Check My School: A Case Study on Citizens’ Monitoring of the Education Sector in the Philippines
these functionalities. Accordingly, DepEd stressed in its Memorandum of Agreement with ANSA-EAP “the need for a systematic Web-based public information facility on education services that is easily accessible and userfriendly and facilitates citizens’ engagement with government to improve such services.” Under the current system, school administrators are required to complete numerous time-consuming forms and reports about the condition of their schools. These forms and reports are then submitted to local division offices, which consolidate and send them to the regional and national offices. This process is inefficient, cumbersome, and prone to mistakes and errors (especially in parts of the country where it is not fully computerized). Acknowledging that the official school data in its possession may be incomplete or inaccurate, DepEd recognized the need to have independent third parties validate these data.
Prior Civil Society Initiatives DepEd has welcomed civil society efforts to provide complementary, thirdparty monitoring of service delivery programs. For example, CMS builds on the work of Government Watch (G-Watch), an anticorruption project launched by the Ateneo School of Government in 2000. G-Watch aimed to improve the provision of a variety of public services by establishing CMS partnerships with relevant government departments, obtaining official procurement data from them, and using the data as a benchmark for monitoring the delivery of public services. As a result of its monitoring activities, G-Watch exposed a range of procurement problems, including missing textbooks, unfinished school buildings, overpriced medicines, and delayed road construction. The Textbook Count project, launched in 2002, was the most effective component of the G-Watch program. The project mobilized volunteers, who monitored the delivery of textbooks to public schools throughout the country. Textbooks were delivered to schools on a predetermined schedule, and volunteers at the schools checked and counted the number of books delivered. Although Textbook Count assumed responsibility for training, organizing, and overseeing the activities of volunteers, its partner CSOs were responsible for mobilizing them. The project collaborated with election watchdogs and youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of the Philippines. Furthermore, to improve the delivery of textbooks to far-flung villages, Textbook Count collaborated with the Coca-Cola Company and used its distribution vehicles to transport books. Textbook Count tracked tens of millions of textbooks. It reduced the price of textbooks by 40 percent, improved the accuracy of textbook deliveries, and shortened the DepEd’s procurement cycle from 24 to 12 months (Parafina 2006). Despite these considerable accomplishments, the Ateneo School of Government found the project difficult to sustain. Closing the Feedback Loop • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0191-4
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