E-QUALITY

Fighting corruption in the recruitment process of school staff by promoting transparency through innovative digital infrastructure at local municipalities.

Executive Summary: The idea is to fight corruption in the recruitment process in the largest sector of government which is: education. This could be done by developing a digital tool that would provide: transparency, accountability, monitoring, effective governance, and justice employment at the local municipal level.

1. Corruption is a global problem, especially in the developing countries. This proposed solution focuses only on the corruption in the recruitment process in education sector. In other words, it ensures that those with qualified degrees for the teaching course will teach in their field. The problem emerged because there are many teachers who hold a degree in History, but teach Biology for instance. After data collection on the problem, our team realized that this is a phenomenon occurring in 7 Western Balkans countries and in Eastern Europe.

2. For this reason, the initiative E-QUALITY is a digital platform dedicated to increase: transparency, accountability, justice employment, governance, & monitoring in the recruitment process of school staff in Education Department in local Municipalities in the country and beyond. The solution will include the qualifications of school staff (such as: Curriculum Vitae CV) available for public view so that parents and students and media could monitor the recruitment process. 

So, how will this look like? At the local Municipality website, one can enter into the Directorate of Education and then select the school they want to view. After the school selection, the names and surnames of school staff will appear and their CV under the name so one can have a look at the educational background and whether that teacher/principal has the qualifications for the subject/course. 

3. The E-QUALITY goal is to contribute to the improvement of the education quality, which is also a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal. If this platform is going to be implemented in municipalities in the developing countries across the globe, then we have at least tackled one of the sectors/portions of corruption. 

Future plans: Scalability across countries in Western Balkans and Easter Europe (Asia and Africa, potential). In addition, we have a plan to modify the digital tool and further tackle corruption in other sectors such as: health.

E-QUALITY is a new digital platform that provides digital infrastructure in the recruitment process in the Education Department at the local Municipal level so that the Municipal Administration challenges corruption by becoming more: transparent, accountable, effective in governance, and better monitoring facilities.

Technology is integral because it is straightforward to fight corruption and provide democratic values and effective governance through transparency, accountability, justice employment, and monitoring facilities for the citizens. This way it will increase civic engagement. 

- Develop a digital platform to integrate at the local municipal level in the department of education across the country.

- Train teachers and educators how to write a standardized Curriculum Vitae.

- Place data/resource information on the digital platform already developed.

- Expand the operations in the region countries of the Western Balkans.

- Provide transparency on the qualifications data of school staff in the region (Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina).

- Improved education in the long term.

Overall, 7 Western Balkans countries will perform better at the national level on corruption decrease. Education is the largest sector of each country of the Western Balkans therefore if this sector is tackled the corruption will decrease at a high percentage.

Our customers are local governments and in particular the education department at the local municipal level. 

We reach them through our b2b meetings (as we did in the past) and we collaborate throughout the process on digital infrastructure. After we settle the ground of our collaboration, we organize a conference so that we communicate the project idea to the school directors/principals and secretary. Then, we organize a one-day seminars for teachers how to write a Curriculum Vitae in European Union format. So, that everyone has a same format. This way we work together with: municipality, school principals, and teachers.

According to the data collected at the municipality in Mitrovica, there are 120,000 students and 36,000 are students enrolled in primary and secondary schools. In other cities of Kosovo, we collected similar data. In total, there are 7 cities so we reach to 1,000,000 people with this project idea. In Albania, there are 2.876 million. In Serbia, there are 7,6 million. In Montenegro, there are 630,000 people. In Bulgaria, there are 7,1 million people. In Bosnia, there are 3,5 million people. In 5 years time this is what we expect to cover.

In 12 months, we expect to serve 1,000,000 people. In the next 3 years, we plan to continue by expanding to Albania and Montenegro and in 5 years time we expect to complete 7 Western Balkans countries.

The population will be affected because this is the first innovative idea of a kind where the municipalities will provide the change solution i.e. transparency, accountability, monitoring, effective governance and justice employment in this particular sector.

Our team has educational experience in: graphic design, programming, mobile app development, mathematics, education, social science, and filmmaking.

Our team has professional experience in: international organizations, government, and non-government sector. 

Prior experience: Danish Refugee Council, European Commission, Office of the Prime Minister, International Monetary Fund, Human Rights Watch, USAID World Learning, Save the Children, and UNICEF.

We are the first and innovative idea that collaborates with government on providing action plans to fight corruption. Our idea is sustainable because the government is interested in fighting corruption and improving the ranking of a country in the Corruption Index.

Western Balkans countries did not join European Union mainly because of the corruption in the government sector and this project helps tackling corruption in a specific field and helps these countries improve their performance and eventually provide better education quality for youth. 

We are applying to SOLVE for 3 reasons.

1.We are looking forward to to be able to learn more and to have a collaboration with such an esteemed University. 

2.We are eventually looking forward to collaborate and have MIT and Solve behind our initiative as this will also be a stronger case for our promotion and possibly make it to the FORBES UNDER 30. 

3.In the near future we plan to either do a PhD or Master at MIT and being able to be beneficiaries of Solve will be a stepping stone.

SOLVE can gives us mentorship, suggestions for improvement. We are looking forward to receive some mentorship and networking with experts in the field and developing knowledge with other colleagues in education and teachers SOLVE challenge.