Planning school in developing countries
Practical Action
Below are some questions to ask your self when preparing a survey:
How do you reach a widespread sector of the community and engage with
students of the catchment area, parents and the wider community?
Who is undertaking the survey, are they local? Do they speak the local
language? Is there gender equality within your survey team?
What groups already exist in the community? For example parent teacher
groups and especially women groups.
For more detailed guidelines on baseline surveys see the Technical Brief Baseline Surveys.
The survey can be used to establish the most pressing issue that the community face. It can
also identify the local skills of the community. This will be crucial information when looking
at training.
It is important to promote training within the community, whether it is training to build the
capacity of the community in local economic development, enterprise development,
sustainable livelihood improvement, strategic and business planning and construction.
Information on the skills of the local community can be found out from the baseline survey.
It is also advisable to allow plenty of time to conduct on the ground research into local
building materials and climatic conditions, local schools and existing community facilities. If
working with local partners take note of their previous projects and if necessary ask to see
registration papers if they are a functioning non-government organisation (NGO) or community
based organisation (CBO).
School governance
Good governance is crucial to the success of any community project in a developing country.
When planning a school it is necessary, from the beginning to establish who will run the
school. School buildings can be organised as government or donor-supported programs, or by
NGO and communities, and sometimes by parents themselves. If it is community run they
may need a school management committee with a board of governors.
If it is a community run school then a CBO should ideally be set up well in advance by the
community. If it has been running for a period of time you will be able to monitor the
effectiveness of this group to organise meetings, get ideas off the ground and if possible see
evidence of some initial fundraising by members of the community.
It is necessary to acknowledge that conflicts will occur throughout the process. You may need
to identify ways to unearth conflicts so that they are dealt with at an early stage.
Financial issues
To ensure that the school will be self sustainable a business plan should be prepared. This
would preferably be written by the team who will ultimately manage the school as they will be
responsible for the implementation. Transparency of not only funds but information within all
levels of the organisational structure should be present.
The following may be questions that need to be answered:
Who will run the school? What is the organisational structure? Will there be a school
management committee and a board of governors?
How is the school to be sustainable?
Who will enrol teachers and administration staff?
Will there be a site manager who is responsible for day to day management and
ongoing maintenance?
Is it a Government run school? Is it a community run school? Would it be feasible for
the community to establish the school and the Government to take up management
when school is up and running?
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