79947 Kyrgyz Republic SABER Country Report SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY 2012 Policy Goals Status 1. School Autonomy in Budget Planning and Approval School funding is input-based but decentralized at the provincial and local government levels. Central funding accounts for 65 percent of total education funding, and provincial and local governments pay the remaining 35 percent. There is local control over the distribution of the budget to schools but assignments are highly unequal because budgets are input based within a framework of large differences in socioeconomic conditions between urban and rural areas and between provinces. 2. School Autonomy in Personnel Management Teachers are appointed and deployed by the provincial and local offices of the MES. The selection process is bureaucratic though schools have some influence over the supervision of their teachers. Provincial and district offices appoint principals and there is room for informal supervision of teacher and principals by parents. 3. Participation of the School Council in School Finance Parents can play a significant role in raising additional funds for the school, but their contributions are not documented. Private donations can be highly unequal due to the great variation in poverty levels across provinces and between urban and rural areas. School Councils have some voice in the financial aspects of school management. 4. Assessment of School and Student Performance Although there are ongoing efforts to establish a system for student assessment, an assessment system is not yet in place. Student testing is limited to sporadic assessments by external agencies and participation in PISA. 5. School Accountability The Ministry of Education and Science produces statistical reports with limited content on statistics and almost no content on learning. The Kyrgyz Republic participates in PISA, but there is no system for informing parents and society about education sector performance. THE WORLD BANK KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 Education in the Kyrgyz Republic survey listed the reasons for students not attending pre- school. In about 40 percent of the cases, children did not attend pre-school because of economic hardship; The Kyrgyz Republic is in a state of educational transition. another 22 percent did not have a pre-school nearby, Its process of reform is aimed at improving education and another 22 percent could not get into a pre-school quality by increasing the quality of its teachers, reducing because it was full. As a result, the Government is trying inequity in education finance, and updating its to expand access to pre-schools, decentralize the curriculum and instructional materials. Improving school delivery of education services, and expand training autonomy and accountability are two of the main among parents to alleviate teacher shortages. recommendations made by recent analysis. Therefore, the benchmarking of these two issues is timely. Teachers need better training and better salaries, especially those working in rural areas. Teacher salaries Budgetary autonomy is emerging; local governments are are too low to attract and retain better entrants to the free to assign the budget to schools but lack mechanisms teaching profession. Investing in better teachers is the to improve budgetary efficiency and equity. Personnel cornerstone for improving education quality. Literacy is autonomy is latent, with district-level offices of the almost universal and parents make great efforts to Ministry of Education and Science being in charge of educate their children. Primary enrollment rates are teacher selection under a central pay scale. The system above 90 percent and the rate of transition to high does not allow for monetary incentives to retain good school is 99 percent. However, poverty is a barrier to teachers or to link incentives to performance. Parent attendance in rural areas and among high school participation is emerging. Parents are active but have students, who increasingly leave school to start working. legal limitations on their participation. Parents can raise funds but have no legal authority over the school budget Table 1. Kyrgyz school system structure or school staffing decisions. Student assessment is Age Grade Level of emerging, since there is a nascent system for measuring Education learning outcomes and the country participates in PISA. 1-5 Pre- Pre-Primary However, there is no system for regular student School assessment in place. Accountability is latent, since a 6-9 1-4 Primary policy for providing parents and society with regular 10-14 5-9 Basic Secondary information on system performance that would foster 15-16 10-11 Complete school accountability is not yet in place. Secondary Professional- Education in the Kyrgyz Republic is regulated by the Technical National Education Law of 1992, amended in 2003. 17-18 13-14 Incomplete Education Higher Teachers and preschool education are managed under Education separate laws. The Government’s education strategy for 2007-2010 listed the following as its main goals: to pursue equal access to education; to update the content 19+ 15+ Undergraduate and Graduate of educational and learning technologies; to improve studies education quality; to improve the effectiveness and Source: UNESCO 2011 efficiency of resource use, and to decentralize school management. Reform efforts are aimed at improving the In 2005 total student enrollment was 1.6 million, of curriculum, improving the content, design and availability which about 425 thousand were enrolled in the four of textbooks and to improve teacher quality. years of primary. The transition rate from 4th to 5th grade is universal. The net enrollment rate in lower The Kyrgyz education system suffered a financial shock secondary is about 90 percent and about 72 percent for after independence due to the economic collapse of the higher secondary. Practically all of the 18 thousand collective farm sector, leading to the closing of 70 primary school teachers are female, while of the 41 percent of the pre-schools, especially in rural areas, and thousand teachers in secondary, about 80 percent are a 75 percent reduction in the number of pre-school female and 20 percent are male. students in the system (MES 