RESULTS-BASED FINANCING RBF EDUCATION EVIDENCE CAMEROON Can School Grants and Teacher Incentives be Used to Increase School Access and Improve Quality? FEBRUARY 2019 REACH funded a Feasibility Study and a pre-pilot of performance-based school grants and teacher incentives among 20 rural primary schools. The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund supports and disseminates research on the impact of results-based financing on learning outcomes. The EVIDENCE series highlights REACH grants around the world to provide empirical evidence and operational lessons helpful in the design and implementation of successful performance-based programs. Many developing countries have quality of schooling. Several factors Limited access to quality invested substantial resources such as limited resources at the education, high dropout rates and low learning outcomes are in expanding their primary and school level, high monitoring costs, a acute problems in many areas secondary education systems, lack of performance incentives, and of Cameroon. resulting in large gains in the number weak accountability mechanisms of existing schools and the number have meant that many education of students enrolled. However, systems do not perform well on this has not always guaranteed important indicators of education that all students can access or access and quality such as student stay in school, especially the most retention, teacher attendance, and Stakeholder Accountability RBF can be used to vulnerable students. Furthermore, classroom teaching practices. incentivize stakeholders and while the quantity of schooling has provide an accountability increased dramatically, in many Results-based financing (RBF) mechanism for schools to has been used in many developing perform better. countries this growth has not been matched by any improvement in the countries to attempt to address This note was adapted from de Walque, Damien and Christine Valente (2018). Incentivizing School Attendance in the Presence of Parent-Child Information Frictions, Policy Research Working Paper 8476, World Bank, Washington D.C. 2 RFB EDUCATION | EVIDENCE these challenges by creating in performing better on one or community satisfaction, and draw stronger incentives for various more of the indicators that the lessons from the implementation stakeholders such as students, financial incentives are designed of these RBF mechanisms to parents, and teachers to achieve to improve. Similarly, teacher enable the initiative to be scaled up better results. RBF mechanisms incentives work by giving bonuses throughout Cameroon. While it is work by providing financial to individual teachers based on not possible to draw conclusions incentives to achieve measurable their own or their school’s improved about the effect of this RBF results, such as increasing teacher performance on one or more program on education access attendance, widening access to indicators. or quality given the short time schooling, or reducing student period and small sample size, this dropouts. Performance-based The Results in Education for All pre-pilot demonstrated that RBF school grants and individual Children (REACH) Trust Fund is feasible in rural primary schools incentives are two examples at the World Bank funded a in Cameroon and highlighted the of RBF mechanisms that have feasibility study and a pre-pilot importance of several critical been used in many developing of performance-based school preconditions that must be in place countries to incentivize various grants and teacher incentives for RBF to be effective. These stakeholders such as teachers, among 20 rural primary schools preconditions include a simple principals, or school administrators in Cameroon. The purpose was and context-appropriate design, to make greater efforts to increase to assess whether these RBF clear communication with key education access and improve its mechanisms could feasibly be used stakeholders, effective monitoring quality. Performance-based school to improve transparency, financial tools to assess school and teacher grants work by giving schools management, and monitoring performance, and community a cash transfer if they succeed at the school level, increase involvement. CONTEXT lives in poverty and 66 percent are illiterate.1 These areas suffer from a 68% Cameroon has made progress lack of access to quality education, poverty high dropout rates, particularly in the past 10 years, and almost Northern for girls, and learning outcomes doubled enrollment in the primary Cameroon that are significantly worse than in schools. But despite efforts by 66% the Government of Cameroon the rest of the country. According illiteracy to a government report,2 the and its partners in the education education sector is subject to sector to achieve the goal of consistent under-funding, with ensuring quality education for all, a low proportion of the national significant challenges remain. budget being allocated to basic In particular, there are strong education. For example, 42 percent regional disparities throughout the of Cameroon’s education budget country. Several designated priority is borne by private household areas of Cameroon face the most expenditure, which is nearly double acute challenges, including the the share in comparable countries.3 predominantly rural Northern region This funding shortfall manifests where 68 percent of the population CAMEROON 3 itself