Education governance matters

Good governance in education is about ensuring children have access to well-funded schools with well-trained and motivated teachers. And it must include strategies to reduce inequality.

Chapter 3 in UNESCO’s Educationfor All Global Monitoring Report 2009 examines governments’ policies andreforms in key areas of education governance. Bad governance leaves parents andcommunities facing education provision that is unaccountable and unresponsiveto their needs. It contributes to education systems that fail to improve learningachievements. It leaves communities and regions with children sitting inclassrooms without basic teaching materials or trained and motivated teachers.In some cases, financial resources allocated to schools never arrive.

National commitment is oftenlacking. While government spending on education has generally increased since theDakar Education For All meeting in 2000, the share ofnational income devoted to education between 1999 and 2006 decreased in 40 ofthe 105 countries with data. In sub-Saharan Africa,11 of the 21 low-income countries with data spend less than four percent of GNPon education. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan allocate even less.

The UNESCO Global MonitoringReport draws attention to risks of:

• corruption: payingbribes to access public education disproportionately affects the poorestchildren
• decentralisation:evidence suggests devolving financial responsibility can exacerbate inequalities
• school-basedmanagement: giving teachers, parents and communities more autonomy overdecision-making often excludes the voice of the most marginalised
• choice and competition:evidence shows that greater parental choice does not necessarily lead toimproved learning outcomes or equity, and many developing countries lackcapacity to monitor private sector providers
• expanding teachersupply by relying on the recruitment of contract teachers who are lessqualified and de-motivated so that students’ learning suffers
• performance related pay can resultin gearing teaching towards tests, reinforcing learning inequalities.

The Report reminds leadersthat when governments met in Dakar they called for EFA policies to be clearly linked to holistic poverty elimination and developmentstrategies. This vision is being undermined by a failure of governments totackle persistent inequalities based on income, gender, location, ethnicity,language, disability and other markers for disadvantage. Many Poverty ReductionStrategy Papers contain only half-hearted attempts to address the issue ofeducation for the most disadvantaged within an integrated development framework.

Warning of the tendency ofgovernments to sign up to donor-promoted governance blueprints, the GlobalMonitoring Report urges each country to devise its own governance reform strategy.The Report also argues that:

• Central government must act to ensure sufficient resources reachmarginalised children and prohibit subnational governments from levyingfees on basic education.
• The rapid growth of low-fee private primary schools in manydeveloping countries is primarily a symptom of state failure. To ensureaccess for the poorest, the governance priority is to fix the publicsystem.
• Governments must strengthen teacher recruitment and motivation, createincentives for improved accountability and develop policies for monitoringof both quality and equity.
• Education must be integrated into widerstrategies for overcoming poverty and extreme inequality