Monitoring the right to education is often a complex endeavour, requiring a variety of skills and expertise. Therefore, you may wish to consider collaborating with others. In addition to providing financial or technical assistance, they can increase the credibility of your work, and help to harmonise theadvocacy message across the particular region or area that you work in.
To assess whether you and / or your organisation should collaborate with other people or organisations, you should consider the following:
Identify resources needed
Make a list of the various types of resources you will need to carry out the monitoring project. Resources may include specific expertise or skills and access to data andstakeholders you want to interview. You should also take into account that the resources that are needed may change as the project evolves.
Resources needed to carry out monitoring projects on the right to education may include:
- Skills in quantitative and qualitative research.
- Field research and documentation skills.
- Knowledge of human rights standards and how to apply them.
- Familiarity witheducation policies and processes.
- Experience in writing for advocacy purposes.
- Access to policy-makers or civil servants who can provide data.
- Access to stakeholders in the field (school principals, teachers’ unions, etc).
Check your own resources
Assess whether you have all the necessary resources identified in the step above to carry out the monitoring project and the financial resources to cover areas that you are missing. Your organisation might be strong in some aspects of the monitoring process but fall short in others. For instance, you may have skills on quantitative and qualitative education research but not have sufficient knowledge of human rights standards to be able to apply them in concrete situations. You may have both of these resources but lack contacts in the area where you are planning to carry out fieldwork and therefore need a local partner who can facilitate access to schools, teachers, children, etc.
Collaborate with others
If after the previous steps you realise that you do not have all of the resources needed to effectively carry out your monitoring project, you should considercollaborating with other organisations and individuals. Depending on the gap in your resources, you may decide to work, for instance, with community organisations, research institutes or human rights advocacy groups.