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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) |
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 What was the GSS crisis all about?
In what ways is the GSS model different from the method of teaching in conventional schools?
What is the source of the Learner performance data?
What is the breakdown of the Unit cost (per child/year)?
What was lost? |
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What was the GSS crisis all about? |
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 GSS Phase III completed in December 1997 but owing to administrative delays on the part of the donors, Phase IV (for three years) was not approved by the Donors until the second half of 1998. The donors however, did not grant GSS any bridging grant. Nor did the donors release any funding against Phase IV which officially began in October 1998. As a result, GSS, an organisation which needed over $.6 million every month to pay for staff salaries and programme expenses, did not have any funding for18 months from Jan. 1998 to June 1999 when the organisation had to be closed down.
Delay in fund release led to staff unrest in one of the three programmes in March 1998. The donors, led by the EU, then demanded, without any consultation with GSS, that the Founder/Executive Director and the President of the organisation, a retired judge of the High Court of Bangladesh, resigned for their 'failure to resolve the staff unrest'. The GSS Board consisting of some of the best known intellectuals and civil society leaders in the country was unable to comply with this demand on grounds that firstly, it was not appropriate for donors to try and intervene in the internal management of an NGO; secondly, that the findings of an investigation into the purported causes of staff unrest led the GSS Board to conclude that the allegations were baseless; and thirdly, this would set a dangerous precedent in the donor-NGO relation in the country. The Board invited the Donors for a discussion, but the donors insisted that no consultation could take place until their decision was complied with.
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In what ways is the GSS model different from the method of teaching in conventional schools? |
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 Conventional schools in South Asia and in most of the rest of the developing world are characterised by teacher centred, syllabus driven and rote based teaching learning. Learner performance is assessed by the ability of the learner to recall from memory and is indicated by a set of marks which fail to indicate what the learner knows and is able to do. For the GSS model, see 'Key Elements of the GSS Active Teaching Learning Model' above. |
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What is the source of the Learner performance data? |
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 The MIS in GSS ensured an efficient flow of information from and to the field with a view to monitoring the progress of the Programmes at a sufficiently disaggregated level, identifying problems and trouble-shooting and designing appropriate interventions where necessary. The Unit responsible for housing the MIS also included Research and Evaluation. This helped the GSS Programmes assess their longer term potential and constraints, and build an information system for GSS as well as for other users.
GSS' Research Monitoring and Evaluation Unit (RMEU) underwent major restructuring in 1997 and included four sections: (i) Research and Evaluation (R&E), (ii) Electronic Data Processing (EDP), (iii) Management Information Service (MIS), and (iv) Documentation.
The EDP section was being set up. It needed rigorous knowledge in programming and system analysis. It used a Local Area Network (LAN) with a server using SCO UNIX platform. The server used Oracle 7, an advanced application software, as its basic database. To further develop applications (based on Oracle) Developers 2000 had been installed in the client computers. This helped RMEU to create relational databases linking tables.
In addition to baseline data on primary school students, the schools and the students had been assigned unique identification numbers for monitoring and other purposes and data collected on a quarterly basis included the number of schools, enrolment, attendance, drop outs, achievement, and teachers.
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What is the breakdown of the Unit cost (per child/year)? |
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What was lost? |
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 The donors, led by the European Union, withdrew the committed funding of $29 million dollars for Phase IV for the GSS management's refusal to remove the Executive Director and the President of the organization. The 6000 plus staff became jobless and the 750 full primary schools with its 200,000 children were closed down. The network of 600 lawyers which offered legal aid to the landless families, especially women who were subjected to violence and oppression across the country, stopped functioning. 700,000 landless families who benefited from self-help credit and savings, social forestry and primary healthcare, looked bewildered for lack of supervision and leadership.
Meanwhile, the government appointed Care-taker Body which a year later expressed its inability to make the GSS schools operational for lack of funding. It then amended the Constitution of the organisation, elected a new Executive Committee and advised the government to hand over the management of the organisation back to the newly elected Committee.
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