Learning to Learn

For 17 years I was allowed to call myself a “lecturer” which I could have included in my Sceptic’s Glossary as “someone who spouts words”. It was patently a higher status (and rewarded) job than “teacher” who is expected to work with pupils (with at least a year’s full-time training for that task) and to produce results (however questionably measured).

In the 1970s a Lecturer had a lot of freedom – in terms of both choice and scale of holidays (3 months’ summer vacation for example)

Initially, I enjoyed that freedom…..although not so much with engineering students who took an understandably dubious attitude to the “liberal studies” programme in which I was initially employed - beautifully skewered in the Wilt series of novels by Tom Sharpe.

The work I particularly enjoyed was that with “mature students” - whether at the “adult education” classes of the Workers’ Educational Association; or in the Open University where I was a part-time tutor in its opening period….

In the 1970s, planning students at the famous Glasgow School of Art also proved to be a captive audience for musings about my practical experience as a reforming politician in a bureaucracy. Those were the days of Norman Dennis…..

I may not have helped them in their examinations – but at least I gave them a foretaste (and forewarning) of the games they would face in their future careers.

But my enjoyment faded as the academic Degree Machine cranked up its requirements and I found myself suddenly having to prepare course structures into which lectures and seminars fitted logically and seamlessly – without any special help being on offer. It was simply assumed that, having learned my subject, I would have the relevant skills to design course programmes, deliver lectures and organise seminars to ensure that students would read the relevant material and get through examinations successfully.

It took universities until the 1990s to wake up and make sure that lecturers were properly trained in these skills.

I had been winging my way for too long to be able to submit to the new requirements; got utterly depressed; and, after 3 years of winter misery, resigned in 1985….

Clearly, most teachers know how to teach kids – although I don’t quite know where the balance of argument currently lies between those who advocate “top-down” learning and those who favour a child-centred approach.

But adult learners clearly need a different approach – one that helps them discover things for themselves…as is expressed so well in this video – “10 things polyglots do differently”. 

It was 2005 before I got the opportunity to learn about the very different world of training adults – first in Kyrgyzstan where I was leader for two years of an EC-funded programme of capacity development for local government; and then in Bulgaria where I also led a programme to help prepare regional staff to comply with the requirements of EU membership.

I learned a lot from both experiences – starting with an intensive attempt to understand the needs of those in charge of the new municipalities of the small central Asian state and to provide relevant support. One of the results was this Roadmap for Local Government in Kyrgyzstan which I very much enjoyed preparing – as you will see from the way I pulled out the metaphor in the title (see the diagram at pages 76-77)

And I was able to use that in the very next project – benefitting from the insights of a Polish trainer in my team to produce one of my best papers - Training that works! How do we build training systems which actually improve the performance of state bodies?

So who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks??

Reflections on my years in Kyrgyzstan

The curiously named William and Mary College in the US contacted me today to invite me to take part in a survey about the development of Kyrgyzstan – where I worked as a Team Leader from 2005-2007. 
My first inclination was to decline – not just because of US imperialism (or of the connotations of William and Mary - "King Billy" as he was known in our neck of the woods !) but because of the risk of the attachment being spam. 
But my second thoughts were more generous – and I took the risk. 
The site was genuine - and indeed offered the most interesting (and interactive) internet questionnaire I have ever taken part in. It automatically honed in on my answers to probe them more deeply.....

I had only one small criticism - once the questionnaire software had identified me as a European "Commission" consultant, it then didn't really ask questions about the EC programmes, choosing instead to focus on the other development bodies I had identified in the country - US Aid; World Bank; UNDP and Swiss-Aid.

Presumably the designers assumed that I could not be objective - but I have in fact been very critical of EC programmes - as should be evident from this long paper I drafted for a NISPAcee Conference a few years a back...

