Community policing (polisi jamii) was officially introduced in Tanzania in 2006 as part of an ongoing police reform programme. In addition to attempting to improve communication between police and the public, the police have promoted ulinzi shirikishi (participatory security), whereby citizens are encouraged to form neighbourhood policing institutions to prevent and detect crime. This thesis presents the findings of research conducted in the city of Mwanza that explored the extent to which community policing has improved residents' perceptions of local security and constitutes a form of policing which is responsive, accountable and sustainable. Whilst ulinzi shirikishi is widely credited with having improved local safety, it has proved difficult to sustain collective action through community policing and the costs and benefits of participation have been unequally distributed across ‘communities'. These outcomes should be understood in terms of the context of how local development is organised and understood in Tanzania. Firstly, existing local governance institutions lack transparency and meaningful accountability mechanisms and are highly dependent upon personal preferences and capacity. Secondly, local development is politicised and liable to become subject to inter-party competition. Thirdly, historical understandings of ‘participation' in Tanzania tend to emphasise obligation and material contributions rather than popular influence over initiatives, however this is increasingly being contested in today's multiparty context. The apparent shortcomings of community policing are not necessarily inconsistent with police objectives for the reform, which often prioritise cost-effective crime prevention rather than the reorientation and ‘democratisation' of policing envisaged by advocates of community policing.

This thesis investigates the emerging policy vision and assumptions underlying the promotion of school self-evaluation (SSE) as an innovative strategy for school improvement in Kenya, and the ways in which they are understood and practiced by various stakeholders. My professional involvement in SSE policy development led me to think that too little was known about its practice. Therefore, I specifically explored the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of this evaluation process, focusing on social interaction and contextual factors at the school/community level through an exploratory qualitative case study and continuous professional reflection. By critically questioning linear, top-down policy assumptions, I sought multiple stakeholder viewpoints within contextual specificities in order to capture and understand the realities – complex, diverse and organic processes – on the ground. Accordingly, I employed interactionist and constructivist paradigms, and utilised interviews, observations and documentary analysis as sources. The findings suggest that there is a considerable gap between SSE policy expectations and its practice on the ground, while also highlighting some positive experiences and future potential. Stakeholders at all levels largely understand and accept the idea of participatory, inclusive and democratic SSE conceptually, but they have not yet embraced it practically. The education authority's monopoly on the power to evaluate schools is identified as a key systemic bottleneck that effectively restricts meaningful SSE practice on the part of school-level stakeholders who follow instructions from above in a regime of professional legitimacy. Conversely, study findings indicate that both collective and individual SSE approaches promoted in Kenya are feasible, policymakers' paternalistic concerns notwithstanding. Teachers were found to demonstrate their collective ability to apply the prescriptive SSE tool to fit their unique contexts and assess school quality. They also successfully engaged with individual SSE (action research) which, the thesis contends, can initiate a ‘positive spiral of change' through which teachers build their confidence based on small but real successes, transform perspectives and professional attitudes, and ultimately engage in self-reflective practices for school improvement. However, the thesis concludes that the Kenyan policy assumption of evidence-based school development remains largely theoretical, schools tending to engage in ad-hoc improvement through unsophisticated planning in the absence of systematic SSE. Overall, I argue that it is important to acknowledge and utilise the education authority's power and influence (i.e. the leadership of the Ministry of Education, and its Quality Assurance and Standards Directorate) in a positive manner that will lead to a more realistic and pragmatic approach to SSE promotion. Contending that institutionalising a ‘culture of learning' is the way forward, I present a scenario whereby SSE may lead to sustained school improvement with two key strategies: (i) merging individual and collective SSE; and (ii) combining internal and external school evaluation. Moreover, I argue that the education authority's monopoly on school evaluation should also be tackled so that an integrated system for quality improvement can be realised in Kenya. Based on the study findings, the thesis presents a number of policy recommendations including formal utilisation of the SSE tool; substantial stakeholder participation; enhanced teacher training; external quality assurance to validate SSE results; strengthened district-level peer learning and school leadership; and improved policy coordination and dissemination. Finally, I reflect on my professional position with renewed commitment to contribute to the achievement of quality education for all children.

