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| Community
Partnerships in Governance |
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| Allied
to the above discussion are questions concerning structures
for school governance. These structures are of considerable
importance as vehicles for community partnership at the local
level. Questions may particularly focus on the size, composition,
and powers of these bodies, and on the ways in which community
partnerships are actualized in practice. |
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| To address
these questions, it is useful to consider models of several
types. One model is a national education system which gives
legal status to school governing bodies. A second model has
Parents' Associations which do not have such strong legal status
but which can nevertheless be important within public education
systems. A third model covers embraces clusters, village education
committees and similar bodies, each of which may be responsible
for several schools within a particular area. |
|
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| Legally-incorporated
School Boards |
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| The Papua
New Guinean system deserves elaboration because it is a good
example of a model in which the law requires schools to have
governing bodies and sets out aspects of the structure and functions
of these bodies. The basic model has operated since 1970 and
thus has had time to mature. The reforms of the 1990s did not
change the requirements for school governing bodies. |
| |
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| The law
which set up the national education system required each primary
school to have a Board of Management with at least five members
who were "broadly representative of the community served by
the school" (Papua New Guinea 1970, Section 71.1). Each Board
was required to include the head teacher and another teacher's
representative, and could include representatives of the church
or other agency operating the school provided these people did
not form a majority. The law also required Boards to meet at
least once a term. These provisions were largely repeated in
the 1983 and 1995 Education Acts which updated the 1970 one.
Boards were made responsible for setting the general philosophies
of their schools; planning; construction and maintenance of
classrooms, teachers' houses and ancillary facilities; enrolment
of pupils; and discipline of students, including punishment
by suspension or expulsion. |
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| One survey
of the composition of 565 Boards of Management (Bray 1988, p.158),
representing nearly a quarter of the total in the country, showed
that only 1.6 per cent had fewer than five members, 34.2 per
cent had five to eight members, 36.8 per cent had nine or 10
members, and 27.4 per cent had 11 or more members. In general,
communities did not seem to consider it necessary for Board
members to have been to school themselves, and a large percentage
of members were illiterate. The proportion of members with wage-earning
jobs, even excluding the head teachers and the teachers' representatives,
was far higher than their proportion in the population as a
whole; but many Boards included subsistence farmers, some of
whom were chairpersons. Many boards also made careful efforts
to secure geographic representation. Where schools served several
villages, for example, Board members were commonly selected
to ensure that each location was represented. This procedure
did not always operate smoothly, and complaints were frequently
voiced that representatives from distant villages did not attend
meetings. Urban schools sometimes made deliberate efforts to
ensure representation of each of the main ethnic groups resident
in the area served by the school, but this tended to be organized
less carefully. Females were underrepresented. Among 541 schools
giving data, 65.4 per cent indicated that they had no female
Board members, and 21.6 per cent indicated had only one female
member. |
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| Among
the functions listed by the law, the construction and maintenance
of buildings were taken most seriously by the majority of Boards
(see also Preston & Khambu 1986, p.15; Preston 1991, p.283).
Indeed many Board members were unaware of the other functions.
One reason why the Boards were particularly aware of their responsibility
for buildings and facilities was that they were reminded by
the teachers. The staff may be less enthusiastic about encouraging
their Boards to assume responsibility for enrolment of pupils
and discipline, for teachers commonly prefer to take on these
duties themselves. |
| |
|
| The decision
to make Boards of Management responsible for buildings and facilities
has several important consequences. First, it relieves the government
of expenditure, and thus spreads the financial burden. Second,
it increases diversity between schools, for some communities
have more resources and some Boards take their duties more seriously
than others. This diversity can cause discontent among teachers,
some of whom may consider themselves poorly treated, and it
also increases imbalances between urban and rural schools. Third,
the policy allows the physical plant of the schools to mirror
the communities much more closely than would otherwise be the
case. If governments were responsible for buildings, they would
probably employ standard designs and take little account of
the local availability of particular building materials or the
traditions of specific areas. Because of the present policy,
many classrooms are built of the same materials as their neighboring
village houses, and they exhibit considerable variety around
the country. Moreover, the villagers can readily engage in construction,
which is an area of their own expertise. Consultation with villagers
on curriculum and textbooks is less easy or productive because
they are not areas of local expertise. |
