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Community
Financing
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Issues
concerning the sources and control of finance have already
been mentioned, and underlie almost all dimensions of community
partnership in education. This section begins by considering
the possible spectrum of situations with different balances
in partnerships but sometimes with hidden similarities. It
then turns to controversies concerning fees for primary education.
The third part addresses other ways to raise resources; and
the fourth part links financing to control, pointing out that
community provision of resources does not always provide commensurate
control over how those resources are utilized.
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| Contrasting
Situations but Hidden Similarities |
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| Analytically,
one may envisage a spectrum of situations with different balances
of funding. At one end of the spectrum are systems in which
all resources come from the government and no resources are
contributed by communities. At the other end are systems in
which all resources come from communities with nothing from
governments. Deeper scrutiny may show that this model is over-simplified,
but it is a useful starting point for consideration. |
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| In general,
systems which are fully funded by governments have low degrees
of community partnership, though communities may be invited
to assist in the operationalization of policies and plans determined
by the government. Conversely, systems which are fully funded
by communities commonly have low degrees of government partnership,
though governments may insist that school managers meet certain
requirements in maximum class size, minimum teachers' qualifications,
etc.. From the perspective of partnership, therefore, the most
instructive situations are ones in which governments provide
some resources and communities provide others. Particularly
common are models in which governments provide some or all of
the teachers' salaries, and communities provide land, buildings
and other facilities. |
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| Within
these intermediate categories of shared resourcing, many variations
may exist. For example, systems may be basically government-operated
but with substantial community inputs; or they may be basically
community-operated but with substantial government inputs. Often
it is necessary to scrutinize actual patterns rather than to
rely on labels. This may be demonstrated by contrasting Cambodia
and Indonesia: |
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In Cambodia,
the dominant provision of primary education is normally described
as a public system. However, research in 1997/98 showed that
within this so-called public system, the government provided
only 12 per cent of total costs. Households and communities
met 60 per cent of total costs, while politicians met 10 per
cent, and NGOs and external aid agencies met 18 per cent (Bray
1999, p.42). Many of the community contributions were solicited
on a village basis, in which community members were taxed
and made other inputs even if they had no children currently
in the schools. Contributions were also made by Parents' Associations,
working as collective bodies. Some village leaders had become
expert at soliciting contributions from community members
who were resident abroad. In these cases, the community was
defined in terms of historical and emotional ties rather than
place of residence.
In Indonesia,
over 3 million pupils at the primary level, representing over
10 per cent of the total, attend privately-owned Islamic institutions
known as madrasah ibtidaiyah (World Bank 1998, p.123). Although
nominally private, in 1995/96 these institutions received
71.3 per cent of their income from the national and regional
governments (Bray & Thomas 1998, p.41). The other 28.7 per
cent was provided by families, communities, and the foundations
which operated the schools. In this situation, communities
were defined according to a combination of religion and place
of residence.
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| This pair
of situations shows the danger that labels may be misleading.
Although Cambodia ostensibly has a public system, in practice
most inputs come from non-government sources; and although this
part of the Indonesian system is ostensibly private, in practice
the bulk of inputs come from government sources. |
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| One question
to be explored further, however, concerns the extent to which
in the domain of financing the distinctions between governments,
households and communities are real. Governments of course derive
incomes from many sources, including royalties on minerals,
government-owned enterprises, and foreign aid. Yet the main
source of income for most governments is taxation. Again, taxes
may be of many kinds, including taxes on businesses and property.
However, in the majority of countries most taxation income is
obtained from individuals and households. In this sense, some
government revenues are ultimately derived from the same sources
as the non-government revenues: governments gain their incomes
from individuals and households, and communities gain their
incomes from individuals and households. |
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| Table 5
shows data on taxation revenues by region as a percentage of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Although considerable variation
exists within groups of countries, taxation levels in industrialized
countries are generally higher than those in less developed
countries. In turn, this means that governments in industrialized
countries are able to pay large sums for primary and other levels
of education, and are less in need of direct household and community
inputs. Less developed countries, by contrast, tend to have
less sophisticated structures for taxation. This means that
their governments are less prosperous, and that the governments
are unable to invest large amounts in education. |
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| Table 5:
Taxation Revenue as a Percentage of GDP, 1997 (not available) |
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| Source:
United Nations Development Programme (1999), pp.184-187. |
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| The importance
of considering taxation may again be illustrated by reference
to Cambodia. While in Cambodia the bulk of investments in primary
education are provided directly by households and communities
rather than by the government, Cambodia has a very inefficient
system of taxation. Cambodia's ratio of taxation to GDP was
just 6.0 per cent in 1994 (Asian Development Bank 1996, p.33).
