How Political Contexts Influence Education Systems: Patterns, Constraints, Entry Points

Abstract

This paper synthesises the findings of a set of country studies commissioned by the RISE Programme to explore the influence of politics and power on education sector policymaking and implementation. The synthesis groups the countries into three political-institutional contexts: Dominant contexts, where power is centred around a political leader and a hierarchical governance structure. As the Vietnam case details, top-down leadership potentially can provide a robust platform for improving learning outcomes. However, as the case studies of Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Tanzania illustrate, all-too-often dominant leaders’ goals vis-à-vis the education sector can veer in other directions. In impersonal competitive contexts, a combination of strong formal institutions and effective processes of resolving disagreements can, on occasion, result in a shared commitment among powerful interests to improve learning outcomes—but in none of the case studies is this outcome evident. In Peru, substantial learning gains have been achieved despite messy top-level politics. But the Chilean, Indian, and South African case studies suggest that the all-too-common result of rule-boundedness plus unresolved political contestation over the education sector’s goals is some combination of exaggerated rule compliance and/or performative isomorphic mimicry. Personalised competitive contexts (Bangladesh, Ghana, and Kenya for example) lack the seeming strengths of either their dominant or their impersonal competitive contexts; there are multiple politically-influential groups and multiple, competing goals—but no credible framework of rules to bring coherence either to political competition or to the education bureaucracy. The case studies show that political and institutional constraints can render ineffective many specialised sectoral interventions intended to improve learning outcomes. But they also point to the possibility that ‘soft governance’ entry points might open up some context-aligned opportunities for improving learning outcomes. In dominant contexts, the focus might usefully be on trying to influence the goals and strategies of top-level leadership. In impersonal competitive contexts, it might be on strengthening alliances between mission-oriented public officials and other developmentally-oriented stakeholders. In personalised competitive contexts, gains are more likely to come from the bottom-up—via a combination of local-level initiatives plus a broader effort to inculcate a shared sense among a country’s citizenry of ‘all for education’.

School Education in Post-18th Amendment Balochistan: A Political Economy Perspective

“…Their findings revealed that the commitment and capacity of elites to improve educational outcomes was systemically related to, and shaped by, by the type of political settlement. Levy (2022) adapted the political settlement analysis to group countries into distinct political-institutional contexts and explored the influence of these divergent contexts on education sector governance and outcomes. He found that political and institutional constraints can render ineffective many specialised sectoral interventions.…”

Purpose-Driven Education System Transformations: History Lessons from Korea and Japan

“…This is the challenge of governance and state capacity that must be at the forefront of all debates on reform" (Aiyar 2021, p. 73). Levy (2022), in a somewhat related paper (although dealing more with the political economy of educational quality), warns about the danger of over-reliance on pure process compliance when elites (and the rank and file) have not absorbed motivation.…”

“…But they may not be the ones that are often offered up by bureaucratic processes as counterparts to donor agencies or foreign semi-academic or academic implementers. Sometimes these reformists are found in what Levy (2022) calls "islands of excellence" even in countries that are fairly chaotic and personalist (a "competitive personalist" political settlement in his wording). Supporting these agents of change can be fruitful.…”

Politics, Accountability, and Learning: Insights from the RISE Programme’s Political Economy Case Studies

“…It discusses politically driven incoherence in the compact relationship between delegation, information, and motivation design elements and its consequences for learning outcomes. Ethiopia is described as a dominant context that has experienced large-scale shifts over three major periods regarding both political leadership and the goals of the education sector (Levy 2022). Despite the scale of these shifts, major sources of continuity since the 1940s are the twinned goals of "enhancing the socio-economic development of the country and the legitimacy of the ruling elite" (Gershberg, Kefale, and Hailu, 2023, p. 48).…”

“…Political actors within Ethiopia's dominant political settlement have worked to expand access to education in pursuit of broader political legitimacy for decades. During the Derg regime, enhanced educational access was also a part of the way in which the military government demonstrated its responsiveness to segments of the population that had been historically excluded (Levy 2022), launching an adult literacy campaign and generally prioritizing access to those living in the rural countryside.…”