U4 Helpdesk Query

U4 helpdesk reply

Due to the scope of the questions submitted, the Helpdesk Researchers have opted to touch upon those aspects considered most relevant for the purpose of the enquirer. Given further time, they will be happy to focus in-depth on one or more of the areas that are of particular interest to the enquirer. Should this be the case, please do not hesitate to contact the Helpdesk for further assistance.

Reply produced by: U4 Helpdesk research team, London, with expert input from Mr Nicholas Bennett.

Attachments: Please note that the Transparency International National Integrity Survey on Uganda, which is referred to in the reply, is not publicly available yet but can be obtained from the Helpdesk team in London. Please contact Carolin Schlippe for further information.

Introduction

The systematic discussion of corruption as an impediment to the effective delivery of education services is a relatively recent phenomenon. While a substantial amount of literature exists on the incidence of corruption in education systems, documentation relating to measures designed to combat corruption in education is still relatively sparse.

Corruption can interfere with the delivery of educational services at three stages:

• In countries where education falls into the domain of local government units, during the transfer of resources earmarked for education from the central to the local government. Examples of corruption at this stage would include the use of resources for means other than those related to education, like the embezzlement of funds by public officials.
• During the transfer of resources from local government to schools and teachers. Corruption is likely to occur in the procurement of non-wage related goods and services, like the maintenance or building of schools, the design, manufacture and distribution of textbooks, the procurement of equipment such as chairs and tables, but also in the form of, for example, ghost teachers.
• During the transfer of resources from schools and teachers to the students, i.e. during the delivery of education services. Typical behaviours would include absenteeism, the acceptance of bribes in exchange for grades and/or access to schooling, and the charging of fees for students' access to textbooks and the utilisation of school property for private commercial purposes.

Corruption in education systems thus distorts both the quality and availability of education services, and has a negative - and, by affecting even the youngest citizens -sustainable impact on a nation's socio-economic and political development not only

Holistic v targeted approaches

The Dutch Embassy basically has the option of focussing on two different approaches to tackling the problem of corruption in Uganda's education system:

1. The encouragement of a holistic approach to fighting corruption, which encompasses a systematic analysis of the socio-economical and political context of the country in question, of the capacities of its institutions, and of their effectiveness in an effort to design an all-encompassing strategy to sustainably reduce corrupt incentives across all parts of the public and private spheres.
   While holistic reform has the potential to lead to sustainable good governance by acting on both the culture and the institution, i.e. by reducing the acceptability of corruption in the national public perception as well as by improving accountability mechanisms and removing corrupt incentives, it will only work if supported by a strong and continuously displayed political will and only produces visible results in the medium to long term. Furthermore, the need to tackle problems at the micro, i.e. school level, remains.
2. A targeted approach to curbing corruption in the education system would involve an analysis of the factors contributing to the existence and persistence of corruption in the sector, of the types of corruption most prevalent, and of the stakeholders of a corruption-free education system in an effort to directly and positively affect its overall performance. A targeted approach presents the advantage of immediate visibility of the reform outcome, but needs to be followed-up by more comprehensive, systemic measures in order to make the improvement sustainable.

The choice of strategy will depend on the Embassy's main priorities and financial and administrative capacity.

Action-plan and examples of good practice in curbing corruption in education systems

Policies and measures that produce visible results in the short run are likely to generate public support for further, and more complex reform measures. They therefore present a good entry-point in particular in contexts (like Uganda) in which corruption is systemic and initial support for abstract holistic reform strategies difficult to engender.

The following section is sub-divided into approaches that produce visible results in the

1. short term - and comprise of measures that focus primarily on the education system itself
2. medium term - measures that fall into the domain of systemic reform
3. and long term.

These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but should be understood as complementing and reinforcing each other.

Measures susceptible to produce results within a short period after being implemented, correspond very much to reforms targeting the micro, i.e. the individual school level. They share a common focus on the stakeholders in a corruption-free education system.
In this context, Bennett recommends a positive focus on improving the system to encourage learning and honesty, rather than "leading a witch hunt against large-scale and small-scale corruption".