in very limited financial resources at the local level, thus hampering the ability of schools to provide services to all children in their communities and to invest in improving their quality. The pre-pilot was conducted in 20 primary schools in the Lagdo sub-division, a poor and rural area in Cameroon’s Northern region. Following the completion of the feasibility study in March 2017, the Ministry of Basic Education selected these schools to participate in the pre-pilot during the 2017–18 school year beginning in September 2017. WHY WAS THE INTERVENTION CHOSEN? While increasing resources for the The RBF feasibility study and their preparation, and to increase the education sector in the medium pre-pilot were designed to achieve availability of appropriate teaching and long term is critical, in the short several objectives: (a) to increase materials and improve learning term it is equally essential to make transparency and improve financial conditions in the classroom. more efficient use of the limited management at the school level; available resources at the school (b) to improve the monitoring of level. With both these goals in mind, schools by head teachers and Objective 1 the Ministry of Basic Education in local inspectors; (c) to increase School level—Increase transparency Cameroon decided to experiment community satisfaction with the and improve financial management with RBF mechanisms to improve quality of school services; and governance at the school level, to (d) to learn lessons to inform the Objective 2 address the chronic problem of scale-up of RBF throughout the School level—Improve monitoring poor accountability among teachers school system in Cameroon. Specific of schools and school administrators, and issues that this RBF program was to create a culture of results and designed to address included the Objective 3 accountability in education. This need to increase student attendance Community level—Increase was prompted by the successful and retention, to ensure universal community satisfaction results produced by RBF initiatives school access, even among the in the health sector in Cameroon most vulnerable students who Objective 4 and in other countries and the desire are unable to pay parent teachers’ System-wide—Learn lessons to to adapt these effective programs to association fees, to increase inform the scale-up of RBF the education sector. teachers’ attendance and improve 4 RFB EDUCATION | EVIDENCE HOW DID THE of a set of simple, well-defined outputs and its performance on use, community satisfaction, and adherence to the policy of providing INTERVENTION a set of indicators and (b) the possibility of introducing incentives free education for all students. The achievement of the performance WORK? to teachers and administrative indicators was monitored and staff. Altogether the RBF project verified by each school’s SMC (in a The pre-pilot implemented in the allocated four different types of self-evaluation) in conjunction with 20 primary schools consisted of two payments to the schools and their school inspectors, an independent main RBF mechanisms: (a) school teachers. Depending on school size, verification organization, and local grants allocated to the School the additional allocated amount administrative staff from the Ministry Management Council (SMC) of each under RBF reached US$500 to of Basic Education. Finally, at the end school based on its achievement US$1000 per school and per year, to of the year, schools were allocated be compared with a regular national improvement bonuses based on budget provided by the state of the number of indicators on which less than US$200. The average they had achieved significant Incentives amount transferred to school was calculated to be sufficient to make a improvements over the course of the school year. Incentives were introduced at difference, but also sustainable for multiple points to encourage and Before the intervention, the money national budget. First, at the start improve implementation of annual of the school year, those schools collected by parent’s Teacher school action plans. These included: that fulfilled basic entry conditions, Association was essentially used 1. Entry payments to finance teachers which are not including signing contracts to Equity bonus for disadvantaged 2.  paid by the state. The additional participate in the pre-pilot and schools funding provided allowed SMCs to submitting annual action plans, 3. Performance bonuses effectively improve schooling and received initial entry payments to help 4. Improvement bonuses them to begin to implement their learning conditions: the SMCs used plans. Second, an equity bonus was these payments for two purposes. allocated at the start of the school They used 70 percent of the total year to the most disadvantaged grant to fund the implementation of schools, with higher payments going the school’s action plan, although to schools with fewer state-paid there were some restrictions on teachers. Third, at the end of each what types of expenditures could trimester, performance bonuses were be included. Typically, SMCs awarded to each school based on spent these funds on books and their achievement of predefined worksheets, learning materials, indicators that were under the tables and benches, supplies control of the SMC and school for vulnerable children such as administrators (and proportional shoes, and light infrastructure. to the