And I did volunteer quite a few thoughts about the Kyrgz experience in several extensive papers - also on my website - first on the experience of developing a Roadmap for Local government in the country; then one on Municipal Capacity Building; and a final, shorter one on Building Local Government in a Hostile Climate.

Only the Roadmap was part of my terms of reference - and even that was not quite a normal technical paper; I wrote them because of my commitment.....something in short supply, I have to add sadly, amongst consultants!!

There were few open questions in the questionnaire - I would like to have put on record my appreciation of the open way these other external development organisations worked with one another in Bishkek in that era. And the great support I got from the EC Delegation - and from the German Ambassador....

Not a typical experience in my experience of working in 10 countries!!!

I should also add that the EC commissioned a very full report on the EC experience of decentralisation globally and included KR in the survey. Their report - commissioned by ECDPM - was published in 2007 with the title Decentralisation and Local Governance and is a useful reference......

I was there from 2005-2007. It was the third project in almost a decade I  spent in Central Asia and the Caucusus - and have to say that these years gave me the most professional satisfaction. In 2 of the countries I was working with the Presidential Office - who ruled the country with a tight grip. But in Azerbaijan I was given my head - and managed to turn a hopeless situation around...And in both I was working with people who seemed to appreciate getting a sense of how things worked ( or didn't) in other countries. Consultants were thin on the ground....  

Kyrgyzstan was, of course, more "fluid" with the President in fact escaping to Russia a few weeks after I arrived!  

Success in spite of the logframe - Part II

I'm revisiting some of my projects - trying to show how the successes came in spite of rather than because of the project management system the EU uses.


In February 2005 I arrived in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to start an 18 month project working with a Minister (without Portfolio) to develop the local government system. We actually had three offices – one in the capital and 2 in our 2 pilot Oblasts – and our job was to a mixture of policy advice and training. It also required us to produce a Roadmap for the development of local government (although there was already a decentralisation strategy). Just as I was finishing the Inception Report, I had to flee the country because of unrest which swept the President from power. I returned after a week to a bit of a political vacuum – but the municipalities were still there so we proceeded with the initial needs assessment which we did through focus group discussions.
I had a basic question – we were a short project in a field where there were already 2-3 donors (eg UNDP; Urban Institute) who had carved out an important role over the past 5 years and more. What, I wondered, was the distinctive contribution our small and brief project could make? The project design did not seem to have considered this question.
The first answer was that, unlike the other donors, we had a base in the field – 2 local offices – which gave us some special insights into the needs of remote village municipalities. Our intensive focus group sessions (see para 6 of this paper) and the drafting of the Roadmap also helped keep our minds constantly open to new ideas – and made me realise that one of our potential roles was to help ensure that the voice of remote people was heard in the capital. I got a bit angry, for example, with all the talk there about the “lack of municipal capacity” – and therefore wrote a whole new 100 page document on the issue of capacity development, turning the argument into one which rather questioned central commitment and capacity How do people measure municipal capacity? I asked and then suggested

that question can strictly be answered only in relation to the delegated tasks – since patently municipalities do not currently have the resources or the personnel to begin to perform “affairs of local significance”. And state bodies may therefore seem to be in the best position to answer the question since they delegate so many of their tasks to municipalities - for example the task of collecting national taxes . But it is hardly fair to give an organisation tasks it doesn’t want and for which it is not paid - and then blame it when it doesn’t carry them out “properly” (in the view of state bodies)! We argue later that the capacity of an organisation is built as it has the opportunity to take decisions for itself and learns from doing. It is exactly the same process as good parenting. Of course inexperienced young people will make mistakes – but it is the job of responsible parents who care about their children to create the conditions in which their children learn for themselves – at minimal cost to themselves and others. And some of the qualities therefore needed in those purporting to offer support to local government are care and compassion.