2006). A 2003 household SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 2 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 Table 2. Indicators of educational expenditures, 2009 emerging. Parents raise funds for the school but have Public expenditure on education: no formal role on school management. Parents do have as % of GDP 6.2 voice at the school and local levels, but it is not formally as % of total government expenditure 24.7 recognized. Student assessment is emerging, as there is Distribution of public expenditure per level (%) 2009: an incipient system for assessing learning outcomes. Pre-primary 7 The country participates in PISA and it is using the Primary 55 results to define its strategy. Still, there is no system for Secondary 9 regular school assessment in place yet. Accountability is Tertiary 15 latent, since there is no system in place for informing Other 13 parents and society about education system Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Percent for primary is estimated by default. performance. The Government is trying to implement a set of The Case for School Autonomy recommendations from World Bank and OECD studies. and School Accountability These recommendations are aimed at improving system accountability and incentives for results by: (i) School autonomy and accountability are important strengthening school autonomy and accountability. components to ensure education quality. The transfer School-based management needs to be implemented of core managerial responsibilities to schools promotes and school performance needs to be measured. The local accountability, helps reflect local priorities, values, result of these efforts should be made public to foster and needs, and gives teachers the opportunity to system accountability; (ii) improving equity in education establish a personal commitment to students and their finance through better formula funding based on per parents (Fig. 1). Benchmarking and monitoring the student financing and a rationalization of the school indicators of school autonomy and accountability allows network; and (iii) developing institutional capacity at the Kyrgyz Republic for a rapid assessment of its the Ministry of Education and Science to improve policy education system, setting the stage for improving policy design and implementation, performance monitoring, planning and implementation. the enforcement and publication of quality standards and its capacity for statistical analysis and reporting. The Kyrgyz Republic is implementing education reforms aimed at improving the quality and equity of public education. However, aligning school autonomy and accountability with the components of reform will require significant effort in the short and medium terms. Budgetary autonomy in primary schools is emerging since local governments are free to distribute the education budget among the schools in their jurisdiction, but lack the means to ensure that the budget meets the school needs or that the assignation is equitable. Principals can only manage non-salary Source: Arcia and others, 2011. expenditures paid by parent contributions; teacher payroll and the teacher’s salary structure are managed School autonomy is a form of education at the provincial level. Autonomy in personnel decentralization in which school personnel are in charge management is latent. Teacher appointments and of making most managerial decisions, frequently in deployments are managed by district and provincial partnerships with parents and the community. More offices of the Ministry of Education and Science, using a local control helps create better conditions for central salary structure as a guide. As a result there is improving student learning in a sustainable way, since it no room at the school level for establishing personnel gives teachers and parents more opportunities for incentives aimed at retaining the best teachers. Teacher developing common goals, increased mutual salaries are so low that only those in need remain in the commitment to student learning, and a more efficient profession. Parent participation in school finance is use of scarce school resources. By allowing more local SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 3 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 control over school operations, school based Kyrgyz Republic’s Performance: A management (SBM) fosters a new social contract between parents and teachers by improving Summary of Results from the communication and increasing local cooperation and Benchmarking Exercise local accountability. To be effective, school autonomy There are five indicators of school autonomy and must function within a compatible set of incentives that accountability that can help benchmark school take into account the education policies in the country, autonomy and accountability: and the incentives for their implementation. Moreover, having more managerial responsibilities at the school 1. School autonomy in budget planning and level automatically implies that the school also has to approval; be accountable to its local stakeholders and to national 2. School autonomy in personnel management; and local authorities. Still, the empirical evidence from 3. The participation of the school council in school education systems where schools enjoy managerial finance; autonomy is that it has been beneficial for restoring the 4. The assessment of school and student social contract between parents and the school, and performance; and that it has been instrumental in setting in motion 5. School accountability to stakeholders policies aimed at improving student learning. Each of these indicators has a set of sub-indicator that The experience from high performing countries—as make it possible to judge how far along each school is in measured by their performance in international tests the process of implementing each indicator. Each such as PISA—indicates that: indicator and sub-indicator is scored on the basis of its • Education systems where schools had more status and the results classified as either Latent, autonomy over teaching content and student Emerging, Established, or Advanced. A Latent score assessment tended to perform better on the indicates that the policy behind the indicator is not yet in PISA test place. An