Raise awareness of the costs associated with corruption more generally, and in particular in the education sector. As indicated in a recent report on the state of Uganda's National Integrity System (TI, 2003), the passiveness of civil society vis-à-vis the occurrence of corruption in their daily life and consequently the absence of functioning vertical accountability mechanisms linking civil society and the government seriously hampers any anti-corruption effort.
There is thus an urgent need to strengthen public awareness in order to not only clearly establish the link between corruption and the inadequate provision and quality of public education, but also in order to highlight areas in which civil society can actively make a difference (see below).
The Embassy could either launch its own awareness-raising programme, by distributing leaflets, posting billboard advertisements, organising meetings and workshops with parents and teacher associations, etc, or fund other, civil society or governmental organisations to do so - as it has successfully done before: in Uganda, the Dutch Embassy has in the past funded the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda (ACCU) to organise national Anti-Corruption Weeks (ACW) on a yearly basis. These ACW aim at both raising awareness of corruption by addressing one particular issue at the time (in 2001, this was "accountable leadership"), and at mobilising civil society to work together to curb corruption. (TI Toolkit).

Educate teachers, students and parents to inform them of their rights, their obligations, like the standards of service to be expected of teachers or the duty to send children to school, and of who to turn to in case of perceived wrongdoing.

Again, the Embassy could itself engage in such programmes, or instruct other, national, organisations to do so on its behalf.

For example, in Papua New Guinea, TI's National Chapter successfully launched a training course for secondary school teachers to not only address issues of professional ethics and standards of behaviour expected of teachers, but also to help teachers identify corrupt practices in their work environment and address them appropriately.

Move responsibility for teacher payment and employment away from central or local governments, and towards parent - or school management - committees who exercise the ultimate control over who gets paid what. Where the performance of teachers directly affects their salary, they will be more inclined to perform according to their contractual obligations than would be the case if in receipt of a lump-sum payment by a government agency without stake in the quality of the service delivered. Such measure naturally depends on the existence of suitable and reliable committees or bodies.

In Chad, where the teacher's pay was dependent on the amount of days he effectively spent teaching, this strategy led to teachers being present throughout and classes being well attended.

In Cameroon we created School Management Committees where the parents were in the majority, and the head teacher the secretary. These committees were responsible for all funds that passed through the school account, and also for recommending rewards or sanctions on the teachers. Bringing active parents into day to day management of the school is crucial. Too often they are merely brought into school affairs as unpaid labour in school construction, and management is kept out of their hands in some distant ministry. Since the parent is one who is most concerned with their children's learning, in almost all circumstances they have to be involved in real management. Independently, also in Cameroon, an increasing proportion of teachers were not civil servants, and thus not subject to central management. This must not be seen as a way to underpay teachers.

In Nicaragua block grants sufficient to pay teacher salaries and other expenditures were given to the school management committees , who recruited, supervised, and paid the teachers, and all other expenses. (Nicholas Bennett, per email)

The measures presented in this section, i.e. those measures where results are likely to manifest themselves in the medium term, comprise of systemic reform measures most of which can be implemented in a relatively straightforward fashion.

Access to information is the basic prerequisite for the effective accountability of office-holders to the general public. While the 1995 Constitution establishes the right to access to information in its Article 41, Parliament has yet to enact a law to render this right enforceable in practice. At present, information held by government bodies is not automatically accessible by the public.

However, effective access to information need not be restricted to legislation:

While it is crucial that steps be taken to institutionalise the concept of free access to information and to ensure that the necessary provisions be in place, steps can be taken even prior to official reform measures, as illustrated by the example of a successful increase in access to information and a subsequent decrease in corrupt activity described by Svensson and Reinikka in the context of their study of leakage of public funds in Uganda's education system: following a damning report on the discrepancy between budget decisions and actual resource allocation to primary schools, the central government "began publishing the monthly transfers of public funds to the districts in newspapers, broadcasting the transfers on radio, and requiring primary schools to post information on inflows of funds. (…) The flow of funds improved dramatically, from 13 percent (on average) reaching schools in 1991-1995 to around 90 percent of intended capitation grants reaching schools in 1999. The huge improvement suggests that provision and dissemination of information can play a crucial role in improving outcomes," and that efforts to increase the ability of citizens to monitor the working of the system by facilitating access to information are important aspects in the fight against corruption (Svensson, Reinikka, 2001).

Procurement reform. Public procurement of goods and services for use in the education system are a potential - and often exploited - source of corrupt transactions. Procurement in the education sector applies to school buildings and infrastructure, to the design, manufacture and distribution of textbooks and other school accessories, such as paper, blackboards, tables and chairs. Given the negative effect corruption in procurement has generally, and its implications for the quality of education more specifically, it is essential that procurement for education purposes follows the same strict guidelines usually recommended by NGOs and international organisations alike.
Every method of procurement (open competition, limited competition, single source negotiations) can and should be fully transparent - both with respect to the selection of the method in the individual case and of all steps of the individual procurement process itself. It should be competitive and open, giving each potential bidder the chance to inform themselves fully and easily about the legal framework, procurement opportunities, tendering and qualification procedures.