We held 70 workshops for the municipalities – with 1,500 participants. Motivation and appreciation was very high (the photo is a session in Atbashy). Early on in the project’s life, however, we took the view that training activities were transient events and that we should attempt to encourage a local learning capacity. Training is sustainable only if we work with motivated people – if they can then apply what they have learned and have follow-up. Initially we wanted to focus on target groups (eg newly-elected municipal Heads) but the elections took place in December 2005 and events meant that we were unable to start that particular work until May 2006, a few months from the scheduled end of the project (although I got a 6 month extension). We therefore started to focus on the entire (village) municipality – and in April 2006 experimented with a new more holistic approach to training
• A practising and successful German mayor carrying out interviews the day before the workshop with both municipal people and community activists
• His then making an initial presentation at the workshop to all staff, councillors and activists about the issues which had emerged from those interviews – and some examples about how these issues had been dealt with in other places
• Participants then going into working groups to develop options
• The full group then assessing which options to develop
• The project then organised regular follow-up, monitoring visits

This proved to be a very successful formula – with its focus on practical problems; encouraging people to work together on them; giving examples of where and how successful initiatives had been taken; and following up with regular visits to discuss progress. The spirit this created contrasts with that which often accompanies traditional training courses. The project’s Developing Municipal Capacity publication identified 10 factors which made it difficult to practice traditional training – and offers a typology of learning.
We did not initially understand the significance of the concept of a Roadmap – and it is one also which our beneficiaries also had some initial problems with. But, as we explain in the introduction to the readers of the document,

“A road map does not suggest a route – YOU choose the route. A roadmap simply locates the key features (mountains, rivers and swamps) you need to be aware of when trying to travel from the A to the B of your choice. So this is not an attempt to force foreign models on the local situation. Another point about a road map is that it cannot cover every changing detail nor tell you how you should approach certain situations – sometimes a large bump in the road or impatience can have fatal consequences. So a road map is only a guide - local knowledge, judgment and skills are needed to get you to your destination! And, like a map, you don’t have to read it all – only the sections which are relevant for your journey!”

The Roadmap contains powerful insights into the difficulties being experienced by the country in policy implementation.
To be continued

tribes, traditions and transitions

A time for superficial dipping – with another Amazon packet thudding onto the table. At the moment I’m locked into Jonathan Watt’s grim journey around China’s environmental disasters
and spellbound by William Blacker’s Along the Enchanted Way
This last is a memoir of ten years spent in Transylvania and the Maramures as an age-old way of life gradually crumbles in the face of modernity. Jason Goodwin (who writes so well about the ottoman way of life) has given it a very positive review on the Amazon site.

It's a gripping and affecting account of the experience of living in this remote and beautiful region of Europe, telling a story that's almost impossibly romantic. He chronicles a near-mediaeval way of life, with its horses and witches, its casual kindness and grace, its wholeness and jealousies -interwoven with his own story - the years he spent living the peasant life, the rumbunctious affair with his Gypsy girlfriend, the brutality of the police, the cruelty and the wisdom of country life.

I particularly enjoyed his description of his attempts to learn the scything technique which so well matches my own.
With guests here, I slept last night under the eaves in the attic last night for the first time since it was refurbished all of a year ago. It’s about time we gave it some decorative treatment!

The morning dawned cloudy for the first time for amore than a week – and an article on Kyrgzystan got me to browsing through recent stuff on this country which I knew so well in 2005-2007.
One of the articles was by my friend David Coombes
The admirable Crisis Group has just issued its detailed assessment of the horrific events of April in that country
And I noticed that the guy who was central asian Director of Crisis Group – David Lewis - has an interesting analysis of the area - Temptations of Tyranny in Central Asia

Another interesting recent discovery was the debates which the Economist journal now runs online – the most recent of which was on the Chinese development model.

New York Review of Books blogs are always interesting – and, with all the recent publicity about Wikileaks, this one on secrecy in China is worth a look
Finally – and remembering what I said recently about satire - PJ O’Rourke has a great piece on the way our understanding of far-off countries is filtered by journalists