Beyond the front(line) and centre: Rethinking agents and agency in education reform

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Education reform initiatives often focus on either school improvement and teacher practice, at one end of the spectrum, or on system-level policy platforms, at the other end. While schools and teachers are the crucial frontline in cultivating children’s learning, and while top decision-makers at the central or state level have far-reaching influence, they are far from being the only actors in the education system who affect the planning and implementation of successful education reform. In line with the CIES 2021 sub-theme on the ‘Expanded range of actors and movements’, this panel casts the spotlight on two oft-neglected but critical sets of actors. Firstly, bureaucrats, district officials, and their peers—agents who can make or break a policy reform via their mediating roles. Secondly, teacher unions—a way for teachers to collectively exert their agency in the reform process beyond classroom walls. In short, improving public schools is not only a matter of the centre and the frontline.

This panel is structured according to the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) framework, which conceptualises education systems as a set of interconnected accountability relationships, called Politics, Compact, Management, and Voice & Choice (Pritchett, 2015; see also World Development Report, 2004). In particular, this panel is centred on the Management relationship, in which schools and teachers are accountable to education authorities and organisations. However, as the papers on this panel show, Management is not just a top-down relationship between high-level decision makers and frontline educational providers. Instead, it is a complex set of relationships that also involves bureaucrats, district supervisors, in-service trainers, and other actors in the middle. Moreover, teachers are not necessarily submissive, passive agents on the receiving end of Management. They can also actively mobilise to shape the expectations and accountability terms that filter down to them. Consequently, creating shared purpose and goals for education reform is a vital but challenging task.

The panel opens with a cross-country theoretical analysis titled, ‘Of Agents and Agency – The Missing Middle in Educational Reform in Developing Countries.’ In this paper, the authors use a combination of narrative and systematic literature reviews to examine two aspects of teacher-related educational reform. Firstly, they explore the contrasting theoretical assumptions about the nature of agency that are implicit in education policy recommendations emerging respectively from economics and from sociology and other disciplines rooted in social constructivism. Secondly, they review research from various disciplines on mid-level educational managers in developing countries. They find that district officials and other middle managers can be pivotal to educational improvement—yet education policies in developing countries do not typically equip such middle managers with the tools and skills to foster instructional leadership.

The second paper examines, in rich empirical detail, a particular instance of failure to foster instructional leadership among bureaucrats in government administration. In ‘Talking like the state – Delhi education reforms and the role of bureaucracy’, the authors draw on interviews, observations, group discussions, and 2,000 government circulars to study a policy reform in Delhi called Chunauti 2018. They find that the reform, which emphasised collaboration and initiative, was hampered by established bureaucratic norms that perpetuated hierarchy, administrative jargon, and sanction-based accountability. That is, the policy goals of Chunauti 2018 were not fully realised in part because the reform did not adequately support bureaucrats in translating state-level policies into schools and classrooms. Consequently, the business-as-usual administrative apparatus for implementing, instituting, and conveying these goals from top authorities to the frontline inadvertently distorted the goals themselves.

Next, the third paper presents a juxtaposing view where the middle layer enabled reform instead of hampering it. In ‘Change agents: The rise of instructional leaders at the middle tier’, the authors bring together six case studies—from India, Kenya, Jordan, Rwanda, Shanghai, and Wales—of interventions that improved instructional leadership at the middle tier, i.e. among advisors, coaches, and mentors who work with schools and teachers to facilitate professional and pedagogical improvements. These interventions range from local experiments to large-scale reforms. Using a comparative lens, the authors identify characteristics of effective instructional leaders at the middle tier, and examine how such mid-level leaders create an improvement-oriented culture. Among other things, they find that promising practices for reform include open and non-hierarchical communication, and supporting middle-tier officials in understanding what the reforms imply for their changing roles. Notably, neither of these were a significant part of the Delhi Chunauti reform discussed in the second paper.

The final paper looks beyond the Management relationship itself toward how some actors step out of their traditional roles in this relationship to influence the wider education system. In ‘Vested Interests in New Democracies: The Political Economy of Teachers’ Unions in Indonesia’, the authors analyse policy documents, stakeholder interviews, and newspaper articles, and find that Indonesia’s largest teacher organisation has played a leading role in the political constraints on improving educational quality. By examining the union’s organisational structure, as well as its mobilisation through the ballot box and on the streets, the authors show that Indonesian teachers can and do influence the education system not only as classroom instructors, but also as political actors. To use the language of the RISE framework, this paper cautions against viewing the Management relationship in isolation. The relationship between teachers and education authorities is contingent not only on interactions with middle managers, but also on interactions with non-state actors—including teachers themselves in their collective capacity as an occupation-based interest group in the Politics relationship.

Taken together, these papers contribute to both research and policy on educational improvement by showing, across a wide range of countries and literatures, that school improvement goes beyond the centre and the frontline. Rather, policy reformers and academic researchers need to pay equal attention to all the educational personnel in between top decision-makers and classroom teachers, taking into account the spectrum of roles, practices, and norms that can help or hinder the cultivation of student learning.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Yue-Yi Hwa, RISE Programme

Individual Presentations

• Of Agents and Agency – The Missing Middle in Educational Reform in Developing Countries - Minahil Asim, University of Toronto; Karen Mundy, Toronto University; Caroline Manion, University of Toronto; Izza Tahir, University of Toronto

• Talking like the state – Delhi education reforms and the role of bureaucracy - Vincy Davis, SOAS, University of London; Taanya Kapoor, University of Oxford; Yamini Aiyar, Centre for Policy Research

• Change agents: The rise of instructional leaders at the middle tier - Charlotte Jones, Education Development Trust; Barbara Tournier, International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) UNESCO; Chloé Chimier, International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) UNESCO; Ella Page, Education Development Trust

• Vested interests in new democracies: The political economy of teachers’ unions in Indonesia - Christopher Chambers-Ju, College of the Holy Cross; Rezanti Pramana, SMERU Research Institute

Discussant

• Clare Leaver, University of Oxford