JICA-RI Meets Government Officials of Burkina Faso to Discuss Impact Evaluation of JICA Projects

Research Associate Eiji Kozuka was in Burkina Faso from September 13 to 21, where he visited the capital, Ouagadougou, and Ganzougou Province to discuss the details of the surveys on JICA’s “Schools for All” Project (also known as “Support to the Improvement of School Management through Community Participation”) with government officials. This survey is part of the “Impact Evaluation Analyses for the JICA Projects” research, for which Kozuka acts as research coordinator.

Last year, JICA-RI started a field survey to analyze the impact of the “Schools for All” Project in Burkina Faso. This year, JICA-RI is planning to conduct following four surveys: a wide area survey, interviewing school principals, teachers, students and parents; a public goods experiment to observe how far teachers, parents and members of the School Management Committee trust each other and cooperate voluntarily; a school enrollment survey to measure the enrollment ratios at primary schools; and a standardized examination (completed in July) measuring how much students have learned.

The actual surveys are conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Demography (INSD). Kozuka met with INSD staff to confirm the details of the research methodology and techniques, and the experiment schedules for the targeted schools.

Kozuka says, “This research project is huge, in the sense that it involves more than 10,000 people. Before confirming the research procedures and schedule, we had to talk to INSD, “School for All” Project staff, the Ganzougou Province Department of Education, and the targeted schools, asking their opinions and getting to know their schedules. School teachers are also busy with teaching and training, and farmers with harvesting, so we had to come up with a way to minimize their burdens and get only the absolutely necessary information. We will need to constantly revisit the field for the time being to check on the project progress, and adjust it if something unexpected arises.”

The public goods experiment, the wide area survey, and the school enrollment survey are to be conducted from the end of November to December. INSD will summarize the research outcomes in the database by March next year, after which the JICA-RI team plans to analyze the data.