Decentralizing Education in Guatemala: School Management by Local Communities Guatemala set out in 1992 to increase access to education in remote areas. Its National Community-managed Program for Educational Development (PRONADE) has evolved from a small, innovative pilot program in 19 rural communities, to a nationwide program reaching over 4,100 communities and 445,000 children. PRONADE is one of the most proactive managerial, administrative, and financial decentralization measures taken in Latin America. Isolated rural communities have been truly empowered to administer and manage the schools. February 2005 PRONADE schools are located monitoring and evaluation. Specific activities include: (i) outlining the general framework of the program; (ii) primarily in remote rural, indigenous areas. determining the geographical areas that receive sup- Communities receive financing directly from the port; (iii) signing the legal covenant with the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) based on four crite- COEDUCAs; (iv) identifying, selecting, contracting and ria. First, the community must find a site and demon- supervising ISEs; (v) monitoring and evaluating the strate ability and interest in managing the new program; (vi) transferring of funds to the COEDUCAs; school. Second, the community must be located at and (vii) coordinating with MINEDUC, departmental least 3 kilometers from the nearest public school. offices and other institutions. The unit coordinates Third, the community must have at least 25 primary with staff from the Social Investment Fund (FIS) on school-aged children. Fourth, the community must school infrastructure matters and with the respective not have any teachers already on government payroll. MINEDUC directorates on educational policy and Financing is transferred directly to communities to assessment. The implementation unit leaves all school- cover teacher salaries, learning materials and school level administration and managerial decisions in the snacks. Administrative training for teachers and par- hands of the COEDUCAs who receive technical assis- ents on how to manage their community school is tance and advice from ISEs (Figure 1). delivered by Instituciones de Servicios Educativos (ISEs) who are nongovernmental organizations con- Education Committees (COEDUCAs) tracted by the ministry. Financing is contingent on The COEDUCAs are at the heart of the implementa- community participation in school management rang- tion structure. They are established as legal entities ing from the hiring of teachers to setting the school entrusted with administering the program on behalf calendar. Each community is represented by a Comité of the community. They are elected locally and are Educativo de Autogestion Educativa (COEDUCA), a comprised of parents and community members of parent-run school committee. whom at least two must be literate. Their functions PRONADE's Implementation Unit include: (i) contracting and paying teacher salaries; (ii) The program is coordinated by an implementation unit maintaining accounting records; (iii) monitoring headquartered in the capital. This unit is responsible teacher and student attendance; (iv) defining the for strategic planning, financial management, and school schedule and calendar (within the existing national legal framework); (v) buying and distributing school materials; (vi) monitoring school libraries; and (vii) organizing school feeding programs. COEDUCAs Figure 1: PRONADE's Implementation Structure receive funds directly from MINEDUC. PRONADE's Implementation unit, the Educational Service Institutions (ISEs) Department Directorates, and Social Investment ISEs are contracted by PRONADE to: (i) identify educa- Funds (FIS) tional needs in the communities they serve; (ii) organize Provides financing on a per student and assist COEDUCAs in obtaining legal status; (iii) pro- basis for school materials and snacks, on a per teacher basis for teacher vide financial/administrative training for the COEDUCAs; salaries and teaching supplies and (iv) maintain updated information on the schools Provides technical assistance Provides teacher development and students under their tutelage. Until 2001, ISEs also provided teacher development courses on "active learn- ing" pedagogical methodologies as well as multigrade COEDUCAs ISEs and multilingual classroom practices. Regional ministry offices, in principle, have taken over the role of peda- Provides feedback Provides technical Collaborates in assistance and gogical training of teacher's delivery of education. training courses support Hires teachers Provides accounting Manages the school records PRONADE is implemented in three stages summarized Procures learning Collects educational below. The average combined cost of all three stages materials statistics is approximately Q7,500 or US$962. Figure 2: Percent of Primary School-Aged Population in School for 1995 and 2003 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0 Solola Verapaz Marcos Jalapa apequez talhuleu El Peten Izabal Jutiapa a Rosa Escuintla Zacapa Totonicapan a Verapaz El Quiche Re Alt San Chiquimula Guatemala Sant El Progresso Chimaltenango Huehuetenango Quetzaltenango SuchitepequezBaja Sacat 1995 2003 Stage 1 - Community Identification Ministry of Public Finance (MFP) allocates sufficient The first stage is to identify communities that lack resources to the trust fund to ensure smooth imple- educational services. ISEs contracted by PRONADE mentation of the program. MFP disburses funds every carry out the identification activities. three months to a local bank on the basis of state- ments of expenditures submitted by PRONADE. Stage 2 - Organization and Legalization Transfers are made to the COEDUCAs. Although of COEDUCAs funds flow from PRONADE directly