Meeting Human Resource Needs

1
Meeting Human Resource Needs
Selected Strategies of Potential Relevance for
Health

• Karen Lashman
• October 28, 2004

2
The Challenge

• Numerous SSA countries, especially in Sahel,
  faced long road to Education for All at end of
  1980s
• Extremely low primary enrollments
• Continuing rapid population growth projected
  24 increase or 26 million children in SSA
  2000-2015
• Fiscal constraints coupled with average primary
  school teacher salaries well above average for
  low-income countries constrained hiring at level
  needed for major scale-up
• HIV/AIDS compromising system capacity

3
The Strategy

• Expand coverage/enrollments via recruitment and
  accelerated training of new cadrescontractual
  teachersat significantly lower salaries and
  benefits than civil servants
• Adoption of selected variations on model
  particularly in rural areas, e.g. community
  schools

4
Key Results

• Rapid, significant increases in GERs
• High impact in severely lagging countries, e.g.
  Niger GER over 2000/01 2003/04 period increased
  from 37 to 50 and contractual teachers share
  from virtually nil to 52
• Teacher salaries more closely aligned with other
  regions, though still relatively high
• Consistently high benefit-cost ratios found in
  evaluations to date, though variability in
  teacher qualifications vis-à-vis traditional
  personnel

5
Source Alain Mingat, World Bank
6
Lessons to Date

• Process at least as crucial to success as
  technical design
• Solid research and evaluation by national
  experts increased credibility/feasibility
• Wide stakeholder consultations including with
  unions crucial to build requisite consensus
• Design catalyzed greater transparency in budget
  and resource allocation
• Perpetuation of dual systems must be avoided
• Adoption of gender differentiated recruitment
  criteria can have unforeseen consequences

7
Critical Questions

• Equity
• Community schools financing borne also by rural
  poor, often less qualified teachers rest of
  system Ministry supported vulnerability of NGO
  models
• Efficiency vis-à-vis alternatives
• Impact on education quality and learning outcomes
• Sustainability of model given inherent risks
• continuation in other sectors of civil
  service-based employment fuels discriminatory
  charges
• now dominant contractual personnel can hold
  system hostage to rising career/benefit demands

8
The Challenge

• Substantial international migration of
  tertiary-educated, highly-skilled professionals,
  reflecting strong push pull factors
• Movement both within Africa and to
  industrialized world frequently two-step process
  
• Abetted by relaxation of immigration policies in
  many European countries for tertiary educated

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Strategy
Demands mix of strategies, not mutually
exclusive Requires balancing internationally
recognized right to migrate with urgent need to
create and retain a critical mass of quality
highly skilled human capital to accelerate
economic and social development amid global,
highly competitive, knowledge economy Three
prongs A. Creating preconditions to induce
more to stay B. Maximizing returns from those
who migrate C. Encouraging and facilitating
repatriation
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Inducements to Stay Institutional Level

• Catalyzing reforms to revitalize TE
  institutions, transforming them into more
  autonomous entities with high quality inputs
  (e.g. qualified faculty, libraries, research
  capacity) producing high quality graduates
• Introducing alternative delivery models that
  reduce migration pull e.g. sandwich programs
  with degree awarded by home institution
• Tapping ICT to complement inputs, expand reach

11
Inducements at National Level

• Government-sponsored external training in other
  developing countries with oversupply of labor
  (e.g. Bank-supported Eritrea project link to
  Indian institutions)
• Provision of integrated training packages with
  scholarships for foreign study to include
  financing for minimum equipment and materials
  needed by returning scholars and travel funds for
  periodic reconnection with host institutions to
  upgrade skills and knowledge a la German Academic
  Exchange Program

12
Inducements at National Level (cont.)
Creation of Centers of Excellence to attract and
retain high quality faculty and students Building
on successful Millennium Science Initiatives in
LAC ( Chile, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico), MSI
presently under preparation in Uganda Tapping and
strengthening existing institutional interlinkages
13
Inducements at Regional Level

• African Institute of Science and Technology
  initiative launched October 2004
• Private foundation modeled after IIT India and
  similar in US and MSI
• Independent Advisory Board to guide and sustain
  world class standards

14
Inducements at Regional Level (cont.)

• Well responds to needs of Region with many small
  countries facing limited financial and human
  resources to support world class institutions
• underlying principles local ownership
  autonomyopen competition for places
  selectivity/relevance of curriculum for African
  needs mitigate brain drain risks

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Maximizing Payoffs from Migration

• Maintaining close ties to successive generations
  of migrants via language training, cultural
  exchanges e.g. Egypt and Tunisia
• Encouraging and facilitating remittance flows
• Technology and knowledge transfers (e.g.
  twinning arrangements, research partnerships such
  as MIT-Singapore)
• Promoting FDI e.g. India repatriation accounts
• Fostering and supporting diaspora networks

16
Encouraging Repatriation

• International Organization for Migration program
  for Return of Qualified African Nationals
• 10 countries participated to date
• 1500 highly skilled Africans repatriated
• Model being extended to other countries, e.g.
  Afghanistan

17
Questions for Consideration

1. Opportunities and challenges to adapt and apply
   these strategies to health sector needs,
   particularly in Africa
2. Approaches and/or lessons on which the health
   sector might build to accelerate progress toward
   the MDGs