Deciding on a philosophy of program implementation

The issue of philosophy of program implementation is essentially that of who has control and decision-making authority in a program. What you decide about your philosophy of program implementation will affect many aspects of your program plan.

Here are some of the questions you must answer:

• Who will control the program?

  Some possibilities are

  • the local community or target population
  • the technical consultant
  • the funder
  • the sponsoring agency
  • the regional government
  • the national government, or
  • some combination of these agencies.
• Who ought to control the program?
• What difference will it make?
• What distribution of control is likely to work best?

Imagine a continuum of programs in which control ranges from entirely local to entirely external. Between these extremes would be something like a negotiated partnership with shared control.

On one extreme is local control as embodied in a community-based literacy program. At the other extreme is external control such as one would find in a national literacy campaign, or a large program run by a professional organization. In between is shared control in which there is some kind of shared responsibility between the customer (the local community) and the provider (the technical agency or consultant).

Deciding where on this continuum your program fits is based on a combination of ideology, pragmatics, and policy constraints of sponsors. There are no hard-and-fast rules.

The choice depends largely on

• your personal or organizational philosophy of innovation and change, and
• the constraints and requirements of your sponsoring partners.

• Review and define your philosophy on locus of control.

  See:	What is a community-based literacy program?

• In discussion with appropriate consultants and stakeholders , decide the extent to which the proposed program will be community based or community controlled.
• If the program is to be partially or fully community-based, make sure you plan with appropriate input from the community.
• If the program is to be partially community based, identify which components are to be locally controlled and administered and which ones are to be controlled externally.

  Use this table to help you decide which components should be locally controlled:

  Components easiest to control at the local level	Components that can be controlled locally or externally	Components hardest to control at the local level
  Building facilities	Paying teachers	Designing materials
  Maintaining facilities and equipment	Funding the program	Reporting to sponsors
  Selecting teachers	Supervising teachers	Evaluating the program
  Working out cultural problems	Record keeping	Making technical adjustments and adaptations
  	Mobilizing	Producing materials
  	Training teachers	Managing external funding

• Planning a literacy program

• Task module: Deciding on a philosophy of program implementation
• In task module: Determining the shape of a literacy program, by Stephen L. Walter
• In task module: Determining the type of literacy program, by Barbara K. Trudell (contributor), Stephen L. Walter (contributor), and Julia R. Van Dyken (contributor)
• In task module: Planning a literacy program, by Stephen L. Walter
• In modular book: Plan a literacy program, by Stephen L. Walter, Barbara K. Trudell (contributor), and Trudy K. Stewart (general editor)
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 2 July 1998

© 1999 SIL International