Study Democratic education in the "funding jungle" 2024

Titelbild der JoDDiD-Studie über die FInanzierungsstruktur außerschulischer politischer Bildung in Sachsen

Download: The study can be downloaded in german here.

The study Democratic Education in the 'Funding Jungle' examines the complex financing and funding structure of extracurricular civic education in Saxony. Based on guided interviews and a research-practice dialogue with stakeholders from political decision-makers, administrative staff and educational practitioners, the analysis sheds light on the thicket-like Saxon funding landscape and highlights the associated challenges. Subsequently, solutions and recommendations for action are derived. These are intended to help increase the efficiency of funding allocation and facilitate the work of project sponsors in order to ultimately improve the quality and sustainability of political education work in Saxony.

Results

The challenges described in the interviews relating to the funding and financing conditions for extracurricular educational work are summarized in the study in four central problem areas:

Diverging expectations and miscommunication: misunderstandings between project sponsors and funding providers often lead to uncertainty and a lack of understanding on both sides of the funding process.
Bureaucratic requirements, pressure to innovate and pressure to justify: Complex bureaucratic requirements and the pressure to constantly develop innovative projects are a burden on project sponsors. But public funding bodies are also increasingly under pressure to justify themselves - and in some cases pass this pressure on to the project sponsors.
Fragmented funding landscape and lack of overview: The multitude of public funding guidelines and private-sector funding opportunities makes it difficult to find your way around and causes many educators to lose track. In addition, there is no coordination or clear demarcation between them or an overarching overall strategy.
Imbalance between project funding and permanent tasks: The almost exclusive nature of project funding through grant funding leads to precarious working conditions and a shortage of skilled workers. In addition, this funding does not fit in with the permanent task of political-democratic education in society.

Based on these findings, solutions are being developed to increase the efficiency of funding allocation and facilitate the work of project sponsors. The study aims to show ways in which the Saxon "funding jungle" can be cleared in order to make the funding of political-democratic education more transparent and accessible. There are suggestions for the discussion on the future design of a sustainable funding strategy for political-democratic education in Saxony and beyond.

Selected solutions: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE...

ADVICE AND INFORMATION

Create clarity by implementing the "Funding Finder" for the Free State of Saxony and expanding the filter functions there.
Transparent presentation of responsible contact persons for all steps in the application and funding process.
Ensure comprehensive application advice, which also includes information on recurring or anticipatable problems.
Provide formative support during project development (e.g. on didactic-methodological or scientific issues, possibly in the form of writing advice) or enable this via external providers.

DECISION AND APPROVAL

Provide a Saxon funding platform that enables fully digital application and, if necessary, project billing.
Accelerate review and approval processes.
Ensure notification and provision of funds before the start of the funding period. Otherwise, consideration must be given to possible compensation so that specialist staff can be retained during the "waiting period".
Enable multi-year approval by pre-committing the financial resources, e.g. via commitment appropriations in the budget.
Justify rejection notices transparently.
Only make project approvals dependent on municipal statements in (transparently) justified individual cases.

NETWORKING AND ORGANIZATION

Local, cross-organizational administrative assistants should be financed and established through small percentage levies of various funding guidelines from the cross-sectional area of democratic education. These could take on bureaucratic and administrative tasks for several (e.g. voluntary) project sponsors and/or funding programs within a certain region, take over communication with approval bodies and, if necessary, advise project sponsors on funding opportunities as functional 'funding pilots'.
Create and establish constructive communication channels on individual funding guidelines between project sponsors, approval bodies and political/ministerial decision-makers.
Approved funding bodies should be visited at least once during the course of a funding period by the responsible specialist departments in order to establish a feedback loop beyond the final report or proof of use and, if necessary, to enable interim controls.
This should be accompanied by the participatory involvement of civil society and practitioners in the creation of new and revision of existing funding guidelines.

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION

Expand funding guidelines to include project-immanent components. For example, resources for project design and systematic evaluation costs must be included in the budget.
Political pressure for legitimization and justification should also be negotiated at this level and not be passed on to the project participants through commissioned evaluation studies.
Successfully evaluated projects should be given the opportunity for innovation-free follow-up funding of at least 18 months in order to develop project-based sustainability strategies on the part of the executing agencies.
Encourage the scientific development and testing of appropriate evaluation designs and impact criteria as well as meaningful field studies for extracurricular civic education (in Saxony).

COORDINATION AND SAFEGUARDING

Develop a common understanding of political-democratic children's, youth and adult education in the Saxon state government.
Establishment of an interministerial working group (IMAG) to coordinate funding objectives, objects and measures in the field of political-democratic education.
Development of a Saxon funding strategy for the cross-sectional area of political-democratic education.
Clearing the Saxon "funding jungle":
- Reduce the number of funding guidelines in the cross-sectional area of extracurricular political-democratic education. Instead, financially underpin and politically secure broad-based funding programs in order to avoid making broad-based project concepts impossible due to the small-scale nature of the educational field (keyword: unauthorized mixed funding) and also to generate the necessary clarity for the recipients of the funding.
- Standardization of funding modalities across guidelines and ministries in the Free State of Bavaria. Starting with uniform regulations on material costs and fixed-amount funding as well as billing requirements, through realistic flat-rate funding (fee rates, flat rates for meals and accommodation) to a review of own funds requirements, which are difficult to meet in outreach political adult education, for example.
Counteracting cuts in democratic child and youth welfare by strengthening local authorities financially. Establishing and consolidating local child and youth work providers and specialists.
Create framework conditions for structural support for long-established organizations that have received uninterrupted funding through various guidelines.
Legally anchoring the financial support of extracurricular democracy work with all target groups by public authorities (outside of SGB VIII) by means of a democracy promotion law at federal and state level.

... for project organizers

Diversify the financing of their own funding structure outside of public funding programs and thus increase their independence.
Seek cooperation with other project sponsors in order to pool resources and ideas and exchange strategies for dealing with often similar challenges.
Move away from quickly measurable successes of extracurricular civic education and unsystematic 'impact measurement on the side'.
Demand adapted evaluation design and field research and, if necessary, apply for these as project modules.
Make the lack of agility due to lengthy deadlines and approval periods visible and, if necessary, make greater use of justified change requests.

Download: The study can be downloaded here.

Media response

Here is the TU Dresden press release on the publication of the study.

Author:inside

Research Associate

Rico Lewerenz

John-Dewey-Forschungsstelle für die Didaktik der Demokratie

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Research Assistant

Celina Hertel