successfully encouraged support from local businesses and other international NGOs. Through Save the Children's involvement in the design of the PAP, food cost subsidies were included in the range of services that poor families could apply for. Other initiatives have included the establishment of 'shift groups' which offer pre-school provision for fewer hours per day thereby reducing the need for food costs.

The distribution of grants has been linked to initiatives which promote the inclusion of poor children, such as food cost subsidies to kindergartens which do not segregate groups of poor children (a practice which has been common) but instead group children according to age. In line with this policy of promoting inclusion in mainstream pre-schools, Save the Children has not supported proposals from other kindergartens targeted specifically at poor children.

Through the NPPS, Save the Children has supported the development of creative initiatives aimed at including isolated children in rural areas into pre-school and primary school services. Grants have supported rural kindergartens in developing special outreach programmes for isolated children and short intensive programmes for herders' children in the year before they are due to start primary school.

The small grants programme has also been used to promote the sustainability of kindergartens by supporting pilot projects to demonstrate rationalisation, cost recovery and income generation. Grants are one-off and recipient kindergartens and local authorities are encouraged to aim for self-sufficiency through initiatives such as building up animal herds or cultivating vegetables. The success of these projects has varied from one district to another, and in some cases where income has been successfully generated, it has not necessarily been spent in such a way as to promote the inclusion of poor or marginalized children. Some of the problems encountered in putting these and other initiatives into practice or replicating them more widely are explored in more detail in section II, part 3.

The NPPS has also focused on promoting curricula towards more responsive, child-centred content and methods and one of the criteria for receipt of NPPS funds is that kindergartens must have a 'methodologist' in place. Curricular change was not initially considered a priority by Save the Children staff, but quickly became so as the importance of and ambivalence about the curriculum emerged in discussion with officials. Mongolians had been proud of their reputation for educational reform and development, along communist lines, and the national curriculum was encoded in weighty documents; yet at the same time there was an uncomfortable and partial recognition that this curriculum should change and become more westernized. Save the Children has been involved in teacher training initiatives and pilot projects to develop the role of the methodologist in kindergartens. In order to support this area of work, specialists were recruited into the programme, and external advisers employed. This was backed up by investment in sending key officials and programme staff to training courses elsewhere in the South East Asia region to study curricular developments and gain exposure to other learning experiences.

In addition to the piloting of initiatives within the education sector through the NPPS, Save the Children has developed other related programmes which address the needs of vulnerable children including self-help programmes for street/working children and social welfare programmes to train and provide educational welfare officers for schools. These initiatives complement the efforts within the pre-school sector in raising awareness of the needs of disadvantaged children and the role of the education sector in addressing those needs.

Save the Children's approach in Mongolia

While the central strategic objective of working to strengthen pre-school education provision as part of an approach to tackling poverty has been fairly clear since the start of Save the Children's programme in Mongolia (based on an initial needs assessment study in 1992), it would be wrong to give the impression that it was a carefully planned and executed set of steps, each following the other chronologically, and scientifically designed to achieve the goals identified:

'Whatever the intentions of those who introduce it, seen close-up, change rarely seems rational or planned. Far more often it appears patchy and spasmodic, happening in fits and starts in response to a particular event - a new political appointment, an unexpected donor, freak weather, or sympathetic coverage in the press. In transition, the rate of change can be giddy, and what might have been a suitable strategy one week, is no longer viable a month later. Yet at the same time the fiction of orderly change must be maintained; transparent agreed strategies, systematic implementation; documentation, careful monitoring and evaluation.’ Helen Penn, External Consultant to Save the Children in Mongolia⁹

Coming in at the right time

Save the Children began its programme in Mongolia at a crucial time, just as the effects of transition were beginning to emerge and at a time when few other international NGOs were active and the agenda for reform was being driven almost entirely by financial considerations. Identifying appropriate responses at key moments, based on an understanding of the local and international context and careful listening to partners and key individuals, has been an important factor in developing the programme within Mongolia.

