The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces

Levy, Brian; Cameron, Robert; Hoadley, Ursula; Naidoo, Vinothan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2887441

Cited by 24 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Our experience provides support for targeted, pragmatic approaches to governance and anti-corruption in health systems policy. Such approaches are gaining ground in other sectors (education and industrial policy) where, under the rubric of developmental governance, 38 or cumulative incrementalism, 39 actors are seeking ways to intervene "within the grain, " 40 that is by taking account of the ways in which the economic, political and social structures limit the potential for action. Such approaches recognise that the long-standing search for comprehensive solutions to corruption in society, or more narrowly in the health sector, has not, in general, proven fruitful.…”

Section: Summary Limitations and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where Do We Start? Building Consensus on Drivers of Health Sector Corruption in Nigeria and Ways to Address It

Onwujekwe

Orjiakor

Hutchinson

et al. 2019

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Corruption is widespread in Nigeria’s health sector but the reasons why it exists and persists are poorly understood and it is often seen as intractable. We describe a consensus building exercise in which we asked health workers and policy-makers to identify and prioritise feasible responses to corruption in the Nigerian health sector. Methods: We employed three sequential activities. First, a narrative literature review identified which types of corruption are reported in the Nigerian health system. Second, we asked 21 frontline health workers to add to what was found in the review (based on their own experiences) and prioritise them, based on their significance and the feasibility of assessing them, by means of a consensus building exercise using a Nominal Group Technique (NGT). Third, we presented their assessments in a meeting of 25 policy-makers to offer their views on the practicality of implementing appropriate measures. Results: Participants identified 49 corrupt practices from the literature review and their own experience as most important in the Nigerian health system. The NGT prioritised: absenteeism, procurement-related corruption, underthe-counter payments, health financing-related corruption, and employment-related corruption. This largely reflected findings from the literature review, except for the greater emphasis on employment-related corruption from the NGT. Absenteeism, Informal payments and employment-related corruption were seen as most feasible to tackle. Frontline workers and policy-makers agreed that tackling corrupt practices requires a range of approaches. Conclusion: Corruption is recognized in Nigeria as widespread but often seems insurmountable. We show how a structured approach can achieve consensus among multiple stakeholders, a crucial first step in mobilizing action to address corruption.

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Section: Summary Limitations and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where Do We Start? Building Consensus on Drivers of Health Sector Corruption in Nigeria and Ways to Address It

Onwujekwe

Orjiakor

Hutchinson

et al. 2019

Int J Health Policy Manag

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“…As Näslund and Hallström (2017) explain, in a collaborative setting, control induces cooperation which positively affects trust (and which in turn promotes cooperation), while a control system implemented in a distrustful relation is likely to lead to an escalation of distrust. Døssing, Mokeki & Weiderman (2011, p.24), Levy (2018) and Cameron and Naidoo (2018) summarize the main actors of South Africa's education system at the national, provincial and local level and the relationships between these actors. Cameron and Naidoo (2018) situate the system for basic education as a hierarchy of a national government which sets the service conditions for educators and education policy, provincial departments which employ teachers, with further deconcentration of education to eight districts, which are divided into forty-nine circuits.…”

Section: Trust and Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Districts are administrative sub-units of the provincial education department (PED), as they implement provincial policy and have little decision-making power of their own, according to Smith and Ngoma-Maema (2003). The South Africa yearbook 16/17 and Cameron and Levy (2018) describe their role as the province's main interface with schools Their functions include ensuring that all teaching posts are filled, that teachers are teaching, that governing bodies are working properly, that schools receive adequate support, that relevant training is provided, and that performance information is used to inform efforts to improve school performance (Cameron and Levy, 2018, p.108) District offices are central to the process of gathering information and diagnosing problems in schools, but they also perform a vital (administrative, professional and managerial) support to schools and organize training for personnel (Padayachee et al, 2015). Their role furthermore entails dealing with funding, resourcing bottlenecks, and solving labour-relations disputes.…”

Section: Provincial Departments Of Education and District Officesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accountability and trust: Two sides of the same coin?

Ehren

Paterson²,

Baxter³

2019

J Educ Change

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Trust and accountability are often positioned as opposites, the argument being that accountability is based on distrust and correction of identified deficiencies. Yet, trust is also important in order for accountability to lead to improvement; only when teachers and principals are open about the quality of their teaching and their school can there be a meaningful discussion about change. How can we overcome this dilemma? This paper will address the inextricable interaction between trust and accountability, presenting examples from a study in South Africa of how external control in a setting of distrust can undermine agency and improvement, and how high levels of trust can promote more effective accountability relationships. Our study provides relevant insights into why some education systems are unable to generate, evaluate and scale innovations in learning when a lack of trust and capacity leads to strong opposition to external accountability, and when strong bureaucratic accountability creates further inefficiencies in pressurizing educators across the education system to report and monitor on various aspects of education where these efforts do not actually improve the quality of teaching in the classroom or provide information on good practices.

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“…Pursuit of accounting-based accountability solutions like the camera-attendance solution can easily make things worse, not better, by focusing on a top-down approach to accountingbased accountability for "thin inputs" (Pritchett 2014) or "process compliance" (Levy et al 2018) that (i) are not currently key or essential constraints to value added, (ii) distract attention away from building organizations with strong account based accountability, and (iii) may undermine account based accountability both externally (to "clients") and horizontally (to "peers"). We believe e.g.…”

Section: Figure 1 Percentage Of Teachers Absent From Schoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The "patina of objectivity" (Espeland and Sauder, 2014) of accounting-based accountability is an illusion, a self-deception that often leads to the "the black hole of process compliance". (Levy et al, 2018) This paper has focused on why our accounting-based accountability attempts at system reform in service delivery may sometimes drive us precisely in the wrong direction, using Accountability ICT in education as an example. Accounting-based accountability solutions solve the wrong problem, and do so in a way that further reinforces what we believe to be one of the larger misconceptions we see in the world of development practice today-the idea that the most fertile territory for answers lies in accounting-based accountability.…”

Section: Section VI Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems

Honig¹,

Pritchett²

2019

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Accountability is rightly at the center of the conversation regarding how to improve governance systems, particularly health and education systems. But efforts to address accountability deficits often focus primarily on improving what can be counted and verified-what we term "accountingbased accountability." We argue that introducing greater accounting-based accountability will only very rarely be the appropriate solution for addressing accountability problems. We illustrate this by exploring the role of Accountability ICT in (not) improving education system performance. Strengthening "real" accountability is not the same as improving data systems for observation and verification, and often attempts at the latter undermine the former. The development discourse's frequent semantic misunderstanding of the term "accountability" has pernicious effects on system reform efforts and ultimately global welfare.

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The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces

Cited by 24 publications

References 22 publications

Where Do We Start? Building Consensus on Drivers of Health Sector Corruption in Nigeria and Ways to Address It

Where Do We Start? Building Consensus on Drivers of Health Sector Corruption in Nigeria and Ways to Address It

Accountability and trust: Two sides of the same coin?

The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems

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