How Can We Make Schools Work Better?
How can we make schools work better? It's a question being asked around the world. Getting children to school is only the first step. From then on, there's a host of factors that can decide whether children will be able to learn. To start...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/02/15876674/can-make-schools-work-better http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10417 |
| Summary: | How can we make schools work better?
It's a question being asked around the world. Getting
children to school is only the first step. From then on,
there's a host of factors that can decide whether
children will be able to learn. To start, schools need basic
supplies and infrastructure and teachers have to show up and
be prepared. But government promises to provide communities
with the right educational services and infrastructure
don't always lead to concrete changes, whether
it's because funds are misused or the schools
themselves fall short. At the World Bank, we are working to
achieve universal primary education for every child, a
United Nations millennium development goal. They also
recognize that promising a primary education is not enough
students must be able to learn once they are enrolled in
school. To help understand the role that community groups
can play in boosting the quality of local schools and
learning, the World Bank supported an Indonesia pilot
project to test different ways to empower local school
committees and increase student learning, as measured by
test scores. Results showed that giving committees money and
training didn't accomplish much. School-based
management is often considered a good idea for empowering
local authorities, stakeholders and parents and encouraging
more active involvement in school affairs. But
interestingly, in this example, gains in learning did not
always come because school committees got more involved in
how schools used their budgets or how teachers taught.
Instead, test scores improved the most when measures were
implemented that boosted the legitimacy of the school
committees through elections and building local community
ties. Even when school committees don't appear to be
any more active than they were before, the extra legitimacy
accorded them appeared to raise positive perceptions of
their effectiveness and motivate teachers. |
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