| |
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| Concerning
the general philosophies of the schools, much is of course determined
by educational traditions, the social and economic framework,
and the national and provincial governments. Nevertheless, Boards
can contribute in religious matters. They can organize pastors
to provide religious instruction, and they can request prayers
to be held at the beginning and end of each day. Although they
are not able to hire or fire teachers, they are allowed to indicate
the types of individuals they would like to be appointed and
to recommend specific persons. Examples are easy to find in
which Boards have requested teachers of particular religions,
or have requested the removal of teachers who have abused their
positions through drunkenness, inappropriate sexual behavior,
or other anti-social practices. Thus the Boards can discipline
teachers and perform a role which in isolated villages would
be impossible for the provincial authorities. |
| |
|
| The Papua
New Guinean model may usefully be compared and contrasted with
models in other countries. In Kenya, for example, the law states
that each full (eight-grade) primary school should have a committee
of 13 people: one parents' representative for each grade, two
District Education Board representatives, two sponsor's representatives,
and the head teacher (Kenya 1999). Following a fairly common
model, but not made explicit in Papua New Guinea, the head teachers
are required to be secretaries of their committees. This arrangement
ensures that the school's voice may be clearly heard, and that
the minutes and other records are kept by someone who is competent
for such a task. The arrangement also ensures that the head
teacher does not become chairperson, which might be considered
excessive dominance. |
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|
A 1998
survey of 187 schools in all of Kenya's eight provinces found
that school committees were generally functioning, and did
hold regular meetings. The report indicated that local communities
did not feature highly on the head teachers' agenda during
their routine management activities. However, it added (Kenya
1999, p.74) that:
Participation
of parents/communities in the management of the school … is
crucial especially as the parents contribute a large proportion
towards the cost of primary education. Schools may have very
little choice but to hold frequent meetings, if only to discuss
financing of the recurrent expenditure of primary schools
|
| |
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| Other Kenyan
studies (e.g. Juma et al. 1999) have expressed concern about
the fact that in many schools the role of the community seems
mainly to be restricted to provision of finance and facilities.
|
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| The Kenyan
government, with assistance from the UK Department for International
Development, has engaged in a major program of training and
support for primary school committees. Initial evaluations of
this program have already shown substantial impact. It has been
reported, for example, that many more school committees now
have an input into school development planning, and that this
has improved the feelings of ownership and community involvement
(Herriot et al. 1999). This is partly because head teachers
have been trained in planning, and in management principles
such as consultation and accountability. Communities are said
to trust their head teachers more, and to have a better understanding
of the roles of different actors. Training workshops have included
sensitization on gender issues, and have also given head teachers
tools for reaching out to their communities. |
| |
|
| In both
Papua New Guinea and Kenya, the operation of school boards is
underpinned by legal requirements. This is clearly important;
but analysis in other countries (see e.g. Gershberg 1999a for
commentary on Mexico) shows that it is far from sufficient.
As noted at the beginning of this study, fundamental ingredients
for effective partnerships include self-interest and mutual
respect. In both Papua New Guinea and Kenya, the schools could
generally perceive benefits from involvement of community members;
and the community members could generally perceive benefits
from the schools. However, such relationships cannot be taken
for granted. Whereas teachers are salaried employees who can
be required to allocate time to meetings, community members
usually donate their time voluntarily. In Kenya, improvements
in the operation of school committees were greatly assisted
by resource inputs from the external donor. Such resource inputs
are not available in all contexts; but the fact that the Papua
New Guinean model has been operating reasonably well since 1970
shows that models can be established and then maintained on
a long-term basis as part of the general culture of institutions. |
| |
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|
Box
6: School-Level Partnership in Thailand
When they are well organized, school committees can
be a very important vehicle for partnership at the institutional
level. Wat Sai Ma Primary School in Thailand provides
an example.
The
school was established in a Buddhist temple in the 1930s.
Initially it catered only for the first three grades,
but it gradually expanded to cover pre-school, primary
and junior secondary levels.
Wat Sai Ma school has a standard committee of the type
found in nearly all of Thailand's primary schools. It
is comprised of parents, teachers and benefactors, and
meets four times a year. In addition, the school has
six sub-committees, each with 12 to 24 members, which
meet twice a year. These sub-committees are for academic
affairs, activities, personnel, finance, buildings,
and community relations. The sub-committees discuss
issues identified by the school, and recommend proposals
to the school committee. Members are volunteers or invitees
from the community, and each sub-committee has a teacher
as secretary.
