The Political Settlement & Basic Education Quality

in BangladeshNaomi Hossain, IDS Sussex

Mirza Hassan, BRAC UniversityKhondoker Shakhawat Hossain

Md. Sajidul IslamMd. Ashiqur Rahman, BRAC University

Intro and Overview

• The puzzle: access without learning• Approach– tracing reform agenda from elite politics to frontline

• Elitist competitive clientelism supports– weak consensus on the need for quality– frontline discretion (weakly programmatic at point of

delivery)– protection of teachers from accountability pressures

The political settlement in Bangladesh

• Mainly competitive clientelistic since 1991

• Elite consensus on basic ed– Priming population for development – Space for NGOs & aid

• Vehicle for nationalism– Highly competitive – with

expansionary effects

Ed quality & the political settlement

• Political goals met by low quality mass schooling– No industrial elite pressure for higher average skills

• Quality is no priority: weak winners/strong losers– Donors have owned quality agenda– policymaking is weakly centralized, civil society not v influential– teacher associations enjoy ‘invisible power’ over quality agenda

• Learning outcomes & time-on-task low– Secondary schooling to get to primary level– Pupils get 20-50% of international average hours learning

Promoting higher quality learning

• Reform programmes nominally about quality (currently PEDP3 2011-15)– In practice quality = size, resourcing, access– Teacher performance measures all carrot, no stick– Some accountability reforms been shelved– But measures of student learning may make a

difference (not at school level)

Lessons from the frontline

• Rural & urban GPSs in Narayanganj • Determinants of teacher effectiveness – Professional rewards– Financial incentives & time pressures– Accountability pressures

Reflections on PSA and education provision

• PSA helps to explain access without learning– Pol settlement supports wider not better basic ed– Teacher immune from accountability

• Informal accountability can be strong (hypotheses needed)

• Class & gender biases hardwired into failing reforms