FOCUS AREA: MANAGEMENT CAPACITY & SERVICE DELIVERY




WHEN
SCHOOLS AND
EDUCATION
MINISTRIES ARE
MANAGED WELL,
LEARNING
HAPPENS
   Providing quality education requires building systems that deliver
   a complex service, day after day, in thousands of locations, over
   the course of many hours, to millions of students.


   WHY IT MATTERS                                                  OUR APPROACH
   Successful education reforms require good policy design,        At the central level, ministries of education need to attract
   strong political commitment, and effective implementation       and develop the multidisciplinary, technical, and managerial
   capacity. This is extremely challenging. Weak management        expertise to design and implement interventions based
   capacity at all levels of education ministries and in schools   on evidence. District or regional offices need the capacity
   hinders the successful rollout of complex reforms and           and the tools to monitor and support schools. At the
   delivery of quality education services needed to improve        school level, principals need managerial expertise to run
   learning. Many countries cannot efficiently utilize existing    schools, from planning the use of resources to managing
   resources to improve the quality of services because they       their teaching workforce. The World Bank is working with
   may not have the financial management, procurement, and         governments and partners to build capacity to organize
   administrative capacity to do this right. As a result, higher   and manage education systems. This includes the use of
   education spending does not always translate into more          professional development for school management officials,
   learning and improved human capital. Overcoming such            broader sharing of managerial and institutional best
   challenges involves working at all levels of the system—        practices, creation of international peer action networks,
   central, regional, and local school levels.                     and the development of new or improved survey tools to
                                                                   better assess process performance of the whole system.
The World Bank invests in developing global public goods that can be
used by countries to diagnose the functioning of the education system
and support implementation of actions to improve it.


OUR PRIORITIES:
1 Improving the capacity of ministries of                          3 Strengthening the institutional structure
education to design appropriate policies and                       and organization of education systems
implement them successfully                                        This involves the critical task of defining appropriate roles
We are working to build an international peer action               and responsibilities at the ministerial and local levels of
network of education ministries, through which they                authority. Accountability procedures and performance
can share knowledge, develop collaborative solutions               incentives are needed to ensure the coherence of the
to common problems, and undergo training. We also                  system and guarantee that schools are supported and
provide tailored technical support in critical areas such          accountable for learning outcomes. Organizational
as program development, planning, monitoring and                   structures and mechanisms are needed to efficiently
evaluation, and impact assessments to help education               manage the delivery of services and to regulate services
ministries succeed in achieving their objectives.                  delivered by the private sector.

2 Strengthening education information and                          4 Strengthening school management and
monitoring systems that spur systems                               nurturing successful school principals
improvement                                                        Principals provide the instructional and administrative
Improving performance requires a systemic approach                 leadership that schools need to be centers of learning.
because acting in one area generates ripple effects.               Strengthening principals starts with defining their role
Education systems need to innovate to increase access              and reducing administrative tasks to free up time for them
to quality education. The World Bank supports the                  to focus on providing pedagogical support to teachers.
development of Education Monitoring and Information                The World Bank is working with education ministries to
Systems, comprising student assessments and other                  develop a career path for principals, through transparent
administrative data, to help identify what needs to                and merit-based selection, deployment, and evaluation of
be improved and to develop feedback loops that spur                their performance. In addition, we are helping countries
                                                                   to identify teachers who have the traits and motivation to
targeted action and the spread of successful innovations.
                                                                   become principals and to provide training to help them
                                                                   develop managerial and leadership skills.




       educationgp@worldbank.org    worldbank.org/education    @WBG_Education Human Capital Project #INVESTinPeople