In the beginning one of the first contacts to be established was with Nordov Bolormaa, then head of the National Children's Centre which co-ordinated activities for children including out-of-school activities. She describes how, through a small investment in a piece of research, it was possible to raise awareness of the importance of preserving the pre-school sector at a time when it was seen as a low-priority and being allowed to become run down:

'When Save the Children opened its office here, no other NGO was interested in the preschool sector. In the socialist period, kindergartens (and other activities for children) were well developed. As transition began, parents were required to pay 50% of the food costs. Many parents could not pay and very quickly coverage slumped from 25% to 17%. Many kindergartens closed down. There was a big unit at the Ministry of Education (MOSTEC) responsible for the pre-school sector, with many specialist advisers, but the entire unit was disbanded, and only one person was left in charge at the pre-school desk. There was talk of abolishing the entire pre-school sector, and transferring its resources to the secondary sector; it was regarded as too marginal to be worth saving.’

'We thought the need was there, and with Save the Children, I commissioned a situation analysis. This was undertaken by Enkbat (see below). The situation analysis showed that demand for kindergartens was still strong, and our own complementary research showed that children who attended kindergarten did well at school, but that many parents were simply too poor to afford it.'

'As a result of our surveys there was a big public debate which highlighted the way in which the kindergartens were being decimated. We argued that they were an important part of social policy. Save the Children extended these arguments and played a major role in saving the sector from deterioration and collapse, by arguing that kindergartens could be used to promote inclusion and combat poverty.' Nordov Bolormaa, Former Head of the National Children's Centre

The process of identifying effective interventions at the right time is tied up with a flexible approach to working which avoids assumptions and pre- conceived strategies but instead aims to develop a responsive programme based on a careful analysis of the local context.

'Changing social attitudes takes time. What was different about Save the Children was that unlike other agencies they did not come in with their own programmes, with no consideration of local needs and local context, but they set out to explore the situation and find local solutions to local problems. Many UN agencies have big bilateral programmes but are oblivious to what goes on underneath. They have no local support - they offer higher salaries, use more funds, and when they go no-one can keep the project going. Also many foreigners come in and they are not really committed and devoted to what they are doing. But Save the Children based their work on local needs and conditions, and did a lot with a very small budget, and did it in such a way that it was easy to take over.' Nordov Bolormaa, Former Head of National Children's Centre

'The local context is important. We make good use of a wide range of information and do a proper needs assessment. Our programmes are based on the thorough assessment of local needs, close feedback and monitoring. We reach local grassroots levels but we also have the ability to develop small projects into big national programmes.’ Save the Children national staff

Adopting a low-key approach and building trust

As one of the first international NGOs in Mongolia in the post-communist period, it was vitally important to tread carefully and sensitively in order to win the trust of the different actors and government departments who were ultimately in a position to achieve practical policy changes at national level. Nordov Bolormaa describes the initial reaction of the Ministry of Education (MOSTEC) to the first pre-school situation analysis, and the strategy Save the Children and the National Children's Centre adopted in order to encourage them to act on its findings:

'At first everyone was surprised and shocked and said it was a Ministry affair and we were not supposed to intervene. They felt offended that outsiders such as Save the Children and the National Children's Centre had revealed the problems. We had to try to make the whole thing look like a MOSTEC initiative, put their name first on all the documents, and keep discussing it with them. As a result MOSTEC reconsidered their position, and instead with our help and prompting, introduced the NPPS.' Nordov Bolormaa, Former Head of National Children's Centre

Even practical decisions, such as the location of the office (centrally, but unobtrusively, on the third floor of an office block in Ulaanbaator) and the availability of its staff to all visitors ranging from officials to children, send out messages about how an international NGO sees its own role and status in a host country and have an impact on the response and receptiveness of local partners:

‘I try to play down my own influence, and not sing the praises of Save the Children. If the programme is successful it doesn't matter whether or not people associate it with me or Save the Children. The institutional needs of donors are usually paramount. I try to reduce the institutional profile and it pays off hugely. Its a paradox that you get a reputation by not seeking one. Profile building is much more subtle than people think.” John Beauclerk, Save the Children Programme Director

We have already mentioned the importance of identifying and working with key individuals in order to raise issues 'from within' and develop appropriate, locally owned initiatives to tackle the problems identified. The initial contact with Nordov Bolormaa which led to the influential situation analysis of the pre-school sector is one example. Through this contact and others, Save the Children was able to make links with and influence decision-makers in the Ministry of Education and other government departments.

