Reinier Terwindt Continues His Involvement with Malawi - Even in Grad School

Our much adored former Program Development Coordinator, Reinier Terwindt left Malawi after this summer to earn his second Master's. This one will be from Columbia University in New York City in International Education. Despite moving from the Warm Hear of Africa to the Big Apple, Reinier is still focused on Malawi. In fact, this week he will be presenting his research on decentralization of Malawian education at the Comparative and International Education Society Conference along with members of the Malawian Ministry of Education. We are proud to consider Reinier a part of the World Camp family, and honored by his continued participation in our work. Below you can find the abstract of the research he will be presenting. Many of the groups mentioned in his abstract are the very groups World Camp works with in it's partner communities to try to improve school management and education delivery.

In 2010 Malawi initiated its Primary School Improvement Programme (PSIP) to expand equitable access, increase quality and relevance, and strengthen governance and management in education – that is, to achieve key objectives in the country’s National Education Sector Plan. With technical assistance from USAID’s Education Decentralization Support Activity (EDSA), PSIP was initiated in six districts in 2010-11 (Phase 1) and expanded to twelve districts in 2011-12 (Phase 2), with plans to include thirteen more districts in 2012-13 and the remaining nine districts in 2013-14. A key element of PSIP is having school management committees (SMCs) and parent teacher associations (PTAs) lead a process of developing, implementing, and monitoring school improvement plans (SIPs), which are supported partially by funds from proposed and approved school improvement grants (SIGs). Besides giving more decentralized authority and responsibility to head teachers, PSIP encourages parents and other community members to participate in school governance through the SMCs and PTAs, especially in relation to the SIPs and SIGs. This presentation reports on findings from studies conducted in March 2012. One study consisted of structured interviews with head teachers, SMC chairs, and a parent in 81 schools, which are located in the six Phase 1 districts and which had received SIGs during 2010-11 and/or 2011-12. The interviews elicited perspectives on their school’s experiences with the SIP and the SIG. A second study collected data from primary education advisors on the SIG budget decisions for 2010-11 and/or 2011-12 of all 1084 schools in the six districts included in Phase 1 of PSIP. Findings indicate that community stakeholder meetings were held before and after developing the SIPs in at least 75% of the schools, although the percentage decreased slightly over the 2010-2012 period. Moreover, over 70% of head teachers, SMC chairs, and parents interviewed reported that the SIP process had contributed “to a very great extent” or “to a considerable extent” to improvements in access and equity, quality and relevance, and especially governance and management. In comparing SIG budget priorities for 2010-11 and 2011-12, we observe an increase in the percent of schools employing teaching assistants, and decreases in the percentages of schools procuring teaching and learning materials, constructing latrines, and purchasing materials for school management and record keeping. However, we did not find differences between schools which had received SIGs for one versus two years in how they implemented the process nor in the percentage of schools budgeting for various items as part of their SIGs (with the notable exceptions of teaching assistants and learning materials). Moreover, the percentages of 2011-12 SIG funds devoted to employing teaching assistants and to buying teaching and learning materials were not significantly associated with the school’s pupil-teacher ratio, dropout rate, repetition rate, and Primary School Leaver Certificate Exam pass rate (in 2011), indicating that other factors informed their SIG budgeting decisions. These and other findings are discussed to illuminate opportunities and constraints on efforts to engage community members in enhancing educational quality in countries like Malawi.