First Principles
Community Engagement in Education Programs
by Ginny Kintz
This First Principles: Community Engagement in Education Programs provides an overview and guidance for designing and implementing education programs through the active involvement of communities. The principles, steps, and indicators are primarily meant to guide program designs, including the development of requests for and subsequent review of proposals, the implementation of program activities, and the development of performance management plans, evaluations and research studies. The First Principles are intended to help USAID education officers specifically, as well as other stakeholders– including staff in donor agencies, government officials, and staff working for international and national non-governmental organizations– who endeavor to improve education by engaging communities. The guidance in this document is meant to be used and adapted for a variety of settings to help USAID officers, educators and implementers grapple with the multiple dimensions of professional development and overcome the numerous challenges in mobilizing and meaningfully involving communities in supporting education. The last section provides references for those who would like to learn more about issues and methods for engaging community in education programming. The Compendium version provides greater depth for those who are interested to know more about key considerations when engaging communities in education. The Digest version is a brief to quickly provide basic information on this topic.