As part of this process, Save the Children also identified and supported local consultants working outside the state structure such as Enkbat who was commissioned to undertake the original situation analysis of young children. He comes from a herding family and herded goats until he was eight, and like many of his contemporaries, went on to tertiary education. He became a management consultant at the university, but was constrained, like Boloormaa, by official requirements. Save the Children helped set him up to run an independent consultancy, and a social policy adviser was seconded from the UK to work with him for a year. Enkbat describes how he himself took part in the process of identifying and working with the right people in order to bring about change:

'Once we had done the needs analysis we had to work out how to get people to take it on board. We had days and nights of discussion. We decided it depended on working with key people rather than storming the system. We set up a working group with wide local representation. John was a key influence. Education was not his field and he did not have much direct influence, but he is a communicator and a mobilizer. He gave us impetus. No-one understood how poverty was going to hit us under transition, and he helped raise public awareness, but he did it through other people, and managed to get locals negotiating with locals, rather than doing it all as an outside agency.' Enkbat

'John has a specific way of choosing staff. He knows who is who and he has intuition. He asks around, interviews, picks people well. I am very happy here, although I am a different character, my working style has changed. An NGO is different from a government. In a government job you work for a routine 8 hours. In an NGO you must love your job and be hardworking. I take pleasure from my job. At SED I concentrated on the children, on what they were able to do, and what helped them to learn. I focused on curriculum and methods in the pre-school sector. I was 7 years at SED and everything carried on in the same way. When I started work at Save the Children my thinking changed. Save the Children is a very different agency from SED. Here the concentration is on poor children and why they can't attend kindergarten. Instead of the curriculum, the priority is poor families and how you reach them, what methods will reach them. Now I understand about poor families.' Tsendsuren Tumee, Save the Children Project Officer

Seeking to develop the potential of individuals reflects a wider approach to identifying and building on existing strengths within the Mongolian culture and social and state structures. Despite the rapid changes brought about by transition, prevailing attitudes, based as they were on socialist philosophies of social equity, state duty and public service, combined with an extensive state apparatus, provided opportunities for the development of an international NGO programme which had the potential to be far-reaching, effective and locally owned.

'We've collaborated as much as possible with people at national and local government level; not in any antagonistic way insisting on change, but strengthening what is here. Under transition there has been so much confusion, there are no fixed points of reference, ideas are whirling around. There were strengths here in what they had before transition. People say that communism was no good, that it was finished, but we needed to fix on something which they valued, to develop a strategy of strengthening what was there. People have half resented the collapse of communism and the fact that in the west communism equals failure; yet they also want our ideas, they want to know what options are open to them. If you confront the system brutally - as the critics of communism often do - you build up resentment or you can only operate with an elite client group. The nursery teachers here really thought they were doing a good job under communism, and it was wonderful to get behind them and support them in seeking to extend their practice. Other strategies would have got nowhere.’ John Beauclerk, Save the Children Programme Director

'In all the activities, people's personalities, commitment and good will were of crucial importance. People are driven by their professional values and humanistic motives. At the time when salaries of workers in the sector are scarce, budgets are limited to the basics and the morale is lowering elsewhere in the state sector, the efforts of the teachers and officials who work hard to improve access and quality of the pre-school are much applauded.' Mandal Urtnasan, Save the Children Senior Project Officer

