Alec Ian Gershberg

Education 'Decentralization' Processes in Mexico and Nicaragua: Legislative versus ministry-led reform strategies

Much of the development community has advocated decentralization of basic education, and many countries have implemented some form of decentralization policy. This paper explores one important facet of the reform process: the relationship between the creation of official legislation, on the one hand, and the actual implementation of changes in governance, on the other. Most countries have, like Mexico, followed a strategy of legislation first and actual reform second. Nicaragua pursued a very different strategy, implementing significant changes in governance with little legal framework. Each strategy had benefits and pitfalls, but the comparison of the two experiences illustrates that prioritizing the creation of a legislative framework, as most countries have done, is no golden rule. Reforming governments have important lessons to learn from considering the attributes of both strategies to allow enough flexibility to facilitate learning by doing and to minimize wasted administrative effort and political ...

Making education reform work for the poor: accountability and decentralization in Latin America

We build upon and examine critically the framework for analysing accountability set forth in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2004 (WDR04) through a review of selected literature studying accountability‐focused reforms in three Latin American countries – Brazil, Colombia and Chile. We examine the successes and pitfalls of the three accountability‐related reforms (which also involve some type of decentralization) in fostering institutional environments in which the key actors involved in provision are held responsible for fulfilling their roles in providing education services. We apply the WDR04 framework in our analysis of the process of implementation and impact of different types of accountability‐focused reforms in the three countries. The framework was conceptualized by analysing case studies such as ours for a broad range of sectors, and now has widening influence in the policy‐making community, thus justifying a critical assessment. We discuss common challenges impeding implementation of the reforms, most notably political and technical challenges and discuss how well the framework and report capture and emphasize such challenges. In studying the impact of the reforms, we find that their effects are generally more positive in less poor communities and discuss the need for a strong central state to monitor and address such issues.

Parental Contributions, School-Level Finances and Decentralization: An Analysis of Nicaraguan Autonomous School Budgets.

The Nicaraguan Autonomous School Programme is notable among the growing number of school governance decentralization reforms in the Americas in the degree of control given to parents, especially in decisions regarding the allocation of school resources. Much of schools’ discretionary spending was accumulated through various school charges. This paper analyses rare school‐level budget data to determine the proportion of resources that derived from parental contributions and other school‐based commercial activity. We find the contributions to be significant, highly varied, and correlated with income. The results have implications for many decentralization reforms that encourage local contributions as part of both their financing and accountability strategies.