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This article describes several features of an in-service teacher training (INSET) project for science and mathematics teachers in basic education (grades 4 - 9) in Ghana. This project is an example of Japan's initial experience with technical development cooperation in basic education. Some of the major features of the project are as follows. 1) As a new comer in technical cooperation in basic education Japan was very careful about where to intervene and finally chose science and mathematics education in the belief that these subjects are relatively culture and value free and because Japan has a well-developed education system in this area. 2) INSET was chosen believing that Japan has a well established INSET system and because visible results are expected to come about more quickly than by intervening in pre-service training. 3) In providing INSET a ‘cluster' rather than a ‘cascade model' was adopted. 4) Project goals were clearly specified and quantified. 5) In order to sustain the achievements by the project, a strong emphasis was placed on capacity building of Ghanaian INSET providers through training in Japan and the institutionalization of INSET in order to create a system to utilize these human resources and spread INSET nationwide. Although over the last ten years Japan has been supporting seven major technical cooperation projects for basic education exclusively in science and mathematics education, it is too early to judge whether it has been successful as the impact of these projects on students is yet to be determined.

This paper describes the process that has been taken for organizing a supporting system for a basic education project by taking a JICA project in Ghana as an example. The organization of a supporting system in the area of basic education is a very important issue for Japan now. It is only since the "Education for All" Conference in 1990 that Japan has embarked upon, in earnest, so called "software" type of projects in education including one in basic education as contrasted with "hardware" projects such as the construction of school buildings, and thus it is now her urgent task to explore possible ways and means of mobilizing, organizing and utilizing Japanese expertise for such projects, particularly that of national universities which are a rich source of it. At the request of the Ministry of Education, CICE has been attempting, as an experimental case, to organize a supporting system for a five-year basic education project in Ghana that has just officially started since March 2000, involving experts from several national universities. This paper therefore is a very first report on the CICE's attempt that should be followed by further monitoring and evaluation as the project goes on. The main issues that have emanated from the CICE's experience in this undertaking for the last two and half years are summarized below. 1. Although there may be enormous human resources in universities, particularly in national universities, it is a hard task to mobilize them for an educational project in developing countries. Because under the present Japanese ODA system where little financial and other incentive is provided for national university professors who assist in implementing such a project, Japan's education project cannot but heavily rely on those academics who are dedicated to and interested in educational development in developing countries. 2. Since those academics assisting in the projects are generally dedicated as mentioned above, it is very important not to employ them as if they are short time expertise providers for particular needs of the projects, but to adopt a sort of participatory approach by which to involve them in the project formulation process at as an early stage as possible and solicit their long term commitment to the project. 3. It is also indispensable to secure the institutional commitment of the university to which these professors belong, so that their participation in the projects can be recognized as one of their primary duties in the university, not as a private extra job. This may in turn create a favorable condition in the university to organize cooperation of their colleagues as well as the university authorities. In order to solicit this institutional commitment, it is very important to have consultation, well in advance, with the university authorities and people concerned. 4. Finally this experiment has been successful in creating an official consortium of four national universities to assist in the implementation of the project in Ghana, but there still remain many issues and problems to overcome in generalizing this consortium model. The most important one is the issue of incentives to attract universities and individual professors to educational projects in developing countries.

Dispatching technical experts to developing countries has been one of the major modalities in Japanese technical cooperation. The quality of experts in terms of social and language skills as well as understanding of the country assigned, not to mention expertise in the specialized field, is a crucial factor for the success in international development cooperation. This study therefore is aimed to draw lessons, by means of questionnaire survey, from the experience of those experts who have been sent to developing countries for educational cooperation. 158 education experts have been sent to developing countries for JICA's educational assistance since 1989, constituting approximately l% of the total number of JICA experts dispatched during the same period. However their proportion as well as absolute number has been constantly increasing recently. It is notable that more than 60% of the experts were university professors, mostly those of national universities. In this study, questionnaires were sent to 124 former and currently working experts who could be traced, of which 79 were collected and analyzed. Summarized below are findings derived from the survey together with some suggestions for the improvement of Japanese development cooperation in education. 1. In order to meet growing demands for experts in educational cooperation, it is essential to secure more experts who have appropriate skills and knowledge for international cooperation in education. 2. All experts had not been necessarily well prepared before being dispatched to the country assigned in terms of the understanding of their roles in the country, knowledge about educational conditions in the country and so on. Besides further improvement of briefing by JICA itself, CICE should also create some support systems for experts to be sent. 3. Evaluation and monitoring of experts in one form or another will be required in order to improve the quality of their activities. An appropriate system should be further developed. 4. The fact that the majority of experts from universities were recruited depending upon private networks suggests a necessity for the development of a more systematic recruitment system. 5. Participation in international cooperation in education is not duly evaluated as an achievement of university professors, whereas those who have been dispatched very much appreciate their experience as being useful and meaningful for their educational and research activities. Further effort should be made, on the part of the Ministry of Education and university authorities as well as university professors, to recognize international cooperation as one of the primary roles of university.

Chapter 2 South East Asia Section 1 Indonesia Section 2 Singapore Section 3 Thailand Section 4 The Philippines Section 5 Brunei Darussalam Section 6 Malaysia Chapter 3 Mekong Sub-region Section 2 Vietnam Chapter 4 Summary of Data Analysis Section 1 Comparative Table of 13 Asian Countries Section 2 Issues and Prospects of Student Exchanges with Quality Assurance in Asia, The Report of Mission Research by the Promotion Fund of Leading University Reform, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT), 2009, 平成21年度文部科学省先導的大学改革推進経費による委託研究報告書「ACTS(ASEAN Credit Transfer System)と各国の単位互換に関する調査研究」の英訳版