Being experimental/opportunistic

Flexibility based on listening and encouraging local ideas has underpinned an 'opportunistic policy' of trying a range of short-term pilot projects, developing those that work and abandoning those that do not:

'Change under transition is so rapid, it is fruitless to insist on anything or to harp on about projects. You've got to be flexible - if Tsendsuren and Mandal (project officers) don't like it, you can't go on with it, it's their line not our line. It's like building a hut, what sticks, sticks and what falls, falls - if initiatives catch on that's fine, if they don't, abandon them. We've had lots of very small short-term pilot projects - if they work that's fine, we try to use them or adapt them, and negotiate with middle management over them, if they don't work, we forget them. Its an opportunistic policy, but our job as an NGO is to be with people at the stage they're at and support them in what they want to do. It's hard for me to plan precisely - the most surprising things catch on.' John Beauclerk, Save the Children Programme Director

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Has the programme made a difference, and who to? As the above accounts illustrate, perceptions about poverty and its causes have shifted. Nordov Boloorma lost her own job with the National Children's Centre in the process of transition, but now runs the Mongolian Child Rights Centre and still works closely with Save the Children. She describes how her own views have changed:

‘As a government official I used to see things from the top down, and we were not in a position to be critical about government policy. We thought poor people were poor because they were lazy, it was their fault. But now I understand that our social policy was wrong. We put people in a position where they could not do anything about their circumstances. I used to blame people. Now I understand they have no opportunities to change their own life, no access to information or power. We were not flexible enough to listen to poor people or address their needs. When a person is a civil servant he is constrained. You cannot disagree with Government statistics. I could not be frank and say yes, I know there are street children. At the NGO level you have less power but more flexibility, you can be more accurate and precise in your estimates, not merely to criticize but to explore the real situation.'

But what about impact on the ground? There is still much to learn about how the NPPS has affected access to and quality of pre-school education, and in particular how it has benefited children marginalized through poverty or isolation. The following paragraphs look at the views of those who have been directly affected by the changes being brought about through the NPPS.

The parents views

Groups of poor parents were asked by Save the Children staff and an external consultant how they had come to use the kindergarten, and then encouraged to discuss more generally the points they raised in conversation.¹³ Poor parents were understandably very grateful for the service. Almost all of those interviewed had previously been employed, but under transition were jobless. They welcomed the education their children were getting, and with real respect for teachers, did not doubt that it was of a good quality.

But above all they were desperately conscious of their own inability to provide for their children and welcomed the respite provided by the kindergarten service. Their only complaint was that they did not have enough of it. Kindergartens were seen by almost all parents, in whatever category, as a full time service, educating and caring for children for a full working day, and making sure they were properly fed, properly rested, and properly exercised. The poorer children mostly attended on a part-time or shift basis and this was regarded as insufficient.

Box 2: Parental perceptions of pre-schools Weaknesses · in the sum many people are unemployed, few people can afford the kindergarten, only teachers and doctors and government workers · conditions are not good, we cannot look after our children, the climate is very hard, there is no electricity, fuel costs are very expensive · I have no income, I cannot feed my children, here they get fed · I would like to take the children to kindergarten but I cannot afford it. The food and clothes costs are very expensive. If my children went to kindergarten they would have a chance to improve their future prospects. I want my children to go to kindergarten and to school · we would like full-time kindergarten, 8-1.30 is such a short period, we cannot go out · the shift group is not enough for families who have no food, they only get a cup of milk · the shift group time is very short, it is good for children to have more time · the kindergarten is good but it is only 9-2. After 2pm our children are in the street. They get their hands and face dirty. · I would like a longer time. My child was very stressed because his father died, now he is more calm after coming to kindergarten Strengths · I cannot express my gratitude enough, I am shelterless and live with this lady in her ger, there are 14 of us · It is very hard for the countryside. Before we had everything. Our clothes were very clean. Now we do not even have clothes for school, there are no notebooks for the children · If children go to the kindergarten they can sing, their clothes stay clean, they communicate with each other · I have 6 children, I am happy with the kindergarten as it is warm, clean and there is food here

Many of the kindergartens visited had integrated poor children as unobtrusively as possible and tried to interpret the policy about inclusiveness as constructively as possible. In others, although poor children had at least been admitted in small numbers, the view was that poor children were a group apart, from families that were less than adequate, and therefore the children should not mix with “normal” children. In one of the kindergartens which pursued this policy of separation, the parents were asked whether they thought it was a good idea.

