local governments in a global context

863 Pages·2012·19.96 MB·English

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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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