The Jomtien Declaration and Dakar Framework for Action
The World Declaration on Education for All (EFA), in 1990, identified quality as a
prerequisite for achieving the fundamental goal of equity. While the notion of quality was
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not fully developed, it was recognized that expanding access alone would be insufficient
for education to contribute fully to the development of the individual and society.
Emphasis was accordingly placed on assuring an increase in children’s cognitive
development by improving the quality of their education. Similarly, the 2000 Dakar
Framework for Action affirmed that quality was ‘at the heart of education’ – a
fundamental determinant of enrolment, retention and achievement. Its expanded
definition of quality set out the desirable characteristics of learners (healthy, motivated
students), processes (competent teachers using active pedagogies), content (relevant
curricula) and systems (good governance and equitable resource allocation). Although
this established an agenda for achieving good education quality, it did not ascribe any
relative weighting to the various dimensions identified. Thus, the Dakar forum
emphasized the need to “improve all aspects of quality of education to achieve
recognized and measurable learning outcomes for all-especially in literacy, numeracy and
essential life skills” (Dakar Framework for Action, Article 7,
World Education Forum
2000).
4. Dimensions of Education Quality
The following dimensions of education quality emerge from the literature:
Learner Characteristics
How people learn - and how quickly - is strongly influenced by their capacities
and experience. Assessments of the quality of education outputs should not ignore initial
differences among learners. Important determining characteristics can include cultural
and religious background and the amount and nature of prior learning. It is therefore
important that potential inequalities among students, deriving from gender, disability,
race and ethnicity, HIV/AIDS status and situations of emergency are recognized. These
differences in learner characteristics often require special responses if quality is to be
improved.
Context
Links between education and society are strong and each influences the other.
Education can help change society by improving and strengthening skills,
values,
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communications, mobility (link with personal opportunity and prosperity) personal
prosperity and freedom. However, education usually reflects society rather strongly: The
values and attitudes that inform it (education) are those of society at large. Equally
important is whether education takes place in the context of an affluent society or one
where poverty is widespread. In the latter case, opportunities to increase resource for
education are likely to be constrained.
More directly, national policies for education also provide an influential context.
For example, goals and standards, curricula and teacher policies set the enabling
conditions within which educational practice occurs. These contextual circumstances
have an important potential influence upon education quality.
Enabling Inputs
The success of teaching and learning is likely to be strongly influenced by the
resources made available to support the process and the direct ways in which these
resources are managed. It is obvious that schools without teachers, textbooks or learning
materials will not be able to do an effective job. In that sense resources are important for
education quality –
although how and to what extent this is so have not yet been fully
determined. Inputs are enabling in that they undersign and are intrinsically interrelated to
teaching and learning processes, which in turn affect the range and the type of inputs used
and how effectively they are employed. The main input variables are material resources
(textbooks, classrooms, libraries, school facilities and other non-human resources) and
(human resources (managers, headteachers, teachers, supervisors, and support staff)
with the management of these resources as an important additional dimension.
5. Indicators of Education Quality
The literature so far suggests that quality is both a quantitative and a qualitative issue. Its
indicators should therefore convey notions of quantity and quality (Dare (2005). Van den
Berghe (1997) defines quality indicators of education as performance indicators that refer
to a quality characteristic or objective, thus alluding to the broad context of performance
evaluation in which the learners operate. It may also be understood in terms of a figure
that describes quality characteristic or the achievement of quality objectives. In matters of
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indicators therefore, concepts such as efficiency, relevance, importance and adequacy
cannot be ignored.