Q: Should poor children and normal children be in the same class together or have separate lessons?

· I like a separate group because ordinary children have a different level of life, their clothes are different, they are made of different material, even their shoes are different

· with the younger children mixed groups would be possible, but not with seven year olds, its too late. Ordinary and poor children are really different

· you can see in the playground poor children and normal children stand separately

· I would like to see them mixed up but our children are aware, they see that I am poor

It emerged that one of the kindergarten groups closed in winter, because the clothes distribution was not co-ordinated with access to kindergarten, and without clothes and boots, not enough children come to make the class viable. Parents were asked what they thought about this policy:

Q: Should the kindergarten group close in winter?

· It's true, in wintertime children don't come

· some families could manage the clothes and boots and the kindergarten doesn't need to close the group, although it would be hard for teachers with just a few children

Q. (to kindergarten director, who is still present): 'Couldn't the budget be shared out to provide more resources for poor children?'

· the state budget is for normal children. The state budget is not for poor children.¹⁴

These quotes reveal the difficulties in changing engrained negative attitudes towards poverty at both the level of parents and service providers. In thinking about how to promote more sensitive understanding of the causes of poverty under transition, Save the Children staff have considered and rejected the use of with-holding grants as a sanction, in favour of a more constructive approach that continues to explore ways of reinforcing the equal status of all children and recognises that a shift in attitudes will be a gradual process.

Paradoxically, in view of the differentiation between 'poor' and 'normal' children, the intention of kindergartens in the communist tradition was to offer an upbringing in citizenship and social solidarity, a much wider role than that assumed by pre-school services in the West. These are some parents' views on citizenship:

Q: What makes a good citizen?

· As a good father I will give an example to my child

· My child knows he must be good

· the family is important but the education level makes a difference, so kindergarten is very important

· There is a good Mongolian tradition that children should listen to their parents

Q: What would you like your child to be when he/she grows up?

· a professional person, a good citizen
· to have a good education
· he will have a good profession, not be a dependent person
· she will have a good professional job, and not be dependent
· a good professional job and the ability to help other people

Q: What makes a good citizen?

· intelligence and cleverness

· being a professional

· listening to parents and listening to others

· not dependent

· being a help to others

· caring for younger brothers and sisters

· hardworking

· it depends on your personal life. If you come from a poor family you will be more generous and less selfish

The demarcations between professional and amateur under communism were pronounced: a professional service had in all respects to be provided by those appointed and trained to do so, and there was little or no tradition of voluntarism. Some of the parents said that they would like to contribute to the nursery in kind, if not in money, but hardly any in fact had been able to make such contributions. The issue of parental involvement in pre-school provision, which has been fruitfully developed in other contexts, offers scope for improved community/school partnerships in post-communist societies.

· if they would only open up a new room for the kindergarten, I would do anything, make chairs for the children (father)

· we would clean up the rooms and make them suitable

What did teachers make of their circumstances? The need for changes had been recognised, partly, on the basis of the need for new, more inclusive strategies towards children for a country in transition, and partly on the basis of a new, more modern curriculum to bring teachers up to date.

