Decentralization for Improved Democratic Education (DECIDE)

The finalization of Ukraine’s decentralization reform, planned for 2020, foresees major administrativeterritorial transformations. This process will pose challenges in alignment and synchronization with other socially important sectoral reforms, in particular the education reform.

While the amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs) in rural areas receive important new competences and responsibilities in education governance, they often lack the necessary capacities to fulfil these roles.

Moreover, there are no formalized models of efficient sector governance at local and regional level. This leads to an unclear division of labour between regional, subregional authorities and local self-governments.

As a result, the education system is unable to deliver fair and high quality learning outcomes across the country, leaving behind schoolchildren in rural areas.

Local: rural communities, in particular schoolchildren and their parents, educators, civil society organizations, private businesses, local authorities;

Regional/sub-regional: oblast and rayon authorities, regional centers for training of civil servants, in-service teacher training institutes;

National: Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Communities and Territories Development, all-Ukrainian local self-government associations, donors active in the Decentralization Donor Board.

1. National, regional and local authorities effectively implement sectoral decentralization with a focus on education governance.
2. Schoolboys/girls and their parents benefit from inclusive democratic school governance and active civic engagement in amalgamated territorial communities.

Risultati principali attesi:  

1. Effective models of education management are developed and implemented in target regions in an inclusive and participatory way.
2. Thematically and institutionally strengthened local self-government associations provide systematic guidance on decentralized education governance to their members across Ukraine.
3. Government of Ukraine in a coordinated manner implements decentralization in education governance.

Risultati fasi precedenti:  

DOCCU, single phase (2013-2018):

- 47’000 public servants trained for citizenship competences reoriented their work towards quality service provision and citizens engagement.

- 90’000 educators in 8 target regions were trained on democratic citizenship education strengthening transparency and accountability in school governance and involving 1.2 million pupils into daily democratic practices.

- EDC/HRE training programs were officially adopted in eight regional in-service teacher training institutes.

DESPRO, phases 1-4 (2007-2019):

- Over 280’000 citizens in rural territories benefitted from participatory decision-making and improved access to public services (in particular water supply and sanitaion, waste management).

• Support to Decentralization in Ukraine DESPRO (information and communication on education decentralization);

• DESPRO, UNDP Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme and Livelihood Assistance Programme by DRC (joint area-based programmatic support to communities in Luhansk region);

• E-Governance for Accountability and Participation –EGAP (development of e-tools for democratic school governance),

• Other international donor funded projects coordinating in Donor Board Working Group on Education, e.g. U-LEAD with Europe (EU), DOBRE (USAID), and Swedish-Ukrainian Project Support to Decentralization (SKL).