size of each school). These The remaining 30 percent of each indicators covered aspects of school school’s grant was divided evenly access, quality, and governance, among teachers and head teachers including teacher attendance, lesson as incentive payments for their preparation, student retention, efforts in helping the schools budget transparency, textbook achieve the performance indicators. CAMEROON 5 WHAT WERE THE RESULTS? Overall, the implementation of improving in 15 of the 16 indicators in the third trimester. Some teachers the school grants and teacher and the bottom school improving in expected more than they got after incentives pre-pilot coincided only six indicators. Thirteen schools the first trimester, particularly in with improvements in several key improved in more than half of the small schools as the total amount indicators at the school level. indicators, while the remaining seven granted was linked to schools’ size. Although this cannot be interpreted as schools improved in only half or The lessons to be learned from this the causal effect of school grants and fewer of the indicators. Preliminary are: (a) to reduce the correlation teacher incentives, schools appeared analysis tends to show that larger between the size of the grant and to have improved their performance schools, and schools having a the size of the school to ensure that on several indicators over the course committed Director performed better. every school receives a minimum of the school year. On average, allocation and (b) to inform schools schools showed some improvement There was also high variance in upfront of the potential gains, in order in 10 of the 16 performance indicators the performance by indicator. to avoid demobilization effects. (62 percent) between the first and the There were large improvements in third trimester. the average school performance Community satisfaction with school on several indicators. For example, management during the pre-pilot This progress might be attributable the presence of teachers in was high. Overall, based on a survey to stakeholders’ understanding of the classroom, increased from of those communities in which the 20 incentive mechanism, given that there 64 percent in the first trimester to pre-pilot schools were located, their were only 20 schools in the pre-pilot. 97 percent in the second trimester, satisfaction with school management but this was followed by a decline averaged 82 percent. The communities However, there was considerable to 85 percent in the third trimester. became more involved in school variation among schools in terms Also, the share of teachers who management, which may have of how much they improved. There prepared lessons rose slightly from increased the transparency of schools’ was a large variation between the 85 percent in the first trimester to 90 financial management and of the improvement made by different percent in the second trimester, only implementation of school action plans. schools, with the top school to decline dramatically to 60 percent 6 RFB EDUCATION | EVIDENCE WHAT WERE THE LESSONS LEARNED? Several key lessons emerged from characteristics that were under the Second, it was extremely important the implementation of the school school’s control. In the pilot phase to communicate the specifics of the grants and teacher incentives and the subsequent scale-up of the RBF model to all concerned parties, pre-pilot. The first lesson relates scheme in Cameroon, the indicators including the local authorities, local to the need for the design of will be further simplified and reduced school administrators, teachers, the scheme to be simple and in number from 16 to 10. The design parents, and other members of the context-appropriate. Given the of any RBF scheme must also be community. Unless they have a clear relatively limited capacity of rural customized to the circumstances understanding of the incentives primary schools, it was important of the country in question and to and the indicators being measured, to simplify the design of the RBF the context of the education rather particularly those who can influence scheme in Cameroon in terms of its than assuming that the features that the performance indicators, there is objectives, the eligibility criteria for worked in the health sector will work little chance that the incentives will schools, the performance criteria, in education. For example, primary be effective. monitoring procedures, and funding schools differ from health facilities mechanisms. In particular, the in that they do not generate revenue, Third, it was critical to have performance indicators that were so the amount of money available simple, effective, and ready to selected were chosen because for RBF is lower for education. Costs use monitoring tools with which they were easy to understand and must also be factored in to ensure to monitor the activities and to monitor, were attributable at the scalability and sustainability of performance of each school. These the school level, and measured the incentive scheme. operational tools were developed CAMEROON 7 and technically validated during the feasibility study in 2017 and were not have been large enough to offset the generally poor school conditions Lessons instrumental in collecting reliable caused by the historically limited data on each school’s performance. resources budgeted for education in Cameroon. However, such a program Fourth, one of the major challenges must strike a balance between 1. Design must be of the pre-pilot was the low value an incentive amount that is high simple and appropriate of both the school grants and the enough to change teacher behavior incentives received by teachers, or improve school conditions but which may explain the failure of is modest enough to be financially some of the schools to improve their sustainable. performance on certain indicators. 