Abstract
This study was targeted to assess adult education program implementers’ understanding towards adult education policy documents and usage of the documents in Addis Ababa City Administration. In order to guide the study qualitative method was applied. Accordingly, qualitative data was gathered using interview and document analysis. Qualitative data like views of respondents and result gained from document analysis were discussed by narrating the evidences/responses in words. As the findings of this study reveals, majority of adult education program implementers lack understanding about the policy documents of adult education sector; there is no established and sustainable awareness creation system and capacity building program for newly employed and other personnel; non-existence an established structure to lead adult education program according to the designed strategy documents are some of the results of the research. In order to overcome the challenges mentioned above adult education implementing organizations have to launch continuous professional development (CPD) program for implementers of adult education program. Consequently, implementers of the program can get first-hand information on the policy documents on one hand and they can also upgrade their profession on the other hand.
Keywords
Introduction
Ethiopia stands the second populous country in Africa of which about 80% live in the rural areas. According to UNESCO (2006), 58.5% of the country’s population aged 15 years and above is illiterate. The report by the ministry of education revealed that as a result of continues implementation of the education sector development plan when access to formal schooling improved; the status of adult education has remained low in terms of both accessibility and relevance. This low level of adult education program initiated the Ethiopian Government to launch the National Adult Education Strategy (NAES) in 2008 (MoE, 2008).
In Ethiopia there is one comprehensive education and training policy which encompasses all education sectors in one (general education, higher education, adult education and technical, and vocational education). Here, the researcher believe that lack of separate policy for each of the programs mentioned above is one of the major gap observed in education sector in the country. In order to fill the gap the adult education program has designed the national adult education strategy in 2008 to guide the sector. The national adult education strategy serves as a frame for the development of more detailed working documents (guidelines, manuals, directives) for adult education (AE) sector. These are: adult education implementation guideline, adult education curriculum framework, adult education master plan, adult education path way, adult education memorandum of understanding manual, adult education benchmarks, adult education supervision manual, adult education facilitation guideline, and adult education teaching learning materials development manual among others.
The main objective of the national adult education strategy is to establish a well planned, organized and coordinated adult education system that can provide opportunities for youth and adults to access quality and relevant learning programs to enable them to participate competently in social, economic and political development of the country (MoE, 2008).
The strategy delineates four directions of implementation of the strategic objectives: “expanding adult education program; establishing quality and relevant adult education system; increasing the coverage of adult education program equitably; and creation of institutional system and capacity for continuous adult education provision” (MoE, 2008).
The monitoring and evaluation result of the 5th Education Sector Development Plan execution identified five key problems of adult education program in Ethiopia. These problems as summarized by Tadesse (2021) are:
Absence of an organized institutional system to lead the program: the boards, the technique committee, the center management committee at all levels are not properly functioning and lack synergy. As a result the program remains with poor planning, implementation, organization, and monitoring and evaluation.
Lack of commitment from the implementers side to implement the program: implementers (managers, supervisors, experts, and facilitators) at all levels (national, regional, zonal, district, and center) lacked motivation to run the program.
Insufficient budget allocation for the program: the ministry of education affirmed that there is minimal budget allocation for adult education sector as compared with other education sectors. As a result the program has high shortage of teaching learning resources both for adult learners and facilitators.
Lack of post-literacy strategy and curriculum framework may bring relapsing of illiteracy.
Absence of sustainable monitoring and evaluation system: this means the program implementers at lower levels of might not get technical support from supervisors and top management. In addition to this, effectiveness of the program and its relevance to the day to day activities of the entire community could not be assessed.
Even though, adult education program in an organized form, in Ethiopia, has been implementing since long years (Shenkut, 2005), even before the development of the national adult education strategy, the illiteracy rate of the country remains high. On this regard (Central Statistics Agency (CSA), 2012) Monitoring Survey Report estimated that there were 20.4 million adults who were illiterate in the country.
Rationale
At the researcher’s home University, while the researcher was teaching the course entitled “adult education policy formulation and implementation” in summer in-service program, the researcher has gotten the opportunity to discuss strategic and policy documents of adult education sector with students. During the discussion, the author has observed that most of the students, even those working in adult education sector, have the difficulties to identify and use of adult education strategy and policy documents.