Kindergarten teachers were interviewed in the region of Gobi Altai, in the south of Mongolia, where the remoteness of the desert steppes means that young children are brought up in conditions of extreme isolation. Under the lead of the innovative regional Director of Education and his pre-school adviser, the teachers have had opportunities to discuss and reflect on the new policies. One teacher interviewed regularly visited herder's children, travelling by horse, camel, motorbike or whatever transport was available, to carry out an outreach programme devised by the kindergarten. Many poor children in the immediate district come to the kindergarten, and in addition the kindergarten runs a one month intensive training course for children aged 7-8 who are due to start school. All these activities are carried out without extra staff and with very little extra money, and teachers were asked whether they felt it was difficult or unreasonable to take on such extra work:

'Teachers are hardworking because they must do it. If they are not hardworking maybe they will be unemployed. In a market economy whoever works harder gets richer. The governors and citizens will see how hard we work. I hope our kindergarten will be big again with many staff and rich with materials.'

'Teachers don't like extra training, because the Aimag (region) cannot pay for extra study. Working with extra children is an imposition'

'parents are beginning to understand the role and value of pre-schools so they are more and more interested in school preparation. But not enough parents want to use pre-school.'

· we would like to follow a more flexible curricula in line with the latest international and national developments in pre-school education content and curricula as well as the needs and interests of Mongol children

· there is an urgent need to change the pre-school curriculum

· there are certain achievements in introducing child centred approaches and integrated training

· the pre-school initiatives in terms of teacher retraining, child-centred integrated training and efforts to develop children and encourage their independent learning became broader than in the past

'we should draw attention to the fact that sometimes we are playing with the mentality of Mongolian children following and introducing foreign models and activities which may not suit our children.'

The views of Administrators and Politicians

Local government in Mongolia is relatively strong and well organized. At aimag (regional) level there is a Director of Education who is part of a group of senior officials reporting regularly to the elected aimag governor. Partly as a result of Save the Children intervention there is now in most aimags a pre-school adviser/inspector who draws up the plans for the kindergartens in the region, organizes their in-service training, and carries out inspections of individual kindergartens on a two or three yearly basis. She also compiles the local statistics according to criteria set by the Ministry of Education. At the sum (district) level, there is also an elected governor, reporting to a citizen's horal or assembly, who often works closely with the kindergarten director and school director. The influence of the sum governor can be critical. Where he is positive and interested in the kindergarten, he can make a great difference. This governor of a sum near the Siberian border was very enthusiastic:

'Our future starts from the kindergarten. Last year we had a meeting of the citizen's horal. The horal said we could not afford two groups in the kindergarten. I said there would be, and I made sure the budget was available for the salaries. I wanted two mixed groups. I did not think poor children should be separated from other children. I make sure the provision of clothes is co-ordinated by the kindergarten so that lack of clothes or footwear does not prevent children from coming to school. The kindergarten teachers work hard because I support them. As a result of the Save the Children project we have established a farm, and with the profits from animal products we have bought toys and there will be money left to upgrade the playground. If possible I want all children to be covered.'

'Life is very hard here. The Save the Children have imposed hard criteria. It would make more sense to have flexible criteria. We have paid for heating to reopen the kindergarten but although it has empty rooms we do not have any extra money for poor children. The money for clothes from the poverty alleviation fund goes only to schoolchildren.'

Children themselves, and particularly young children, represent the group whose views it is most difficult to obtain. In Mongolia, where children are brought up to respect their elders and not to contradict them, and the rigidity of the communist system reinforced such views, this is a particularly challenging area. Helen Penn, external consultant to the Save the Children Mongolia programme, explains what happened when she and Save the Children staff tried to gather the views of children in kindergartens:

'We did try to take groups of kindergarten children aside, but they were very shy and tongue-tied, children from herding families especially so. They spoke to us in agonized whispered monosyllables, despite all Tsendsuren's efforts to put them at their ease. We could glean that children had hard lives by Western standards - young boys were expected to herd animals and both boys and girls were expected to show considerable physical stamina and endurance.’ Helen Penn, External Consultant, Save the Children Mongolia 15

What has been learnt?

Save the Children's programme in Mongolia offers useful lessons about approaches to working with a state system to shape changes in central thinking and achieve positive changes in education practice.