Emerging score indicates that the • Education systems where schools have more implementation of the program or policy is in progress. autonomy over resource allocation and that An Established score indicates that the program or policy also publish test results performed better than is in operation and meets the minimum standards. An schools with less autonomy Advanced score indicates that the program or policy is in • Education systems in which many schools operation and reflects best practice. competed for students did not systematically get better PISA results 1. School autonomy in budget planning • Education systems with standardized student and approval is Emerging assessment tended to do better than those without standardized student assessment. The objective of this indicator is to determine the • PISA scores among schools with students from degree of autonomy that schools have in planning and different social backgrounds differed less in managing their budgets and personnel. For policy intent education systems that use standardized student the rubric makes clear which areas should be backed by assessments than in systems that did not. laws, regulations, or official rules already in the public record. School autonomy in the planning and As of now, the empirical evidence from countries that management of the school budget is considered have implemented school autonomy suggests that desirable because it can increase the efficiency of there is a set of policies and practices that are more financial resources, give schools more flexibility in effective in fostering managerial autonomy, the budget management, and give parents the opportunity assessment of results, and the use of the assessment to to have more voice on budget planning and execution. promote accountability. Benchmarking policy intent for these variables can be very useful to any country School budgets are input based. In 2005, teacher and interested in improving education system performance. administrative salaries absorbed 95 percent of the school budget, leaving only 5 percent for operational expenditures, materials, and maintenance. Starting in 2006 the school budgets allowed 85 percent for salaries SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 4 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 and 15 percent for operation and maintenance School autonomy in budget planning and approval is expenses. To improve school financing, the Government Emerging has been experimenting with different financing and Indicator Score Justification delivery programs (vouchers, contracting, funding Legal authority over Emerging Legal management formulas) since 2006. management of the  authority over the operational budget operational budget Education funding has grown steadily, from 3.85 is at the regional or percent of GDP in 2001, to 6.2 percent of GDP in 2009. municipal levels Moreover, from 2003 to 2010 the proportion of Legal authority over Latent Legal management government expenditures assigned to education has the management of  authority over teaching and non- teacher salaries is also steadily increased. In 2005 education expenditures teaching staff and centralized by the Government accounted to 20 percent of the teacher's salaries budget; by 2009 this figure increased to 24.7 percent. Legal authority to Established School principals raise additional funds  can raise additional The education budget is moderately decentralized for the school funds from the under a complicated system of budgetary management. parents and the The central government finances 65 percent of the private sector and school budget and the provincial and local governments non governmental finance the remaining 35 percent out of provincial and institutions. local revenues. Grants by category from the central government are sent directly to provincial and local 2. School autonomy in personnel governments, who are free to allocate these funds management is Latent among the education institutions under their coverage (MES 2009). The central government assigns funds This indicator measures policy intent in the directly to universities and specialized schools; management of school personnel, which includes the provincial governments fund vocational schools out of principal, teachers, and non-teaching staff. Appointing the provincial budget (using central grants and and deploying teachers can be centralized at the level of provincial revenues), while local governments fund the Ministry of Education or it can be the responsibility primary and secondary schools out of the local budget of regional or municipal governments. Only in (using central and provincial grants, and local revenues). completely decentralized education systems do schools Central grants to all levels of government are intended have autonomy in teacher hiring and firing decisions. In to fund teacher salaries for the most part. centralized systems teachers are paid directly by the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Finance under The input-based nature of the budget allows for union or civil service agreements. As a result, in inequities in funding, where local governments in poor centralized systems schools have less influence over areas are underfunded. Rural areas have large numbers teacher performance because they have no financial of small schools and per-student funding varies greatly leverage over teachers. Inversely, if a school negotiates among and within provinces. No accounting is done for teachers’ salaries, as private schools routinely do, it may compensating the negative effect of social variables. be able to motivate teachers directly with rewards for a The result is a large gap in learning between rural and job well done. urban areas. In Kyrgyz Republic teachers are recruited locally and hired centrally under a centralized pay scale that does not include any bonuses or rewards for good performance. Schools have little say over the choice of their teachers but can have a formal say over the transfer of non-performing teachers. SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 5 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 School autonomy in personnel management is Participation of the School Council in School Latent Finance is Emerging Indicator Score Justification