System Strengthening Partnership with Jordan’s Ministry of Education

The SSP programme is being implemented through a four-year Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) 2019-2023, with the generous funding of Canada, the Italian Agency for Development and Cooperation, and Switzerland. In-kind support has also been provided by Norway (through NORCAP), with the provision of several senior experts deployed to UNESCO and the MoE, including a Gender Officer, Data Analyst and Statistician and a Monitoring & Evaluation Officer.

The MPTF embodies the spirit of partnership and coordination between different key stakeholders to support the MoE in implementing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting on its Education Strategic Plan 2018-2022 (ESP). More specifically, support through this programme is focused on system strengthening, which is one of the core domains of the ESP. The SSP also contributes to the National Strategy for Human Resource Development, and the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (in particular SDG4 and Education 2030).

Through this multi-year programme, UNESCO will strengthen the core functions of the MoE in planning and budgeting, monitoring and reporting, research and evaluation, data and information management, and coordination and partnership. Furthermore, the programme aims to further strengthen an enabling institutional environment for crisis-sensitive planning in Jordan, including risk management. Technical support will also be provided to the MoE in areas of data collection, analysis and utilization by reinforcing the MoE’s capacity to maintain, manage and utilize the OpenEMIS platform.

The programme builds on UNESCO Amman’s previous technical support to the MoE, including in cooperation with the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), to develop, launch and begin implementing the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2018-2022. In addition, the SSP also builds on UNESCO’s ongoing support for the development of OpenEMIS, in particular the 2014-2017 EU-funded programme which launched OpenEMIS in Jordan.

The SSP programme also seeks to advance gender equality and equity within the ministry by mainstreaming gender in the education system. The MoE’s Gender Equality Strategy has been developed with the technical support of UNESCO, and added as an annex to the ESP.  Education and gender equality are prerequisites for sustainable development and lay the foundation for a prosperous and democratic society by equally empowering and enabling men and women to participate in social, economic and political life. Gender equality is a global priority for UNESCO and inextricably linked to its efforts to promote the right to education and support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).