On the other hand, while the researcher was delivering short term trainings for district adult education coordinators and adult learning center facilitators, the author has noticed that they have problem to differentiate these strategy and policy documents. These situations initiated researcher to explore the extent adult education program implementers in Addis Ababa City Administration understand and use adult education strategy and policy documents in the execution process of the program. Hence, this study was designed to answer the following guiding questions.
How do AE implementing bodies at sub city, district, and centers understand the existing adult education strategy and policy documents?
How do implementers use adult education strategy and policy documents in the implementation process?
Is there an established system to introduce adult education strategy and policy documents to implementers by the responsible bodies (government, non-government, private)?
Conceptual Framework
Adult education: Adult education, in the broadest sense, is any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling. In the narrowest sense, adult education is about literacy adults learning to read the most basic materials. Thus, adult education encompasses everything from basic literacy to personal fulfilment as a lifelong learner and the attainment of advanced degrees (Peterson, 2021).
According to MoE (2008), “Adult education refers an educational process directed at raising the knowledge and skills of citizens aged 15 years and above starting from basic reading, writing and computing skills, numeracy, problem solving and life skills and other knowledge in an organized manner.” Adult education also viewed in terms of its delivery system which includes: adult basic education, lifelong learning, continuing education, adult formal education, among others.
Although adult education program has a diversified nature and delivering in different modalities, the study was limited to adult basic education program (currently named as “integrated functional adult education”) run by the government. Again, in order to see it holistically, the study covered the process of adult education program implementers’ understanding on adult education strategy policy documents at different levels following the existing structure of education sector.
Introduction of Policy Documents to Implementers
To equip the implementers of certain education policy with appropriate knowledge and skills that help them to bring more improved practices in the work they engaged, the program implementers should continuously equipped with modern and improved implementation strategies. Therefore, short and continuous in-service training shall be prepared in addition to the efforts made on the individual basis to improve their performance. In supporting the idea mentioned above, Mata (2012) proposes-effective and efficient implementation of an education policy is the result of continuous on-job training provided for actual implementers of the policy.
Similarly, Williamson and Payton (2009) acknowledge the importance of orientation/induction for effective implementation of education programs and they substantiate idea by providing practical example as stated hereunder.
For the integration between curriculum design and classroom implementation, pointing out that innovation in the arrangement and composition of the curriculum implies an innovation in practice. Training is required to change implementers’ thinking and behaviour in its implementation. This is time consuming, especially at the outset of the process. Some form of professional development is necessary for teachers/facilitators to understand the introduced policy documents and they need to be given time to understand what is expected of them and time to reflect on it. Teachers/facilitators need to be afforded opportunities to share their successes concerning the policy documents initiative to maintain momentum and the idea to their colleagues and even to beneficiaries.
To conclude, in order to perform effective adult education program, it is mandatory to equip implementers at different levels with the capacity to make evidence based decisions. Especially, to reach at the intended goal creating implementers who are able and self-confident leaders of adult education, has a crucial role. Therefore, the executing capacity of implementers’, stakeholders and facilitators is very important in making adult education to play its roles in achieving the intended goal. Having this in mind the objective of awareness creation program for policy implementers shall be: to ensure effective and high quality implementation of education programs; to equip implementers with the necessary knowledge, skills and practices; and to provide necessary support for the implementation of education policy in general and adult education programs in particular.
Policy Implementation
In the literature one can find various definitions and strategies about the concept of policy implementation. For instance, Swanepoel et al. (2008) viewed policy implementation as a strategy for policies execution. Similarly, Fox et al. (2007) discusses policy implementation as quality enhancement strategy. Whereas the most commonly used definition of policy implementation as discussed by Brynard (2005) is “to carry out, to accomplish, to fulfill, to produce or to complete” certain policy, program, project.
Having in mined the conceptual understanding given above, in this study, policy implementation was viewed as making use of and putting into practice policies, rules, and procedures as set out in adult education policy and strategy documents by implementers of the program at different levels.
