AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL BASED BUDGETING IN PAKISTAN’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS A Project of Sustainable Development Policy Institute Action Aid Pakistan Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives Islamabad, 2009 This project was financed by ActionAid Pakistan Save the Children Fund, UK Voluntary Services Overseas (UK) The project was implemented by Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, Islamabad Project team: Dr. A. H. Nayyar, SDPI Wajiha Anwar, SDPI Mukhtar Ahmed Ali, CPDI Amjad Nazir, ActionAid Pakistan Abu Bakr, ActionAid Pakistan Survey team: Syed Asghar Ali Shah Talimand Khan Survey supervised by Amjad Nazir Wajiha Anwar Report drafted by Wajiha Anwar Dr. A H Nayyar Gulnaz Nisar Bhutta 2 Contents 1. Introduction 4 2. Survey Methodology 7 3. Education Financing: Budgeting, Allocations, Disbursements 13 and Reimbursements 4. Cost of Education: Salary Structure and School budgets 28 5. Development Budgets and Missing Facilities 36 6. Societal Oversight 54 7. Summary and Conclusions 62 8. Bibliography 64 Appendix-I: Educational Costing: Expenditure on Teachers’ 65 Salaries Appendix-II: Survey Instruments 88 3 1. Introduction Pakistan’s education sector has persistently suffered from underinvestment by the state, irrespective of the governments in power. The national expenditure on education has never touched 3% of GDP, most often remaining below 2%. Education together with health is invariably the first sector coming under the axe in times of financial crises. This happens in spite of solemn commitments the state has repeatedly made at international forums on universalization of education and elimination of economic, social and gender discriminations, etc. Pakistan has failed to meet any of these commitments. Years of lack of attention to the education sector in the form of inadequate financing, poor governance as well as lack of capacity has translated into insufficient number of schools, low enrollment, poor facilities in schools, and shortage and poor quality of teachers. All of this has led to poor quality education to those who are fortunate enough to get enrolled, and no education for the rest. The poor quality education to one generation produces even poorer quality teachers for the future generations, resulting in a negative development exponent. The problem of inadequate resources is accentuated by the ubiquitous corruption and systemic inefficiency that prevent an efficient utilization of resources. Successive governments, over the years, have found it convenient to abdicate their responsibility of meeting educational needs of the society by passing the burden on to the private sector in the name of public-private partnership. However, that step has only exacerbated the problem of inequity in the society. The current situation is alarming enough to demand extraordinary measures to provide adequate resources to the education sector and premise the federal, provincial and district budgetary allocations on the needs of schools. Budgeting for education in Pakistan is usually a top-down, non-transparent and non- participatory exercise. The actual needs at school level in terms of staff, items of equipment and building maintenance or renovation projects are neither determined properly nor considered when allocating resources. As a consequence, schools remain starved of basic necessities, resulting in low quality instructions. School Based Budgeting (SBB) or School Based Management is an increasingly popular strategy for managing education in many countries. The starting point of the concept is determination and allocation of resources on the basis of the needs of individual schools. Further, it seeks to maximize discretionary power of schools and communities 4 on the utilization of available funds. The underlying assumption is that if schools are given more funds and authority to utilize the funds, they would use the funds more innovatively and effectively, which would eventually impact positively on students’ learning (Levin, 1987). It will also hold schools more accountable on students’ learning achievements. To meet recurrent expenditures, the funding formula can be the per pupil cost. Government would be required to provide each school an amount in lump sum according to the number of students. SBB would allow schools greater latitude in determining how to best utilize their resources. Similarly, under SBB, budgets to meet infrastructural costs would be determined from each individual school. For instance, a school which is not equipped with the basic facilities like water cooler or water pump or fans will need additional resources, as compared to the ones where such facilities are already installed. The responsibility of execution and overseeing of development projects would be shouldered by schools and communities. This scheme needs to be explored for Pakistan. This study is a result of such an exploration undertaken by a consortium of organizations - Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), ActionAid Pakistan, Save The Children UK, Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), and Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). The objective was to track down the process of budget allocations and spending at provincial and district levels, and to provide a model on how to make budgetary allocations more child- centered and effective. The study was conducted in seven selected districts, one district from each administrative unit; Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The chosen districts were, respectively, Khairpur, Sibi, Multan, Mardan, Gilgit, Kurram Agency, and Muzaffarabad. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected with the objective of determining: a) the needs for baseline as well as quality education in Pakistani public schools, b) the present and recommended per pupil expenditure on education in Pakistan, and c) any class-based or rural-urban divide or gender biases in the provision of education in the public sector. Later, the findings of the survey, and issues that came up were validated through meetings with the education department officials. A number of district officials from the surveyed districts as well as from surrounding districts attended these validation meetings. Most of the problems regarding budget allocation processes and grievances 5 of school managements regarding budget allocations and disbursement were found to be the same across Pakistan. Based on our research this report provides a comprehensive statistical data analysis; and estimation of the present level of expenditure on education; a description of the general needs of schools in terms of infrastructure, academic and support staff, utilities; an estimation of a reasonable budgetary allocation per child, and derived from it, setting standards for the magnitudes of federal and provincial educational budgets. Focus of this study