Students Acting for Accountability and Quality of Education 2022–2023

Funded by the Global Partnership for Education through Education Out Loud (Operational Component 2) with Oxfam IBIS, Students Acting for Accountability and Quality of Education ran for 18 months, from February 2022 to August 2023, in 6 municipalities of South Kivu and 6 municipalities of Kinshasa. It supported the delivery of the DRC Education and Training Sector Strategy 2016–2025, so that students, especially girls, receive accountable, inclusive and equitable quality education services.

ObjectivesFour specific objectives

1. By the end of 2024, 50 senior education officials, 6 civil society organizations and 10 parliamentarians are working closely with CERC to embed anti-corruption and accountability protocols in the education sector;
2. by the end of the project, 2,250 students aged 14–19 are engaged and supported to become active agents of positive change, championing anti-corruption and accountability behaviour and demanding that education reforms meet their needs;
3. by the end of the project, 150 secondary schools are supported to embed Integrity Clubs, to ensure the long-term sustainability of anti-corruption and accountability efforts in the education sector;
4. student-led advocacy and campaigns attract wider support and demand for anti-corruption and accountability measures in education.

ApproachCommunity Integrity Building

Students were trained as community integrity monitors in Integrity Clubs. They monitored school infrastructure and the delivery of education services and shared their findings on CERC’s online platform, EduCheck. The problems they identified were discussed and solved in Education Clusters, where parents, students, teachers and authorities work together; the data then fed advocacy with education authorities and parliamentarians.

Year Zero prepared the Students Acting for Accountability and Quality of Education project. CERC adjusted its work plan; because of Covid-19, workshops were limited to 20 participants, so more of them were held. The full proposal process ended on 21 January 2022.

May–July 2021Evidence from the field

CERC consulted 534 students (271 boys and 263 girls), 39 principals and 50 teachers, 21 parents’ committees, 19 representatives of 8 civil society organisations working in education, and 12 senior education officials. It used mixed methods: participative workshops on what motivates young people to act, formal meetings with the Provincial Directorates and Ministries of Education of South Kivu and Kinshasa and the National Ministry of Education, and 16 key informant interviews. Evidence was collected over 40 days, and analysed and written up in three weeks.

The study of the Integrity Club model showed that:

• students aged 14 to 18 are highly positive agents of change, motivated to improve the services and projects delivered to their communities;
• teaching young people the benefits of integrity, and the skills to practise and demand it, gives them the confidence to choose integrity over corruption;
• Integrity Clubs encourage young people to keep taking part in civil society;
• education officials and service providers who expect to be monitored by students are encouraged to act with integrity;
• even where the status of girls is low, over 40% of the monitors trained by CERC are girls.

July 2021Four consultative workshops

In July 2021, four consultative workshops brought together organisations working in education and Ministry of Education officials to discuss the challenges of transparency and accountability in the sector and how to overcome them. The civil society side included the national association of parents of students, the parents’ associations of Catholic and Protestant schools, three teachers’ unions, the African Zone League for the Defence of Children and Students’ Rights and the National Coalition for Education for All; 9 participants from 6 faith-based education coordinations also took part. With 12 senior officials of the Ministry of Education, the workshop focused on bringing Integrity Clubs into every secondary school and the Integrity Education Handbook into the national curriculum.

July–September 2021Writing the project

Building on these results, the whole programme team defined the project’s context, objectives, outcomes and outputs, its theory of change and overall strategy, the monitoring framework and the budget, and wrote the proposal. The Year Zero produced a GESI strategy, a KAP baseline survey, the theory of change and a research report with recommendations for integrity education and student-led monitoring in secondary schools.

2021Stronger skills

• Training of the programme team in programme development and management, and in monitoring, evaluation and learning;
• training in adaptive management and theory of change, and in bringing human rights, gender and inclusion into programme design, implementation and evaluation;
• in October 2021, training of 6 programme staff in high-level advocacy and policy engagement;
• a due diligence action plan, drawn up during Year Zero and implemented, which strengthened CERC’s governance and management systems.

