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2 Australia’s investment in education reform in KiribatiThe nine-year Kiribati Education Improvement Program (KEIP) is the framework within whichAustralia and other development partners are supporting the Ministry of Education (MOE) toimplement its plans for education to support human resource development. KEIP was de signed to beimplemented in three phases.KEIP Phase I (2011-2012) was the enabling phase, setting up the legislative and policy frameworks fortransforming the quality of learning in basic education. KEIP Phase II (2013-2015) supported theimplementation of reforms at the school and classroom level across Years 1-4, and prepared for upperprimary. Steady progress has been made under KEIP Phases I and II, however there is still more to do inthe basic education sector.KEIP Phase III (2016-19) is intended to complete the primary reforms (Year 6) and extend them into thejunior secondary component of basic education. This third phase of KEIP has as its development goal:Young I-Kiribati finish basic education with the knowledge and skills to contribute to aproductive and resilient Kiribati community.The KEIP Phase III Concept Note is included as Annex 12. It is proposed that Australia invests AUD 34million in KEIP Phase III, over the next four years, to support the MoE to implement its basic educationreform program as set out in the Education Sector Strategic Plan 2016-19.3 Key design considerationsThe KEIP Phase III Design Terms of Reference are included as Annex 11. The investment design has beenshaped by three main influences. One is the importance of viewing KEIP as one continuous program,needing to use all of its nine years to consolidate and sustain transformative, systemic change. Thechanges most needing consolidation were included in the 2014 Independent Evaluation of KEIP Phase II. Akey one was early years’ learning improvement. Literacy and numeracy acquisition in the early years is thefoundation upon which later learning performance is built. Keeping the lower primary reforms in focus duringKEIP Phase III will also help promote continuity in the development of core skills in literacy and numeracy, asthe reforms work their way up to (and through) JSS.A second influence is recognition that while extension into junior secondary is the last step of a basiceducation intervention, junior secondary as a sub-sector is distinctively different from primary –particularly in Kiribati. Improving JSS involves dimensions additional to those of curriculum and teachingreform. For the majority of young people in Kiribati, JSS is the last stage of their formal education, and asthe endpoint, must deliver skills to better empower them economically and for life. Yet the current JSSsystem still belongs to an era when JSS was the academic ladder to Senior Secondary for those highperforming few. As the final stage of free, compulsory and universal basic education, the essentialchallenge of JSS is to position its graduates to access various pathways to work, skills and further study,and to help MoE articulate the key role that the JSS level of schooling should serve in Kiribati's humanresource development.The students in JSS are also different from those in the primary years. As adolescents they are forminggendered identities and the basis of their future gender relationships. In view of the scale of gender basedviolence in Kiribati, reforming the underlying values and behaviours that lead to adverse outcomes forwomen and girls is an important part of a JSS intervention. One of the most effective strategies for dealing5with issues of violence and discrimination in the Pacific is school education. This priority for JSS supports5DFAT 2012. Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Delivery Strategy2

the Government of Kiribati's (GoK) School Wellbeing program, designed to harness school education in6support of Kiribati's Family Peace Act against gender based violence in the community.The third influence is the Government of Kiribati Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) for 2016-19,7informed by the recent Education Sector Analysis, which sees it as imperative for MoE to develop theprocesses to enable the Ministry leadership to maximise the organisational capacity that has been8developed. KEIP Phase III will support MoE's leadership particularly in respect of sectoral planning andsustaining the gains of KEIP.Strategically the KEIP Phase III design has also been influenced by the fact that, while this is the lastphase of the nine-year program, Australia has a long-term commitment to the supporting educationreform in Kiribati. JSS reforms will not be fully rolled out by the program’s end date of 2019. There will beneed for ongoing engagement from Australia, not only to complete the JSS reforms but also to consolidateand strengthen those transformational reforms that have been achieved in a relatively short space of time.The knowledge that Australia will continue its engagement beyond KEIP allows the reforms to be paced inways that facilitate capacity building and knowledge transfer, and for stakeholder expectations to beadjusted to the time required for improvements to manifest themselves.4 Problem analysis and program logicKEIP Phase III has defined the development problem as poor basic education learning outcomesconstraining the capacity of young I-Kiribati to develop productive and marketable skills. Situation analysisindicates that the fundamental causes of this situation lie in the GoK’s fiscal incapacity to adequatelyresource inclusive, quality basic education; insufficient know-how in some of technical and systemic fieldsfor MoE to be able to address the problem adequately on its own; and a community not yet sufficientlyengaged in supporting children’s learning. This complex situation exists alongside the political will, at alllevels, to bring about improvements. This is evidenced in MoE’s leadership of the reforms and the highlevels of compliance by schools and teachers.Consequently, Australian support will target the barriers that limit GoK ability to redress the problem:inadequate resourcing and technical capacity to bring about learning improvement that all I-Kiribatichildren can participate in. In this support, KEIP Phase III will be helping MoE realise the agenda of all thenine ESSP goals that relate to basic education.The logic of KEIP Phase III is to focus simultaneously on the following two end of program outcomes (EOPO).EOPO 1: Improved learning outcomes for basic education for I-Kiribati girls and boys, includingchildren with a disability.This EOPO will be attained by a logic of intervention that targets improving access, participation, retentionand quality of teaching and learning for all children. Interventions will target making the infrastructure andthe culture of schools conducive to learning, including providing supportive environments from theperspective of gender and for children with a disability. Interventions also will target making the curriculummore accessible, relevant and skilling.Extensive focus will be on developing teachers’ capacity to help every child learn, and to succeed in acurriculum that is delivered in English. The capacity of School principals, District Education Officers(DEOs) and Island Education Coordinators (IECs) will be developed as the means of sustaining learningin schools, and bringing communities to understand the importance of all children attending school andlearning, right to the end of Junior Secondary.6Republic of Kiribati 2014. School Wellbeing and Counselling Good Practice GuidelinesJim Matheson, Education in Kiribati: Can it be the peoples’ life jacket? An analysis of the Kiribati Education System,draft September 2015.8Kiribati Education Sector Strategic Plan 2016-19 (draft), p.573

