The Power of Persistence: Education System ... - EQUIP123.net

Among the central strategies that have been implemented during the past two
decades have been decentralization to improve accountability and efficiency,
expanded community and parent involvement, curriculum reform and provision
of learning materials, teacher training, increased funding for education, language
policy, school based management, achievement testing, and establishing
standards, among others. Virtually all donor programs have supported each
of these initiatives at some point, but the present focus on improving quality
places the burden on donors to concentrate on the most effective mechanisms,
modalities, and strategies.
Multiple studies indicate that the most necessary improvements require system
changes rather than only resource transfers. Glewwe and Kremer (2005) found
that while access and enrollment can be increased at relatively low cost and
largely on the basis of increased resources, there is little evidence that merely
adding education inputs has an impact on learning outcomes.
Furthermore, because systems in developing countries are weak, financial transfers
may create distortions in funding allocation and fail to address the more significant
issues of incentives, accountability, appropriate curriculum, and effective teachers
(Glewwe and Kremer, 2005). This is consistent with the findings of Hanushek and
Wößmann, who identified key system issues of capacity and policy gaps, efficiency
and management as major constraints to improving learning outcomes.
A challenge for donors is to identify ways of helping partner countries to
create sustainable effective improvements in access, completion, and learning
outcomes on a national level. Over the long term, sustainable improvements
require more than subsidies, technical solutions, and filling financial gaps.
As important as the resource limitations are in many countries, the heavy lifting
required for sustainable improvements in education quality is not financial
so much as institutional and political. More mature and effective systems of
introducing and implementing changes in a complex system must be developed,
and donors and recipients must move beyond the rhetoric of ‘owned’ reforms,
and ‘country-led’ development to effective means of accompanying partner
countries in strengthening their systems.
This report first considers how changes take hold in education systems, what
factors impede or support changes, and what role donor activities can play.
The next two sections of the report deal with two crucial aspects of reform:
First, understanding what we mean by ‘aid effectiveness’ in the context of
education, and; second, the value of a systems approach to education reform
as a means of identifying appropriate and effective roles for donors.
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SECTION 1: INTROdUCTION