NN37, May 2006
Special Theme on Education and Training out of Poverty? A Status Report
EDUCATIONAL DECENTRALISATION IN SRI LANKA:POLICY PRACTICE FOR POVERTY REDUCTION?
By Sachiko Kataoka, University of Sussex
A range of rationales for educational decentralisation have been discussed since the 1950s, including improved administrative efficiency and greater developmental effectiveness and democratic participation. More recently, decentralisation has been promoted as a tool for poverty reduction through involving the poor in the decision-making processes at local level. By examining policy practice and outcomes in Sri Lanka, this piece considers whether educational decentralisation policies can improve the quality of education for the poor and ultimately contribute to poverty reduction.In Sri Lanka, educational decentralisation has failed to yield the expected benefits. The present dual administrative structure, shared by the central Ministry of Education and Provincial Education Authorities (PEAs), has not only created administrative inefficiency and conflicts of interest, but has also intensified the polarisation of schools between large, wealthy, urban National schools and small, poor, rural Provincial schools. Inequities in financial and human resources and therefore in the quality of education, are evident between the two. The national Grade 5 Scholarship Examination system has also enhanced the dichotomy by selecting able students and providing them with quality education in urban schools while leaving less able students in poor rural schools.
Sri Lanka?s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper promotes decentralisation as a key strategy to improve the quality of education in rural areas and reduce poverty. However, the present focus on school-based management (SBM) as a panacea for school development assumes that schools are able and willing to manage themselves irrespective of the characteristics of principals, parents and communities, and ignores the respective roles of the central Ministry, PEAs, Zonal and Divisional Offices in providing the required teachers and necessary infrastructure and materials for schools, and monitoring and supervising school management and teaching-learning in the classrooms. Without assistance from Zonal/Divisional Offices, small rural schools serving poor children are less likely to gain from SBM than large urban schools because in the former, parents and communities tend to be less able to contribute to schools and principals themselves tend to be less competent in school management.
There is no definite evidence that the central government is better at distributing resources equally across the country than the PEAs, but if central and/or external initiatives and conditionalities help enhance more equal distribution, central control may not be undesirable. On the other hand, where there is strong local leadership and commitment to the provision of unbiased, balanced public services for wider segments of society, decentralised units can take advantage of their local knowledge for more equitable utilisation of limited resources, closer administrative services and effective monitoring and supervision for educational development. In addition, the development of inter-sectoral collaboration between educational and general administration at zonal and divisional levels has the potential for improving student enrolment and attendance in rural schools.
Finally, no decentralisation policy can improve all schools in all regions equally because decentralisation inevitably creates differences between them. It is unfair to downplay the efforts and successes of individual regions and schools which have achieved significant improvements in school management and student performance just because there are failing schools somewhere else. Nevertheless, decentralisation as a whole can be considered unsuccessful if educational opportunities for certain segments of society deteriorate because there is no mechanism in place to compensate for areas where opportunities are reduced. In this sense, educational decentralisation in Sri Lanka can be considered a failure, although it must be noted that it is not decentralisation per se, but incomplete decentralisation reflecting the complex dual administration and school system that has widened the gap in the quality of education between the rich and the poor. It is ultimately a political decision what education the state should and can provide