Successful examples of reformed public procurement systems can be found in the Philippines, and in Seoul, South Korea, where extensive use was made of the internet to make freely accessible all relevant information concerning all government procurement under their jurisdiction - including all contracts offered for tender, all bidders and all bids (in some detail), the process and the outcome of the bid evaluation and the reasons for selecting the winner etc.

Another, and, in the context of Uganda, perhaps more feasible approach, is the use of "integrity clauses" which procuring entities require all bidders to sign. These clauses can be unilateral declarations by each bidder. They can also have the form of the TI-developed Integrity Pacts, were all bidders and the procuring authority sign a no-bribe and no-collusion agreement whose violation is subject to strong sanctions. In any case, while these clauses usually do not go beyond a declaration and pledge to comply with the existing laws, they obviously raise the psychological hurdle for potential corrupters, facilitate law enforcement and have demonstrated their effectiveness in several applications world wide.

Improve accountability structures applicable to teachers and those civil servants associated with the education sector in an effort to reduce corrupt incentives by increasing the risk of being caught.

Accountability of civil servants - and hence of teachers - applies to both internal accountability mechanisms such as rules regarding the declaration of interests, internal hierarchies, dedicated special agencies such as accreditation and examination boards, and whistle-blower protection schemes, and external accountability mechanisms such as auditors, independent anti-corruption agencies and ombudsmen.

According to the 2003 National Integrity Survey on Uganda, most of these institutions are in place, yet they do not or can not assume their functions appropriately due to lack of human and financial resources on the one hand, and lack of both independence and effective inter-agency collaboration on the other. There is thus scope for action for donors, examples of which could involve the provision of specialist training for staff of relevant agencies (as for example DfID have done in a number of anti-corruption agencies), the making available of funds to ease the cost of running such agency, and institutional support more generally.

Alternatively, civil society monitoring activities could be strengthened in order to enforce accountability through non-traditional channels. In Bangladesh, TI's National Chapter has repeatedly used "report cards" to draw attention to perceived problems in the delivery of services. Report cards are handed out to users of public services and collected thereafter. They are then analysed and the results made available to "Committees of Concerned Citizens (CCC)", to be used to raise awareness of corruption and to hold public officials to account for their (non-) action. In the context of education, TI Bangladesh conducted a Report Card Survey among primary education offices, primary school teachers, students and parents/guardians in five districts to draw attention to corruption in primary education and to subsequently exert pressure for change on the basis of empirical evidence.

Finally, measures that will have a visible impact only in the medium to long term aim at bringing about a change in attitudes towards corruption and related behaviours among public officials and civil society more generally. Cultural change takes time to manifest itself, and may span several generations until established fully. It is, however, an essential ingredient in making anti-corruption efforts sustainable in the long run.

Change of attitudes and institutional culture: Anti-corruption reform can only be sustainable if it is accompanied by a fundamental change in public attitudes to corruption. Several steps can be taken to facilitate this process, and while the respective measures address different audiences, they are all based on a combination of training, awareness raising and the creation of a feeling of ownership of the new values.

• In Schools
  

In Uganda, ethical behaviour and anti-corruption issues are not part of the national curriculum. Experience suggests that this lack of moral education, in conjunction with the confrontation on a daily basis of students with corrupt demands emanating from different parts of society, has a detrimental effect on the sustainable fight against corruption.

Since it is important to address issues relating to corruption and moral behaviour during the formative years, measures should be taken to address this, and to aim at creating a cultural sensitivity to corruption issues from an early age. Examples of such initiatives can be found in Hong Kong, where the Independent Commission Against Corruption (IACA) initiated a highly successful "moral education programme" in the early 1980s (English background information - link on right hand side at the bottom), which was set to promote integrity and positive behavioural standards through a range of products aimed at teachers, parents and students in Hong Kong's schools and teacher colleges. for further details), in Morocco (see TI Marocco and a 10th IACC paper by Prof. Azzedine Akesbi - both sources in French, and in Italy (see TI Italy - in Italian).

A different approach was taken with the "00corrupcion" campaign in Mexico, which may not be replicable in Uganda due to its extensive use of the internet to reach younger generations, but can be used as an inspirational tool for similar, more appropriate exercises (radio shows, newspaper supplements, sports hero appeals, etc). Children are encouraged to qualify as "OO Corrupcion" Agents, and to promote transparency and integrity through a number of games and real-life exercises.

