In many African countries, planners have tended to separate broad educational policy objectives from economic planning and management of resources. While there is no shortage of analysis of what ought to be done, how to achieve given objectives is often left unspecified. Recent research commissioned by DFID sets out the problems facing education policymakers around sub-Saharan Africa. What is the weakest link in the chain of policy implementation? The study report highlights lack of synergy between planning and budgeting, notably in budget formulation. It proposes better ways to consolidate and upgrade systems for planning and financing education.

Many problems face educational policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa, including the controversial introduction of school fees and the provision of private sector schooling and training. Insufficient attention has been paid to a broader question: how policy advice is implemented. Lack of liaison between education planning and how education budgets are put together, is the weakest link in the chain of policy implementation. Many countries persist in applying public sector budgeting procedures and formats that have not changed much since colonial times. These systems cannot cope with translating short and medium term adjustment policies into practical and versatile strategies for change.

The report's author proposes ways to achieve more and better planning and budgeting for education in African countries. Such a shift will (he suggests) provide a sounder basis for implementing new policies. One such approach foresees the full or partial replacement of annual incremental planning and budgeting systems with revolving funds that enable educators to respond more nimbly to problems as and when they arise. The report shows how attempts to undertake the necessary reforms have had little impact because they have been limited to interventions at Ministry of Education level, without challenging the standard procedures of government budgeting and administrative systems as a whole. Future reforms should avoid this trap and should also cater to the need to cement relations between the State and the private education sector.

With these improvements better use can be made of external assistance which has, it is argued, not always brought optimal benefits. The objective of the changes suggested in the paper is to enable countries to use their limited resources better and avoid stop-go educational development policies in order to achieve the capability of providing an education service that is both sustainable and affordable. It is essential that there be greater awareness of budgetary, fiscal and macroeconomic issues in the discussions of the critical shortage of finance in most African education systems. Governments have a key role to play in the process of change, even if in some aspects the 'market' will succeed where government planning has failed. From a donor's point of view, various policy implications arise:

• The pace of change is almost certain to be slow and this may not suit the aspirations of many donor initiatives, notably those aimed at dealing with social dimensions of structural adjustment.
• Aid should not hasten unsustainable expansion of education systems to the detriment of quality.
• Donor policies and procedures should reflect and endorse the introduction of rolling plan budgeting for policy development, passing longer term commitments of aid into cyclical budget funds to give policymakers a better idea of what resources they are likely to be able to count on.
• At the level of programme design for the strengthening of education planning and budgeting, a key lesson of the past is the need for liaison between sectoral Ministries and Ministries of Finance.

Source(s):
'Planning and financing sustainable education systems in sub-Saharan Africa', ODA Education Research Paper, No. 7. By P. Penrose (March 1993) >

Funded by: Education Division, Department for International Development UK (1992-1993)

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-July-22

Further Information:
Peran Penrose
Penquite House
Rosecraddoc
Liskeard
Cornwall PL14 5AQ
UK

UK Department for International Development

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