Accountability, capacity and trust to improve learning outcomes in South Africa; a systems approach

南非有着长期的压迫和种族隔离历史，这导致了巨大的不平等，尽管南非被归类为中上收入国家(世界银行，2008年)。在种族隔离制度倒台26年后，种族隔离制度下实行的系统性种族隔离，再加上明显的白人至上主义意识形态，仍然对南非的社会及其教育系统产生深远影响(Spaull，2012)。Howie(2012)解释了南非如何应对贫富学生之间不断扩大的成绩差距和高辍学率的问题，特别是在非洲黑人中。Spaull(2012)对SACMEQ III数据的分析显示，与最贫穷的75%的学校相比，最富有的25%的学校的学生更有可能拥有自己的教科书，经常收到作业，老师缺勤的情况也更少。根据Nattrass and Seeking(2001)和Spaull(2012)的说法，资源和资本的分配仍然有利于南非白人，基本上将国家和教育系统分成两个国家。几位作者指出，存在问题的问责关系以及对南非教育系统缺乏信任和能力是学习成果得不到改善的关键问题。例如，Spaull(2001)解释了国家、省和地方各级政府如何不对其公共资源的使用负责，以及为什么几乎没有(如果有的话)实际后果是不表现或解决教师缺勤率高和课程覆盖率低的问题。埃迪·斯派塞，埃伦等人(2016)的系统评估也指出，南非缺乏教师问责，因为基于学校的教师出勤登记没有得到检查，国家政府也没有对经常缺席的教师进行制裁。缺乏信任阻碍了有效的评估和检查制度的实施，例如，教师工会拒绝对教师进行检查，并阻止发布评估数据，而随后缺乏能力则使地区经理、地区经理、校长、部门负责人和教师无法有效利用现有数据(见Eddy Spicer，Ehren等人，2016；Howie，2012)。根据Van der Berg等人(2016)的说法，这种不信任、缺乏问责和缺乏能力的“恶性循环”使系统无力改进，并造成了一系列需要解决的“约束性约束”(例如，机构功能薄弱、不适当的工会影响)，以改善学习结果。这些例子突显了理解问责、能力和信任之间复杂关系的必要性，以及这些关系如何随着时间的推移产生(或未能产生)学习结果的变化模式，并创造一个分裂的不平等系统。我们的目标是分三个阶段研究南非公立小学教育系统中的这些关系：1)对1分之1和5分之5(最贫穷和富裕地区20%的学校)中表现不佳和表现优异的学校的(责任和信任)关系和资源流动进行社会网络分析，2)我们将绘制因果循环图，描述信任、能力和责任如何通过一系列平衡和/或强化的反馈循环相互联系，以及这些循环(过去)如何在学习结果中产生(或未能产生)模式变化，并在系统中造成巨大的不公平。(3)通过纵向路径模型和多指标多原因(MIMIC)模型，收集定量的(评估和问卷调查数据)检验因果循环。

South Africa has a long history of oppression and apartheid which have led to great inequalities, despite South Africa's classification as an upper-middle income country (World Bank, 2008). 26 years after the fall of apartheid, the systematic racial segregation practiced under apartheid, in conjunction with an overtly white supremacist ideology still has a profound impact on South Africa's society as well as its education system (Spaull, 2012). Howie (2012) explains how South Africa struggles with a widening performance gap between rich and poor students and high levels of drop out, particularly among black Africans. Spaull's (2012) analysis of SACMEQ III data shows that students in the 25% wealthiest schools are far more likely to have their own textbook, receive homework frequently and experience less teacher absenteeism compared to the poorest 75% of schools. The distribution of resources and capital still privileges white South Africans, according to Nattrass and Seekings (2001) and Spaull (2012) and essentially divides the country and the education system into two nations. Several authors point to problematic accountability relationships and a lack of trust and capacity in the South African education system as key issues in the lack of improvement of learning outcomes. Spaull (2001) for example explains how the national, provincial and local levels of government are not held accountable for their use of public resources, and how there are few (if any) tangible consequences for non-performance or to address the high rates of teacher absenteeism and low rates of curriculum coverage. Eddy Spicer, Ehren et al's (2016) systematic review also points to lack of teacher accountability in South Africa as school-based registers of teachers' attendance are not checked and national government fails to sanction teachers who are often absent. Lack of trust inhibits the implementation of effective assessment and inspection systems as teacher unions, for example, reject inspections of teachers and block the publication of assessment data, while lack of capacity subsequently prevents district managers, area managers, principals, heads of department and teachers to effectively use the data that is available (see Eddy Spicer, Ehren et al, 2016; Howie, 2012). This 'vicious' cycle of distrust, lack of accountability and lack of capacity renders the system powerless to improve and creates a series of 'binding constraints' (e.g. weak institutional functionality, undue union influence) that need to be addressed in order to improve learning outcomes, according to Van der Berg et al (2016).These examples highlight the need to understand the intricate relations between accountability, capacity and trust and how these relations produce (or fail to produce) a pattern of change in learning outcomes over time and create a divided unequal system. We aim to study these relations in South Africa's public primary education system in three phases: 1) Social network analysis of the (accountability and trust) relations and flow of resources in a low and high performing school in quintile 1 and 5 (20% of schools in most deprived and wealthy areas), 2) A focus group in which we will map the causal loops which describe how trust, capacity and accountability interconnect through a series of balancing and/or reinforcing feedback loops and how these loops have (in the past) produced (or failed to produce) a pattern of change in learning outcomes and have created large inequity in the system, and 3) Collecting quantitative (assessment and questionnaire data) to test the causal loops via longitudinal path models and multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) models.