El Indicio o Hecho Base

4.2.3.1 DISTRICT FUNCTIONS

The director of planning pointed out that the main responsibilities devolved to districts are school monitoring and advice and the control over development activities and finances, which include budget preparation and budget implementation. However, the Ministry is keeping a close eye to make sure education quality is maintained. This is why the director of planning pointed out that districts and head teachers needed to competently manage the resources and other devolved responsibilities they were now in charge of. Headquarters

seem unprepared to release the responsibilities to district level as they are keen to mention their concern over district competency in handling resources.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology support given to district education offices consisted of management training to assume their responsibilities for finances, budgeting and policy implementation. There was also planning assistance, because the district needs to plan its activities, and training on school advice and monitoring, as well as raising funds from donors. This shows that the Ministry headquarters felt responsible to ensure that the district decentralisation initiative succeeds. And this support will automatically motivate the district to push for a successful implementation of decentralisation.

School monitoring and supervision are popular terms which have replaced inspection which was more intimidating and judgmental than developmental. Schools are now supervised by the district education office, and the Ministry headquarters is using the district reports in its decision making on district and school support policies. The director of planning acknowledged that the district school monitoring and supervision suffers from issues related to the inadequate district capacity such as high staff turnover, poor funding and poor supply of resource (still a responsibility of the Ministry headquarters). This puts pressure on the headquarters to address the shortfalls which would not have been the case if the devolution of responsibilities to districts had been more complete.

Another important allocated function to the district assembly is school development, which involves construction, maintenance, rehabilitation and improvement of infrastructure such as school blocks and teacher houses. In order to achieve this, the government encouraged assemblies to establish development partners and to raise funds privately through revenue collections or by charging various fees (LGA 1996: 4). The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology headquarters confirmed that it supports indirectly school development by helping districts request for funds from development partners.

Development support is usually based on proposals which the Ministry prepares. District assemblies have development committees, which comprise the district commissioner, heads of departments and development partners in charge of development proposals. This confirms the literature which argues that decentralisation is often seen as a useful exercise to mobilize local resources (Dyer and Rose, 2005: 106).

Donors and other development partners have directly supported districts. Today in Malawi, education at all levels of the education system is accessible to donors for support and implementation of development projects. According to the director of planning, there have been many donor-funded projects for capacity building and supply of resources for the implementation of decentralisation.

This confirms Davies et al (2003: 140) argument that decentralisation is often an initiative of international agencies and bilateral donors, as a way of bypassing the central state and promoting democratic governance principles. The fact that donors go direct to schools seems to suggest that donors are for education decentralisation in Malawi.

There are some cases where donors come to a district to do what they want to do, and the assemblies just accommodate their program by making these donor projects district projects. The director of planning said:

“There is an initiative by donors to support schools directly which is called direct school support (DSS). Decision by donors to give support to schools directly has unfortunately led to support in areas which are not the Ministry’s priorities”.

This kind of donor interference or imposition of projects at district level represents a challenge for districts and their leadership. The latter has to work out how to ensure that donors do not impose their agendas as partners but that the districts make them address the issues on the national development agenda in the districts.

4.2.3.2 DISTRICT AND SCHOOL CAPACITY BUILDING

The importance of capacity building was clearly noted by the director of planning from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology who said:

“Besides the requirements that every district education manager must have at least a first degree, they need basic relevant education management knowledge which they lack. This can only be corrected by capacity building and giving the managers basic relevant skills about the management of education. It has been the government effort to make all the stakeholders in decentralisation to be sufficiently equipped to actively contribute to the implementation of decentralisation. This has been done by instituting different courses and workshops with the help of partners”.

It is important that Ministry headquarters prioritize capacity building to achieve efficiency because, according to Hussein (2004: 107), the administrative capacity of most districts is insufficient to ensure the effective discharge of the often enormous obligations devolved upon them. Bray and Mukundan (2003: 9) point out that the major issue for administrators in education decentralisation is how to manage teachers and maximize their effectiveness as well as decide at what level of administration the supervision and management of teachers should rest.

Spillane and Thompson (1997: 199) argue that it is important to build the capacity of the leadership to create a conducive environment for schools. But the district leadership needs also to learn how to respond effectively to disparities within the district with the implementation of education decentralisation. The capacity building mentioned here sidelines the capacity at primary school level because the decentralisation is up to district level. But it is important for school effectiveness sake to make improvement of school leadership capacity a priority as well.