School improvement in public schools remains a challenge in many developing countries, including Ghana. Many researchers have highlighted the need for strong headteacher leadership and the active participation of the community, including parents, in the efforts to improve public schools. Research in developed countries‟ education systems have brought to the surface some of the factors underpinning successful public schools, however in developing countries there has been a lack of research surrounding how headteacher leadership and community engagement with schools affect schooling outcomes. This lack of research has resulted in the use of recommendations tendered by global research regarding school effectiveness and school improvement to inform developing country policies on how to improve public education. In many cases, private schools have been used as the model for failing public schools, yet from national basic education certificate examinations (WAEC, 2012) it is evident that some public schools, even in disadvantaged areas, are managing to provide quality education. The key questions that this thesis explores are: What conditions prevail in high performing public schools serving disadvantaged communities? What has been the role of headteacher leadership and community participation in securing improvement of these schools? Thus, this study has sought to investigate the conditions prevailing in high performing public schools and what role school headteachers leadership and community engagement played in creating the environment conducive to effective teaching and learning. Using a qualitative case study research design data was collected through interviews, observations and documentary reviews to explore the views and experiences of headteachers, teachers and parents regarding the improvements in the schools. Results show that conditions, such as the existence of safe and protective classroom infrastructures, critical engagement of parents and community members in all aspects of the school‟s development, adoption of diverse proactive teaching and learning approaches; and the strong visionary and transformational leadership exhibited by the headteachers appear to have been driving forces in these successful schools. The thesis concludes with key recommendations for policy makers in developing countries on strategies that might be taken to turn failing public schools into more functioning schools. These recommendations include: • Targeting the beneficiaries of capitation grant to needy students or increasing the grant • Providing school infrastructure to take the burden from schools • Encouraging community participation in school improvement strategies • Enhancing competencies of headteacher leadership to influence school improvement strategies.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Psychologie des organisations : Metz : 2004. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Notes bibliographiques.

The tension between the leadership of technology and technology as a means of school improvement are still issues of debate. Researchers have argued that education management technology has yet to make a significant contribution to school improvement, while others have experienced small pockets of success. This study seeks to contribute to the debate by exploring the tension associated with the implementation of an education management information system (EMIS) in The Bahamas from the experiences of school leaders. More specifically, this thesis explores EMIS from the understanding of six principals in their schools and its contributions to their schools. This study develops a social constructivist view and relies on the case study approach. Among the major findings of the study was that EMIS was often perceived by principals to be associated with conflict and the primary uses of the technology were for generating report cards, facilitating school administrative tasks and monitoring. Principals' expressed concern for the lack of support from senior management and the impact of using the technology on their role as leader. As conflicts hindered the implementation of EMIS, principals adopted a shared leadership approach. This study offers pertinent information concerning the reasons why EMIS is underutilized and the important contributions of leadership to the successful implementation of the technology. Such information can be useful for understanding EMIS in education organizations.

