The effects of school-based decision making on educational outcomes in low and middle income contexts

This systematic review by Carr-Hill and colleagues reviews the available evidence on the impact of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. In addition to measuring the effects of such interventions, the authors sought to identify barriers and facilitators to programme success.  They included interventions that aimed to move decision-making from higher, national or district level, to the school level and examined their effect on enrollment, access and learning. The results of the review suggest that different benefits depend on context. The most robust findings were improvements in student test scores, while drop-out rates, repetition and teacher attendance were only improved in some settings. Further, the approach appeared to be less effective in communities where parents had low levels of education. This may have been due to the perceived higher status of teachers and other education professionals in such contexts.