Gender and Education for All THE LEAP TO EQUALITY

Chapter 5 - From targets to reform: national strategies in action

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Patterns of performance –what drives progress? A central question for this and future issues of the EFA Report concerns the identification of key factors determining rates of progress towards EFA. Policy analysis is hampered by a lack of good international data to facilitate cross-country comparisons1. However, case-study material and policy analyses of a qualitative kind are important means of identifying best practice and suggesting priorities for policy reform. The second part of this chapter draws on this type of material. In addition, there are more quantitative approaches that can be used to suggest policy insights. As indicated in Chapter 2, the Education for All Development Index (EDI) offers one way of obtaining a quantitative summary of progress towards EFA2. It also provides an opportunity to investigate the extent to which progress towards EFA is associated with factors that may be a function of policy choice. For example, to what extent is EDI associated with public spending on education, income levels, aid flows, national debt, and good governance? Statistical analyses, using data for the ninety-four countries for which EDI has been calculated for the year 2000, show evidence of some significant relationships between these variables (Box 5.1). The following generalizations are suggested by the results. The impact of economic growth. By itself, the correlation between growth and EDI is not strong, rather it is mediated by other factors. Economic growth appears to have a positive impact on EDI only if the institutions of the country function well, which suggests that growth has to be well managed in support of education. Furthermore, although the potential benefits to EDI from economic growth are present for all developing countries, they appear to be particularly marked for those at higher income levels. Moderate levels of national indebtedness are associated with higher levels of EDI, but only for the more democratic regimes. Moreover, for high levels of debt the analysis suggests that the value of an extra dollar borrowed will be negative for EDI. The per capita value of total aid flows has a positive impact on EDI where there is an effective institutional structure, and where the environment is democratic. Thus, aid will be helpful for EFA where recipient conditions allow the resources to be well used. Higher levels of domestic educational expenditure improve EDI but the strength of the relationship is clearly mediated by the income level of the country. In the poorest democratic countries, where both access and quality are low, extra investment appears to have greater impact on EDI than similar increments in richer countries. The legal guarantee of free education in poorer countries is not associated with higher levels of EDI, even in democracies. However, there is a significant and positive correlation between legal guarantees and EDI where living standards are high. Thus, legislation is beneficial only to the extent that provision of education can be ensured, and where people are in a position to benefit from such learning opportunities. If there are strong constraints on resources from both the supply and demand sides, legal guarantees have a limited meaning. School fees: The actual incidence of school fees has a negative impact on EDI, as expected. The effects appear to be significantly greater in authoritarian states. This may suggest that democratic governments find ways to moderate the negative impact of fees, for example by providing targeted subsidies to households on the basis of need. A successful educational policy needs a careful combination of targeting and realism. The crucial role played by good governance is a common feature of these results. By ‘good governance’ we mean, on the one hand, the effectiveness of the legal-institutional framework of the country and, on the other, the democratic accountability of the state. The two are, of course related, and while in some cases (as with the impact of economic growth) the effectiveness of the state apparatus seems to be a sufficient guarantee to ensure that the fruits of a successful macroeconomic policy are translated into educational gains, this is not always so. In other cases, (as with debt management) it appears to be crucial that the state is accountable to the electorate, in order to ensure that its policies actually benefit the public. Finally, these findings suggest that a successful educational policy necessitates a careful combination of targeting and realism: while educational expenditures will have the most significant impact in poorer countries, legal guarantees of free education are unlikely to help unless the country is able to ensure that the facilities are available, and has a population that is willing and able to use them. At present these results are suggestive, and the approach merits further attention and development. 1. This is not to deny the growing literature on educational reform. The Human Development Network of the World Bank is an expanding resource, decentralization has a vast literature, regional policy studies exist (e.g. Adams, 2002; Moulton et al., 2001) and aid agencies are reviewing their contribution to educational reform (e.g. AUCC, forthcoming). 2. Some potential uses of this index – and its limitations – are indicated in Chapter 2, and are more comprehensively discussed in Appendix 2.