The Effects of School-Based Decision Making on Educational Outcomes

This review aims to answer the following overarching review question: What is the evidence around how decentralising decision-making to the school level affects educational outcomes in low and middle income contexts (LMICs)?

This broad question has been broken down into two discrete sub-questions:

1. What is the impact of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes in LMICs?
2. Under what conditions and circumstances does school-based decision-making have a positive (or negative) impact on educational outcomes?

The primary objective of the study, therefore, is to gather, assess and synthesise the existing evidence around how the decentralisation of decision-making to schools affects a broad range of educational outcomes in LMICs (question 1 above). This objective will be accomplished by examining the results of experimental and/or quasi-experimental studies that consider the impact of at least one model of school-based decision-making on any of the proximal or final outcomes depicted in the conceptual framework above. We also aim to draw conclusions about why particular models of school-based management work in some low-income country contexts (and not in others), in order to make determinations about the particular characteristics and contextual factors which lead to positive (or negative) impact (question 2 above). This objective will be accomplished by examining evidence collected through a broader range of studies, including but not limited to that obtained from the included studies referenced in response to question 1.