The regional average (for 26 Developing Member Countries of
the Asian Development Bank) was 14.4 per cent, and figures for
specific countries included 20.2 per cent in Malaysia and 17.2
per cent in Thailand. Thus in Cambodia, households and communities
may have been paying large direct amounts for primary education,
but they were paying small indirect amounts. |
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| Situations
similar to those in Cambodia may also be found in other settings.
In Uganda, for example, households and communities in the late
1980s and early 1990s met between 65 and 90 per cent of the
total costs of primary education (World Bank 1993, p.35); but
that was chiefly because overall government operations had practically
collapsed, which in turn meant that very few taxes were being
collected. Communities realized that if they wanted schools,
they would have to help themselves - perhaps investing directly
some or all of the resources which under other circumstances
they would have had to pay in taxation. Comparable comments
might be made about such countries as Chad and Somalia (Esquieu
& Péano 1994; Shartz 1998). |
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| This set
of statements does not imply that community financing is necessarily
an appropriate alternative to taxation. One major purpose of
most taxation systems is to extract greater proportions of revenue
from the rich than the poor. This, in the language of taxation,
is "progressive", and spreads the burden of education over populations
and even generations in what is arguably a more desirable way.
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| Community
financing, by contrast, is more likely to be regressive - i.e.
to demand proportionately more from the poor as a percentage
of total incomes than from the rich. Also, as a source of finance,
taxation is better suited than community financing to long-term
investments of the types needed in the education sector. As
such, one major recommendation might be that governments with
weak taxation systems strengthen them. Meanwhile, however, in
some settings community financing operates as an alternative
to taxation. |
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| An alternative
possibility is one in which the structure of government is strong
and far-reaching. In some settings, such structures include
micro-level as well as district, regional and national governments.
In these cases, the boundaries between community and government
may be blurred. This was especially the case in old-style communist
systems, where the distinction between a commune and a community
derived from semantics and/or the political orientations of
the observer more than from identifiable structures. |
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| This point
may be illustrated by patterns in the People's Republic of China.
The 1990s brought weakening of government structures because
of political changes and the advent of the market economy, but
up to the late-1970s communes were still an important part of
the structure of governance and also played a major role in
the financing of education (Robinson 1988). Communes were subsequently
abolished in a formal political sense and to some extent replaced
by informal structures. Thus many communities in China employed
their own teachers, known as minban teachers. Recently this
term has been broadened to include teachers in private schools;
but at the primary level the majority of minban teachers during
the 1980s and 1990s were employed by communities rather than
by private entrepreneurs. In the mid-1990s, 40 per cent of all
primary teachers, and 50 per cent of rural ones, were minban
teachers (Cheng 1997, p.400). Some of these were in rich communities,
but many were in poor ones. Related to this, a 1995 study of
the financing of primary education in 491 poor counties showed
that 14.6 per cent of the total costs were met by communities,
and a further 6.7 per cent by households through per-pupil fees
(Jiang et al. 1997, p.27). This was part of a transition from
centrally-planned activities to a more flexible system in which
more decisions were made at the local level. The new structures
were substantially different from the old ones; but in many
parts of the country the commonality remained that financial
resources were contributed by households and communities to
sustain their local schools. |
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| Fees
for Primary Education |
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| Mention
of fees for primary education raises a policy issue which is
controversial. Most communities which fund substantial parts
of school budgets rely on per-pupil fees for a major part of
their revenues. Communities commonly find that fees are the
only way to ensure regular revenues in cash, which are needed
to pay teachers' salaries and meet other recurrent needs. Fees
also have the advantage that the people who pay them can clearly
see a link between their payments and the services provided.
However, many policy-makers find the notion of fees, particularly
for primary education, problematic. This is chiefly because
they are mindful of the danger that the poorest families may
be excluded from school by the existence of fees. Also, fees
may be regressive because poor families tend to have more children
than rich families. In addition, systems which charge fees encounter
various administrative complications arising from the costs
of collection and the need for accounting arrangements to reduce
the danger of money going astray. |
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| Opposition
to fees has deep roots in various international declarations.