New Public Management (NPM) – a global administrative discourse – has been controversial in its intentions, implications, and outcomes. It has been the focus of lively academic, political, and public debate, and has been subjected to extensive academic scrutiny over the last few decades. However, 'spatial analyses' of its global–national political implications remain underdeveloped. Thus, the purpose of the present thesis is to investigate the spatial politics of NPM as a global hegemonic discourse, by exploring its emergence, evolution, and current role in the dynamics of global capitalism and governance. The work examines the processes, technologies, and techniques through which governable spaces of governance have been constructed by NPM discourse. In terms of methodology, a critical discourse analysis is undertaken here of OECD annual reports from 1978 to 2011, as well as other OECD 'texts' that propagate NPM discourse. In terms of theory, the thesis draws on Foucault's notions of governmentality, disciplinary power, biopolitics, and heterotopia. The thesis concludes that NPM discourse creates a heterotopian textual space. It constructs a transnational governing space that is biopolitically governed through the exercise of specific heterotopic practices. Through the deployment of NPM discourse, neoliberal subjects have been constructed, and neoliberal governmentality has become transnational. This has transpired because NPM discourse operates as an interplay between heterotopias of deviation and heterotopias of compensation. Using a set of textual practices of compensation and deviation, NPM (re)constructs a utopia of neoliberalism, where NPM deviates and compensates not only national governments and their populations but also individual public organisations at the national and transnational levels. Through such deviation and compensation strategies, neoliberalism is perpetually (re)produced as an ideal type. To this end, various institutional technologies and techniques of differentiation, surveillance, and compensation/normalisation are deployed.

The continuing disadvantage that poor and marginalized communities face in low-income countries is well recognized but international initiatives and government policies still fall short of providing sustainable quality education. The recently published Global Monitoring Report 2013 – 2014 “Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All” recommends strategies for solving the quality crisis through attracting the best teachers, getting them where they are most needed and providing incentives to retain them. Few would dispute these strategies but their achievement is problematic, given the vastness of the challenge in a financially constrained global environment. This study is predicated on the acknowledgement that the strategies proposed provide too narrow a focus and that poor quality education is also due to contextual factors that have been relatively ignored. These contextual factors are investigated through this research. This research study explores community perceptions of school benefits as a lens through which to engage with marginalized rural communities' conceptualization of “quality” education. It utilizes Tikly and Barrett's (2011) framework for analysing quality education with its three key dimensions of inclusion, relevance and democracy. It investigates the factors and processes that are shaping perceptions of benefits within the three environments of policy-making, school and community. The research study uses a qualitative methodology, employing a critical stance, but engaging also with the insights of Bourdieu and Foucault viewing power as both repressive and productive. This research engages with the “regimes of truth” that have constrained social action as well as the process of discourse deconstruction and reconstruction that has shaped agency and facilitated social change. This is a multiple case study of four rural primary schools in marginalized communities in Sindh, Pakistan (two opened in 2002, two in 2007), using purposive sampling to maximize data heterogeneity. Data, mostly qualitative, was generated from semi-structured interviews with community leaders, school management committee members, parents and teachers. Focus groups were conducted with school graduates and teachers. Photographs were used as a participatory tool to facilitate interview and focus group discussions. The findings indicate that context-led policy, contextualized teacher training, pedagogy and curriculum and community leadership that facilitates agency are the key factors shaping perceptions of benefits. Emerging from these factors is both the employment of local teachers who can experience a transformational process that enables them to bring social change and a dynamic interaction between pedagogy and benefits. Positional benefits are highly valued with social skills being key to the development of social capital, which the findings indicate should be included in the discourse of “quality” education. The study provides empirical data demonstrating how the recent theoretical frameworks for quality education are being “fleshed out” in specific contexts and addresses issues raised in quality debates. It makes recommendations for the complementary role of non-government schools in the post-2015 EFA strategy and the provision of quality education in hard to reach areas characterized by poverty and marginalization in the global South.