Requirements for Successful Implementation of Education Policies
Scholars in the area of policy implementation suggest important requirements for the effective implementation of a given policy. Some of these requirements are summarized as follow:
• compliance with statutes, directives, and goals,
• achievement of specific success indicators,
• decisions taken to locate political responsibility for the initiative,
• team dynamics and level of commitment,
• motivation and commitment,
• careful planning,
• communication and building of partnerships,
• goal attainment,
• public participation,
• public satisfaction,
• risks of the project,
• clarity and feasibility of the policy,
• proper work assignment and evaluation,
• leadership and cooperation, and
• capability of implementers (Chukanuka, 2006; Giacchino & Kakabadse, 2003; Hill & Hupe, 2002).
In addition to the above listed requirements for the successful policy implementation, Fredriksen (2008) suggests three more requirements to be used for the effective implementation of education policies. These are:
• Political leadership: Strong political leadership at the highest (national and provincial) level plays an important role in successful policy implementation, especially when the policy originates from current policies
• Careful planning: success requires careful planning and that careful planning involves a number of activities, such as prior analytical assessment of the magnitude, use and replacement of existing fees, construction of strategies necessary to address possible policy implementation challenges, and building implementation and monitoring capacity.
• Communication/building partnership: A comprehensive communication and consultation process with the key stakeholders is of great importance. Phasing-in the reforms
Policies may not yield good results just because of their nature or quality. Cheng and Cheung (1995) list preparations for policy implementation as a key area for the success and smoothness in the implementation. Preparation for educational policy implementation includes the readiness of the concerned parties, the readiness of resources, the timeframe of implementation, and the legal preparations. Readiness of the concerned parties includes the cognitive, psychological and technological readiness of the education officers, school administrators, teachers, learners, parents, and other interested professionals (Cheng & Cheung, 1995). In addition, Cheng and Cheung (1995) maintain that hasty policy implementation will not only be unsuccessful but will receive criticism from the public. Policy makers undertake to protect and respect the legal rights of all concerned parties through legal preparations. These enhance the psychological and cognitive readiness of the concerned parties to support the policy implementation.
Policy Implementation Problem
Challenges to implementing education policy include co-ordination issues, inadequacy of organizational resources, actors’ capacity or reactions against changes. But as the education sector has become more complex, the challenges of putting change into practice have also evolved.
Concerning the problems encountered during education policy implementation in developing nations different writers identified some of the major challenges as follow. Policy implementation problems as stated by Ajulor (2016), include: improper planning, political instability, and bureaucratic bottleneck, the deliberate imposition of policy, complete alteration to the plan if it is not favorable to the implementers or civil servants saddled with the responsibility to implement it.
Similarly, Dialoke et al. (2017) and OECD (2017) discuss that the implementation of a given public policy is challenged by the following three basic factors like organization of the implementation process, interpretation of the policy, and application of the policy. Moreover, it is argued that African nations have no problem in formulation of the policy and strategy documents. Their major problem is implementing the policy as planned and failure to participate the target beneficiaries of the policy. In supporting the idea mentioned above Ggoobi (2016) argues that sometimes policies of developing countries including Africa may not match with the felt need of the entire community.
Majority of scholars in the area of public policy argue that the problem of policy implementation appears when the policy under implementation is unable to significantly improve the life of the target beneficiaries (Ajulor, 2018).
Indicators of Effective Implementation of Education Policy
According to Hill and Hupe (2002, p. 15), effective implementation of education policy necessitates three major requirements: conformity of the policy with rules, regulations, laws, and purposes of the country; attainment of certain preset success indicators; and the improvement observed in the political condition of a policy. On the same issue, Giacchino and Kakabadse (2003, p. 31) evaluated the major factors contributing to effective execution of education policy. They argued that the following three integrated points were essential for successful implementation: the judgment made to determine political accountability; the existence of an effective leadership and the political will; and the dedication of implementers at all levels. The issue of motivation and dedication show the executers’ evaluation of the value of a policy. The presence of these indicators in the implementation of adult education program in Ethiopia is found in its lowest level. Because the research result conducted Tadesse (2021) showed that there is very low willingness from the political leaders to implement the program; there is also low commitment of program implementers at lower levels of the structure.
In substantiating the idea mentioned above, Fredriksen and Tan (2008, p. 49) also listed some of the indicators for effective implementation of education policy. These are commitment of political leaders; having good plan; having a restructuring schedule; the presence of good information exchange channel; and establishing of partnerships with stakeholders.
