Thanks to Rudaba apa for alerting us to an innovation in progress in the Post-primary basic and continuing education (PACE) project of the BRAC Education Programme. In discussions with staff, it was discovered that a barrier to program ownership was the lack of access to past proposals and reports. Since December 2011, PACE has been taking steps to make these archives more accessible and encourage team members to familiarize themselves with the documents and experiences.
Rudaba apa writes, “Sharing of information is fundamental towards development of ownership and we have already shared the proposal to understand and be on the same page regarding what we would like to achieve as a Team. As part of Learning Process, it is important that we share reports as we have started discussion on programmatic outcomes. It is also important that we go through the reports for our own understanding so the we as a Team could work towards quality implementation of the programme and documentations of results.
I also personally believe and realised over years of learning that it is effective to go for field visit as a small team from time to time and go deep into programming and providing feedback to team with positive focus and effectively. One staff going to field is fine but I would like us to mix and match processes so that all become part of PACE Programme with responsibilities of different components.”
It’s great to see a movement towards transparency. Hopefully the increasing accessibility of these materials will motivate staff working on current proposals and reports to think about how they can be used by others, or what else is needed. The Social Innovation Lab has heard many lament the lack of documentation at BRAC. There is an art to documenting experiences and events in a way that builds operational “know-how” in an institution, allows others to learn and apply the lessons to their own programs, and builds a cogent narrative. We are experimenting with some techniques within the Lab (see Samina’s post on “Inside Scoop“) and how to continue to think about how BRAC could systematically do this more effectively and efficiently.
