Hartwell, Ash

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Adjunct Professor
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Hartwell
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Ash
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Introduction
Ash Hartwell has forty years of field experience working at community, national and international levels on educational policy analysis, planning, evaluation, and research. He has conducted program and project evaluations in numerous crisis and post-conflict countries including Uganda, Egypt, South Sudan. He has led and/or assisted in the design and implementation of national EMIS systems in Uganda, Lesotho, Botswana, Egypt and Nigeria. He has been the USAID representative to the Association for the Development of Education in Africa’s Working Group on Education Statistics, and supervised the development of the ED-Assist platform for developing and managing national EMIS systems. From 1992 to 2000 Ash worked as a Senior Education Advisor to the Africa Bureau, USAID (AFR/SD), assisting in the design and evaluation of education programs in 12 African countries.
Over the past five years Ash has carried out a rapid education sector review in Kosovo for UNICEF; designed and carried out research on a national program of early grade bi-lingual literacy with the EDC/USAID and the Ghana Ministry of Education; developed the Progressive Framework for the FTI Fragile States Working Group; served on the core Leader Team for EQUIP 2, focusing on an analysis of alternative (complimentary) education models for underserved populations; led a Youth Assessment team for USAID/Kenya which led to the nation-wide Yes Youth Can project; led a team in Pakistan for an external evaluation of the Institute for Education Development at the Aga Khan University; assisted with the design and analysis of an EGRA for Zambia, and led a national policy review workshop on the EGRA results; conducted a review and evaluation for the design of a national teacher management and training program in South Sudan.
During 2013, Ash led a team to develop a toolkit for the USAID/E3 Bureau on the design, management and evaluation of government-to-government financing (G2G) in the education sector, developing case studies for Ethiopia, Senegal and Afghanistan. He also consulted on the design of field instruments and analysis for a LQAS pilot study for Ghana’s early grade literacy program through EdData 2. Ash is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Center for International Education, University of Massachusetts where he has taught graduate courses in Monitoring and Evaluation for Educational Development; Alternative Approaches to Education for Development; Learning in Post-Conflict Situations; Education Planning; Financing Education; and Policy Issues in Educational Development. He is also the Principal Investigator for the five year (2014-2019) USAID-ECCN Project, which works with the lead group at Education Development Center to develop and support a community of practice, building evidence to support USAID’s Education Goal 3: increasing equitable access to 15 million children and youth in crisis and conflict-affected countries.
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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Design
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    This document describes the theoretical and conceptual framework for the independent evaluation of Twaweza. It describes and amplifies Twaweza’s theory of change: its key concepts, relationships and assumptions, and on this base articulates the evaluation’s conceptual framework, principles, approaches and methodologies. A fundamental premise informs this work: the perspectives and lived experiences of citizens in East Africa will shape the theory and its evaluation. By implication, this design document provides a starting point (building on the body of previous research on evaluating social change and Twaweza’s work on this) that will be modified and shaped by experience with communities, citizens, institutions, and Twaweza’s partners. This document begins with a brief introduction to the Twaweza initiative and to the goals and purposes of the independent evaluation. It then examines the premises and implications of Twaweza’s theory of social change, understood as a complex, organic system, an ‘ecological’ model, as Twaweza seeks to foment an ‘ecosystem of change’. It places the Twaweza’s strategy of working through established partner institutions to energize citizen agency and action within the context of political, social, and environmental conditions. It also describes the character of state bureaucracies, and the range of their responses to citizen agency, including greater engagement with citizens leading to improvement in the reach and quality of public services: water/sanitation, health, and education. This overview of the theory of social change, including its key concepts and processes, provides the basis for describing key questions and hypotheses, and the independent evaluation principles and methodology. Details on the evaluation design include key evaluation questions; implementation; components; approaches and methodologies; concluding with a discussion of strategies for communicating and disseminating evaluation elements and findings. This body of the document ends with matrices mapping key concepts onto methodologies (Table 1); linking methodologies, sampling, and timing (Table 2); and preliminary indicators of key concepts (Table 3).
