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About EXCELL

The EXCELL Project ("Excellence in Classroom Education at the Local Level") has been designed to address educational priorities and improve educational performance of children in 250 rural schools, K-6 in El Salvador. Its interventions will be conducted between July 2003 and June 2005 and are oriented to developing competencies among school principals to lead improvement in quality in education, strengthen the capabilities of mid-level Managers in the Ministry of Education to support school principals, strengthen the Ministry's capacity to process and use information about quality in education, and improve the production, availability and use of research in policy decision-making in the sector.

Among the tasks to be addressed during the Project's first year are the conceptual, methodological and operational designs that will offer elements for a model to develop quality in rural education for the Ministry of Education in El Salvador. Additionally, we will conduct the initial implementation of the Project's three components, as well as the implementation of its monitoring and evaluation and cost-share strategies.

The Project has assembled a highly motivated technical, professional and administrative team that brings together a variety of disciplines to mobilize USAID'S financial resources and the experience of its implementing organizations in favor of the Ministry of Education's goals in implementing training, technical assistance and research activities. Its work plan and Performance Monitoring Plan will contribute to ensure pertinent results within the time and resource constraints of the Project.

To date the Project has worked with its counterparts in the MOE, including the National Directorate for Educational Development, the National Directorate for Monitoring and Evaluation, the Deputy Manager's Office for Human Resources, the Directorate for the "Escuela 10" Program, the Directorate for Teacher Professional Development and the Directorate for Organizational Development and Strategic Planning. Work with these has included: a) The design of a strategy and definition of specific Project activities; b) Project presentations and consultations have been held with 213 managers and officials from the upper and mid levels of the MOE, including National Directors, Directors and Mid-Level Managers, Department Directors, Chiefs and technical teams of the Regional Teacher Development Centers, Liaison Technicians, Pedagogical Advisors and School Principals; c) Through a team of professional quality facilitators that act as the Project's front line all 250 schools covered by the Project have been visited initially and a profile report prepared.

Additionally we are completing the joint definition with the MOE and USAID of terms of reference for studies including:

a) The analysis of professional development needs among mid-level managers;
b) The uses and needs of quality in education information for decision-making in the MOE;
c) The analysis of aspects of the relationship between quality in education, equity and human development in El Salvador;
d) A Research Committee involving the MOE and USAID has been organized; and
e) A National Education Policy Forum was held on December 1, 2003, in coordination with the Education Sector Analysis being funded by USAID and the World Bank. In a non-partisan context, this Forum brought together national and international experts, policy decision-makers and implementers in analyzing results from ten years of educational reform and proposing next steps for the coming decade;
f) Ten sensitization and feedback workshops are being held throughout the project's area of influence with school principals, teachers, parents and children from every school within the Project to present information about the Project's tasks and activities and to collect information about the various stakeholder's expectations and their vision of the principals' role in school.

Fifteen potential providers of research, training and technical assistance services have already been identified, and contacts are being developed to ensure the coordination between the project and other initiatives in the MOE and the education sector, to be channeled through a Consultative Group.

A key lesson underlined so far is the fundamental importance of working hand-in-hand and permanently with the Ministry of Education, promoting and consulting the Project closely with all our collaborators, counterparts and friends, to ensure synergies in favor of the MOE's initiatives.

The EXCELL Project is now poised to consolidate its design, implement its strategies and strengthen its alliances in favor of the pedagogical leadership of school principals, strengthen the role in service and strategic response capacity of mid-level managers as a function of the pedagogical processes and quality in education, and deepen knowledge through studies that not only provide information, but also propose ways to address the needs posed by a new decade of Education Reform in El Salvador.