Furthermore, Chukanyuka (2006, p. 31) suggested four typical requirements and measures in order to appraise the effectiveness of education policy. These are: The achievement of the intended purpose, the involvement of the community, the satisfaction of the community, establishing a sense of cooperation among partners implementing the education policy, rewarding individuals and organizations to acknowledge their performance, accurate planning and follow up mechanisms; and clarity, feasibility and proper work assignments.
From the professional expertise of the researcher on the area, most of the time, implementation problem occurs when there is a mismatch between the needs of the direct beneficiaries of the policy and what is planned in the policy. Education policy implementation problems occur when important factors necessary for implementing the policy are missing. Among others, these factors include communication, resources, attitudes, and organizational structure.
The execution of education policy is an active practice, which includes the various components. One of these components is communication. For successful execution of education policy, communication plays indispensable role. Communication enables implementers to exchange guidelines, rules, regulations, and reports across the policy implementation structures vertically and horizontally. If the communication is incomplete and inappropriate, this can create misunderstanding among education policy implementers. Of course, execution information not properly exchanged, distorted, vague, or inconsistent may cause serious problems on policy implementation.
The other important factor is resources. Policy implementation resources include material resources, human resources, financial resources, and time resources. Human resources include the availability of enough personnel who have the capacity to implement the policy; necessary and important information on execution process of the policy; the mandate to ensure that the policy is implemented as per the set purpose; and facilities like land, equipment and buildings necessary for the successful implementation of the policy. A lack of sufficient resources means that laws will not be enforced, services will not be provided, and reasonable regulations will not be developed. In addition to communication and resources, disposition or attitude is another key factor that affects policy implementation.
In this regard, the researcher believes that communication, resources, and positive disposition are put in place does not guarantee implementation success. If there is no efficient administrative structure, the problem of implementation can still arise especially when dealing with complex policies, manuals, guidelines, rules, and regulations. It may also result in wastage of scarce resources, inhibit change, create confusion, lead to policies working at cross-purposes and, in the end, result in important functions being overlooked.
In Ethiopia, as indicated in the National Adult Education strategy (NAES), there are three major problems in implementing AE programs. These are the unavailability of an appropriate organization to lead adult education (AE), inadequate resource allocation for AE and low level of Relevance and quality of adult education. The available limited resources could not be used because of problems like the unavailability of a coordinating and leading organization with duties and responsibilities to coordinate these efforts and lack of focus and awareness among the existing educational managers/leaders. If an educational system is to be implemented properly and its final target is to achieved, its basic human, material and financial requirements should be supplied. Obviously, budget allocated for the education sector by the government is increasing from time to time. However the corresponding shares for AE has been very low (MoE, 2008, p. 9). Personnel assigned at the different levels for the sub-sector are few in number and without appropriate training in the area. Therefore, it is believed that a coordinated and strengthened implementation of AE requires an equitable budget and an adequate human resource allocation. In addition to this, for effective implementation of a policy the relevance of the policy to beneficiaries has paramount importance. Since adult education program is need based—the policy and strategy documents should target to meet the actual need of the community.
Methodology
The study used a qualitative research design for exploring and understanding the meaning adult education officials, experts, and facilitators ascribed AE program implementers understand and utilize adult education policy documents in Addis Ababa City Administration. In this qualitative research, the researcher applied a process that involved emergent questions or procedures, where data is typically collected in the participants’ setting, and data analysis inductively builds from particular to general themes, and the researcher provided interpretations of the meaning of the data (Creswell, 2014, p. 32). In this research, the researcher closely interacted with AE officials and experts at different levels to gain an understanding of how they understand and utilize adult education policy documents in Addis Ababa City Administration.
In this regard, Creswell (2014, p. 245) asserts that the aim of qualitative study is to describe and explain the patterns related to the existing practices and it presents what events, beliefs, attitudes, and/or understand impact on the practice. Because, qualitative design advocates the study of direct experience taken at face value and sees behavior as determined by the phenomena of experience (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 22).