The
academic and personnel sub-committees promote community
participation by soliciting suggestions to enhance the
curriculum, recruiting volunteer teachers for co-curricular
activities, and raising funds for equipment. The activities
and community relations committees strengthen the community's
faith in the school through public information about
school activities, visiting community leaders and benefactors,
and encouraging the active involvement of the community
on Children's Day, Teachers' Day and in sports and other
competitions. The buildings committee has been responsible
for the fund mobilization campaign which involved 74
donors, each credited with construction of a specified
number of square feet of a new building. The finance
committee identifies funding sources and projects such
as concreting of the temple grounds to benefit both
school and community, and the yearly donation of 10
bicycles to lower secondary students from distant homes.
This
school has a successful partnership with strong leadership
and cooperation between the principal, teachers, parents
and other community members. The actors respect each
other, and operate in balanced harmony. It is the sort
of model which governments can promote through training,
encouragement and support.
Source:
Martin (1996), pp.30-31.
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| Parents'
Associations |
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| While school
committees usually have some members who are parents, the committees
are necessarily limited in size. Many schools have larger bodies
which bring most or all parents together. In some countries
they are simply called Parents' Associations (PAs), though in
many countries, particularly anglophone ones, they are called
Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) to show a specific link between
parents and teachers. In francophone countries they are commonly
called Associations des Parents d'Elèves (APEs). In some parts
of the Philippines they are called Parent-Teacher-Community
Associations (PTCAs) - a term which shows a broader base and
which emphasizes that all persons in the community, rather than
just parents, are welcome to join. |
| |
|
|
Parents'
associations usually have their own executive committees to
make decisions on activities and overall operations. In systems
which have separate school committees, conflict can arise
between the two bodies. Gershberg (1999a, p.72) has highlighted
this problem in Mexico, and Wolf et al. (1999, p.28) have
made similar remarks about Malawi. Concerning the latter,
school-level personnel interviewed by Wolf et al. made many
comments on this difficulty. For example:
"School
committee and PTA are quite similar. They sometimes collide
on what they think their responsibilities are."
"The
PTA and the school committee conflicted. Both thought it was
their responsibility to collect money."
"There
were clashes between the PTA and the school committee so the
school committee disbanded the PTA. Here the school committee
wants to be the PTA."
|
| |
|
| As one
interviewee remarked, a key element for avoiding this type of
conflict is a clear, written statement of respective roles,
powers and duties. In most systems where such statements exist,
parents' associations are seen as broader bodies which operationalize
decisions made by the school committees and other authorities. |
| |
|
| Martin
(1996) has highlighted tensions that can arise in the membership
and operation of parents' associations. In some systems, membership
is only granted to parents who pay annual fees. This is seen
as a way not only to raise revenue but also to increase the
sense of commitment among members. In other systems, membership
is defined more loosely. All parents are considered to be members
if they have children studying in the schools. Yet in some contexts,
Martin points out (p.54), automatic membership is not only unappreciated
but even resented. Parents and other community members may feel
that they are considered little more than cheap labor to contribute
to their schools at the behest of small groups which operate
at the center and make decisions which affect the majority. |
| |
|
| This matter
leads to questions about the role of parents' associations.
In some settings they are indeed seen by governments and by
teachers as simply a resource to assist the operation of the
school. In these settings, the element of partnership is not
strong because it is too one-sided. In other settings, parents'
associations have much wider roles. Much depends not only on
cultures but also on structures. Ideally, schools have committees
of some sort (either legally-mandated school committees or executive
committees of parents' associations), but those committees have
mechanisms for reaching out to the broader bodies of parents
and community members both to listen to their views and to harness
human, financial, and other resources. |
| |
|
| In Myanmar,
the government is working with an NGO called the Community-based
Educational Development Association to train PTAs. The project
aims not only to help PTAs to operate more effectively, but
also to extend their role from fund-raising and maintenance
and construction of buildings. Under the project, PTAs collect
baseline data with the help of enumerators, set annual enrollment
and retention targets in consultation with teachers and head
teachers, conduct house-to-house advocacy with parents and unenrolled
children, manage the construction of latrines and water-supply
systems for schools, and provide incentives to encourage needy
children to participate in school (Bentzen 1997, p.6). The project
is in one sense a centralized initiative; but it promotes partnership
at the school level, and in the sense that it empowers communities
is decentralizing. It is another example of the sort of initiative
which would be worth trying in other countries |
| |
|
| One beneficial
aspect of parents' associations is that they seem to be natural
bodies with fairly clearly defined membership bases. Kemmerer
(1990, p.381) has pointed out that school catchment areas do
not always coincide with traditional community boundaries. In
such circumstances, residents of the catchment area may have
to overcome older rivalries to serve the school. Parents are
a good place to begin the process of community-building, because
they may be assumed to have a natural interest in the education
of their children. |
| |
|
| In some
settings, moreover, governments actively promote the process
of community-building by making financial grants to parents'
associations. This is in marked contrast to the more common
situation in which the associations are expected to be bodies
which raise their own resources to make up for shortfalls in
government provision. For example, in Sindh Province of Pakistan,
the government decreed in 1992 that each school should form
a PTA. To assist the associations to conduct meaningful activities,
in 1998 the provincial government distributed 423 million rupees
(US$10 million) to 27,000 primary schools (Dean 1999; Merchant
1999). The resources were provincial government counterpart
funds in a project assisted by the World Bank, and were designated
for repairs and purchase of furniture and educational materials.
