Though the government is trying to make free general education accessible to citizens, there are still challenges of increasing access to ECCE and gender equity. CWDs are the most marginalized, the quality of education is compromised, and relevance of education and efficiency of implementation needs improvement. Thus, this project is developed with the intentions of holding government accountable for alleviating these problems.

The project title is ”Better Engagement of the Civil Society and Public for Advocacy, Social Accountability and Monitoring in Education in Ethiopia.

The Project Aim is to further strengthen CSO contribution to enhanced accountability in education through improved civil society and public engagement’’, especially in programs where resources have been allocated to Quality and Inclusive Education and the SDG4 program implementation. The objectives are:

• Enhance the allocation of more budget by the Federal Ministry of Education (MoE) and Regional Education Bureaus (REBs) by 5% by end of 2023 to improve quality of primary education;
• Influence the MoE and REBs to increase access of ECCE to children of ages 4-6 to 52%;
• Improve the active participation of local communities to 12% by end of 2023 in holding REBs and District Education Offices (DEOs) accountable in their works;
• Identify good practices, challenges and recommendations of ECCE implementation through an assessment; • Increase the capability of stakeholders to 15% by end of 2023 to monitor the provision of quality education to children including girls and CWDs through monitoring and evaluation tools;
• Increase the capacity of BEN-E member CSOs and PTAs to involve citizens at Zonal and District levels in their advocacy activities; and
• Strengthen national civil society engagement in education planning, policy dialogue and monitoring through healthy debate and deliberation to 12 CSOs by 2023.

The outcomes are:

1. The MoE and REBs will allocate more budget to improve quality of primary education through advocacy;
2. The MoE and REBs will increase access of ECCE to children aged 4-6 through influence;
3. Local communities hold regional REBs and DEOs accountable in their works through active participation;
4. Good practices, challenges and recommendations of ECCE implementation identified through an assessment;
5. Stakeholders start monitoring the provision of quality education to children including girls and CWDs through the use of suitable M&E tools;
6. BEN-E member CSOs and PTAs start involving citizens at Zonal and District levels in their advocacy activities; and
7. Civil society engagement in national education planning, policy dialogue and monitoring strengthened through healthy debate and deliberation.

Approaches/Strategies:

• Advocating at policy consultations, planning processes and conferences to improve quality of primary education.
• Influencing the MoE and REBs through advocacy to increase access of ECCE.
• Increasing awareness of local communities for active participation in holding REBs and DEOs accountable.
• Conducting an assessment of ECCE implementation to identify good practices, challenges and recommendations.
• Organizing trainings to stakeholders to monitor provision of quality education to children through monitoring and evaluation.
• Building capacity of BEN-E member CSOs and PTAs to effectively involve citizens in their advocacy activities.
• Strengthening national civil society engagement in education planning, policy dialogue and monitoring.

The first phase of the project was implemented in 2020-2021 with support from Education Out Loud of 299.878 USD.