Sources of Data
The purpose of the study was to examine adult education program implementers’ understanding towards adult education policy documents and usage of the documents in Addis Ababa City Administration. Therefore, the sources of the data were primary sources that could give information pertinent to the issue under discussion. Because, in qualitative study, data are collected directly from the sources, and they focus on participants’ understanding, descriptions, labels, and meanings (Creswell, 2014, p. 255). The sources of information used by this qualitative researcher include individuals, groups, documents, reports, and sites (McMillan & Schumacher, 2014, p. 349). Primary information was obtained from officials, experts, coordinators and facilitators at region, zonal, district, and center levels. Because, these group of respondents were the direct implementers of the adult education program so that they could have the ability to give detail information on the implementation of AE program. Accordingly, Secondary data sources like adult education strategy and policy documents found at sub city, district, and center level in Addis Ababa City Administration were analyzed. Some of these documents are: education and training policy, national adult education strategy, Minimum Learning Competencies (MLC) in adult education, adult education Program Implementation Guideline, adult education Curriculum Framework, Master Plan for Adult Education in Ethiopia, adult education path way, adult education Memorandum of Understanding Manual, adult education Benchmarks, adult education Supervision Manual, Teaching Learning Materials Development Manual, education annual abstracts, adult education sector reports, ESDP documents, and GTP documents were analyzed. Moreover, to triangulate the accuracy of the information and to substantiate data different literatures were reviewed.
Sample and Sampling Method
In this study, in order to select appropriate samples the researcher intentionally chosen purposive sampling techniques. Because purposive sampling enables the investigator to discover, understand, and gain insight on the issue under discussion (Merriam et al., 2007).
This study was conducted in Addis Ababa City Administration. Addis Ababa City Administration is sub-divided into 10 sub-cities and 116 districts and has 436 adult learning centers. Accordingly, three sub-cities (Lideta, Yeka, and Bole) were selected purposively based on their proximity for the researcher and opportunity to access the necessary data for the study. The three selected sub-cities together encompass 37 districts (Bole—14, Lideta—10, and Yeka—13).
In Addis Ababa City Administration Education Bureau, there is a team that consists of only two professionals who coordinate the adult education program under curriculum department. At sub-city and district levels there is only one focal person that coordinates the program in both cases (Addis Ababa City Administration Education Bureau, 2016/2017).
Six districts, two from each of the three sub cities were included in the study (District 5 and 7 from Lideta sub-city; District 11 and 13 from Bole sub-city; District 12 and 14 from Yeka sub-city; Table 1) by using simple random sampling technique. Further, from the selected six districts seven adult education centers namely: Bolelemi, Bolegerji, Karalo, Tsion No. 1, Burka, Alemaya, and Abado were selected randomly.
Summary of Sub-Cities, Districts, and Centers Selected for the Study.
Respondents of the study were identified as follow: 2 adult education officials from region education bureau; 1 adult education expert from each sub city education offices (a total of 3 experts from the three sub cities); 1 adult education coordinator/expert from each selected district education offices (a total of 6), and one adult education facilitator from each selected adult education centers (a total of 7) were identified through purposive sampling technique. A total of 18 respondents were identified for the study (Table 2).
Summary of Respondents Included in the Study.
Data Gathering Tools
In order to secure relevant and necessary data for the study two potential data gathering tools were used. These are: interview and document analysis. Interview was applied for all respondents (officials, experts/coordinators, and adult education facilitators) and at all levels (region, sub city, district, and center). In this study interview guides with open-ended questions were developed by the researcher and administered to the interviewees. Because interview gives the interviewer more flexibility to add questions or asking for clarifications and gives freedom for the interviewee to explain issues from different angles. In addition, the researcher made use of a digital voice recorder for all interviews to ensure that detailed and accurate data would be captured that could be made available for public scrutiny. The audio-recordings captured participants’ perceptions, meaning, definitions of situations, and constructions of reality during the interviews.
In order to substantiate the information gathered through interview, document analysis was also used as data gathering tool. Based on the relevance of the documents to the study, the following documents were analyzed: National adult education strategy, adult education implementation guidelines, adult education curriculum framework, and adult education minimum learning competence manual, among others.