At the same time, the government provided training for PTAs
to assist them with organization and management. An exercise
of this magnitude naturally encountered some problems; but it
was an instructive illustration of an attempt to adjust the
balance of control in a system which had been very bureaucratic
and had given communities little room for independent decision-making. |
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|
Box
7: Cooperation to Improve Community Links in Kenya
In 1994, a group of partners came together to launch
the Mombasa School Improvement Programme (MSIP). Evaluation
in 1999 showed that the project had achieved far-reaching
results, and that much of the success could be attributed
to improved linkages between schools and communities
(Anderson & Nderitu 1999).
The
initial memorandum of understanding identified three
parties to the agreement which set up the project:
· the Municipal Council of Mombasa (MCM),
· the Aga Khan Education Service-Kenya (AKES-K), and
·
the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF).
The
bulk of funding came from or via the AKF, while the
AKES-K implemented the project in conjunction with the
MCM. During the period 1995-98, the project moved through
three phases to serve 50 primary schools in the public
sector.
Even
at the formal contractual level, the project was the
result of government-NGO partnership, for the MCM is
an arm of the government and the AKES-K is an NGO. However,
partnership went much beyond this, and in particular
included communities. The project employed a Community
Development Officer, who worked as a bridge between
schools and communities. He held multiple meetings with
groups and individuals, showing how parents and other
community members could support the schools and how
the schools could work with communities. The results
included expanded quantity and improved quality of education
in the Mombasa region. The 1999 evaluation showed that
the partnerships at several levels had achieved major
successes.
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| Clusters
and Village Education Committees |
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| In some
parts of the world, formal bodies oversee several schools rather
than single institutions. Some may serve several villages in
some form of cluster arrangement, and others serve single villages
that have multiple schools. In many cases, these bodies also
play an important role in promoting partnership between governments
and communities. |
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| Clusters |
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| Some countries
have long histories of grouping of schools for various purposes
and under various labels. In Bolivia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua
and Peru such groups have been called nucleos, whereas in India
they have been called complexes, in Mozambique they have been
called Zonas de Influencia Pedagogica (ZIPs), and in Myanmar,
Sri Lanka and Thailand they have been called clusters (Bray
1987; Rivarola & Fuller 1999). In some settings, these groupings
have primarily had an administrative purpose within the government
hierarchy, and have had little to do with community partnership.
In other settings, they have been a vehicle for school-community
collaboration. |
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|
Cambodia
is among the countries which developed a school cluster system
during the 1990s (Dykstra & Kucita 1997). Several models were
established in different provinces. One model was established
by the government in conjunction with UNICEF, and other models
were established in conjunction with a range of NGOs. A common
objective of all the models was to redress imbalances in education
by grouping schools that were located near each other: strong
schools were grouped with weak schools in such a way that
the latter could benefit from the former. Clusters also acted
as a focal point for training and for sharing of resources.
The National Cluster School Committee (1995, p.2) explained
that:
A cluster
… is a grouping of 6-9 primary schools for administrative
and educational purposes. It is an organization of schools
in the same vicinity … for the benefit of sharing available
resources such as teaching and learning materials, facilities
and staff so that the access for all children and the educational
quality of all schools within the cluster are improved.
|
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|
This document
added (p.3) that the innovation implied a degree of decentralization
and could permit strong local participation in decision making.
The vehicle for local participation is the Cluster Committee.
The standard composition of each committee is:
village
chief (honorary chair),
cluster
school head,
head
teachers of each school in the cluster,
teacher
representatives from each school,
a representative
of the PTAs,
the
head of the cluster technical committee, and
a Buddhist
monk.
|
| |
| The cluster
system in Cambodia has promoted community partnerships in several
ways. First, clusters have provided guidance and support for
PTAs and other community bodies in member schools; and second,
the cluster system has been a vehicle for community groups to
contribute to arenas which are wider than their own institutions.