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    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Design Elaboration of Mixed Methods Design, Evaluation Questions, Key Hypotheses, and Methods
    (Center for International Education, UMass Amherst, 2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    This document discusses the use of a mixed methods design and how the key evaluation questions and broad hypotheses are linked to specific methods. The first section is a short discussion of the mixed methods design for baseline studies; the second is a brief discussion of types of research and evaluation questions as a framework; the third, lists some more inquiry-oriented broad evaluation questions with a discussion about the specific methods and items to respond to them; and in the fourth, preliminary broad hypotheses are summarized with a discussion of which items in the baseline surveys and in proposed targeted studies can respond to them. The annexes include a short discussion on what constitutes evidence (A); the objectives of the baseline surveys (B); a table indicating methods and timing (C); and a table listing overall evaluation questions and methodologies (D).
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    PublicationOpen Access
    LEARNING FOR ALL: ALTERNATIVE MODELS & POLICY OPTIONS
    (2007-01-01) Hartwell, Ash
    The greatest barrier to achieving the Millennium Development and Education for All goal of universal, quality primary education by 2015 is the inability of public education systems in the poorest countries to adequately reach and educate large segments of their populations .Not only are significant numbers of children underserved in terms of access to education, the public schooling that is provided fails to provide most who do attend with basic literacy and life skills. This failure has enormous consequences for national education systems, for countries’ human resources and economic development. However, complementary models for providing primary schooling, typically provided through NGOs, have been able to reach and effectively educate these under-served areas and populations, often doing so far more effectively than the formal public system. Yet there are few countries that have developed policies and partnerships within national education sector programs to build on the experience and insights that complementary models provide. This paper reports ongoing research that explores how it is that complementary education models organize and deliver primary schooling that assures children’s learning, and examines policy implications for achieving quality basic education for all children.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    USAID/Kampustan ECCN Simulation
    (2016-01-01) Hartwell, Ash; Boisvert, Kayla
    This PowerPoint presentation introduces a complex simulation developed by the UMass Education in Crisis and Conflict Network (ECCN) project team. The simulation provided the basic framework of a training workshop for USAID education officers from multiple countries affected by crisis or conflicts, held in Bangkok during the week of October 31 to November 4, 2016. Simulations are a powerful training methodology that is modeled on real-life situations, but are compressed in time and scope. Simulations are used to provide opportunity for active participation of all participants and to require them to understand various stakeholders. By having to take on various roles participants must understand the perspectives and motivations of the stakeholder they are playing. Simulations lead to lively interaction and more intense involvement with the subject matter. In this training workshop, the simulation requires participants to create an actual project design. The goals for the workshop were to: Use data and information on crisis and conflict-affected contexts to inform responsive programming. Procure and oversee or manage a Rapid Education and Risk Analysis. Create relevant, evidence-based project designs using theories of change that address key challenges of education programs in crisis and conflict-affected environments, including equity, conflict-sensitivity, safety, and institutional capacity. Apply principles of collaborative learning and adaptive management (CLA) in the design, management, monitoring and evaluation of education programming in crisis and conflict affected settings. Select and use appropriate award mechanisms to provide flexibility and adaptation for education programs in crisis- and conflict-affected environments. The participants were introduced to a country they had never heard of before: Kampustan. The ECCN training team created this fictional country as a sandbox for participants to explore the goals and concepts. Kampustan was designed to be an East Asian country struggling with equity issues, government upheaval, protests and armed rebellion. It was crafted with care, based on research from seven countries in the region, and included an artist’s rendition of Kampustan’s geography with regions, ethnic identities, military and agriculture. Participants were divided into groups which examined stacks of data cards for Kampustan as part of a simulated Rapid Education and Risk Analysis (RERA) activity. Discussions were animated as they decided which issues in Kampustan were causes of the major problems, which were effects, and how the issues related to each other. They refined their analysis into a list of findings, a simplified version of what would be found as part of a real RERA activity. The groups were challenged to find the right level of detail, language and tone in their list of key findings. Groups were then asked to plan education programs for the specific challenges in Kampustan using tools and resources specific to crisis and conflict contexts. The need for flexibility in such environments was stressed. This is one of several simulations developed by the UMass ECCN team. Previous simulations were used in workshops organized by ECCN in Ethiopia and north-east Nigeria.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Evaluating 'Twaweza' Conference Presentation
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    Presentation at the Comparative & International Education Society meetings March 3, 2010, Chicago, IL The Center for International Education (CIE) was awarded a contract to serve as the independent evaluation entity for the Twaweza initiative based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Twaweza ("we can make it happen" in Swahili) is a ten-year initiative, funded by the Dutch development organizations Hivos and SNV and other donors. Its overall goal is to foster citizen-driven change and to empower East African citizens (inTanzania, Kenya, and Uganda) to advocate for access to and the quality of basic services (particularly basic education, clean water, and health services).