One of them, as noted above, was the 1948 United Nations Declaration
of Human Rights. Article 26 of the Declaration stated that "education
shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages".
Principle 7 of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child
stated that "the child is entitled to receive education, which
shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages";
and Article 13 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights stated that "primary education shall
be compulsory and available free to all". |
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| Significantly,
a clause of this type was not included in the 1990 Jomtien World
Declaration on Education for All. This may reflect some evolution
in thinking. The summary of roundtable discussions (Windham
1992, p.3) observed that "'free' education provided by government
alone is often of an insufficient quality to benefit the individual
child, the community or the country". The report continued (p.4): |
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| The neediest
pupils will not be able to adjust to user-fee financing schemes
with the same ease as middle and upper-income pupils. |
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| This statement
clearly envisaged the possibility of fees, and instead shifted
the question to how the poor should be protected in contexts
where such fees existed. The implied logic was that fees for
middle and upper-income pupils might actually be desirable,
on the grounds that school systems need the resources and that
these people can afford to pay. The World Bank has gone further,
stating (1999, p.19) that in "in principle, fees and other contributions
paid by non-poor beneficiaries could free up public resources
for targeting to the poor". |
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| For those
who accept this approach, the next question concerns mechanisms
for protecting the poor. Part of the problem is that communities
themselves may not be sympathetic to the plight of the poorest.
Muya et al. (1995) report that in Kenya many parents feel exploited
by school committees, which are sometimes considered demanding
and unsympathetic to the burdens they impose. Similar comments
have been made about Uganda by Opolot (1994). |
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| However,
survey of experiences in different countries shows that many
communities do have leaders who are sensitive to the needs of
the poorest. These leaders may reduce the monetary charges on
the poorest, and/or permit families to provide labor or materials
instead of cash, or waive charges altogether (Bray 1996a, 1997).
The question then becomes how such practices can be encouraged.
The answer partly lies in raising awareness at the school and
community level of the consequences of not making allowance
for the needs of the poorest. Governments can also assist communities
by pointing out some of the mechanisms for assisting the poor. |
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| In summary,
views on fees at the primary level tend to be polarized. On
the one side are agencies and individuals who are vehemently
opposed to fees. Oxfam (1999, p.239) is among the agencies in
this category, on the grounds that "high cost is probably the
single most important factor excluding the children of poor
households from school". Also, although the 1990 Jomtien World
Declaration on Education for All was silent on the matter, the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by
the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, maintained the
tradition of the predecessor international declarations. Article
28 of the Convention stated that signatories recognized the
right of the child to education, and "with a view to achieving
this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity,
they shall, in particular … make primary education compulsory
and available free to all". In the years that have followed,
a powerful lobby has constantly called attention to the matter
(see e.g. Oxfam 1998; UNICEF 1999a). |
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| On the
other side, however, is a growing group of agencies and individuals
who are more tolerant of fees in education. This has been particularly
evident in tertiary education, and has also been witnessed at
secondary and even primary education. The argument, as indicated,
is that education sectors need all the resources they can get,
and that fees in some circumstances provide enough resources
to secure not only the quantity but also the quality of education.
Middle-income and rich parents, the argument goes, should be
actively encouraged to contribute resources; and a fee-free
education policy is misguided if it prevents willing parents
from contributing to education. Scholarships and other mechanisms
for protecting the poor can be financed from revenues provided
by the middle-income and rich. |
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| Other
Ways to Raise Resources |
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| Communities
may have many other ways to raise resources for education. The
range of different methods has been analyzed elsewhere (Bray
1996b, pp.8-13), but is worth summarizing here. |
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| One important
distinction is between resources for capital needs and for recurrent
needs. For capital works, community leaders commonly organize
focused activities such as launching ceremonies. In Nigeria
and Kenya, for example, fund-raisers rely on community structures
to create a sense of obligation, and even impose sanctions on
individuals who do not contribute (Igwe 1988, pp.111-112; Hill
1991, pp.237-238; Rugh & Bossert 1998, pp.32-55). In prosperous
and well-organized communities, these events may raise substantial
amounts of money. |
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| Among
the alternative ways to raise money for capital works are fêtes,
carnivals, cultural shows, harvest festivals, raffles, and sponsored
walks. In these cases, government-community partnerships may
exist at the micro-level as well as at higher levels, for government-employed
teachers commonly work with community members to organize the
events. |
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| A further
way to raise resources either for capital or for recurrent needs
is through a levy on each household or individual. Tsayang (1998)
and Moorad (1999) have described the ways in which decisions
are commonly made in Botswana. Some individuals and households
contribute cattle, but others contribute money according to
minimum and maximum rates determined at village meetings. Each
meeting is usually organized by the school committee, and presided
over by the village chief. Strikingly similar systems may be
found in parts of Asia. For instance in Lao People's Democratic
Republic, construction of rural schools is commonly overseen
by chairpersons of Community Associations. Levies may be imposed
on individual adults, or they may be by household. Commonly,
households are levied equal sums, regardless of the incomes
of those households or the numbers of their school-aged children,
though perhaps with some allowance for substitution of labor
in the case of households which are very poor (Bray 1996a, p.31).