This thesis is about change, and the impact of change on the restructuring of special educational needs provision. The impetus for my research came from my work with the National Association of Head Teachers, supporting school leaders in managing the education of a more diverse pupil population. The research relates to the Labour Government's policy to increase the number of children with more complex needs in mainstream schools. Following Baroness Warnock's (2005) call for a review of special educational needs, the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee carried out an ‘Inquiry'. Their final report (SEN: Third Report of Session 2005-06), identified high levels of dissatisfaction amongst parents and teachers, and it concluded that the Special Educational Needs framework was no longer fit for purpose. In response, the Labour Government stated that it was too early to carry out a review because their ‘Every Child Matters' initiative was still developing. However, they stated that, in future, local authorities would be required to demonstrate improved special educational needs provision when restructuring their overall educational provision. This significant response prompted me to explore the implementation of the restructuring of provision as several authorities were putting forward proposals for change during 2007-08. The research began in 2008. It is a piece of small-scale educational research which explores the perspectives of school leaders in one local authority and the local authority's documented evidence. The concepts of ‘inclusion' and ‘change' provided the foundation to develop my research study within a broad ‘constructivist interpretative' paradigm and, the direction to review relevant literature on inclusive education and on strategies for implementing change. It discusses the qualitative methods used to investigate my overarching research question: What is the nature and impact of change, in the restructuring of special educational needs provision? I set out to explore two aspects of the nature of change: the first objective was to investigate the process and the second was to investigate the impact of change. My intention was to tease out whether school leaders in mainstream schools, subject to competing government policies (‘inclusion' and ‘market' ideologies) would choose to increase their provision and the impact of proposed change on the individuals and schools involved. My fieldwork was carried out during 2008-09, and follow-up interviews were carried out with those respondents, who were directly involved in the restructuring of provision, during 2010-11. The findings illustrate the influence of individual values and attitudes and the importance of effective school leaders in driving forward reform. It describes the actions of the local authority during the process of implementing change and highlights the improvements that could be made during the stages of transition. Importantly, the significance is considered of internal and external influences that impact on the actions of school leaders and how they influenced the policies of the local authority. Each individual's, or body's, interaction within and between each level (i.e. national, local, school and individual levels), created an impact on the other levels, a process that was far from straightforward. A significant finding of the research was the importance of the interrelationship between these four dimensions, building on Fullan's (2003) tri-level reform. Although the findings demonstrated that to implement progressive change requires motivated school leaders, it also depends on the collaborative effort of all stakeholders involved. However, even with a concerted effort other unexpected events may alter its course: change may be influenced but it cannot be controlled. It is therefore important to develop and understand those strategies and dimensions that contribute to the effective implementation of ‘change' because, in the world of education, change is on going.

Educational subsidies are becoming important mechanisms in promoting access to education among many countries. In Ghana, subsidy for Secondary Education is available to all students irrespective of their income backgrounds with the government granting only partial subsidies. Despite the strong political commitment to redress historical inequities in educational funding mechanisms, policy actions in relation to Secondary Education Financing in Ghana appear to fall short of achieving the desirable goals when viewed through a vertical equity philosophical perspective. It was against this background that this study sought to explore the management of educational subsidies in public Senior High Schools in Ghana and its implications for enhancing meaningful access and participation in Secondary Education. Although the education financing field presents a landscape and proliferation of theories, this study employed the vertical equity theory as its theoretical foundation. The study employed the concurrent triangulation research strategy by incorporating both positivist and interpretivist paradigms (combining both qualitative and statistical analysis). This was necessary because of the wide range of data needed to draw the necessary conclusion on effective funding mechanism for Secondary Education. Heads of Senior High Schools, management of the Secondary Education Division of the Ghana Education Service and parents of students at the secondary school level participated in the study. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Interview guides were used in the collection of qualitative data while statistical data were collected from EMIS. Statistical data analysis was done using Microsoft Excel. The qualitative data from the interviews were thematically analysed using data transcription. The study found out that, social accountability mechanisms to monitor how heads of schools utilised their allocated funds are highly ineffective due to lack of transparency. There were weak internal controls and monitoring systems. The releases of the subsidy have been unduly delayed due to government inability to release the funds on time. The subsidy as a mechanism of financing Secondary Education in Ghana is quite inequitable; giving students with different needs the same amounts of resources. There is the need to verify the enrolment figures submitted by heads of schools for the subsidies before disbursement of funds are made while ensuring that the relevant stakeholders are involved in the management of the funds. Government alone cannot afford to provide secondary education hence a cost sharing policy seems to be the optimal choice in providing adequate funds to schools. However, it is essential to ensure that the poor who lack the ability to pay in a cost sharing system are targeted and their education paid for by the government. Again policies in relation to education financing must consider the principles of equity, affordability, adequacy and efficiency. The implication therefore is the formulation of an objective, targeting mechanism to cater for those who cannot pay.

