The Role of Coherence in Strengthening Community Accountability for Remote Schools in Indonesia
Incoherence in accountability relationships, or the lack of alignment between the various components of a specific education system, can hamper the quality of education. Such incoherence can be a particular challenge in resource constrained, remote...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099335204212211721/P16728106dfeb90ad0911d001fea800bca9 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37567 |
| Summary: | Incoherence in accountability
relationships, or the lack of alignment between the various
components of a specific education system, can hamper the
quality of education. Such incoherence can be a particular
challenge in resource constrained, remote villages where
teachers tend to have higher educational capital and social
status than the parents and communities whom they serve. We
analyzed quantitative and qualitative data from a randomized
controlled trial of a social accountability mechanism (SAM)
for primary schools in remote Indonesian villages. The
intervention had three treatment groups, all of which
included the SAM, that engaged village-level stakeholders in
a consensus-building process that led to joint service
agreements for supporting the learning process. Prior
analyses have found that all three treatment groups
significantly improved student learning, but the treatment
group combining the SAM with teacher performance pay based
on camera-monitored teacher attendance led to much larger
gains than the SAM-only treatment group or the treatment
group combining the SAM with teacher performance pay based
on a community-evaluated scorecard. Drawing on a range of
quantitative data sources across all treatment group schools
(process monitoring, survey, and service agreement
indicators) and qualitative data from nine case study
schools (interviews and focus group discussions), we show
first that the student learning gains across all three
treatment groups were accompanied by increases in both the
coherence of the accountability relationships between
village-level stakeholders and the degree to which these
relationships were oriented toward the purpose of
cultivating learning. We further show that the treatment
group combining the SAM with camera monitored teacher
attendance led to greater improvements in the coherence of
accountability relationships than the other treatment
groups, because the cameras improved both the technical
capacity and the social legitimacy of community members to
hold teachers accountable. This coherence-focused,
relational explanation for the relative effectiveness of the
treatment groups has more explanatory power than alternative
explanations that focus narrowly on information quality or
incentive structure. Our analysis reinforces arguments for
ensuring that accountability structures are coherent with
the local context, including local social structures and
power dynamics. |
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