Interpreting poverty

In Mongolia, SCF was able to draw on its international perspective in assisting national government to interpret international economic trends and their impacts on poverty and children at the local level. Operating in an environment where there was no tradition of international NGOs, this experience demonstrates the value of adopting a low key approach that sought to a) build up trust with government officials at different levels; b) identify and work with key people in order to promote a shift in attitudes towards poverty, and; c) build up local skills and inspire locally owned strategies for tackling rising poverty.

Paradoxically, the context of rapid economic change which gave rise to many of the problems identified, also gave rise to a climate where it was possible to question existing attitudes and practices and to introduce new approaches to poverty and education. The study demonstrates the importance of undertaking thorough analysis, not only as a basis for effective programme planning, but also to stimulate local debate. In this case, research into the links between economic transition and poverty, jointly commissioned by Save the Children and the government, provided a practical framework for officials to interpret events and to introduce more poverty-focused policies. This led, ultimately, to the national government's commitment to preserving and improving pre-school education provision as a means of tackling the marginalization of poor and vulnerable children.

The role of pre-school education in poverty alleviation

Pre-school provision has traditionally enjoyed an important place within education systems influenced by the Soviet system. In Mongolia, where children do not start primary school until the age of 8, pre-school provision has had an even greater impact on children's lives. The rapid contraction of the pre-school sector at the start of the transition period reflected pressures on government to cut back public expenditure, and were not the result of any co-ordinated policy changes.

The research commissioned by Save the Children demonstrated that those worse affected by rising poverty were very young children. These findings stimulated local recognition of the potential for a revived pre-school system to mitigate against the effects of poverty on children. In the Mongolian context, the benefits of pre-school provision on early child development and future educational performance were well understood by officials with a soviet legacy, and the infrastructure was already in place, though badly neglected. A national commitment to preserving the pre-school sector evolved into a commitment to extend its scope and impact, with ambitious targets to increase attendance to 80% of the eligible population by the year 2000, while pre-transition coverage only reached 27%.

The Mongolia study also demonstrates the importance of combining changes in policy at government level with the development of practical approaches to achieving change at school level. Drawing on experience from elsewhere, Save the children piloted a range of creative and cost-effective ways of improving pre-school education (not all of them successful) aimed at making it more sustainable, accessible and responsive to the needs of poor and disadvantaged children. While a new focus on poverty was compatible with the inherited soviet philosophy of social equity at the government level, it was not easily absorbed at the level of individual schools and parents. This experience underlines that change in attitudes happens in pockets rather than uniformly, and is inevitably a gradual, and often frustrating process.

Introducing change

In Mongolia there is both loyalty to and dissatisfaction with communist education systems, and changes are met with mixed feelings by both policymakers and teachers. In this context, curricular change and new methods aimed at making education provision more relevant to children's needs must be sensitively introduced if they are to be effective. In order to increase exposure to child-centred learning methodologies, Save the Children arranged for key officials to attend training courses on curricular development within the South East-Asia region. These officials were then involved in the process of curriculum change and the development of teacher training initiatives within Mongolia. In this way, Save the Children sought to promote changes at both policy-making and classroom level.

It is important to recognise that a key element of Save the Children's intervention, the introduction of child-centred approaches to education, comes out of the organisation's Western/European outlook. That Save the Children's analysis is born of its cultural background is as inevitable as the changes which currently rack Mongolian society as a result of its rapid entry into the global economy. In the context of transition, Save the Children concluded that if the pre-school education system was to become more flexible within the changing environment and more responsive to children's needs, it must include child-focused teaching approaches. Save the Children's approach, which targets both policymakers and teachers at classroom level, aims to develop local skills and capacity in order to develop curricula and approaches which, while being more child-centred, are adapted to the Mongolian context. The initial outcomes of this approach have been positive, though it has yet to be evaluated more formally.

The approach of the international NGO

While the focus of this study is on education, it also charts the start up of Save the Children's programme in Mongolia, showing the rationale for initial operational and programmatic choices. In the absence of a local NGO structure, Save the Children concentrated on working with government, gradually building up the trust of key officials who had little or no previous experience of working with external agencies.