The fact that the standard Cluster Committee includes a Buddhist
monk reflects an explicit effort to involve an important component
of the non-school community in addition to parents of school-going
children. Experience with the cluster scheme has naturally been
varied in different parts of the country. Yet although some
clusters have worked more smoothly than others, the scheme is
generally considered to have achieved successes in promoting
infrastructure for schooling and in improving the quality of
education (Dykstra & Kucita 1997). |
| |
|
| Experience
with cluster models having longer histories shows that structures
need to evolve over time. Needs change, contexts change, and
the individuals operating systems change. Partly for these reasons,
the nuclearization schemes in Peru and Costa Rica which were
launched in the 1970s did not survive the early 1980s (Bray
1987). Similarly, the cluster scheme in Sri Lanka was abandoned
in the late 1980s. Abandonment is not necessarily problematic,
because initiatives may serve particular purposes at particular
times, and should not be adhered to if the tides of history
have brought new needs and different emphases. At the same time,
cluster schemes have been sustained in other countries. In Thailand,
for example, clusters were initiated in the 1950s and in 1980
made part of the official administrative hierarchy (Kunarak
& Saranyajaya 1986). Detailed case studies (e.g. Wheeler et
al. 1992) show that the clusters can strengthen government and
community partnerships by providing a forum for school and community
representatives to learn from each other. Clusters can also
be vehicles for training and for sharing of resources. |
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|
| Village
Education Committees |
| |
|
| One of
the most instructive models of Village Education Committees
is found in India under the local government system known as
Panchayati Raj. The roots of this system go back several centuries,
but it was given prominence in 1992 when the national constitution
was amended to strengthen the system. The 73rd amendment covered
rural structures, and the 74th amendment covered their urban
counterparts (India 1992). A panchayat is an institution of
local self-government in rural areas, and is the counterpart
of the municipality in urban areas. The constitutional amendments
set out the size and composition of the membership of panchayats
and municipalities, and decreed that panchayats should play
a major role in the organization, provision and supervision
of primary and secondary schooling. Municipalities were also
expected to have educational functions, but their roles were
not so far-reaching. |
| |
|
| As one
would expect, the implementation of the Panchayati Raj system
varies considerably within India. In part this is a function
of diversity of state-level legislation, though wide variations
also exist within states (Mahajan 1998). In Andhra Pradesh,
the official hierarchy of administrative bodies has five tiers
leading up to the District level, with School Committees at
the bottom, and Panchayat Education Committees occupying the
next tier. Table 3 sets out the official framework for the composition
of these bodies. At most levels, at least some women must be
included in the committees. Some members are elected, while
others are nominated and yet others occupy posts in an official
capacity. |
| |
|
| Table
3: Official Hierarchy of Education Committees in Andhra Pradesh,
India (not available) |
| |
|
| Table
4 provides more information on this system by indicating the
functions and powers of the various committees. To some extent,
of course, each level liaises with the next higher level, and
the higher levels oversee the lower levels. However, the Panchayat
Education Committees (PECs) have a clear role in setting school
calendars, monitoring attendance of children and teachers, creating
and maintaining infrastructure, promoting enrollment, budgeting,
and various other managerial functions. |
| |
|
| Table
4: Functions and Powers of Education Committees in Andhra Pradesh,
India (not available) |
| |
|
| Source:
Modified from Kumar (1998), pp.34-35. |
| |
|
| The next
question, of course, concerns implementation of these official
requirements. Although the 73rd Constitutional Amendment was
only approved in 1992, a considerable body of research has been
accumulated both on the Panchayati Raj institutions which were
established prior to the constitutional amendment and on changes
since that time (e.g. Dhar 1997; Nuna 1997; Annigeri 1998; Tyagi
1999). In addition to Andhra Pradesh, states which have enacted
similar reform, though with varying impact, include Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. In many
settings, increase of responsibility at the school and village
level has not been accompanied by adequate resources; and decentralization
always brings with it the possibility of lower-level units making
the sorts of decision which higher-level units do not support.
However, the reform both reflected and required a significant
change in thinking. Even in the initial years it seemed to bring
some successful forms of partnership in which governments and
communities worked together to advance both the quantity and
the quality of education, though longstanding traditions could
not be completely changed with ease and speed. |
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