Gender and Education for All THE LEAP TO EQUALITY

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

Donwload this chapter in PDF

Making primary education affordable It is very expensive to be poor (Maarifa Ni Ufungo, 2001). One clear manifestation of this truth is that poverty is a major barrier to schooling and to many other types of educational opportunity. As a result, the right to education, and the huge demand that it generates, cannot be satisfied. Parents and guardians are unable to pay the direct fees and charges which allow their children to attend school, as well as meet the indirect costs that often have significant implications for being able to sustain even the most basic of livelihoods. These realities are better understood now than fifteen years ago when cost-sharing was advanced as a means to lessen the burden of cash-strapped governments and to generate community ownership of schools. Indeed, it is the application of cost-sharing and cost-recovery strategies and the detrimental effects of structural adjustment during the 1980s and early 1990s that held down enrolment levels. Nevertheless, now, in terms of legal obligations, a majority of countries have a commitment to provide free primary education.

Hard choices for households Chapter 3 of this report documents the fact that the hard decisions taken at household level are often differentiated by gender and that fees and charges affect girls’ chances of learning more than those of boys. In many countries, fees and charges are more complex than is obvious at first sight. An example from the United Republic of Tanzania in 2000 illustrates the point (Table 5.8). A family in the Kilimanjaro District is required to pay a minimum of ten school charges. The total of these charges then has to be multiplied by the number of children in the family and by the number of years that each child attends school. These direct costs have to be found from an income which varies seasonally, is uncertain annually and in some cases is less than the total cost of school charges shown in Table 5.8. One estimate (Global Campaign for Education, 2003a) for the whole country suggests that, prior to the removal of school fees in 2001, it cost about half the annual income of poor rural families to send one child to primary school for one year. A recent six-country study (Boyle et al., 2002) of Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Zambia sets the difficult household decisions regarding school fees in a wider context. The study concludes that both for the poorest and for the better-off groups, the costs of education are the predominant reason given for children in the household never having attended school. This finding is even stronger for children who have dropped out of school and is more pronounced in urban areas where fees are higher and there is less flexibility in payment requirements than in some rural schools. However, although direct charges are critical to preventing full and sustained access to school among the poorest communities, a wide range of other socio-cultural factors are significant. Four points receive particular attention in the study: - Even the poorest households make judgements about the quality and relevance of schooling and make sacrifices for what they perceive to be education of good quality. - Gendered decision-making characterizes the trade-offs on schooling for different children. Girls are likely to suffer most. - Demand for schooling is vulnerable to economic and natural shocks. HIV/AIDS and poor health in general are significant factors. - Violence and sexual harassment in schools is more pervasive than is often accepted. Table 5.9 summarizes the reasons for leaving school, as distinct from attending, in four of the six countries. This reconfirms that money is the primary constraint. Unfortunately these data are not disaggregated by gender. So, while people do make important judgements about affordability, they do so in the framework of a complex set of other factors which also influence their decisions. This being so, government policies on direct charges and costs which are insensitive to the complexity of household decision-making – let alone the impact of supply-side policies – are likely to fall short of their objectives. Even the poorest households make judgements about the quality and relevance of schooling.

