A comparative analysis of school-based management in Central America

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of school-based management reforms in four Central American countries (EDUCO in El Salvador, PRONADE in Guatemala, PROHECO in Honduras, and Centros Autonomos in Nicaragua). It starts by providing a characterization of the models and then reviews how they have expanded community participation and empowerment and school decisionmaking autonomy. It then continues by analyzing the impact of community and school empowerment on the teaching-learning process, including measures of teacher effort; and assesses the impact of the models on several educational outcomes, relating this impact with the teaching-learning environment and community empowerment. Finally, the paper attempts to explain the impact of the reforms by discussing how variations in reform design, country contexts and actors' assets can explain differences and similarities in result. The key conclusion of the paper is that school-based management models have led generally to greater community empowerment and teacher effort, resulting in: (a) a better use of the existing limited capacity of teachers and schools; (b) higher coverage in rural areas; (c) somewhat better student flows; and (d) learning outcomes at least as high as in traditional schools (while community-managed schools are generally established in the poorest and most isolated rural areas). Nonetheless, the models rank poorly in terms of teacher education and experience, adoption of active/innovative teaching methodologies and substantive and supportive teacher involvement in the schools. Reform design and implementation context are crucial determinant of these and other results. A second set of key conclusions of the report is that the impact of community-based schooling on student flows and learning outcomes could be greatly enhanced by a set of specific actions, which largely aim at setting up the conditions for pedagogical improvement, improved management and empowerment at the local level, and sustainability of the models. The main suggested direction for pedagogical improvement consists in enhancing teachers' empowerment, by giving them higher pedagogical autonomy and support, and attracting more skilled teachers through a better alignment of teachers' benefits and professional development opportunities with those of the traditional system. Improving management and empowerment at the local level requires improving parental support, disseminating information on school performance to all education actors, improving transfer formulas, training directors, and strengthening institutional capacity of coordinating units. Finally, ensuring sustainability requires the urgent implementation of strategies to include teachers and teacher's unions in the reform process, by disseminating information on the reform, negotiating more favorable employment conditions for teachers in the non-traditional sector, and granting higher teacher pedagogical autonomy. It should also he gradually envisaged to substitute the coordinating units by departments or offices that are fully streamlined into the structure of the ministries of education.