Indicator Score Justification School Latent District offices of the Participation of Emerging School Council is to autonomy in  MES select teachers the School Council  have a voice in the teacher but the hiring and in budget planning and appointment management is done at preparation preparation of the and deployment the central level. budget at the school decisions level, but final School Council’s Emerging School Councils do not responsibility falls on role in teacher  have a voice in school the school principal. tenure or personnel School Council's Emerging School Councils may be transfer appointments but have authority to  consulted but budget a voice over their approve the approval is done at the performance. school budget local government level. Autonomy in the Emerging Principals are selected Manual for the Emerging There should be hiring and firing  by the district offices of participation of  manuals regulating the of principals the MES and hired the School procedures for centrally. Supervision is Councils in school expressing the Council's done at the district finances voice on budget issues. level. Role of the School Emerging Budget implementation Council in budget  is to be supervised at 3. Participation of the school council in implementation the municipal level. school finance is Emerging School Councils can only ask for accounts The participation of the council in school administration on additional funding is very important because it is where parents can from parents and other off-budget funds. exercise their real power as clients of the education Use of the budget Latent Not applicable. system. If the council has to cosign payments, then it prepared with the  Budgetary decisions are has purchasing power automatically. The use of an School Council's made at the national operational manual is extremely important in this area, participation and sub-national levels since it allows Council members to adequately monitor school management performance, help the principal 4. Assessment of school and student with cash flow decisions, and become a catalyst for performance is Emerging seeking additional funds from the community. The use of detailed operation manuals by the School Council is School assessments can have a big impact on school also a good vehicle for increased accountability and for performance because it forces parents and teachers to the institutionalization of autonomy. agree on scoring rules and ways to keep track of them. Measuring student assessment is another important In the Kyrgyz Republic schools allow parents to raise way to determine if a school is effective in improving additional funds, especially since there is evidence that learning. A key aspect of school autonomy is the regular the budget is insufficient to provide better materials or measurement of student learning, with the intent of to pay for regular school operations. Extra funding is using the results to inform parents and society, and to voluntary and can be included in the school budget make adjustments to managerial and pedagogical without negative consequences. The school council can practices. Without a regular assessment of learning ask parents to pay an obligatory fee. However, School outcomes school accountability is reduced and, with it, Councils do not have a legal role in the school financial improving education quality becomes less certain. management. Its role is discretionary. Because statistical evidence is scant or unreported, there is little All students take a standardized exit exam at the end of information about the amounts given by parents and secondary school. Participation in annual standardized the use of private funds in school operations. tests is voluntary at grades 9 and 11. The assessment of student learning using other standardized tests is sporadic (2002, 2007). The MES has a Center for the SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 6 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 Assessment of Education and Methodologies, which in 5. School accountability to stakeholders 2006/07 conducted a survey, entitled the National is Latent Assessment of Educational Achievement of Students. Results of this survey indicated that more than 60 Accountability is at the heart of school-based percent of students scored below the basic proficiency management. The systemic connection between levels for math, reading, and language comprehension. budgetary and personnel autonomy, parent Kyrgyzstan participates in PISA in 2006 and 2009. The participation in the financial and operational aspects of PISA results for 2006 show that among 15 year olds, less the school, and the measurement of learning outcomes than 14 percent were able to pass the minimum are all aimed to reinforce accountability. Only by being international standards for their age. Most of the accountable to parents can education quality be problem lies in rural areas, where student test scores sustainable. The following indicators address the are about one-half of the test scores in urban areas. aspects of accountability that can be implemented within the framework of school-based management. School and student assessment is Emerging Indicator Score Justification The culture of centralized decision making goes back to Existence and Emerging Schools and students are Soviet times and only after the political uprising of 2010 frequency of  to be assessed every few have communities begun to demand some school and years using Ministry of accountability in education. There are several ongoing student Education criteria. pilot programs that attempt to incorporate the assessments Results are to be used community in school management but the long term internally. There are exit impact of these efforts is still unknown. Even though exams for secondary the Government reports education statistics, there is students. considerable doubt about their reliability, especially in Use of school Emerging Ministry of Education assessments for  must analyze school relations to teachers, their tenure and their making school assessment results and performance. adjustments send them to schools. Schools must use the School accountability to stakeholders is Latent results to make Indicator Score Justification pedagogical and Guidelines for Latent There are no