LessonsWhat Year Zero taught

• Key stakeholders must take part in every phase of the proposal, not only in the initial analysis; their participation made the project respond to the need for more advocacy and accountability in education.
• The programme team needs strong skills in research, project development and budgeting.
• Female students reported sexual harassment and sexual bribery in exchange for grades; there was not enough time to study these issues, which CERC committed to research further.

CERC rated the process followed during Year Zero as satisfactory, and the final products – proposal, logical framework, budget and monitoring framework – and the learning outputs as highly satisfactory.

Objective 3204 Integrity Clubs and 2,250 young monitors

In 2022, CERC established 204 Integrity Clubs in South Kivu and Kinshasa, empowering 2,250 students aged 14–19 to monitor education services in their schools. Student-led advocacy resolved 33% of the problems identified.

Objectives 2 and 3138 principals and 278 teachers trained

CERC trained 138 school principals and 278 teachers from 150 secondary schools in South Kivu and Kinshasa in integrity building and anti-corruption measures in the school system.

Objective 1Consultation workshop and memorandum of understanding

CERC brought together 96 participants in Bukavu and Kinshasa – senior education officials, 3 members of parliament, journalists, teachers’ union representatives and school founders – to evaluate its anti-corruption approach in the education sector. The workshop led to a memorandum of understanding, endorsed by the Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Technical Education through the Provincial Directorate of Education of South Kivu 1, to include Integrity Clubs in every secondary school in South Kivu and Kinshasa.

ResearchA KAP survey of the Integrity Club model

CERC conducted a KAP study of its Integrity Club model with 534 students and 89 teachers, head teachers and education officials (June–July 2021, report published in February 2022), to identify effective delivery models and the key stakeholders. Young people recognised the importance of integrity and were motivated to improve their schools; where focal teachers and headteachers were supportive, the climate for monitoring was positive; families who attended awareness sessions were more likely to support monitoring.

Objective 4Two bills with APNAC DRC

With the African Parliamentarians’ Network Against Corruption (APNAC DRC), CERC drafted two bills to include Integrity Clubs and integrity education in the DRC’s education system.

January–March 2023Progress at the end of the first quarter

CERC’s quarterly update to Oxfam IBIS for January–March 2023 reported:

• 150 partner schools under memoranda of understanding with their heads – 90 in Bukavu and 60 in Kinshasa – and a provincial protocol in South Kivu; a provincial protocol for Kinshasa and a national protocol were being negotiated;
• more than 50 education officials – among them the Secretary General for Education, the provincial ministries and directorates of education, the sub-provincial directors (PROVED), the coordinators of faith-based schools, the APLC and the OSCEP – civil society organisations such as CONEPT and 10 parliamentarians took part in the two consultation workshops in Kinshasa and Bukavu and expressed broad support for the project;
• 2,250 students trained, 1,350 in Bukavu and 900 in Kinshasa: CERC staff trained 450 monitors, who then trained the other members of their Integrity Clubs; a baseline survey was conducted with the 2,250 students of the 150 clubs;
• eight training sessions per club on integrity, transparency, gender and inclusion – 1,200 Integrity Club meetings by the end of March 2023;
• 168 principals and 294 teachers trained to supervise the Integrity Clubs, in eight training-of-trainers sessions;
• 150 Education Clusters created and operational – 90 in Bukavu and 60 in Kinshasa – each holding a first meeting;
• radio programmes on Radio Maria in Kinshasa and Radio Maendeleo in Bukavu;
• two draft laws or ministerial orders written by parliamentarians led by APNAC DRC; CERC and APNAC DRC were working on the way to have them adopted, by Parliament or by the Ministry.

The learning sessions of the Integrity Clubs with students from other schools were planned for April–June 2023.

2023Consultation workshops in Kinshasa and Bukavu

Two multi-stakeholder consultation workshops in Kinshasa and Bukavu brought together 97 policymakers to review policies, programmes and curricula on integrity and anti-corruption in secondary schools. Government officials, educators and NGOs contributed to strategies against corruption and to a culture of integrity in schools.

2023A memorandum of understanding with APNAC DRC

CERC signed a memorandum of understanding with APNAC DRC to support integrity reforms in the public sector, with a programme to reform the education sector.