• In the civil service
  

Uganda has engaged in a series of civil service reforms, starting with the Public Service Reform Programme in 1992 and the PS 2002, different components of which are currently being implemented. Public perception points, however, to the persistence of nepotism and cronyism in the recruitment of civil servants, the causes of which lie in both family and tribal affiliations. Since the professionalism and the performance of any public sector depend not only on the institutions, but also on the people who staff them, a good formal framework needs to be supplemented by qualified and motivated personnel. The institutional arrangements for selecting, promoting and dismissing civil servants are thus crucial to the functioning of the public sector in the intended way.

A meritocratic civil service is less likely to be prone to corruption than one based predominantly on political appointments, and an important step for the Embassy could thus be to discuss ways to strengthen meritocracy within the civil service and among teachers with all stakeholders in order to bring forward sustainable change.

Meritocratic reform needs to be complemented by efforts to sensitise public officials to professional corruption and misconduct. Codes of Ethics or Conduct are an important guide to making decisions on complicated ethical issues, and provide the basis for an environment where citizens are aware of the mission and standards of service to be expected from public sector agencies. The current regulations determining the conduct of civil servants - and hence of teachers - in Uganda, in particular with regards to the acceptability of gifts, seem insufficient. While the 2002 Prevention of Corruption Act criminalizes bribery and corruption, there are no rules (yet) on the registration of material and non-material gifts by civil servants. While a public service Code of Conduct exists, it remains silent on gifts and gift registers. (TI, 2003).

There is thus scope for action to supplement structural reform by for example encouraging the development and publication of codes of conduct (like, for example, in Nigeria (UN, 2003)), and by initiating ethics training to strengthen adherence and understanding of the standards and values set out in the code (as practiced, for example, in the US), but it is important to be aware of the fact that the implementation of effective ethics standards in civil service organisations can be hampered internally by the failure of managers to communicate values and to institutionalise ethical decision-making among their staff, externally, by the failure of other institutions to support an environment of integrity, and by the conflict of values to which civil servants may be subject.

• Civic education
  

Any shift in attitudes can only be sustainable if supported by the general public. Awareness raising and programmes targeting different sections of society to highlight the problems associated with corruption and to instil into citizens a sense of pride of their nation's traditional integrity as well as of rejection of corrupt behaviour and those practising it, can thus be expected to act in favour of lasting change.
(for examples, please refer to section on awareness raising and chapters 1 and 7 of the Transparency International Toolkit)

Summary

The Dutch Embassy has a number of options with regards to its strategy on curbing corruption in Uganda's education system. It can opt for putting the stress on measures targeting specifically corruption in education, such as teacher training, the improvement of accountability mechanisms relating teachers to society, and anti-corruption education, or it can opt for a more all-encompassing approach, focussing on strengthening the institutions relevant to the fight against corruption that are already in place in Uganda. While the ideal and most sustainable reform package would encompass both approaches, the need to prioritise depending on capacities and available resources will probably render a combination of both holistic and targeted measures unfeasible.

Independently of the strategy chosen, any policy decision should be preceded by a thorough analysis of the circumstances leading to or facilitating corruption in education in Uganda in order to tailor reform to local contexts. For example, the establishment of parent committees might not work effectively against corruption where parent communities are disorganised or divided along tribal lines. The declared goal of all reform suggestions and tools is the overall increase in transparency and accountability inside both the education system and state institutions more generally. Furthermore, the involvement of civil society in the implementation of such programmes seems appropriate both in terms of empowering civil society to hold its representatives and civil servants accountable, and in terms of increasing the acceptability of such measures among the population at large, by creating a feeling of ownership of reform rather than of external imposition of Western strategies and ideals.

Recommended Websites and Documentation:

• On Uganda

Transparency International, 2003: National Integrity Systems: TI Country Study Report - Uganda, 2003.
This report analyses the appropriateness of Uganda's institutions for the fight against corruption and the promotion of good governance using the framework of the National Integrity System. It forms part of a wider project on mapping the National Integrity Systems of countries around the world.

U4 Theme Page: Uganda

This web page aims to provide essential resources for anyone practising anti-corruption in Uganda, or otherwise want to learn about the challenges of corruption in Uganda.

• On Corruption in Education

Nicholas Bennett, 2001: Corruption in Education Systems in Developing Countries: What It Is Doing to the Young. Paper presented at the 10th IACC, Prague, October 2001.
In this paper, Bennett draws on his experience in educational development and reform to discuss the issue of corruption in education, the types of corruption in education, and the effects of corruption in education on the society in which it occurs. The paper also contains some examples of good practice.

