Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
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out of school children have never attended school, the problem is far more about an unmet
demand than it is about low quality instruction leading to drop-outs.
Alternative models of education: Focus on modernization of Daaras and the introduction of
bilingual schools should be continued. Evaluations of the pilots should inform the next step
(further piloting or first scaling of project) and support the mobilization of funds in order to offer
alternative education models more attuned to the interest of the population and which may help
increased enrolments at the primary level. Strengthening and expanding the offerings of technical
and vocational education would support decrease drop-outs at the secondary level.
Strengthen the implementation of devolution within the larger PAQUET efforts to move into
results-based management and improve accountability systems, with further support for the
poorest regions or regions requiring more capacity building at district and school levels. A clear
step by step implementation plan should be put in place as well as key performance indicators to
track progress.
Complementing existing PAQEEB efforts focusing on efforts in poor, underserved areas with
fiscal transfer formula channelling more resources towards schools needing more support is
also necessary.
Improving budget efficiency, continue move towards performance-based budgeting: Given the
particularly high level of investment in the education sector and the low quality of the system, it
is imperative to continue the current reforms that aim to improve the governance and
management of the education sector. School grants have shown to be impactful and so policies to
increase the efficiency of budgets are to remain prioritised. The preliminary feedback from the
performance-contracts with the schools have been negative (small to no impact) and an
evaluation of the program should be able to point to areas of reform (as opposed to cancelling the
program altogether).
The composition of the expenditures needs to change going forward as too many resources are
channelled towards teachers’ salaries and on ‘access’ projects (section 3.1.3). Changes in
composition without decreasing budget lines to salaries may entail having to ‘freeze’ certain
budget lines (e.g. teacher salaries and access projects) so that future incoming resources can be
channelled towards capital expenditure and quality/management projects.
Policies toaddressPoverty
Given the importance of poverty as a determinant to access to schooling as well as the issues of
child beggars, the lack of schemes to incentivize parents to send their children to school should
be addressed. There is a large body of evidence to draw from on how to make such schemes
effective in supporting education. The design of such schemes would be based on pilots in the
poorest underserved regions.
Ensuring the provision of budget and financing to projects such as the reintegration of street
children which links to the reform efforts of the Daaras is necessary.