This thesis explores the development of a multi-stakeholder partnership model using a multiple case study research design. Specifically this study examines the rationale for the launch of the Rajasthan Education initiative, its development and its impact on educational development and reaches conclusions about the scalability and sustainability of multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) in the context of Rajasthan. The literature review shows that there is insufficient independent research evidence to support the widespread claims that public private partnerships (PPPs), of which MSP is a new ‘avatar', are able to deliver results in terms of developmental gains and added value. This paucity of evidence and profusion of claims is partly explained by the fact, that the research that has been commissioned is not independent and its conclusions have been shaped by vested interests of those promoting the organisations they claim to evaluate. In particular organisations associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF) have been projecting PPPs and programmes of corporate responsibility as a way to engage for-profit organisations and enhance the effectiveness of external support for the delivery of services to basic education. Alongside this not-for-profit PPPs are seldom scrutinised in terms of public accountability, value for money, scalability, or sustainability partly due to the voluntary nature of such inputs to the public system. I believe my research makes a new and unique contribution to the independent evaluation of state enabled, not-for-profit MSPs in action. The research selected eight formal partnerships for case study which were selected using a matrix of organisational characteristics, scale and scope of interventions. The case studies are organised into four thematic groups i.e, School adoption, ICT based interventions, teachers' training and universalisation of elementary education in underserved urban localities. Each case study is examined using a framework which highlights three dimensions. These are i) the design of the partnership, ii) stakeholder involvement and intra agent dynamics and iii) the Governance of the partnership. A cross case analysis of the eight partnerships is used to arrive at conclusions about MSPs in Rajasthan. This uses the concept of double contingency of power (Sayer 2004), and specifically the concept of causal power and causal susceptibilities and Stake's (2006) multiple case analysis, to discuss the commonalities and differences across partnerships and emerging themes while cross analysing the partnerships. I have engaged in interpretivist inquiry and sought to understand the workings of an MSP which involves businesses and CSR groups alongside NGOs and government agencies with an aim to place Rajasthan on a fast development track. Rather than looking for an ideal type MSP, I problematise the MSPs in Rajasthan as I explain the workings of an MSP model in action. Given this methodological perspective, I have used semi structured interviews, observations of the partnership programmes in action, and document analysis as methods to collect and corroborate data for this study. The study concludes that the exiting MSP arrangements in REI are not scalable, unsustainable and have very limited impact. Moreover, the MSPs are unstable and reflect fluid inter-organisational evolution, as well as ambiguous public accountability. There was no purposeful financial management at the REI management level. In addition the exit routes for partners supporting interventions were not planned, resulting in the fading away of even those interventions that showed promise in accruing learning gains for children, and by schools and teachers. Non-scalability and lack of sustainability can be inferred from the fact that the partners do not have a long term view of interventions, lack sustained commitment for resource input and the interventions are implemented with temporary work force. The instability of the partnerships can be explained through the absence of involvement of government teachers and communities. Also economic and political power dominated the fate of the programmes. In this MSP it was clear that corporate social responsibility (CSR) was a driving force for establishing the MSP but was not backed by continued and meaningful engagement. The ‘win-win' situation of greater resources, efficiency and effectiveness, which formed the basic premise for launching the REI was not evident in reality. MSPs are gaining currency globally. This research points to the fact that much more intentional action needs to be taken to ensure that partnerships such as these have a sustained impact on development. The problems and issues of education are historically, politically and socially embedded. Any action that does not take this into account and which is blind to the interests of different stakeholders in MSPs, will surely fall short of achieving what it set out to do. Further independent research examining the ambitions and realities of other MSPs is needed to inform policy development and implementation. This is essential for achieving the goals of education for all before investing further in what appears to be a flawed modality to improve access, equity and outcomes in education.