The Jordan-Partners Organization (JPO) on Sunday launched the Local Partnerships Program in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, as part of a project to enhance inclusive education in communities hosting refugees through collaborative social accountability processes, funded by the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Social Accountability.
In a speech during the program launch, Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Mohammad Abu Qudais, said that signing the partnerships program agreements will enhance the participation of NGOs at the national level in areas of policy and performance measurement and enrich the education development agenda at the national and local levels.
This project, he added, will also contribute to strengthening the capacities of Jordanian civil society organizations to support inclusive education, plan and improve education policies in cooperation with key stakeholders in the education sector, build their capacity to support the design, implementation and evaluation of school improvement plans.
It will also provide recommendations and effective solutions to enhance existing methods through the constructive methodology in education, which aims to raise the quality of education for Jordanian and non-Jordanian children and the contribution of social accountability to it.
JPO’s Chairwoman Reem Badran said that this project seeks to build the capacity of civil society organizations, and advocate for constructive solutions to strengthen the mechanisms in place through the establishment of effective and strict mechanisms for feedback between schools, the Ministry of Education and local communities to support the improvement of teaching and learning conditions.
She indicated that the project works to support civil society to play a mediating role in enhancing accountability in refugee education, and to monitor and support collaborative social accountability mechanisms in the sustainability of spaces to enable collaborative participation between the main educational entities (education boards, school principals, teachers, school development committees, parents and students). This is in addition to improving service delivery and enhancing social cohesion within society, with a special focus on vulnerable groups, especially refugees.
Badran stated that through the project, many activities and needs identification sessions were implemented, in which the departments of education from six governorates participated, indicating that 12 partnership and financing agreements were signed with 12 local community institutions, amounting to JOD50,000, which are intended to work and cooperate with 30 schools to respond to local needs with the aim of developing the school learning environment.
Jordan-Partners is a Jordanian non-profit civil society organization established in 2005, which seeks to promote democratic development and social accountability, encourage citizens to participate in social and political life, empower women, renounce violence and extremism, accept others and non-discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion or language.
Source: Jordan News Agency
