The PANAFRICAN Review
central state would have minimal supervisory authority . It sounded to me like a recipe for local elite capture of the benefits of reform at the expense of ordinary citizens . I was sceptical about local elites being necessarily public-spirited in ways that would compel them to not seek to take advantage of the power and resources at their disposal , and the space they were being accorded to use them . I was not persuaded that , simply because they had a vote and could in theory use it to change leaders if they so wished , ordinary citizens were capable of holding the said leaders to account on an on-going basis via public meetings . Over the years , I have written several critiques of these reforms based on local-level observations about what has transpired since they were instituted . The bulk of my observations have been in the health domain , where glaring failures and systemic weaknesses have ensured that service delivery continues to be of poor , sometimes abysmal , quality . Accounting for these failures are complex political factors which , until fairly recently , donors roundly ignored because they sought to avoid politics , preferring to “ focus on development ” instead .
In recent times , I have turned my attention to the education sector to see how it has fared under decentralised administration . The countries in which these observations have been made shall remain unnamed . How good are elected – and therefore democratic - local governments at providing services in the education sector ? My observations are not about educational outcomes . Rather , they are about inputs : those things which local authorities are supposed to provide to ensure that learners get the services they need . What are these things ? They include , at the infrastructure level , classrooms and sanitary facilities . At the level of human resources , they include ensuring that there are enough teachers , and that they actually turn up to teach when they should be teaching , and that they do not engage in illegal or illicit activities .
One of the common sights upon venturing into rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa are school buildings , mainly of primary schools . They come in different states of repair . Some are high-quality , brick and mortar buildings with cemented floors , complete with doors and windows , boasting good-quality furniture , and sanitary facilities . Some have roofs on them , but lack windows and doors , and have dirt floors , the stuff that jigger infestation is made of . Others are in such states of disrepair that they aren ’ t fit for human habitation . Here , sanitary facilities may or may not be available . When they are , the terms ‘ sanitary facilities ’ are a contradiction in terms , given the poor hygiene standards . And then , there are schools without buildings , where children study under tree shade . If there are sanitary facilities here , they will be of the make-shift type , usually rather dangerous to venture into . Otherwise , both learners and their teachers will be making use of nearby bushes , with all the implications for hygiene education . What accounts for these differences ?
Usually , the critical factor is not an activist local community that is capable of asking the right questions and seeking answers , let alone a political savvy , one whereby members vote into office public-spirited individuals and vote out those that do not measure up to expectations . Two things often make a real difference . One is the public-spiritedness of leaders that set out to make a difference not because they fear they will be voted out of office if they don ’ t , but because they have a particular understanding that leadership is about making people ’ s lives better . The other is the coming together of local parents , in their parent-teacher associations , driven by a felt collective responsibility for ensuring a good learning environment for their children . Here , elected local leaders may be involved as mere participants but not as mobilisers - a responsibility reserved for PTA chairpersons .
Where school buildings are usually in bad repair , the responsibility for that state of affairs falls either on the shoulders of parents who failed to mobilise themselves to find a solution or to press their leaders to do something and sort out the situation , or on local leaders who failed to mobilise communities and to allocate whatever meagre resources at their disposal to address this problem . In both cases , there is no evidence that decentralisation makes the difference experts usually claim it makes , simply by placing power , resources and responsibility for service delivery in the hands of elected local leaders .
Another observable reality in rural contexts is the lack of teachers . Like health workers , teachers dislike being sent to work in out-of-
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