Intervening at a crucial moment of economic transition offered opportunities for influencing at the heart of a policymaking structure which was still centralised, but also receptive to ways of interpreting and tackling the effects of the overwhelming social and economic changes brought by transition. Save the Children was able to use this opportunity to help redefine attitudes to poverty, recognising its particular impact on children, and prioritising the pre-school system as a tool in tackling the negative effects of economic transition.

The recruitment and training of culturally sensitive and competent staff who were themselves open to new ways of working has been an essential element of this process. The importance of individuals in development programmes tends to be underplayed in the quest for more strategic working approaches. However, this case study demonstrates clearly that individuals can make or break a programme.

Editors' Conclusions · The speed of change in Mongolia (as in other societies in economic transition) compromised the ability of government to provide basic education just when, more than ever, children needed the skills and knowledge which a responsive education could give them to prepare them for life in the new context. · Save the Children's pre-school education programme in Mongolia developed as a response to the problems thrown up by rapid economic transition, but was also based on the organisation's (primarily western) ideas about the value of child centred learning and the developmental purpose of education. · Former centrally-planned economies lack experience of developing systems that are responsive to community needs. There were particular difficulties in developing locally appropriate methods for encouraging children to express their views, in a culture where this has generally been discouraged. · The introduction of ideas that were essentially external required a high level of sensitivity but by increasing local understanding of the links between poverty and education, Save the Children acted as a catalyst to a process of education reform which is locally owned. The vision, attitude and approach of key staff was critical in gaining acceptance and influencing policy-makers. · The programme aim was to protect and improve the pre-school system. The broader aim was that this would serve to alleviate poverty in the present as well as prevent future poverty. There is little evidence to date that this has been achieved, and in many places pre-school provision continues to benefit the better off children, while poor children still have limited access. · Nevertheless, there is evidence that without the changed attitudes of key policymakers with whom this programme has worked, there would be no pre-school system in Mongolia today within which to tackle these issues.

Notes

¹ Mongolian National University, 1994. Mongolia Demographic Survey. Main Report. Population and Teaching Research Centre, Mongolian National University

World Bank 1996. Mongolia: Poverty in a Transition Economy. Rural and Social Development Operations Division, Chinese and Mongolia Department, East Asia Pacific Regional Office

Ministry of Enlightenment 1995. Mongolia Education Statistics. Ministry of Enlightenment, Mongolia.

² Hoist, J., Kruchov, C., Hadsen, U., Norgaard, E, 1995. School Development in Mongolia 1992 -1994. Royal Danish School of Educational Studies. Copenhagen

³ Urtnasan, M, 1998. 'Child Welfare and Mongolia's Transition from Centrally Planned to Market economy.' Independent report. London

⁴ Penn, H, 1998. 'Consultancy Report on Mongolia.' Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, London University.

⁵ Beauclerk, J, 1998. 'Save the Children's Activities in Mongolia 1994-98'. Internal report. Save the Children

⁶ Harper, C. 1994. An Assessment of Vulnerable Groups in Mongolia. Strategies for Social Policy Planning. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, Washington D.C.

⁷ Penn, H, 1997. 'Consultancy Report on the Mongolian National Pre-school Strengthening Programme.' Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, London University

⁸ Beauclerk, J, 1996. 'Save the Children Fund in Mongolia. A priority Focus on the Young Child'. Internal report, Save the Children

⁹ Penn 1998

¹⁰ Enkhbat 1994. Report on the Fact Finding Study for Pre-school Strengthening in Mongolia, Consultancy Centre, Institute of Administration & Management Development, Mongolia

¹¹ Majid Rahnema, 1992. In (ed) W. Sachs, The Development Dictionary, Zed Books, London

¹² Enkhbat 1997.

¹³ Penn 1998

¹⁴ Penn 1998

¹⁵ Penn 1998