A growing number of studies demonstrate that the management of a school, the relationships between the different school actors (principal, teachers, community), and the school’s own involvement in defining and evaluating its improvement, all have a profound impact on the quality of education.
This has led many countries to give schools more autonomy in their own management.
Schools which formerly had very little say in financial management now receive grants directly from the central authorities. Educational management theories assume that grants will have other advantages resulting in less bureaucracy, fewer leakages in the distribution of funds, and more appropriate and selective use of funds by schools for their self-improvement, as well as a greater impact if more money reaches disadvantaged schools. Finally, grants may influence school-community relations and enhance school autonomy and capacity.
In collaboration with UNICEF and GPE, IIEP has launched a comprehensive research on the design and implementation of school grant policies, and how grants are used by schools. The research seek to uncover the realities of such “popular” educational policies by examining how they were perceived, interpreted, and put into practice by school-level stakeholders in different contexts.
The research programme includes 3 main projects :
- Improving school financing: the use and usefulness of school grant in Eastern and Southern African countries
- Improving school financing: the use and usefulness of school grants in East Asia and Pacific
- Improving school financing: the use and usefulness of school grants in French-speaking countries, Latin America and the Caribbean