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Unpacking Twaweza's Theory of Social Change: Citizen Agency, Information, Accountability, and Basic Services
    (2010-01-01) Miller, Ethan; Hartwell, Ash; Rossman, Gretchen
    The purpose of this paper is to define the key concepts – and links between them – of Twaweza’s Theory of Social Change. These are the notions of citizen-driven change, citizen agency, information, monitoring and accountability, and basic services. The analysis shows ambiguities and, at times, conflicting working definitions in Twaweza’s use of these terms in its major public documents. We then integrate relevant scholarship to elaborate these central ideas and to pose questions that Twaweza may engage with in the spirit of its claims to be a “learning organization.”
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Adaptive Management Annotated Bibliography
    (2016-01-01) Hartwell, Ash; Boisvert, Kayla; Flemming, Jenn; Novrita, Julia
    The technical knowledge of the elements needed to provide equitable basic education is well established: well-crafted curricula, qualified teachers supported by professional development, adequate infrastructure, appropriate texts and instructional materials, and a regular process for assessing learning achievement. However, in conflict/crisis-affected environments, there are a host of barriers and challenges to providing these elements, including insecurity, weak institutions, inequalities, historical traumas, and fault lines. These contexts are deeply complex, dynamic, often times unpredictable, and difficult to manage. USAID’s programs, while they often provide pilot and demonstration projects that point the way to system change, cannot sustain the delivery of education services and reform – this must ultimately be accomplished by host-country institutions. However, it is precisely in countries affected by conflict that institutions have the weakest capacity to deliver and support basic education. The recent increase in the use of the term theory of change by development agencies and organizations arises from the need for more well-grounded and creative strategies to achieve progress in challenging and complex environments. A theory of change approach calls for greater rigor in examining contexts, systems, organizations, strategies, and project designs in crisis and conflicted environments, seeking to understand both the drivers of conflict and ways that improved access to education can mitigate the effects of conflict on children and youth. The USAID-ECCN Annotated Bibliography on Theories of Change in Development as of 2016 has reviewed more than 150 studies in the form of existing reviews, concept papers, research, cases, and guidance. Documents have been drawn from published sources, institutional and private think tanks, donor agencies, development organizations, and non-governmental organizations. This document contains a selection 36 studies that highlight the major findings and good practices that apply the concept and practice of theory of change in development assistance, with a focus on contexts affected by crisis and conflict. The documents selected for the first phase of the Annotated Bibliography were chosen based on: (i) our judgment on the quality of theory and evidence, (ii) degree to which they are cited in the literature, and (iii) their specific contribution to the concepts and application of theory of change relevant to education in crisis- and conflict-affected settings. The annotated bibliography is an ongoing process that is now available online in the form of evidence gap maps that provide systematic access to research findings.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    USAID ECCN Policy Issues Brief: Accelerated Education for Out-of-School Children and Youth in the DRC
    (2016-01-01) Hartwell, Ash
    This policy brief draws from the findings of USAID Education in Crisis and Conflict Network’s recent study on alternative education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to raise vital policy issues linked to achieving national and global goals for education. That study, after a careful review of relevant literature, involved fieldwork in North Kivu as well as interviews in Kinshasa with key informants from government ministries, UN agencies, the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Education, bilateral donor agencies, and international NGOs. This brief is intended to serve as a catalyst for government, donor, and NGO dialogue on policy issues related to increasing the provision and quality of accelerated education programs, which provide a strategy for reaching the large number of children and youth who have missed out on basic education, particularly in regions affected by crisis and conflict.