STRENGTHENING SCHOOLS ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS THROUGH PARTICIPATION: ADDRESSING EDUCATION QUALITY AND EQUITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

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Disadvantaged children in Low Income Countries (LICs) particularly children with disabilities are increasingly accessing schools, but not learning effectively due to social exclusion within the classroom and poor teaching methods, that perpetuate inequality. In order to unpack the equity-quality nexus, education research and policy need to move beyond considerations of service delivery assessed through achieving benchmarks on basic cognitive skills and completing school cycles, traditionally considered valid proxies for quality of education; a view challenged by experts advocating for the importance of non-cognitive or psychosocial skills in assessing quality education. Promoting processes of accountability is recognised as a way of promoting quality and equity in education. We argue that the role that parents and community members can play in improving the quality of education through innovative social accountability mechanisms has not been sufficiently explored in LICs. Building upon previous research, we will develop, implement and evaluate a social accountability intervention - combined with inclusive education training - engaging parents, teachers and children. We will assess the intervention's impact on basic cognitive but also psychosocial skills of learners as well as parent's expectations and engagement, and teachers' confidence with regards to inclusion of children with disabilities. Two partners, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) and the National Rural Support Programme in Pakistan (NRSP) run Community Based Schools (CBS) in remote areas. They require knowledge as to the factors that can promote or hinder a meaningful learning experience. We hypothesize that strengthening existing social horizontal accountability mechanisms through a Community Based System Dynamics (CBSD) - a participatory approach promoting local ownership in the process of deciphering and changing complex systems from the feedback perspective of system dynamics - can enhance inclusion and the learning experience of disadvantaged children. Developing an effective role for school management committee (SMCs) members requires careful consideration of context and community dynamics, which CBSD upholds. We will carry out Group Model Building (GMB) sessions with SMCs - a specific CBSD method- to identify insights about social accountability reforms. SMCs supported by SCA/NRSP will implement changes based on these insights in intervention CBSs. A randomised control trial (RCT) will evaluate this intervention. Qualitative methods will validate psychosocial assessment tools and explore stakeholders' perception of education. In stage 1, investigators will (i) decipher existing mechanisms of accountability and monitoring being used in CBSs (ii) train teachers, 4 NRSP and SCA teams of 3 facilitators and 2 coordinators each on inclusive education and (iii) train SCA/NRSP teams on GMB to facilitate sessions in 80 randomly selected intervention schools. In stage 2, SMCs members (principals, staff, teachers and parents) will participate in separate GMB sessions to design a relevant school social accountability system and identify leverage points on which to focus the intervention. In stage 3, each school, with the support from SCA/NRSP teams and the investigators will implement the intervention. In stage 4 the investigators will measure the impact of the social accountability intervention on learning outcomes using a cluster RCT with two waves of interviews: baseline survey in all 160 schools from staff, teachers, students in classes 3 to 5 and parents in year 1; end line survey will take place at the beginning of year 4. In depth interviews and FGDs, games and audio-visual activities with children will take place in years 2 and 3. In stage 5, the investigators will develop capacity in countries (universities, education NGOs) and disseminate findings to a broad audience in various formats through academic, policy makers and practitioners' networks.