Improving school management in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review

• In Event: Where the system meets the school: The role of middle tier leadership in supporting improved foundational literacy and numeracy

Proposal

Improving school quality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is a global priority. One way to improve quality may be to improve the management skills of school leaders. Good school management has consistently and robustly been associated with better student learning outcomes. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), both school management quality and student learning outcomes are poor. Improving the productivity of key personnel in school systems, such as school leaders, maybe a promising direction for raising student learning. As a result, there is growing attention from policymakers to interventions that target school leaders and their management of schools.
In this systematic review, we analyze the impact of interventions targeting school leaders' management practices on student learning. We begin by describing the characteristics and responsibilities of school leaders using data from large, multi-country surveys. Second, we review the literature and conduct a meta-analysis of the causal effect of school management interventions on student learning, using 39 estimates from 20 evaluations. We estimate a statistically significant improvement in student learning of 0.04 standard deviations. We show that effect sizes are not related to program scale or intensity.
We complement the meta-analysis by identifying common limitations to program effectiveness through a qualitative assessment of the studies included in our review. We find three main factors which mitigate program effectiveness: (1) low take-up; (2) lack of incentives or structure for implementation of recommendations; and (3) the lengthy causal chain linking management practices to student learning. The recurrence of low take-up and adoption among evaluated programs suggests that improving these dimensions could result in further increases in student learning.
Finally, to assess the external validity of our review, we survey practitioners to compare characteristics between evaluated and commonly implemented programs. Our findings suggest that future work should focus on generating evidence on the marginal effect of common design elements in these interventions, including factors that promote school leader engagement and accountability.
We also highlight that much work remains to understand how to improve the effectiveness of school management programs targeting school leaders. A key remaining question is to understand factors that could increase program take-up and adoption of better management practices by school leaders. We also highlight the need to further probe the theory of change from management training to student learning. Although management training programs usually target the school principal in isolation, the actions of other actors—school inspectors/mid-level education bureaucrats at district and subdistrict levels, teachers, students, and households can influence program impact.

Author

• Gautam Anand, Global School Leaders