EOPO 2: MoE effectively plans, resources and manages priority sector activities.The interventions in this pillar of KEIP Phase III focus on the processes of sector leadership. At theexecutive level KEIP Phase III will aim to institutionalise the cycle of evidence-based planning, budgeting,and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of progress that enables a sector plan to drive Ministry work.Key outcomes will be the establishment of an expenditure framework for the ESSP 2016-2019, thedevelopment of annual education reports and the practice of annual joint monitoring of progress againstthe ESSP, while feedback will inform the subsequent annual planning.At the middle management level, the interventions target improvement of systems for effective use of datafor improved service delivery (Policy, Planning and Development Unit and School Improvement Unit), andto enable the development of incentives for performance improvement.The analytical agenda at MoE has also been expanded, to provide more precise information on wherebarriers to access, learning and opportunities lie, and to be able to build knowledge in response to issuesarising through the monitoring of innovation and implementation.The Education Partners in Kiribati (EPiK) forum will play an important role as a platform forgovernment accountability through its enabling government, stakeholders and development partnersto share annual reports and monitoring against the ESSP. The EPiK will also provide a forum forcoordinated policy dialogue around an ESSP that, for the first time, encompasses the whole educationsector. This is an opportunity to develop EPiK's membership, to include partners important for the scope ofKEIP: the Ministry of Women Youth and Social Affairs, senior secondary church school representation(CEDAK), the teachers' union, the parents' association as well as existing partners. With Australia'ssupport to Kiribati also covering the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, it is inAustralia's interest to see the various education stakeholders recognise and address the connectionsbetween education subsectors.Policy development will be important in this final phase of KEIP, as means of sustaining the KEIP gains.The substance of this investment has been in capacity building and training. Future systemised provisionfor teacher development, underpinned by policy, needs to be made if the quality of teaching and learningalready attained is to endure.5 Management and governanceIn this third phase of KEIP, the delivery modality continues to be through the existing managing contractor.KEIP was originally tendered on the open market as a nine-year program (2011-2019), and the contractwith the existing managing contractor includes the option to extend the program for the final four years, tocover implementation of KEIP Phase III. It is anticipated that the approved KEIP Phase III InvestmentDesign Document will form the basis of a contractual negotiation between DFAT and the managingcontractor, to enable KEIP Phase III implementation to commence during the first quarter of 2016.The managing contractor implements the program through the Kiribati Education Facility (KEF), based atthe Ministry of Education. The KEF annual planning identifies the scope, nature and amount of supportavailable, thereby providing the MoE with support to respond flexibly to emerging priorities or lessonslearned. There is regular KEF financial reporting to DFAT against budget and expenditure, as well asperformance reporting and any exception reports as may be required.At this stage it is not intended to use MoE financial systems for implementation of KEIP Phase III. TheMarch 2015 assessment of the Kiribati Education Sector Public Financial Management Systems (seeAnnex 10) considered “the residual risks of channelling DFAT funds through GoK and MoE downstream9systems are not manageable in the short term”. This position will be reviewed following a strengthening ofthe financial systems.9Education Sector Public Financial Management Systems Assessment, March 2015, p. 28 (Annex 10)4

In this design, the assumption is made that Australian support will continue to fund the position ofEducation Strategic Planning Adviser (ESPA) to the MoE, an important position that sits outside the KEFaccountability framework, separate from the KEIP managing contractor. The ESPA position has supportedMoE's leadership of the reforms, and MoE’s development of its systems and policies. This ESPA positionremains very important in assisting the MoE senior executive in developing their strategic managementskills and in steering an EPiK process that is substantively engaged in supporting the MoE to achieve itsESSP 2016-2019 goals.As Kiribati's largest education donor and long trusted partner, Australia needs to play a leading role insupporting the EPiK to evolve into the main platform for policy and resource support for the ESSP.Support will be provided via the ESPA and also under KEIP, in relation to the monitoring and reporting ofachievements against the ESSP.6 Risk managementThe investment has been assessed as low risk overall. Each of the known risks and potential challengesto the success of KEIP Phase III has been assessed as being low to moderate (after mitigation treatment).The risk assessment has been informed by stakeholder consultation in the design process, as well as thesuccessful KEIP Phase II risk management experience of the DFAT, MoE and the managing contractor.Risks will be closely monitored throughout implementation and the Risk Register will be updated at leastsix-monthly.A Risk Register and Safeguards Summary is included as Annex 8.Analysis and strategic context7 Strategic context7.1GeographyKiribati is a remote Pacific Island state with a small population of 103,000 spread across four groups10(districts) of widely dispersed islands. The logistical and communication constraints are significant, withthe Line Islands group up to 3,000 kilometres away from South Tarawa, the centre of government. SeeAnnex 2: Map of Kiribati, which indicates the logistics and distances involved in providing basic services tothe small population across this dispersed country.These geographic and logistical constraints cannot be underestimated. Every aspect of developing andmanaging the basic educati

advisor. Tony Higgins undertook the Education Sector Public Financial Management Assessment. The design team was well supported by Rebecca Karlsson, the KEIP Project Manager and also Linda Vasey, the KEIP Contractor Representative. Coffey and the design team wishes to thank the Kiribati Minister of Education, the Hon. Maere