Education Decentralization and Accountability Relationships in Latin America
37 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016
Date Written: November 10, 2004
Abstract
Di Gropello analyzes decentralization reforms in the education sector in Latin America (their status, impact, and ongoing challenges) by making use of the accountability framework developed by the World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People. She starts by identifying three main groups of models according to the subnational actors involved, the pattern adopted in the distribution of functions across subnational actors, and the accountability system central to the model. She then reviews the impact of these models according to the available empirical evidence, and explores determinants of this impact, extracting lessons useful to the design of future reforms. The author concludes that the single most important factor in ensuring the success or failure of a reform is the way the accountability relationships are set to work within each of the models and provides some lessons on how to get these relationships to work effectively. She also provides three main general lessons for selecting "successful" models: (1) avoid complicated models; (2) increase school autonomy and the scope for "client power," maintaining a clear role for the other accountability relationships; and (3) place more emphasis on the "management" accountability relationship and the sustainability of the models.
This paper - a product of the Human Development Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region - is part of a larger effort in the region to assess the effectiveness of service delivery.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Here is the Coronavirus
related research on SSRN
Recommended Papers
-
Bureaucratic Corruption and Endogenous Economic Growth
By Isaac Ehrlich and Francis T. Lui
-
Corruption's Effect on Growth and its Transmission Channels
By Lorenzo Pellegrini and Reyer Gerlagh
-
Corruption, Growth and Political Regimes: Cross Country Evidence
By Facundo Sepulveda and Fabio Mendez
-
The Economic Costs of Corruption: A Survey and New Evidence
By Axel Dreher and Thomas Herzfeld
-
Policy Compromises: Corruption and Regulation in a Democracy
-
Policy Compromises: Corruption and Regulation in a Democracy
