The 3rd International Conference on Local Government November 15-16, 2012, Khon Kaen, THAILAND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT Conference Proceedings College of Local Administration Khon Kaen University Khon Kaen, THAILAND The College of Local Administration (COLA) at Khon Kaen University was founded with two overarching missions: to enhance the self-governing capacity of Thai local governments and to serve as a sanctuary of knowledge on government innovation and collaboration. At COLA, we offer 6 degree programs: 1. The Bachelor of Public Administration Program in Local Government, 2. The Bachelor of Public Administration Program in Fiscal Management, 3. The Bachelor of Technology Program in Construction and Urban Management, 4. The Master of Public Administration Program in Local Government, 5. The Master of Public Administration Program in Community and Police Administration, and 6. The Doctor of Public Administration Program in Public Affairs Management. “We are part of the world and the world is our local community.” Peerasit Kamnuansilpa, Ph.D. Founding Dean of the College of Local Administration - 843 - Redundancies, Competition, and Inefficiencies in Decentralized Education Planning: A Case Study of District Khairpur under Decentralization in Pakistan Mohammed Rehan Malik [email protected] Abstract This paper is a case study of educational planning in Khairpur district in Pakistan under the decentralization initiative launched in 2001 by General Pervez Musharraf’s regime. In 2001, local governments were created at the district and sub-district levels. Education delivery, along with 11 other functions, was devolved from provincial to district governments. The study analyzes multiple education planning initiatives that were implemented by federal, provincial, and local governments as well as international development institutions during the decentralization initiative. The paper analyzes the planning sub-activities that were executed under each education planning initiative and the influence of various stakeholders. The paper discusses linkages between these education planning initiatives and education delivery at the local level. The paper presents findings and lessons learned in local education planning and delivery that are relevant for local government and decentralization scholars and practitioners across international development institutions, governments, non-government organizations, and academia. Recommendations for removing redundancies in planning, enriching the planning capacity at the local level, and improving education delivery are identified. 1.0 Introduction This paper is a case study of education planning and reform initiatives undertaken in Khairpur district during 2001-2006. The period of analysis represents the first five years of the district government operations under General Musharraf’s devolution initiative. In 2001, key social services, including K-12 education, were decentralized to newly-created, elected local governments. During this period, district government operations, education planning activities, and program interventions were being aggressively implemented. - 844 - Khairpur is a suitable case study subject for three reasons. First, it had a progressive nazima,1 Nafisa Shah, who demonstrated deep commitment to reforming public education in her district. Second, it was a district with significant room for improvement in education indicators (e.g. enrollment rates and gender inequities) and broader socio-economic indicators. Third, as a consequence of the two facts stated above, international development institutions and foreign donors launched several interventions in Khairpur’s education sector. Thus, Khairpur presents a district with three key ingredients for education reform: the need to improve public education; committed political leadership to address this need; and policy and program interventions to support education reform. In 2001, local governments were elected at the district, tehsil / taluka2, and union council levels and 12 provincial departments were devolved to local governments. District and sub-district governments became responsible for delivering services such as water and sanitation, health, and K-12 education. The logic that decentralization could lead to service delivery improvements was as follows: local decision-makers with requisite authority, and accountable and responsive to local service users, would improve social service delivery. It was predicated on the assumptions that local governments would have the requisite authority and resources, and service users would participate in local governance and provide inputs to decision- makers. 2.0 Education Planning and Reform Initiatives in Khairpur District Analysis of education planning and reform initiatives that were implemented in Khairpur during 2001-2006 by international development institutions and federal, provincial, and local governments is presented below. For each of these initiatives, stakeholder roles in determining policy priorities, intervention design, expenditure type and levels, and criteria for selecting recipients are identified. Authority and accountability for implementation, monitoring, and target achievement are also identified. Under the legislative structure in Pakistan, both before and during decentralization, education planning was a highly contested space. The federal government continued its unitary tradition of centralized education planning under the Concurrent List of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The federal 1 Elected mayor of a district government was called a nazim / nazima (f.) 2 Taluka is a sub-unit of a district in the province of Sindh. In other provinces, it is called tehsil. - 845 - government engaged in micro-planning and target setting which were conveyed to provincial and local governments for implementation. Despite decentralization to local governments, the provincial governments maintained their education planning authority through their official rules of business, budget rules, and bureaucratic systems. Provincial governments conducted their own education planning and expenditure assignment for schools that were under district government jurisdiction. District government structures were added while federal and provincial government structures were not retrenched. In addition to these tiers of government, international development institutions came in with their education planning initiatives, reform programs, and agendas. This case study presents Khairpur’s experience in this environment. 2.1 District Government’s Education Planning Platform For district governments, the formal planning exercise for improving service delivery was the annual budget consisting of recurrent expenditures and capital expenditures. Recurrent expenditures included salaries and operating expenditure. Capital expenditures consisted of development expenditures on upgrading the existing asset base or creating new assets. For the education department, this constituted building new schools and upgrading existing school and education department infrastructure. 