guidelines. operational the use of school  Assessments are only adjustments. and student made available to the Frequency of Established There are assessments assessments by educational authorities standardized  of student learning in all the School and to school personnel student or in selected grades of Council assessments primary and secondary National or Emerging Assessments are to be school done every few regional systems  components of a national years for all students in of educational or sub-national system the country. assessments but there is no strategy Use of student Latent Ministry of Education for the use of the results assessments for  must analyze exit exams Comparisons of Emerging Comparisons are to be pedagogical and and sends the results to school and  made among different personnel the schools. Schools student types of schools, with adjustments must use the results to performance different regions, and make pedagogical and reports with previous years. operational School Council Latent School Councils have no adjustments. authority to  legal authority over the Publication of Latent Only student perform school financial affairs school and  assessments are made financial audits student public. Manual for the Emerging There is a manual assessments participation of  regulating the procedures the School for performing school Councils in audits by the central or school audits municipal governments SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 7 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 From Analysis to Action: Policy Options for Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan is in need of education reform focused on c. Link teacher and school incentives to student improving education quality using self-sustaining performance. Formal recognition of personal policies. To that end, improving school autonomy and incentives tied to performance needs to be accountability would help the country implement the explored at the school level in order to help reforms faster. The results of the benchmarking of retain good teachers. school autonomy and accountability indicate the following areas for change: d. Give School Councils a more formal role in school-based management to reinforce their a. Improve the assignment of school funds to existing role in fundraising. School councils reinforce existing decentralization. The need to have more formal authority on distribution of funds by local governments managerial issues in order to be more effective needs a strong dose of educational equity at the in putting into place the incentives needed by central and local levels. External studies have the school to improve school quality. recommended the use of per capita funding formulas that would include additional funding e. Implement student assessment on a regular tied to indicators of poverty and for small rural basis to monitor system performance and foster schools. Also, the role of School Councils in system accountability. The willingness to mobilizing additional funding requires a formal participate in PISA is a good base on which to recognition of parent associations in budget build a culture of measurement and reporting. planning and supervision, and the Moreover, the results of national testing should reinforcement of school-based management be used as the base for monitoring internal practices. performance and make the appropriate managerial and pedagogical adjustments. b. Reinforce school authority on personnel management to complement the Government’s f. Promote public access to information on school intention to improve teacher training and and student performance. The creation and teacher salaries. publication of regular reports on school and student performance should complement existing efforts at regularizing school and student assessments. SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 8 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 Acknowledgements Gustavo Arcia, Consultant, and Harry Patrinos, Education Manager, HDNED, The World Bank, wrote this report. Dingyong Hou, of the Human Development Department, Europe and Central Asia Region, coordinated data collection and provided technical comments on the draft version of the report. References Ministry of Education, Science and Youth Policy (MES). UNESCO. 2011a. “Education Profile: Kyrgyzstan.� 2007. EFA Mid-Decade Assessment. Country Downloaded from: Report. Bishkek. http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer /document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=e Ministry of Education, Science and Youth Policy (MES). ng&BR_Country=4160&BR_Region=40505 2006. “Education Development Strategy of the Kyrgyz Republic (2007-2010).� Bishkek. United Nations. 2009. The Second Periodic Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals in UNESCO 2011. World Data on Education 2010/11: the Kyrgyz Republic. MDGs Progress Report, Kyrgyz Republic. Downloaded from Bishkek. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upl oad/Publications/WDE/2010/pdf- World Bank. 2011. “Education Reform in the Kyrgyz versions/Kyrgyzstan.pdf Republic—Lessons from PISA.� Europe and Central Asia Knowledge Brief No. 40., Washington DC. SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS 9 KYRGYZ REPUBLIC|SCHOOL AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY SABER COUNTRY REPORT |2012 www.worldbank.org/education/saber The Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) initiative produces comparative data and knowledge on education policies and institutions, with the aim of helping countries systematically strengthen their education systems. SABER evaluates the quality of education policies against evidence-based global standards, using new diagnostic tools and detailed policy data. The SABER country reports give all parties with a stake in educational results—from administrators, teachers, and parents to policymakers and business people—an accessible, objective snapshot showing how well the policies of their country's education system are oriented toward ensuring that all children and youth learn. This report focuses specifically on policies in the area of School Autonomy and Accountability. This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR BETTER EDUCATION RESULTS THE WORLD BANK 10