to the COEDUCA, The ISEs ensure that communities establish a COED- the ISEs provide substantial input in developing the UCA, elect a provisional Board of Directors, and budget and ensuring that funds are spent according obtain legal status. Once the COEDUCA is legally to the categories and amounts established with established the ISEs provide three days of training (24 PRONADE. The COEDUCAs make all payments out of hours) in administration and financial management. their local checking account. The ISEs and PRONADE's The average time required to organize a COEDUCA Financial and Administrative unit are responsible for and obtain legal status is three months. supervising the process. The COEDUCAs receive funds to pay for teacher salaries, bonuses and pension. The Stage 3 - Follow-up Services COEDUCAs also receive approximately US$6/student/ To participate in this stage, the ISEs must meet several year to buy school materials, US$28/teacher/year to requirements. Staff of the ISEs must be trained and buy teaching supplies and US$12/child/year to provide be fluent in the Mayan language spoken in the local- a daily school breakfast/snack. ity they serve in order to provide administrative train- ing to teachers and representatives of the COEDUCAs. The ISEs provide nine days of training. Program Achievements They make periodic visits to the school to ensure effective implementation of the program and monitor PRONADE's goal is to ensure that at least 70 percent results that are, in turn, submitted to PRONADE's of primary school-aged children in each of 22 depart- monitoring and evaluation unit. ments are attending school. The Department of Alta Verapaz is the only department that has not reached Transferring Funds the goal, but has seen enrollment growth for 7 to 14 PRONADE has established a trust fund to administer year olds move from 37 percent to 67 percent in resources and streamline payments to COEDUCAs eight years (Figure 2). Departments with the highest and ISEs. Consistent with the government's agree- proportion of indigenous population have been ment that establishes PRONADE as a legal entity, the slower in achieving full coverage. In 2003, an average of 87 percent of children ages 7-14 were in school, A larger percentage of control schools have albeit some not at the age appropriate level. Today, access to water, latrines and electricity than the PRONADE provides services to children in 21 of the 22 PRONADE schools. departments of the country. Promotion to higher levels is much better in PRON- PRONADE contributed significantly to improved enroll- ADE schools than in the control schools. ment, at rates of increase that surpass all other coun- tries in the region. Guatemala's primary net enrollment A study conducted by the World Bank (Wu, 2003) on rate increased from 72 percent in 1996 to 89 percent achievement of third and fourth graders in mathemat- in 2003. PRONADE schools accounted for 15.2 percent ics and reading concluded that when controlling for of the primary enrollment nation-wide in 2003. With the characteristics of schools and students, PRONADE the success of PRONADE and the increasing social schools perform as well as other rural schools in math- demand for preschool, PRONADE introduced preschool ematics and better in reading. education into its services in 1998. Enrollment in PRONADE preschool programs increased from 8,900 in Remaining Challenges 1998 to over 62,600 by 2004, accounting for 14.4 percent of the total enrollment in preschool in 2004. The PRONADE program has not yet been institu- tionalized as an integral part of MINEDUC, leading Evaluations to the perception that it is a parallel but unequal alternative to traditional schools. PRONADE teach- A descriptive study including 330 PRONADE schools ers have only provisional status, with one year con- and 110 rural traditional schools (control) was carried tracts and no formal pension. PRONADE has also out during the years 1999, 2000 and 2001. The study experienced political challenges to critical aspects gathered information from school administrators, of the program. teachers, parents, students and the community at large. No information on student achievement was col- There have been frequent delays in payments of lected. The main findings of the study are as follows: teacher salaries, as well as transfer of funds for school snacks, educational and teaching materials. On average, PRONADE students spent more time Such delays have had a detrimental effect on in classroom instruction (4.04 hours/day) than tra- teacher morale and job satisfaction. ditional rural schools (3.69 hours/day). The daily difference amounts to 12.6 more days of instruc- Quality issues and student learning outcomes must tion. Additionally, PRONADE students are in school be dealt with more systematically. PRONADE teach- for 180 days during the year. (Traditional schools ers have not received consistent training in multi- complete far fewer days in the school year.) grade and bilingual classroom practices. Parental participation in school activities and con- Impact evaluations are needed to determine how tact with teachers and principals is higher in PRON- PRONADE is affecting student achievement, repetition ADE schools than in the control schools. and drop-out rates, as well as teacher effectiveness. This note series is intended to summarize lessons learned and key policy findings on the World Bank's work in education. The views expressed in these notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank. For additional copies of Education Notes, please contact the Education Advisory Service by email at eservice@worldbank.org or visit the web site: http://www.worldbank.org/education/ Contributing Authors: Carlos Rojas, Alexandria Valerio, and Angela Demas Photographer: Carlos Rojas