I am in Vietnam right now and Dr. Ngu has just taught me a lesson in communication. Dr. Ngu is the Director of Finances and Planning at the Ministry of Education and Training here in Hanoi. I have just finished what I thought was a succinct 15-minute presentation to the Education Sector Group. I spoke about the shift within the FTI partnership from an inputs-based approach to a results focus, which will emphasize, in addition to access, quality of learning and making sure that children leave school with adequate writing and reading skills.

Dr. Ngu spoke right after me and summed up my whole presentation in 8 words. TIEN TRAO CHAO MUC. This is his summary of the inputs-based approach. You have to pay before you eat the soup. And then the results-based approach. AN BANH TRA TIEN. Don’t pay until after you’ve tasted the cake.

The Indicative Framework was a synopsis of policy decisions that were to be in place as a pre-requisite for support from the FTI trust funds. Financing from the government itself, a sufficiently long school year, agreement on teacher salaries, a commitment to lower grade repetition, and so on. We won’t be abandoning the policy dialogue, but FTI will start experimenting with performance-based approaches. One option may be incentive grants to schools that achieve learning goals… There’s nothing wrong with soup, but a little cake now and then can go a long way.

Tomorrow I will be attending the Education for All (EFA) High-Level Group meeting in Jomtien, Thailand.  This is an annual event put together by UNESCO’s Director-General and brings together high-level representatives from a variety of backgrounds so that we can discuss education policies and mobilize financial and technical support to meet the EFA goals. So stay tuned…

Note:  Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have released a new website promoting their upcoming book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty– see particularly excerpts from Chapter 4 Top of the Class on education“Over the past few decades” they mention” children have flocked into the schools, but schools seem to have delivered very little: teachers and students are often absent, and learning levels are very low.” A good pointer to the FTI partnership emphasis on quality of education.