Difficult choices for governments In this context, it is instructive to look at recent developments in sub-Saharan Africa, in a group of five countries that have introduced free primary education over a period of eleven years since 1994 (Table 5.10). In sub-Saharan Africa, making education more affordable and accessible has been a major talking point in most recent political campaigns, manifestos and elections. This is understandable for a number of reasons. The right to education is better understood. It remains a source of hope and opportunity for people who live with poverty, and most governments recognize that investment in education is significant for national economic and social reforms. In Malawi, free primary education was a rallying call for the United Democratic Front prior to the 1994 election, while more recently, in Kenya in 2002, it was a major campaign pledge by the future president, Mwai Kibaki. In four out of the five cases, free primary education was announced following the election of a new government. As Table 5.10 demonstrates, the political announcements were followed by dramatic short-term responses in terms of primary-school enrolment. In Nairobi, early in 2003, many schools very rapidly experienced a doubling or more of numbers. Three primary schools near the slum areas of the capital registered increases of 1,400, 1,400 and 1,500 respectively (United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2003). In Malawi, net enrolments prior to 1994 had been 58% for girls. This increased to 73% by 1996. In Zambia, in 2002, the first school year after the announcement of cost reduction measures, primary enrolments grew by 7% compared with 2% in the previous year. As Table 5.10 shows, the actual interpretation of ‘free’ takes on different meanings in different countries. In none of the sample countries are households free of meeting some direct costs. For example, in the Kilimanjaro area of the United Republic of Tanzania, an NGO study early in 2003 (Maarifa Ni Ufungo, 2003), one year after the abolition of tuition fees for 7–10-year-olds, found that the average total outlay by parents for one child was now in the range of 2,000–8,000 Tanzanian shillings compared with 7,600–10,600 shillings prior to ‘free’ primary. Total costs, including a calculation to cover indirect costs, suggested that the cost of keeping one child in school for one year was still nearly 13,000 Tanzanian shillings. The cost of uniform remained a burden but the stigma of sending a child to school without it remained strong. And the inability to pay for books remained a severe curb on regular attendance. Nevertheless, it appears that overall national enrolments in the United Republic of Tanzania have risen dramatically as a result of the abolition of tuition fees. The sudden and dramatic response to the introduction of free primary education necessitated strong supply-side responses. All five governments increased the share of the national budget to education. Primary education has increased its share of the education budget to 55% or more (Table 5.10). However, in response to the vastly increased numbers of students, the unit expenditures per student typically fell substantially in the immediate aftermath of the abolition of fees. Meanwhile, the total costs to government continue to rise. In Uganda (Uganda, 2003) it is projected that for the period 2002–15 there will be a 57.7% increase in the total number of primary-school pupils, more than double the number of teachers will be required, and non-salary expenditure will be pegged at close to 25%. The 2015 budget is estimated to be 3.5 times that of the base year.