Method of Data Analysis
A qualitative method of data analysis was employed. The raw data collected from the field was organized and systematically framed according to the similarities of issues raised in the interview. The qualitative data like views of respondents and document analysis result was presented and analyzed by narrating the evidences/responses in words (Atkins & Wallacne, 2012). In doing so the researcher keeps a focus on learning the meaning that the participants hold about the problem or issue, not the meaning that the researcher brings to the research or that writers express in the literature (Creswell, 2014).
Discussion of Result
Background Information of the Respondents
This section deals with discussion of the data gathered from respondents (facilitators, experts, education officials) currently participating on the implementation of adult education program at all levels (Table 3). The data was gathered through interview and document analysis. The interpretation and discussion were carried out in relation to the concepts discussed in line with the thematic areas of the study and an attempt was made to present and discuss the main findings in line with basic questions raised in the introduction part of this study.
Background Information of the Respondents.
There are three factors that influence implementation. These are: individual characteristics, organizational factors and community factors. In terms of the individual characteristics, there are key variables associated with implementation, including practitioner’s education, experience with the same or a similar innovation, and attitude toward the innovation or the motivation to use it. In terms of organizational factors, there are variety of organizational characteristics to successful implementation, including: leadership, program goals, commitment and size, skills for planning, implementation, and evaluation; climate, structure, and innovation-specific factors such as access to information about the innovation and organizational support for implementation.
As can be described in Table 3 about 61% of respondents are diploma and above holders and more than average of them have 10 years and above service. From this one can conclude that the respondents of the study seem to be reasonable to understand and provide rational responses for the questions raised by the researcher to investigate the theme under discussion.
AE Program Implementers’ Awareness Towards AE Strategic Policy Documents
Knowledge of education policies is essential for all adult education implementers entrusted with the core responsibilities of implementing them for effective implementation of the program. Knowledge of the policy should therefore be part of the adult education implementers’ area of development or empowerment. Policy is indeed an intellectual understanding amongst colleagues of the course to follow to achieve objectives most effectively, as proven by experience.
The policy must be conceptually clear and simple, theoretically sound, and stated in terms of desired changes achieved among target groups. It is vital that the means-ends analysis actually represent real cause-effect relationships. An understanding of the policy process, and the role and responsibilities of the policy implementers, could further contribute to the generation of feasible, realistic and affordable policy options, which could be implemented to the benefit of the public, as well as implemented to the benefit of the country. Education policy implementers should master the focus areas, and essential principles or aims and objectives of each education policy that regulate their performance or the execution of their duties.
Based on the aforementioned discussion on what literatures have put in place on the importance of understanding the policy under implementation, the respondents of the study were asked to identify whether they have understand the existing adult education strategic and policy documents or not. Majority of them replied that, “we do not have clear understanding about the key working policy and strategy documents of adult education sector.” Some of the reasons listed out by the respondents were: “no continuous awareness creation program for newly employed personnel; high turnover of the personnel; absence of an organized system to run the program as per the strategy and policy documents.” On this issue, only two officials from region education office replied that “we have good understanding on adult education policy and strategy documents.” They argued that, “because of our position, we have attended different short term and long term workshops, trainings, discussions, and meetings provided by the government and none government organization at regional, national, and international level on the issue under discussion and other related issues.”
Strategies to Introduce AE Policy Documents to Implementers and Stakeholders
The transmission of policy into practice is more complex than the government’s part of policy development. There are serious and somewhat neglected issues about whether, and how, national policy can be effectively implemented locally and what needs to be in place for this to occur. Identifying, delivering and demonstrating where the system is working well helps to build credibility and enables staff service users and stakeholders to learn from experience. Reflecting upon the overall implementation process during the final stages of implementation allows implementers to identify strengths and weaknesses that occurred during the process so as to inform and improve future applications.
Policy makers are politicians, whereas policy implementers are managers and employees of the education sector. Top-down and bottom-up perspectives in policy implementation have much to do with policy makers and implementers.
In this regard, the researcher was posed questions related with strategies established by the government to introduce/orient the developed/adopted adult education strategic policy documents to implementers and stakeholders. The response of the respondents is summarized as follow. Almost all the respondents at all levels replied that, there is no an organized system in the sector to introduce adult education policy and strategic documents to the program facilitators, program coordinators, supervisors, and officials. However, majority of them pointed out that once in a blue moon government organizations, NGOs, and other private organizations provided short term trainings to them.
