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Without implementation, what’s the point of planning? This is what brings policies and strategies to life so that learners everywhere can benefit from education. At IIEP-UNESCO, we work closely with governments to ensure that plans become reality and are monitored and evaluated to allow for adjustments along the way.
Anna Haas, an IIEP programme specialist, shares her views on navigating this often complex, yet meaningful process.
What is your view on how planners today can ensure implementation?
There are several dimensions here. There's a technical side and a side that focuses more on soft skills. Technically, planners must maintain a firm hand in planning for implementation. This includes ensuring that the operational planning cycle works effectively and providing technical planning support to line departments responsible for policy implementation.
For example, if a ministry implements a policy on universal access to early childhood education, it requires a lot of operational planning involving several different line departments. For instance, departments dealing with infrastructure might need to construct more pre-primary schools, and there may be a need to train more pre-primary teachers, which involves the department responsible for teacher training. The planner plays a crucial role here, as line departments might not have strong planning expertise. The planner helps ensure that the roadmaps make sense and are coherent. They also need to ensure alignment between budget allocations and what the line departments want to implement.
What strikes me most is that planners in ministries have a critical coordination role. Their ability to communicate, coordinate, and use their soft skills to bring people together in a gentle but firm manner is essential for moving things forward in a coordinated way. So, there’s both a technical and a coordination aspect to it.
What are some of the key challenges that can block implementation?
Implementation can be messy; it is not a linear process. While it is not easy, the planning process and creating a vision, and taking it towards implementation, is a very positive process that brings people together.
One common stumbling block is the presence of weak incentives for achieving results in many education systems. Educational administrations are often embedded in a bureaucratic culture where officials focus on ensuring that rules and regulations are followed and that procedures are complied with. And while this is important, it can hinder implementation.
There’s a quote by management guru Peter Drucker that I like: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." This resonates with what I see in ministries of education, where organizational structures can block the implementation of strategies or policies due to a strong compliance culture.
Are there certain things that ministries can do, perhaps with IIEP, to put in place early in the planning and management cycle?
Yes, they can identify and support champions who push for progress despite the compliance culture. These individuals should be given space and opportunities to lead. Another essential element is monitoring and evaluation, which is crucial for good implementation. Without it, you’re navigating in foggy weather, where you cannot see if you are making any progress.
Establishing a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) strategy early on, and thinking through how you will monitor and evaluate implementation, is very important. A MEL framework can help break the compliance culture by promoting a performance culture and holding people accountable.
Do you have any country examples that have put this type of system in place and where they stand today in terms of implementation?
The most obvious example for me is Jordan. In recent years, I’ve worked intensively with their Ministry of Education and their monitoring and evaluation unit. They have made significant progress over the past three years. Initially, their MEL strategy for monitoring the implementation of their sector plan had over 400 indicators, which was overwhelming.
We facilitated a group of Ministry officials from planning, MEL, and other units to define a more realistic results framework for the eight domains of the education sector plans. They reduced the number of indicators to just above 100, making the monitoring more manageable per sector domain. They also put the framework on an online platform for easy access. This revised framework has enabled them to produce annual reports on sector plan implementation. The annual report is the key input to the Joint Annual Review Meeting and is used by various actors in the system to learn from and take stock of progress.
What’s next for you as you continue this kind of work?
The most exciting thing ahead for me is a new course on monitoring, evaluation, and learning, which will be IIEP’s first ever on this topic. This course is based on the growing demand from UNESCO Member States and is linked to improving policy and plan implementation. I will be dedicating a lot of my time in the coming months to developing this course, which will be offered in English in 2025.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.