April 2024The bill at the National Assembly

Drafted with members of parliament, education specialists and civil society, CERC’s bill provides for Integrity Clubs – structures within schools, made up of elected students who promote integrity and transparency – and an integrity education course in the regular curriculum of all secondary schools. In April 2024, CERC and APNAC DRC took the bill to the National Assembly and called on the public and civil society to support it.

2022–2024EduCheck

Integrity Club members used EduCheck to report school problems and the fixes they obtained, giving education officials reliable, real-time data from each school.

Objective 1 · Officials, CSOs and parliamentarians embed accountability

7 of 8 indicators with a result; average achievement 85% (each result capped at 100% of its target).

Objective 2 · 2,250 students act as agents of positive change

6 of 8 indicators with a result; average achievement 75% (each result capped at 100% of its target).

Objective 3 · 150 schools embed Integrity Clubs

10 of 11 indicators with a result; average achievement 84% (each result capped at 100% of its target).

Objective 4 · Student-led advocacy attracts wider support

3 of 7 indicators with a result; average achievement 16% (each result capped at 100% of its target).

Impact

14 of 20 indicators with a result; average achievement 78% (each result capped at 100% of its target).

Figures from CERC’s Salesforce records of the project, kept in step with this report. Status: on track at 90% of the target or more, at risk from 60%, off track below 60%. “–”: not reported or no target.

Jul 2022

Oct 2022

Dec 2022

Jan 2023

Mar 2023

Jun 2023

Aug 2023

Nov 2023

Nov 2026

Spending by category

Amounts in US dollars as recorded in Salesforce from the audited accounts; the detailed statements are in the next section.

CERC received US$361,361 for the project in 2022 – two transfers to its account at TMB – and US$68,816 in January 2023: US$430,177 in all. With the US$751 in cash at the start of the project, brought forward from the Year Zero, the project had US$430,928, which it spent: US$273,341 in 2022 (audited) and US$157,587 in 2023 (audited by DWAC, CERC’s statement; the audit report is not yet published). The project accounts are kept in US dollars, on a cash basis.

2022–2023Funds received

2022Expenditure by heading (audited)

Totals as in the audit report. At 31 December 2022, the theoretical cash balance was US$88,771, carried forward to 2023.

2023Expenditure by budget line

2023 resources: the balance of US$88,771 carried forward from 2022 and the instalment of US$68,816 received in January 2023.

Year Zero, 2021Funds received and spent before the project

CERC received the Year Zero funds in mid-June 2021, about three months after the period began, and adjusted its work plan. US$7,540 was spent on collecting, analysing and presenting the evidence, from the stakeholder analysis and data collection to the theory of change, the GESI strategy and the reports.

Year Zero finance report to Oxfam IBIS, June–December 2021 (not audited): a balance of US$676.14. The 2021 audit of CERC’s accounts records US$23,239.50 of expenditure – US$70.36 less, all in bank charges (US$279.50 instead of US$349.86) – and a balance of US$746.50 owed to GPE/Oxfam IBIS. CERC’s ledger took over US$746.41 and the bank account also held US$5.06 of CERC’s own funds kept for fees: the US$751 in cash at the start of the project in the 2022 audit, which works in whole dollars.

Audit 2022Independent auditor’s report

The 2022 statement of expenditure and income was audited by DWAC (Divine Wisdom for Assisting and Consulting), Kinshasa, in accordance with International Standards on Auditing; the report, signed by Mac NGUBI, Chartered Accountant, is dated 7 April 2023. The auditor expressed a qualified (“except for”) opinion, based on unforeseen expenses of US$5,158 incurred without Oxfam IBIS’s formal approval, an unjustified difference of US$2,517 on administrative staff costs, insufficient evidence for accommodation costs of US$3,800, and unjustified cash advances of US$7,120 at 31 December 2022.

CERC thanks the Global Partnership for Education and Oxfam IBIS through Education Out Loud, the education authorities of South Kivu and Kinshasa, the African Parliamentarians’ Network Against Corruption (APNAC DRC), and the students, teachers, parents and principals of the Integrity Clubs.