2.1.1 Education Planning in the District’s Operating Budget Planning for operating expenditures consists of planning and budgeting for salaries and education department administration, including new capital expenditure expected to commence operations and additional teachers recruited during the fiscal year. In many districts, more than three-fourths of the operating budget was assigned to teacher’s salaries, which is expected of an education system where the main input is the teacher. In Khiarpur, like other districts in Sindh, planning for operating expenditures was conducted on an incremental basis. Last year’s budget was the basis for the next year’s budget. This was rooted in decentralization design and its slow implementation. Prior to and during the decentralization initiative, there was high degree of fiscal centralization at the central government level in Islamabad. Provincial governments were dependent on the federal government for fiscal transfers. This trickled down to - 846 - district governments, who were dependent on provincial government transfers.3 This centralization of revenue limited the district governments’ ability to leverage the budgeting process to develop a long-term vision for tackling the education sector deficiencies, or to create a local, long-term plan or vision driven by inputs from local service users, voters, and elected officials. Second, tactical responses from provincial governments to decentralization also curtailed district governments’ authority to utilized budgets for improving service delivery. The case of recruiting teachers for vacant, budgeted positions is illustrative of limited district government authority over their approved plan and budget. During the period of analysis, Khairpur district government, like other district governments in the province of Sindh, could not formally recruit teachers for staffing positions already approved and budgeted. The provincial government controlled the formal recruitment process: in one phase, the provincial government had imposed a ban on recruitment for new teachers. When the ban was lifted, the provincial government managed the recruitment process: it defined the selection criteria, and led the implementation via tests, interviews, and evaluation. The leadership at district government departments consisted of provincial government employees, especially the District Coordination Officer (DCO) who was the top bureaucrat in the district government and the Executive District Officers who headed district government departments. Through these bureaucrats provincial government ensured compliance with provincial government policies, maintained effective control over recruitment, and thus influenced the utilization of budgeted recurrent expenditures. As a result, district government’s ability to plan for, utilize, or adjust salary expenditures was limited. Similarly, transferring teaching staff within the district was also a contested territory with interventions from provincial government bureaucrats and politicians. This impeded the district government’s ability to plan and manage its resource mix effectively. In summary, district government authority to plan and execute operating expenditures was limited. 2.1.2 Education Planning in the District’s Development Budget On the development expenditure side, the district government had relatively more flexibility on planning and executing expenditures, even though the fiscal space was limited. Khairpur district government determined education development budgets under the district nazima’s leadership with consultations and inputs from local elected 3 This was true across Pakistan, with the slight exception of urban districts like Karachi and Lahore which had their limited, albeit active revenue base. - 847 - representatives and district government bureaucrats. Schools were identified for repairs and expansions and district education department implemented the projects identified in the capital expenditure budget. During the period under review (2001-2006) development expenditure was focused on upgrading existing facilities. In 2005-2006, Khairpur’s Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) had four schemes budgeted for PKR15.2 million, of which PKR10.0 million were allocated for rehabilitation of schools under the Khairpur Education Sector Reform program. For perspective, the total PSDP budgeted for the year was PKK348 million and the operating budget for Khairpur district and its education department was PKR2.9 billion and PKR1.5 billion respectively. The creation of new facilities and new staffing positions at a large scale was illogical when the vacant budgeted positions could not be staffed through the formal recruitment process. 2.2 Provincial Government Planning and Interventions Education planning and ad hoc interventions by the provincial government in the education sector continued even after decentralization initiative transferred authority for education delivery to district governments. The main formal platform for education planning was the Annual Development Program (ADP) which financed development expenditures for new facilities or renovation of existing facilities. These expenditures were driven by political support for these interventions from members of provincial assemblies who wanted to display their contribution to their constituencies. The provincial education department approved the technical aspect of the development projects and passed them on to the provincial planning and development department which compiled and finalized the provincial ADP. In addition to these formal ADP, interventions were also implemented in districts under the aegis of “MPA Programs.” These were ad hoc projects sponsored by members of provincial assembly. Local service users and district governments had no influence over these programs. 2.3 Federal Government Interventions During the period of analysis, two large federal interventions were implemented in the education sector in Khairpur. The first project involved building temporary, often one- room schools financed and operated by the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), a federal organization created outside the federal education ministry by an ally of the Musharraf regime. This project was run by NCHD officials across the country. Temporary teachers were hired locally by NCHD staff in the region. NCHD was autonomous in operating schools throughout Pakistan without any - 848 - accountability to district education departments, local users, or the local elected representatives. The policy priority and intervention design (temporary classroom / school operated by temporary local teachers), and expenditure levels per district were determined by the federal organization. Education Sector Reform Action Plan (ESRAP) was the second federal education project implemented during the period of analysis. This was the federal’s government’s central education plan for the entire country and included programs based largely on EFA priorities. The policy priorities, interventions, enrollment targets, and expenditure levels per district were all determined by the federal ministry of education with no input from local government officials. 