Comparable systems are used in parts of India (Rajagopal & Sharma
1999, p.61). |
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| Where
collection of cash is problematic, teachers may be willing to
accept at least partial payment in food, accommodation and/or
labor. Madagascar has become known for its "drums of rice schools"
in which teachers have been paid in rice (Tilahimena 1999, p.7).
In Mali, the communities of schools run by the NGO World Education
have paid teachers an average of US$50 per month in cash, but
have provided additional inputs in kind worth US$35 per month
(Tietjen 1999, p.38). The additional inputs include lodging,
firewood, millet, land for cultivation, and help with cultivation.
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| Schools
sponsored by religious organizations may also meet recurrent
needs from collections made during church/temple/mosque/synagogue
ceremonies, and from other regular sources of income such as
rent on properties. When religious organizations have more than
one school, they may be able to subsidize the deficits of some
institutions from the surpluses of others. Also, teachers and
other workers in religious schools commonly work at less than
the market rate, therefore providing a hidden subsidy. Many
religious schools in low-income countries are also able to attract
funds from religious organizations in more prosperous countries. |
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| Balances
of Financing and Control |
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| A common
expression in the English language states that "He who pays
the piper calls the tune". It means that the person (or organization)
which provides the finance decides how that finance is spent.
However, in the domain of community financing of education,
this expression is not always applicable. Communities do not
always have great control over the content and scale of education,
even when they make major financial inputs. In many government-sponsored
schemes, community financing is seen as an alternative to direct
taxation, and communities have little more control over their
funds than they would over taxation revenues. Communities may
also have limited control in schemes sponsored by donor agencies.
Indeed, as observed by Wright & Govinda (1994, p.22) "it is
not always clear that partnerships with communities are designed
to encourage genuine participation and fair control, rather
than simply getting communities to pay more for the pet schemes
of others". |
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| This is
not always the case, of course. Much depends on the willingness
of governments to devolve decision-making, and of the communities
to take it up. In Papua New Guinea, as noted above, communities
may have the power even to decide on the languages of instruction
despite the fact that the government meets the major costs of
elementary education. |
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Nevertheless,
comparative analysis shows that governments have an array
of tools to influence and direct community decisions, even
where communities provide substantial proportions of the total
costs. These tools include:
Controls
on registration of schools. Governments may insist that
schools must be registered, including schools that are independently
managed and financed. They do this first to help shape the
geographical coverage of education, and second to permit
enforcement of regulations.
Teacher
recruitment, qualifications and salaries. Some governments
insist that all teachers in both government and community
schools be employed by the public service. This does of
course require those governments to have sufficient budgets;
but it allows the governments to control teacher recruitment,
qualifications and salaries. Usually this is done in the
name of quality, but political and other factors may also
be involved.
Enrollment
of marginalized groups. One danger of leaving most decisions
to community leaders is that school systems may discriminate
against marginalized groups, defined by gender, class, race,
religion or other criteria. Governments sometimes insist
that community schools be open to pupils who are not members
of those communities.
Curriculum.
Governments may be anxious that community schools teach
certain core elements and promote values which are consistent
with national unity. In some countries, regulations restrict
the extent to which communities can devise their own curricula.
Buildings.
Some governments insist that, for the safety of the pupils,
buildings meet minimum standards of various kinds. This
may include not only the quality of basic construction but
also adequacy of ventilation and lighting.
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| The challenge
for policy makers is to decide what sorts of controls are necessary
in what sorts of situations. In some cases controls are desirable
to harmonize components of national education systems and to
safeguard the rights of the children. However, in other cases
controls stifle community initiative and make a mockery of claims
about partnership. |
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