Systems Strengthening
On School Quality and Attainment
This paper looks at the research on attempts to improve the quality of schools in poor countries, which suggests four basic lessons for refugee education.
- First, educational quality is understood in different ways, reflecting the values and priorities of stakeholders. It is thus essential to clarify the important meaning(s) of quality to the relevant stakeholders.
- Second, improvements in educational quality do not necessarily require large investments of resources. Instead, many of these elements depend on the organization and management of inputs, and the participation of critical actors such as parents, teachers and principals, and so forth.
- Third, school quality can be understood in several ways, including four interacting sets of factors such as the characteristics of the child, supporting inputs, enabling conditions, and the teaching-learning process. It also includes improvements in the capacities of learners, the supportiveness of learning environments, the appropriateness of content, the effectiveness of learning processes and the achievement of outcomes.
- Fourth, school improvement strategies are most effective when developed on site and in collaboration with stakeholders and implementers. To improve quality, the role of central authorities is less one of providing quality than of fostering environments that support site-based improvement. Innovations are less effectively "replicated" than promoted. Acting in these ways, however, requires different modes of operation than are common in many relief and development agencies.