As some of you may know, I'm working with an NPO that focusses on the education space in India. A recurring issue that we've discussed threadbare involves the lack of institutional support for external initiatives, such as ours.
I've distilled the problem areas down to this: Lack of Permanence (Among the government staff and the bureaucrats) Lack of Ownership (In said group) Lack of Accountability (Of said group, to anyone) Lack of Commitment (Again, of said group) As best as we can influence this group and these problem areas, we're thinking of focussing on the accountability aspect as we also see that the others, barring the first, flow from this. As far as that goes we've identified social accountability, to society at large, as one way to go about it. Amit had suggested accountability to parents would be better idea because they have a vested interest in the functioning of the system. However, such accountability can only come about because we currently monitor, record and display [1] information that can be used to instil accountability. Our worry is that once the data, in a form that can be used more widely, is public we'll lose access and hence the project will fall flat. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Best, Gautam [1] For eg., see: http://karnatakalearningpartnership.org/mapguide/klp/index.jsp