is to premise the budgetary allocations on the needs of schools. Budget allocations need to take into account the financial requirements of a school regarding a) Supplies and materials needed to operate the school and its programs b) Salaries, allowances, benefits and professional development costs for the school’s teaching and non- teaching staff c) Staff replacement costs d) Utility service costs; and e) Building and equipment maintenance costs. One of the major goals of school based budgeting is to improve school funding by increasing allocated budgets through a participatory process. It is also necessary to advocate need-based budgeting and transparent utilization of allocated funds in order to objectively measure any impact on the quality of service delivery in schools. In the context of Pakistan, the concept of school based budgeting would also mean improving clarity regarding the spending procedures and enhancing the capacities of related departments to absorb the allocated funds by disbursing funds to school in a timely and efficient manner. 6 2. Survey Methodology Objective: The basic objective of the study was to gather information on the mode of allocation of resources to schools; utilization of the allocated resources; the extent to which the needs are reflected in the allocation of resources; the facilities that school students are provided with; the participation of school teachers and management in determining the budget needs; the role of the community in assessing the needs and providing resources to schools. The main source of information were to be the head teachers/ principals and district education officials, but teachers were also consulted for the extent of their involvement in budget-making, and students for cross-checking the gathered information. Stratification: Keeping in view the geographical level of the precision and accuracy of estimates and to control heterogeneity among different population groups in target population for catching information against indicators, the stratification plan given below was formulated. In this research study the target population was divided on the basis of the following criteria. 1) Urban and rural 2) Gender 3) Level (Primary, middle and high school) Target population: The research aimed at studying the entire spectrum of population in the country. Hence it targeted the four provinces as well as the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), the Federally Administered Northern Area (FANA) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The sample included one district from each of the above areas, preferably one that allowed choosing both urban and rural settings. The districts chosen were: Multan from Punjab, Khairpur from Sindh, Mardan from NWFP, Sibbi from Balochistan, Kurram Agency from FATA, Gilgit from FANA, and Muzaffarabad from Azad Jammu and Kashmir. According to the objective of the study, the district-wise choice of schools was as given in Table 1. 7 Table 1: The survey sample space Urban Rural Unit District School Boys Girls Boys Girls Total Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 Punjab Multan High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 NWFP Mardan High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 Sindh Khairpur High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 Balochistan Sibi High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 NA Gilgit High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 FATA Kurram Agency High 3 3 3 3 12 Primary 3 3 3 3 12 Middle 3 3 3 3 12 AJK Muzaffarabad High 3 3 3 3 12 Total 63 63 63 63 252 The study sample thus had 252 schools equally divided between rural and urban and boys and girls schools. Survey Respondents The respondents of the study in each school were o Head master/Principal o Students o Teachers o The community members as in School Management Committees or Parent Teacher Associations (in Focused Group Discussions) o District government officials 8 In addition, meetings were held with government official from the selected districts as well from districts adjacent to the target districts. Sampling Frame: List of all the schools was collected from the 2007 survey of the National Educational Management Information Service, housed at the Academy of Educational Planning and Management, Federal Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan. The list of schools randomly selected from the provided list under the constraints described above is attached in Annex A. Methodology 1: Sampling Techniques It is a known fact that any sample cannot represent population perfectly; therefore, it is needed to select suitable sampling technique. A proper sampling technique always ensures representative sample and reduces sampling errors. In addition to this, heterogeneity prevailing within a district can also increase variations, requiring Multistage Random Sampling Technique (MRST) in order to achieve better representative sampling. In the 1st stage (PSU) the number of districts had been selected randomly from each unit of the target population. Before the implication of second stage it is proposed to divide the districts on the criteria of urban, rural, gender and level or type of public school only (Primary, middle and high school). In the second stage (SSU) “12” schools from each category were selected. (Primary =12, Middle =12 and High =12). The complete breakdown is shown in the following flow chart, Fig.1. For qualitative data collection “4” focus group discussions (FGD) were held in each district. Detailed in-depth interviews were conducted with “DEO” or “ADO”/”DDO” to collect information about the budget making process, development projects and missing facilities at school level. After the preparation of initial result validation meetings were held with sampled and surrounding district to verify the information, and to ascertain that the districts in a given province work along similar lines. 9 D si cirt 3 t 6 U R abr aru 81 n 81 l M F M F 9 ela 9 elame 9 ela 9 elame H M P H M P H M P H M P 3 hgi 3 elidd 3 yramir 3 hgi 3 elddi 3 yramir 3 hgi 3 elddi 3 yramir 3 hgi 3 elddi 3 yramir Figure 1: Distribution of schools in the survey 2: Sample Size: It is presumed that any sample cannot represent population perfectly. Although such “Sampling error” cannot be avoided, it can be reduced by obtaining a sample of sufficiently large size and by using “appropriate Sampling technique”. Sample sizes depend on the following factors.  Level of Significance (Which is 95% for this study).  Variation in target population (Secondary data).  Available resources for this study  Time frame. Although Statistically Significant sample can be selected from all units of target population, proper sampling technique can help in catching ground realities. In this way 36 (12 each, primary, middle and high) with equal distribution into gender and urban and rural criteria had been surveyed. In this way 252 (84 each, primary, 10