EVALUATING SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF INDIAN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES

Abstract

Many schools in developing countries still lack basic facilities and produce low learning outcomes. This dissertation focuses on one policy – school-based management (SBM) – to improve such schools. Through empirical analysis of school management committees (SMCs) in India, it (a) examines the issue of endogenous SBM adoption by investigating whether SMC adoption varies systematically between relatively advantaged and disadvantaged schools; (b) evaluates the effect of SMCs on basic school infrastructure/services and student learning outcomes; and (c) empirically tests the relationship between SMC composition and effectiveness. The results suggest that uneven school-level compliance with a top-down SBM mandate can have potentially troubling implications for educational inequality, since the most disadvantaged schools may fail to adopt the reforms and, consequently, fail to benefit from their positive impacts. They also indicate that the rhetoric on the transformative power of parental participation and community empowerment that often accompanies SBM reforms is not always borne out.