From the above discussion it is possible to understand the importance of communication in the implementation process of the education policies. Effective and on-going communication is critical in motivating staff, overcoming resistance to change, and giving and receiving feedback. It is also essential for building and maintaining trust among staff. Internal systems and processes that support effective communication are therefore vital for education institutions. Not only communication, monitoring and evaluation is essential to determine whether desired indicators are being met and outcomes achieved. Such activities also help to identify risks to implementation and inform future actions.
Accessibility of Strategic Policy Documents to Implementers
Regarding this issue, the respondents were asked about the accessibility of strategic policy documents at their work place and application of these strategic policy documents on their day to day implementation of adult education program. Majority of the respondents working at district and adult learning center level argued that “the strategic policy documents developed by Ministry of Education and Addis Ababa Education Bureau are not fully available in our work place.” As a result the adult education program in their district and center is not run as per the policy documents. For instance, the national adult education strategy delineate that adult education program should be run by different stakeholders in an integrated fashion and some of the major actors of the program are ministry of education, ministry of health and ministry of agriculture and rural development. In contrast, almost all explained that “in the case of Addis Ababa city administration, adult education program is left solely to education sector.” They further explained that “in Addis Ababa city administration education sector is responsible to run adult education program. All activities like-planning, organizing, budget allocation, resources allocation, implementation, follow up, and reporting were made by education sector.”
Aims and Objectives of Some Selected Policy Documents
In order to check the understanding of the respondents about the policy documents, they were asked to list the goals and objectives of four selected policy documents. Namely: National adult education strategy, Adult education Program Implementation Guideline, Minimum Learning Competencies (MLC) in Adult Education program, and Adult education Curriculum Framework.
On this issue sub city and district adult education coordinators were asked: “What are the aims and objectives of the above mentioned adult education policy documents?” as a result of their response, most sub city adult education coordinators have basic knowledge of the adult education policy documents listed above. Whereas, those adult education coordinators at district and center level have very limited understanding on adult education policy documents under discussion. From this result one may conclude that the actual implementers of the adult education program lack clear understanding on the guiding policy documents of the program. This may again lead to poor implementation of adult education program in the city administration.
Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Summary of Findings
The result of the research revealed that the induction and continuous workshops on policy matters may be a tool for effective policy implementation. Consultation and communication amongst all education stakeholders on the aims and objectives of each education policy may serve as vehicle for effective policy implementation. The response of participants may be compared with that of the Wandersman’s view on policy implementation, which can be summarized as follows: be clear about the problem; work with the wider system; stay close to implementers; stay focused and use ministers to drive progress.
As the findings of this study reveals, majority of adult education program implementers lack understanding about the policy documents of adult education sector; there is no established and sustainable awareness creation system and capacity building program for newly employed and other personnel; non-existence an established structure to lead adult education program according to the designed strategy documents are some of the results of the research.
Recommendation
Knowledge of education policies is essential for all adult education implementers entrusted with the core responsibilities of implementing them for effective implementation of the program. Ault educators’ ability to make sense of adult education policy documents must be taken into account. Sufficient time must be devoted to educator training which must be more informative and regular.
The study revealed that majority of the respondents replied that they lack clear understanding about the key working policy and strategy documents of adult education sector. Some of the reasons listed out by the respondents were: no awareness creation program for newly employed personnel, high turnover of the personnel; absence of an organized system to run the program as per the strategy and policy documents. In order to overcome these problems adult education implementer organizations need to establish continuous need based awareness creation system. This system need to be considered as continuous professional development (CPD) program for adult education sector. Through CPD, therefore, the adult education implementers can get first-hand information on the program/policy documents under implementation on one hand and they can also upgrade their professional career on the other hand.
Regarding the accessibility of strategic policy documents at their work place and usage of these strategic policy documents on their day to day implementation of the program; Majority of the respondents working at district and adult learning center level argued that the strategic policy documents developed by Ministry of Education and Addis Ababa Education Bureau are not fully available in their work place. Hence, all responsible bodies who run the program (government, non-government, and private) need to design mechanisms to avail adult education strategy and policy documents to actual implementers and stakeholders. The mechanisms can be through print and non-print Medias; by organizing workshops and meetings; and by designing different distributing and disseminating channels.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.