Smarter Education Systems for Brighter Futures - World …

1 World Bank Group Education Global Practice Smarter Education Systems for B. righter Futures SNAPSH OT. The Rise of Results-Based Financing in Education 2015. Education is one of the surest means we have to end poverty and boost shared prosperity, but much of this potential is lost if students do not acquire the literacy and numeracy in school that they need to succeed in life. Achieving learning for all children and youth will require moving beyond simply financing the inputs that Education Systems need, to strengthening these Systems to deliver results. This, in turn, implies aligning governance, financing rules, incentives, and management practices with the ultimate goal of better learning outcomes, especially for children from the World 's poorest families for whom access to quality Education remains deeply inequitable. There is growing demand from countries for Results-Based Financing (RBF), which is a promising set of tools to help achieve this critical alignment within Education Systems .

2 This brief outlines the World Bank Group's increasing level of support for RBF in Education . following the successful adoption of a related approach in the health sector and the strategic implications of this trend in the post-2015 period. RBF could have a substantial impact in terms of achieving results that matter in Education , and in helping countries leverage the financial resources needed to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals agenda. The Case for Results-Based Financing in Education Education is a powerful driver development strategy, because prosperity depends on Smarter of development. It is one no country has ever succeeded investments in quality Education of the strongest instruments in the long run without sustained and learning. When Education for reducing poverty, raising investment in human capital. Systems are strengthened to incomes and resilience in the With 121 million children still deliver results, they stand a face of crises, and promoting not enrolled in primary and much better chance of attracting economic growth and shared lower secondary school today prosperity.

3 It also helps improve and 250 million unable to read the resources needed to finance health, empower women, or write though many have ambitious new Education targets and establish peace and been to school, ending extreme enshrined within the post-2015. stability. Education is central to poverty and boosting shared Sustainable Development Goals. | | @wbg_education The right incentive structures services, and inequitable extreme poverty, in urban slums in Education Systems can help provision. Too many young and remote rural areas, and overcome the challenges people leave school without in fragile and conflict-affected that impede more and better even basic knowledge and environments; as well as those Education services for the skills, unprepared for life and from ethnic minorities and most excluded children and the World of work. This is marginalized communities, and youth. These challenges can deeply inequitable because those living with disabilities. be grouped into two broad the greatest learning deficits Incentives structures that favor categories: low quality of are among children who live in these children, for example, by BOX 1.

4 Results from Pioneering RBF Projects in Education In Pakistan, the first country to use RBF in an IDA. Education project, the Second Sindh Education Reform Project has recruited 16,800 teachers through a test, merit, and need-based recruitment process, set up and supported over 22,400 school management committees to address repairs and learning needs, and conducted a student achievement test for 2013-14 in all schools across Sindh in Grade 5 and 8. As many as 223,000 students took the test. The government is also supporting 664. low-cost private schools with subsidies in rural parts of the province following a third party verification to confirm Schoolgirls in Sindh, Pakistan. the unavailability of any type of school in the vicinity. The Credit: Visual News/ World Bank. schools support approximately 100,000 students, who would otherwise have been out of school due to absence of any type of school in the area. In Bangladesh, the WBG together with 9 other partners has used RBF to deepen ongoing Education reforms, especially related to raising quality and equity.

5 Tangible results include more enrollment and reduced social disparities in primary school, more children completing primary Education , a better- quality learning environment, and measurement of student learning. These are the building blocks that will in future underpin better student learning outcomes. As of July 2015, the project is already very close to meeting some of its final targets, having achieved a 97 percent net enrollment rate (target 98 percent); a 79 percent primary cycle completion rate (target 80 percent); and decreased disparity in access to schooling (measured by family income levels) of (target ). In Jamaica, the use of RBF focusing on areas that have been proven to improve learning has been very effective in the Jamaica Education Transformation Capacity Building Program, resulting in an improvement in Grade 4 numeracy achievement rates from 45 percent of students in 2009 to 58. percent in 2014 and Grade 4 literacy achievement rates from 70 percent to 78 percent over the same period.