Sustaining quality Sustaining the provision of good quality education against this background will be difficult and it is clear from Table 5.10 that there is, and will remain, heavy dependence on external funding. In the short term, this is needed to help meet the intense pressures exerted on fragile systems by sudden increases in enrolment, but it will also be needed in the longer term as population growth and the shift to UPE and towards schooling of higher quality continue to require increased budgetary provision. Projections for four of the five countries show that a more than doubling of educational aid, in real terms, will be needed in order to sustain their move towards UPE over the years to 2015 (Colclough et al., 2003). In all five countries, the announcement of free primary education has been seen as a defining moment in their educational history. But some difficult lessons are being learned, notably whether primary and then secondary schools can offer an education of sufficient quality to retain much larger numbers of students. In Malawi, the Malunga Commission was established by the government to assess why the education system was failing so many students, as reflected by the low level of performance in the Malawi School Leaving Certificate Examination for secondary students. It concluded that the lack of qualified secondary teachers was the root cause of the problem and that this could be traced back to the decision taken in 1994 to introduce free primary education (Africanews, 2003). While secondary schools had been opened quickly, in recognition of the impending increase in the number of primary-school leavers, this had not been matched by an increase in the number of qualified teachers. The Commission said that 12,000 secondary teachers were needed but that there were only 5,000 in the system, of which 1,600 were qualified. In Uganda, there is little question that there has been significant progress in reaching out to all primary-school-age children. However, some NGOs suggest that between 13% and 18% of children may still not have access to primary education and/or attend alternative education centres (Murphy, 2003), while official net enrolment rates suggest that UPE has been achieved. However, attaining equitable and good quality education for all remains a difficult challenge. Recent studies suggest significant levels of drop-out. Ugandan P1 enrolments in 1997 were as high as 2,159,850 but had fallen to 832,855 in P5 in 2001. A recent mid-term review of Uganda’s Education Strategic Investment Plan indicates a ‘drastic decrease in enrolment in the transition from P1 to P2 which might relate to the fact that schooling is simply not affordable for those who do not earn a cash income’ (Uganda, 2003). At the level of policy, all five countries have recognized the many implications of reducing the cost of education to parents, reacting to the enrolment surge and improving (or at least sustaining) the quality of education. But the implementation of free primary education is complex and difficult, especially in relation to the training, professional development and support of teachers. In Malawi, in 1994, 19,000 untrained teachers were recruited, received a three-week orientation course, with in-service education provision scheduled to follow. However, neither Zambia nor Kenya deployed untrained teachers. Kenya is currently mapping its teacher requirements. In the United Republic of Tanzania, the government plans to recruit 45,000 new teachers in the period 2002–06, with a substantial increase in double-shift and multi-grade teaching. These intentions and plans have to be set against the backdrop of HIV/AIDS and its impact on the teaching force. While there is some debate about the scale of prevalence of HIV/AIDS among teachers and future trends across sub-Saharan Africa (Bennell, 2003; Kelly, 2003), there is little question that teachers are seriously affected as a group. For example, it has been estimated that the average annual percentage of teachers who will die from AIDS in the period 2000–10 (assuming that teachers have the same infection rate as the general population) may be as high as 2.1% in Zimbabwe, 1.7% in Zambia, 1.4% in Kenya and 0.5% in Uganda (World Bank, 2002g). Lessons are emerging from the experience of these five countries (Riddell, 2003). Enabling children to realize their right to a basic education is essential and the cost of that education should not be a barrier. The measures taken by the five governments have been important in breaking down some of those barriers. And they reflect a willingness to meet international obligations and commitments along with a clear acknowledgement of the macro-level benefits that accrue from primary education. But others have argued that some of the detailed micro-level challenges of educational development have been overlooked, while a dependence on external funding agencies has accentuated concern for targets and performance indicators to the detriment of processes that recognize context, capacity and a realistic pace of change. Projections for four of the five countries show that educational aid will need to be more than doubled to sustain their move towards UPE by 2015. It is probably fair to say that Uganda has to date been the most successful of the five countries in the aftermath of the introduction of free primary education. Why is this so? In large measure, because of the types of policies and strategies identified in Box 5.15 which demonstrate the importance of a strong macro-planning framework allied to detailed strategies to address the complex education measures needed to achieve real UPE – a recurring theme in this chapter. This is not to suggest that Uganda’s problems are over. The recent mid-term review of ESIP 1 concluded that ‘the primary focus and success to date has been … increasing numbers of learners in primary school but … the improvement of educational quality, the delivery of education services (including devolution of responsibilities to the District) and capacity development in strategic planning and programming have not been achieved according to … original targets’. Nevertheless a framework for action is in place (Uganda, 2003). So free primary education has had important benefits. The demand for education has been re-stimulated. More children are in school. Commitments are being sustained and new modalities of working with agencies are making some progress, although it seems clear that the enrolment impact of suspending school fees should have been better anticipated. Plans should have been in place and new resources identified. Nevertheless, the benefits are plain for children previously denied any educational opportunity at all.

Fees and Poverty Reduction Strategies In a review of twenty-five Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (Tomasevski, 2003) the significance of school fees is mentioned explicitly in fourteen PRSPs (Table 5.11). Burkina Faso and Yemen make particular reference to the fact that fees should not be charged for girls, while in Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Tajikistan and Viet Nam it is stated that the poor should not pay fees. In the light of the evidence cited in this section (and in the section on ‘Patterns of performance – what drives progress?’) it is difficult to see how any PRSP can ignore the issue of the affordability of primary education and of the need to eliminate or significantly reduce the charges that households bear in sending children to school. But this is not uniformly the case, as Table 5.11 shows.