S. Gupta, H. Davoodi, E. Tiongson, 2000: Corruption and the provision of health care and education services. IMF Working Paper No 116, Washington DC
Government intervention to correct market failures is often accompanied by government failures and corruption. This is no more evident than in social sectors that are characterized by significant market failures and government intervention. However, the impact of corruption on the public provision of social services has not been analysed. This paper reviews the relevant theoretical models and users' perceptions of corruption in the public provision of social services, It then provides evidence that reducing corruption can result in significant social gains as measured by decreases in child and infant mortality rates, percent of low-birthweight babies, and primary school dropout rates.

Jacques Hallak, Muriel Poisson, 2001: Ethics and corruption in education (Results from the Expert Workshop held at the IIEP Paris, 28-29 November 2001)
This report presents the outcomes of an expert workshop on corruption and education run to gather advice on the design, methodologies and implementation of the IIEP's new project on ethics and corruption in education. Other than background information and the results of a survey, the document contains a comprehensive annotated bibliography covering all issues discussed in the text.

Jakob Svensson, Ritva Reinikka, 2001: Explaining Leakage of Public Funds.
Reinikka na d Svensson use panel data from an unique survey of public primary schools in Uganda to assess the degree of leakage of public funds in education. They find that rather than being passive recipients of flows from government, schools use their bargaining power vis-à-vis other parts of government to secure greater shares of funding. These findings have a direct impact on policy.

• On Anti-Corruption Measures in Education Systems

Stephen P. Heyneman, 2002: Education and Corruption. Paper presented at the International Forum at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), Sacramento, California, November 2002.
In this paper, Heyneman enumerates and discusses the types of corruption most frequently associated with the education sector and proposes concrete solutions to fight corruption in each of these scenarios.

Ellie Keen: Fighting Corruption Through Education. COLPI Papers #1
This paper discusses the use of education and awareness raising tools in the fight against corruption. While the first part of the paper studies education in the community as a whole, the second part concentrates on initiatives in schools that aim at developing an understanding and awareness of corruption among teachers and students.

Transparency International, 2003: National Chapters Anti-Corruption Education Activities
This document provides an overview of tools Transparency International's National Chapters have developed to counter corruption in education systems, or to educate the public about corruption.

• On Holistic Reform

UN / The Global Programme Against Corruption, 2003: Anti-Corruption Toolkit.
The toolkit contains a detailed set of specific tools to assist the elaboration of elements of a national anti-corruption strategy and to assemble these into an overall systemic framework. The toolkit, which is periodically updated, combines tool descriptions with case studies to illustrate the use of tools in practice.

Jeremy Pope (Transparency International), 2001: Confronting Corruption: The Elements of a National Integrity System - Transparency International Source Book, 2000
The TI Source Book 2000 is a comprehensive handbook on how to fight corruption. It introduces the concept of the National Integrity System and discusses its components in detail. The concept rests on the basis that corruption can only be fought effectively in its systemic context, and that each society already has arrangements to contain corruption, however imperfect they might be. The National Integrity System thus encompasses all those institutions and practices that collectively determine the levels of honesty, transparency and accountability of all facets of public and commercial life. Where corruption is widespread, tackling it in isolation is likely to be ineffective, as sustainable anti-corruption efforts depend on other institutions also performing their part - together with appropriate degrees of horizontal accountability and independence. Enforcement alone is seen as inadequate, uncertain and inefficient. The approach must therefore be holistic, including prevention strategies, which minimise corrupt opportunities and reduce corrupt incentives.

• Civil Society Tools

Transparency International: Corruption Fighter's Toolkit. Civil Society Experiences and Emerging Strategies.

As suggested in the title, the toolkit contains a collection of civil society anti-corruption initiatives and covers the areas of awareness raising, procurement, election campaigns, access to information, public institutions, business ethics and diagnostics (surveys and indices). It is updated and expanded on a yearly basis.

• Related Projects of U4 Partners

NORAD: Anti-Corruption Education / Capacity Building, Zambia
The goal of this project, which consists in the funding of a Zambian NGO, the Foundation for Corruption Awareness (FCA), is to keep the issue on corruption on the national agenda, to create awareness of corruption, provide and create an environment amongst youth that supports a broader dissemination of anti-corruption campaigns and carry out an assessment of the extent of corruption within existing systems and structures.

DfID: Education Management Project, Gambia
The goal of the project is to improve the effective and equitable management of public resources in the education sector. The purpose is to enhance the capacity of the Department of State for Education (DoSE) to monitor activities in the education sector and manage its human resources sustainability.