6 Also, the share of Grade 6 students passing an achievement test in mathematics has risen from 55 percent in 2009 to 61% in 2014 and English language from 53 percent to 63 percent. Going forward RBF is also being used to improve child development, nutrition status and school readiness in children 0 6 years through the Early Childhood Development Program benefiting over 300,000. young children. 2 Education GLOBAL PRACTICE. rewarding schools for reaching Efforts must be client-driven to provided the foundation for a those living in the most remote be successful. much larger set of assessment areas, can help correct these In Education , the World Bank reforms and activities in inequalities. Group's support to RBF is Angola. SABER is also used characterized by a strong by partners; for example, the Some countries have adopted link to its overall Systems World Food Programme uses RBF as a promising instrument strengthening strategy and it to strengthen school feeding to strengthen Education programs.

7 Systems and align incentives evidence-based approach in the with desired outcomes. In sector. Two initiatives that are b. Education impact evaluations broad terms, RBF programs are already in place will help RBF to offer valuable insights into those that reward the delivery be employed strategically the what works in Education . The of Education outcomes through Systems Approach for Better WBG runs a major program financial incentives, upon Education Results (SABER) set of impact evaluations on verification that the agreed-upon of tools; and an overall push for various topics such as early result has been delivered, and impact evaluation of Education childhood development, do so in a manner that can be interventions, supported by the scholarship programs, and credibly sustained over time. Strategic Impact Evaluations Trust school autonomy helping In Tanzania, for example, the Fund (SIEF). countries to innovate based government's Big Results Now on the best global knowledge, a. SABER is a World Bank in Education program links and then to evaluate and Group (WBG) initiative in financing with pre-agreed results, adapt innovations.

8 We also collaboration with multiple such as deploying teachers more use cutting-edge research partners to collect detailed, equitably and improving student and evaluations to guide comprehensive data on achievement by the end of policymaking. Impact Education policies around the Grade 2. In World Bank Group- evaluations in Jamaica, World and to help countries supported Education programs Indonesia and Mozambique, identify areas where policies such as this one in Tanzania, RBF for example, showed that could be strengthened. is organized around the following investing early in children's For example, in Angola, it Education leads to substantial principles: helped government officials improvements in long- Country Systems can be set priorities for activities term potential. With our strengthened to focus more on to strengthen the country's support, 900,000 children are results; assessment system . It also benefitting from preschool Some approaches are proven underlined the need for programs in those countries.

9 To be effective, others are trained staff and stable funding to underpin future RBF has been used successfully promising;. assessment reforms. The in health programs in some of Innovation and evaluation are the poorest countries in the government established and therefore critical to developing World and can yield rich lessons trained a technical group in the evidence base; for RBF in Education . The WBG. the Ministry of Education and now supports RBF in health with Results can be broadly put in place a new budget investments of over US$420. defined, including both line for assessments. It then million for 38 RBF programs in 32. outcomes and outputs; implemented Angola's first- countries which is linked to US$ Much can be learned from the ever assessment of early- billion financing from IDA. Some RBF experience in health; and grade reading. These efforts of the carry-over lessons from the THE RISE OF RESULTS-BASED FINANCING IN Education 3. health sector include the careful in an institution by 21 percent; rewards the delivery of one or and systematic use of RBF pilot the probability of using more outputs or outcomes by programs on a small scale before antenatal care by 7 percent; one or more incentives, financial scaling up across provinces or and the use of modern family or otherwise, upon verification nationwide, extensive stakeholder planning services by 5 percent that the agreed-upon result consultation and engagement (Igna Bonfrer, 2013).

10 Has actually been delivered. In of NGOs and civil society, Education , as in health, incentives customization of RBF according to How RBF Works may be directed to ministries, the needs and priorities expressed in Education and provinces, districts, or service by the country, strong technical assistance in RBF implementation Implications for providers such as schools (supply Programs and Policy side), program beneficiaries such to countries that have decided to adopt it, and built-in impact as students or parents (demand The WBG's support to RBF in side), or both. It can refer to evaluations in every country that Education can be defined the donor financing, government implements RBF. same way as in its support to financing, or both. For example, in Burundi, a health. As defined simply in the recent impact evaluation context of the Health Results and There are a number of ways that of a nationwide program Innovation Trust Fund (HRITF),1 financing can flow conditional showed that RBF increased the RBF is an umbrella term that upon results.