Education Outcomes, School Governance and Parents' Demand for Accountability : Evidence from Albania
The extent to which teachers and school directors are held to account may play a central role in determining education outcomes, particularly in developing and transition countries where institutional deficiencies can distort incentives. This paper...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/04/14114257/education-outcomes-school-governance-parents-demand-accountability-evidence-albania http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19879 |
| Summary: | The extent to which teachers and school
directors are held to account may play a central role in
determining education outcomes, particularly in developing
and transition countries where institutional deficiencies
can distort incentives. This paper investigates the
relationship between an expanded set of school inputs,
including proxies for the functionality of
"top-down" and "bottom-up"
accountability systems, and education outputs in Albanian
primary schools. The authors use data generated by an
original survey of 180 nationally representative schools.
The analysis shows a strong negative correlation between
measures of top-down accountability and students' rates
of grade repetition and failure in final examinations, and a
strong positive correlation between measures of top-down
accountability and students' excellence in math.
Bottom-up accountability measures are correlated to various
education outputs, although they tend lose statistical
significance once parent characteristics, school resources
and top-down accountability indicators are considered. An
in-depth analysis of participatory accountability within the
schools focuses on parents' willingness to hold
teachers to account. Here, the survey data are combined with
data from lab-type experiments conducted with parents and
teachers in the schools. In general, the survey data
highlight problems of limited parental involvement and lack
of information about participatory accountability
structures. The experiments indicate that the lack of
parental participation in the school accountability system
is owing to information constraints and weak institutions
that allow parent class representatives to be appointed by
teachers rather than elected by parents. |
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