The Australia-Pacific Partnerships Platform has supported the placement of a Strategic Education Adviser within the Tuvalu Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MEYS) since 2021.
With a strong education background, including previous roles in the Federated States of Micronesia, Morgana Chantagit has worked with her MEYS colleagues to progress a range of initiatives identified by the Ministry as crucial to strengthening planning and coordination across the education sector. These initiatives included supporting the MEYS Education Department with high quality sector analysis, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, and enhancing the Department’s ability to coordinate with donors and other development partners
Building strategy from within the team
Morgana worked within the Education Department to strengthen internal processes around the development and implementation of relevant strategic plans. This required building an understanding of the existing skillsets and identifying the gaps needed for stronger strategy development and implementation. Morgana then put in place a combination of workshops, coaching and mentoring to support professional development, coupled with tailored templates and tools to improve internal approaches and processes. At the time of writing, 7 out of 9 Education Department unit plans had been completed, all of which inform the MEYS strategic plan.
Acting Director of Education, Vanessa Talake, felt that Morgana’s one-on-one engagement with education department staff had been a key factor in her ability to build strategic thinking and planning skills within the team. This approach meant the process took longer than planned, but Ms Talake could see that it was valued by staff.
“Morgana’s approach meant that the staff were part of the strategic planning journey and, at the same time, the skills needed to think strategically and develop plans were being embedded within the team. The staff were actively involved in the development of the unit plans that will inform the MEYS strategic plan, and this is critical to their sense of achievement and ownership. The Department appreciates the collaborative support from Morgana,” Ms Talake said.
Coordinating a crowded sector
With many development partners to engage with and a range of education investments to coordinate, it is crucial that MEYS has a view of all that is happening in Tuvalu’s education system. Morgana worked with MEYS to establish stronger coordination across a wide network of partners in order to progress key education activities in line with the Tuvalu’s Te Kete: National Strategy for Sustainable Development 2021-2030.
This network of partners included the World Bank, UN agencies, Pacific regional organisations, bilateral donors, NGOs, civil society and the Tuvalu and Australia Partnership for Quality Education. In addition to positioning MEYS as the coordinating agency across this network of education partners, Morgana and her colleagues worked to increase mutual accountability between MEYS and education partners. They encouraged collaboration and engagement in operational planning, aligning activities and ensuring complementarity in order to deliver stronger education outcomes in Tuvalu.
Morgana was also involved in enhancing Tuvalu’s contribution to, and compliance with, regional and international education frameworks and forums, such as the Pacific Regional Education Framework, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4
Furthermore, Morgana and her colleagues linked the work of development partners to education reform, including via the Tuvalu and Australia Partnership for Quality Education and the Tuvalu Learning Project, delivered by MEYS in partnership with the World Bank. These included roundtable meetings between MEYS and education partners and the establishment of a Tuvalu Education Partners Group that was endorsed by the Ministry in December 2022. The Tuvalu Education Partners Group is a mandated advisory body that comprises 17 partners and plays a key role in coordinating funding for education priorities
Success can be ‘experienced’
Ms Talake noted that Morgana’s input was a success, not only because of the tangible outcomes achieved, but for the less-tangible changes that were reported among education department staff.
“A number of staff indicated that they learned a great deal about the process of developing different plans, and by reviewing their own roles and discussing linkages with colleagues, they gained a greater understanding of the department’s ecosystem – the culture, structure, operations and accountabilities. They described Morgana’s working style to be very hands-on and helpful. Morgana’s appointment came at a time when most of the staff were new in the Department and she worked with the new officers to bring their capacity up to speed,” she said.