2.4 Interventions from International Development Institutions International development institutions brought several education reform agendas to the district of Khairpur. These education reform agendas were in the form of national education reform projects, provincial service delivery improvement programs/ projects, provincial education development projects, or international education promotion initiatives developed at the Supra-State level and implemented via national, provincial, and local governments. 2.4.1 Sindh Devolved Social Services Program (SDSSP) The Sindh Devolved Social Services Program (SDSSP) was an Asian Development Bank intervention that was an extension of the Social Action Program (SAP) implemented in Pakistan during the 1990s with mixed results. SDSSP was aimed at developing devolved social services in education, health and water supply and sanitation. Analysis of SDDSP design and implementation in Sindh indicates that the project design, policy areas, and interventions were defined by the Asian Development Bank and enforced via the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) at the provincial government level in Karachi. The provincial government and the SDSSP PIU determined the resource envelope available to each district in the form of conditional grants. The district governments then conducting costing for the projects as defined in their agreements with the PIU which specified the criteria for projects that could be financed by SDSSP grants. Each district government identified projects with inputs from the nazim, selected representatives, and the district education department officials. The projects were approved by a resolution passed by the district government - 849 - assembly. The District Coordination Officer (DCO) and the district finance department managed these processes at the district level and reported the output to the PIU to trigger funding. The district governments implemented projects on behalf of ADB and the provincial PIU. Top district government bureaucrats (who were provincial government employees) were accountable to the provincial PIU for project implementation, monitoring, and completion. A condition for funds disbursement was the preparation of an annual sector plan by district governments. This was that was often ignored by the PIU in the early part of the project. During the period of analysis, SDSSP financed the establishment of three science labs and upgrades of three girls schools to high schools at a cost of PKR28.5 million in FY2004-05 which was nearly twice the education sector development expenditure budget for the district PSDP. 2.4.2 Decentralized Elementary Education Project (DEEP) DEEP was an Asian Development Bank Project with the principal focus on building elementary schools throughout Sindh. The “decentralized” aspect of the project is unclear. Project design and implementation was highly centralized with approving authority residing in ADB Manila office and with the central project implementation office at the provincial government level in Karachi. The policy priority (elementary education), intervention design and expenditure type (construction of schools), expenditure levels (school construction costs and number of schools in each district), and criteria for selecting project sites were all determined by ADB and implemented by the project office at the provincial government level. The main stakeholders were the provincial project implementation office in Karachi and the district education department and its school construction staff. The elected representatives and local users were not active stakeholders in this project implementation. 2.4.3 Education for All (EFA) Planning under Education for All (EFA) entailed the district government setting annual enrollment and expenditure targets based on the priorities set by UNESCO under the global EFA initiative. The priority areas were defined by UNESCO’s global declaration at Dakar in April 2000. The directive to plan according to these priorities was funneled to federal, provincial, and local governments. The district government did provide targets as their district’s input to the provincial EFA Plan of Action prepared by the provincial education department. This was purely a bureaucratic compliance exercise that did not involve local service users or elected representatives. - 850 - 2.4.4 Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA) The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA) in selected districts across Pakistan. The policy priorities, intervention areas, intervention design, were all selected by USAID and their project implementers outside the district education department. The scope of the reforms was massive and ranged from school-based management committees and democracy-based education system ownership and management at the micro level, to whole district reform at the macro level. The reform agenda was developed under guidance from USAID’s program objectives by foreign contractors. The reform interventions were implemented by foreign contractors, local sub-contractors, mainly non-government organizations. 2.5 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations The survey of education planning and reform initiatives implemented in Khairpur during 2001-6 present a highly contested space. Based on the above, the following conclusions and policy recommendations are posited. i) Education planning under decentralization was a highly contested space. Local government leadership should have uncontested authority for determining planning and reform priorities. Even though local nazimeen4 and district government department are accountable for education delivery, the authority for education planning was claimed by all tiers of government in Pakistan and by international development institutions. Education planning interventions from higher tiers of governance and international development institutions undermined district government authority and operations. Policymakers, decentralization reform developers and implementers could improve the impact of local governments on education delivery by retrenching pre-decentralization legislative structures that authorize higher tiers of government to conduct education planning for education delivery. ii) The scope of the formal district planning platform, the annual budget, to improve education service delivery was limited. It was restricted by fiscal centralization of revenue generation at the federal and provincial governments and by provincial government control of the recruitment process. Consequently, district governments were dependent on external stakeholders and financiers. These financiers came with conditional grants, their own reform priorities, and implementation approaches. As a 4 Plural for nazim
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