Final Survey for the Impact Evaluation of School Based Management in Sri Lanka

Abstract

A project for Randomized Evaluation of School Based Management (SBM) was conducted by the National Education Research and Evaluation Centre (NEREC) with the assistance from the World Bank to assess the effectiveness of SBM in Sri Lanka.

This project has been implemented in two stages. During the first stage, a baseline survey was conducted using four different models such as 50 treatment schools with Report Card, 50 treatment schools without Report Card, 50 control schools with Report Card and 50 control schools without Report cards on 17th March, 2008. During the second stage, the final survey was conducted to assess the impact of SBM in the above four different models on 10th October, 2009.

The main objective of the project was to assess the implementation of SBM with a view to providing a feedback to the policy makers to take appropriate steps to improve the quality of education in Sri Lanka.

The final report addressed the main objectives of the project, presented data, qualitative and quantitative analysis of such data, finally providing findings and recommendations for the improvement of schools.

In the findings, data generated from the questionnaire administered to principals revealed that there isn’t much difference between SBM schools and Non SBM schools with regard to the main features of these schools. In addition, there were no substantial differences of functioning of these schools in terms of management of teachers, students and other management functions.

Test results of Grade 4 students in 2006 and 2008 revealed that the achievement level of students in all three subjects, namely First Language, Mathematics and English are better in non SBM schools than those of SBM schools. Likewise test results of Grade 8 also revealed that all three subjects namely First Language, Mathematics and Science are better in Non SBM schools than those of SBM schools.

A report card was administered to 50 treatment schools and 50 control schools and the data gathered revealed that the report card has not made any substantial impact on learning achievement of students in SBM schools.

The factor analysis done in order to identify the factors that influence learning achievement of student at Grade 4 and Grade 8 revealed that factors associated with school are the most important factors that influence academic success of students.

Observation and interviews conducted in a sample of schools identified negative and positive features of schools which have implemented SBM and made a few suggestions to improve those schools.

Recommendations such as need for training of school principals, teachers, committee members, conducting awareness programmes for parents, establishing better monitoring system by authorities and concentrating on the teaching learning process by all who are involved in the programme, were made in order to improve the school system in Sri Lanka

Finally, SBM is not a ‘silver bullet’, as expressed by some scholars. ‘When implemented under right conditions, it is one of several strategies to be addressed simultaneously in a constantly changing mix of strategies that involve different levels of governance in a school system’.