Inter‐ministerial cooperation and institutional development in education

This article examines ‘inter‐ministerial cooperation’ (IMC) in the education sector as a form of development cooperation, whereby a ministry of education in the north collaborates with counterpart(s) in the south for purposes of mutual interest and development. It explores the characteristics and dynamics of IMC, and addresses the question to what extent and under what conditions can such IMC provide a model for a new kind of ‘partnership’ that is effective both for providing technical assistance and for facilitating greater equality and reciprocity in the relationship. Within the context of divergent perspectives currently influencing international cooperation and using different levels of analysis, the article reviews two recent examples of IMC, one developed by The Netherlands in cooperation with South Africa, and the other by Norway in cooperation with both Zambia and Nepal. The reviews found that the parties involved had grave difficulties to agree on and articulate the potential of such cooperation, and that their activities, however useful to the southern partners, could not rise above the limitations of conventional development assistance. Although it was found that the IMC examples did produce innovative forms of ‘collegial’ collaboration at the micro level, these can only be taken to a higher level if parties have the courage jointly to define and apply new institutional rules about mutuality and reciprocity for the cooperation. Notes 1. From 1997 to 2003 the author served as regional education adviser for Dutch Development Cooperation in Pretoria, South Africa. In this capacity he was the link person with the CENESA programme for both the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Development Cooperation division, and of Education, Culture and Sciences. In the Norwegian programme he has recently become involved as co‐evaluator of the IMCs (see Kruse and Hoppers Citation2006; and Kruse et al. Citation2006). 2. Thus the South African Ministry of Education declined a Dutch Ministry invitation to collaborate in bringing South African higher education within the European Higher Education Area (under the Bologna Accord of Citation1999), as this was deemed not to be in the best interests of South Africa. 3. The extent to which this is the case and the point at which the behaviour of ministry or support agency staff that is regularly used for consultancy operations changes significantly, are issues that are not clear. No systematic monitoring of the projects has taken place and no comparative data on the behaviour of advisors are available

Christian ministry · Context (archaeology · Courage · Economic growth · Economics · General partnership · Political science · Public relations · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology · Social science · Sociology · Global Education and Multiculturalism · International Development and Aid · Law · Public Administration · Religious Education and Schools

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