2. Wide-spread The amounts paid to teachers Fifth, there were a few notable cases communication were low for several reasons —they of fraud in the monitoring of the required represented only 30 percent of the schools’ performance indicators. school grants, which were already To ensure the validity of any RBF limited, plus they had to be divided scheme, it is important for inspectors between all teachers at each school, to be vigilant in identifying such cases, and they were proportional to the there should be multiple parties size of the school, which meant involved in monitoring and verification, 3. Reliable and easy that teachers at smaller schools for any perverse incentives of monitoring tools got lower payments than those in the monitoring parties that might needed bigger schools. However, this added encourage fraud to be removed, and 30 percent was significant when the there should be a well-defined system overall size of the grant was sufficient, for addressing fraud when it arises. which was not always the case in All cases of fraud were sanctioned by smaller schools. This will be taken cancelling the relevant indicator for 4. Grant allocation into consideration when reworking that school. formula needs the grant allocation formula. The reworking incentive payments to teachers were The sixth and final lesson learned lower than comparable incentives was that head teachers played a being paid to health workers in the key role in the success of the RBF same communities, so there was pre-pilot as they were responsible for a perception that these amounts many aspects of the implementation 5. Fraud must be of the scheme at the school were insufficient to change teachers’ monitored and behavior. For this type of school level, including training teachers, eliminated grants program to be effective in coaching them on their performance, encouraging teachers to put in more managing the SMC and ensuring effort, the amount of funding available that it functions well, and ensuring for individual teacher incentives would that school funds are properly need to be higher than the amounts used. Variations in the quality of 6. Head teachers played that were paid during this pre-pilot, head teachers played a big role in a major role especially in smaller schools. Also, explaining variations in performance the school grants themselves may across schools. The pre-pilot CONCLUSION primary schools in Cameroon and yielded useful lessons to inform demonstrated that Following the successful feasibility the pilot and scale-up. In particular, with appropriate study and pre-pilot of school grants these lessons highlight the need for preconditions in and teacher incentives in Cameroon, these RBF mechanisms—with several critical preconditions to be in place for RBF to be effective: (a) a place, RBF was modifications based on lessons simple and context-appropriate RBF feasible in rural learned from pre-pilot—were design; (b) clear communication approved to be scaled up nationwide. to all key stakeholders about the schools in Cameroon This RBF scheme will initially be purpose and implementation of the and yielded useful piloted at 400 schools, and then scheme; (c) effective monitoring scaled up to approximately 3,000 lessons that informed schools in 2019–2024, and an tools to assess school and teacher performance; (d) sufficient levels a scale-up of the impact evaluation will be conducted of financing for school grants and to determine the efficacy of the intervention. nationwide scheme. While it is not teacher incentives; (e) systems possible at this stage to come to to deal with fraud and perverse definitive conclusions about the incentives; and (f) training and effect of this RBF program on capacity development for head education access or quality, the teachers because of their critical pre-pilot demonstrated that RBF role in ensuring the success of is feasible and effective in rural the scheme. 1 Institut National de la Statistique (2015). ECAM 4. Enquête Camerounaise auprès des ménages. Tendances, profils et déterminants de la pauvreté au Cameroun entre 2001-2014. 2 République du Cameroun, MINEPAT (2015). Elaboration de la Stratégie Nationale de Gouvernance. 3 République du Cameroun, MINEPAT (2015). Elaboration de la Stratégie Nationale de Gouvernance. PHOTO CREDITS: Cover: Project photo by World Bank/Vincent Perrot. Page 3: Project photo by World Bank/Vincent Perrot. Page 4: “Primary school in Cameroon” by GPE/Stephan Bachenheimer, license: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Page 5: Project photo by World Bank/Vincent Perrot. Page 6: Project photo by World Bank/Vincent Perrot. RESULTS IN EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN (REACH) worldbank.org/reach REACH is funded by the Government of Norway through NORAD, the Government of the United States of America through USAID, and the Government of Germany reach@worldbank.org through the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.