This book is about the threats to education quality in the  developing world that cannot be explained by lack of resources. It  reviews the observed phenomenon of service delivery failures in public  education: cases where programs and policies increase the inputs to  education but do not produce effective services where it counts –  in schools and classrooms. It documents what we know about the extent  and costs of such failures across low and middle-income countries. And  it further develops the conceptual model posited in the World  Development Report 2004: that a root cause of low-quality and  inequitable public services – not only in education—is the  weak accountability of providers to both their supervisors and  clients.    The central focus of the book, however, is a new story. It is that  developing countries are increasingly adopting innovative strategies to  attack these problems. Drawing on new evidence from 22 rigorous impact  evaluations across 11 developing countries, this book examines how  three key strategies to strengthen accountability relationships in  developing country school systems have affected school enrollment,  completion and student learning.    The book reviews the motivation and global context for education  reforms aimed at strengthening provider accountability. It provides the  rationally and synthesizes the evidence on the impacts of three key  lines of reform: (1) policies that use the power of information to  strengthen the ability of clients of education services (students and  their parents) to hold providers accountable for results; (2) policies  that promote school-based management–that is increase  schools’ autonomy to make key decisions and control resources,  often empowering parents to play a larger role; (3) teacher incentives  reforms that specifically aim at making teachers more accountable for  results, either by making contract tenure dependent on performance, or  offering performance-linked pay. The book summarizes the lessons  learned, draws cautious conclusions about possible complementarities  across different types of accountability-focused reforms if they are  implemented in tandem, considers issues related to scaling up reform  efforts and the political economy of reform, and suggests directions  for future work.

Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms (Human Development Perspectives) PDF

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