Cameroon - Governance and management in the education sector (English)

This report aims to analyze the extent to which current governance and management practices contribute to explaining differences in education outcomes, focusing on three regions of Cameroon: the Littoral, Far North, and North West. The three regions chosen... See More + This report aims to analyze the extent to which current governance and management practices contribute to explaining differences in education outcomes, focusing on three regions of Cameroon: the Littoral, Far North, and North West. The three regions chosen for this study differ considerably in terms of education performance, with the Far North being the weakest at one end of the spectrum, and the Littoral region being one of the best at the other end. The report explores the connections between governance and educational outcomes in these three regions, using a qualitative approach. In-depth interviews with government officials and school personnel, observations of school operations, and reviews of documents were used to analyze governance and accountability in both basic and secondary education. Such approach is inductive, context sensitive, and naturalistic, based on an iterative process of knowledge generation. The analytical framework for the study consists of two broad areas, public expenditure and system functioning. Under public expenditure, the study examines governance and accountability practices relating to upstream financial decision making and execution. System functioning covers activities that must take place consistently over the school year and includes: teachers (recruitment, deployment and transfers, and remuneration), schools (monitoring of teacher performance, administration, and school performance), and extra-government entities. In addition, the report reviews contribution of the community (the citizens and students who are the beneficiary) and the extent to which they are able to demand acceptable standards of service delivery in education is examined. The section on extra-government entities briefly looks at their roles and contributions in bringing about good governance.  See Less -