Representation and Participation in Practice

Decentralisation of education management is premised on the assumption that it will strengthen democratic processes by ensuring greater participation in the decision-making process at both school and community levels (World Bank, 2003). It is also expected to

lead to efficiency, and to improve accountability and education delivery (Purkey & Smith, 1985). This requires the devolution of responsibilities to decentralised levels, with a strong sense of ownership and participation through community based voluntary service in the affairs of schools.

The Government of Ghana‟s policy in establishing SMCs was to create a new school governance landscape based on community participation, as well as the devolution of power to the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies. Thus, the institution of SMCs, together with the encouragement of the formation of PTAs, was supposed to accomplish these objectives. In the discussion that follows, I examine the extent to which the existence of SMCs and PTAs has facilitated representation and participation in practice and thereby enhanced the relationship between communities and schools.

Based on the findings of this study, I argue that many of the theoretical assumptions and policy expectations about improved representation and participation are evident only notionally and have not been put into practice as anticipated, particularly in poor rural contexts such as the study areas. I further argue that in such contexts, it is often local power groupings and the relatively better educated members of the community who become the new brokers of decision-making and, in collaboration with school management, close the spaces for genuine representation and participation by others.

In theory, under decentralised education management, schools and communities are expected to share the responsibility of school improvement. Although this idea was echoed by the SMC, PTA members and other parents in this study, they also pointed out that head teachers and the teaching staff in particular, did not necessarily see shared responsibility as advancing the democratic decision-making process in the school. Rather, participation for school management often meant information sharing after decisions had been made or at best limited consultation, with the head teacher acting as sole intermediary between school staff and the SMC or the PTA chairman.

Such findings are corroborated by the conclusions of Lewis & Naidoo (2004) in their studies of school governance in South Africa, where respondents indicated that in practice, consultation processes were invariably managed by school principals in their own interests.

Tikly (2008) argues that participation means the right of different groups – including those less powerful than the dominant group and those who have been historically marginalised – to have a say in education decision-making. However, „having a say‟ requires space and genuine opportunity for all who have an interest in the school to voice their opinions and debate the direction in which the school should develop. This was seldom observed to occur as expressed by some SMC and community members, particularly in the Kuku community.

Stakeholder views from Kuku and CBS reveal that to a very large degree, the participation of the community in school governance was piecemeal and dependent almost entirely on the goodwill of the school or the initiative of individual community members, or parents who were willing to acquiesce to the existing strictures of participation.

In practice, participation was limited to matters that served the interests of the school, which were determined by the head teacher sometimes with the support of the SMC or PTA chairman. Often, the head teacher, the SMC and the PTA chairman simply made a joint decision as to who should be consulted on matters affecting the school, with most contributory discussions and decisions made outside the context of SMC or PTA meetings. Community involvement was thus largely restricted to fund-raising and other support16, being less concerned with decisions on broad education policy issues and school organisation. Teachers also resented community involvement in areas that they considered professional, which obviously created a barrier that limited interest and participation in school governance.

The result was that to a great extent, participation depended on what the community was „allowed‟ to do by the head of the school or the SMC. In essence, then, community members were denied the right to participate in decision-making. This confirms the observation of McGinn & Welsh (1999) that professionals and bureaucrats have a tendency to protect the invasion of their professional spaces. Participation was therefore a matter of power and influence, and those (the head teacher, SMC chairman, opinion leaders, etc.) who wielded it set and controlled the agenda.

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Such support included the provision of tables and chairs, roofing sheets and other requirements that arose from time to time.

Other findings of the study indicate, the SMC itself did not seem to be working as the de facto representative of the community since decisions were sometimes made outside the formal structure, consultation being sought with informal groups instead, such as the „local elites‟. This development reflects similar centralisation characteristics that decentralisation sought to change by the creation of spaces for increased participation and representation at the local level.

However, given the role played by this elite group, ignoring them in any discussion on community participation in schools betrays a myopic appreciation of the different contexts in which schools operate. As evidenced in this study, these individuals and groups are those who have the goodwill of community members and through whom community mobilisation is effected. An appraisal of the roles of such informal power groups provides significant feedback for policy review and a subsequent re-conceptualisation and reconstruction of policy and practice.

One may argue that actions such as taking decisions without the involvement of some members of the SMC and the community may not have been done intentionally, because as the evidence indicates, some community members had to choose between serving voluntarily on the SMC or PTA or attending to their subsistence occupations.

The issue, then, is if community members put significant premium on the priority of subsistence, this has implications for regions with a high prevalence of poverty, since only a few people have the „luxury‟ of time to participate in school affairs. In this case, those perceived to be „hijacking‟ the SMC and aligning themselves with the school at any given time might be the only ones willing to take up such responsibility.

Other members of the SMC also felt that because they were illiterate, they did not have the requisite insight to express their views or opinions on educational matters, hence their unwillingness to articulate their concerns and interests to the head teacher or the SMC leadership. Thus, in a sense, their lack of education seemed to have limited their ability to exert their opinions on school excellence issues. The notion that community participation in education meant that stakeholders should participate beyond episodic and mere

constituency representation in shaping the way schools were governed rarely occurred in this context.

Thus, spaces for real community participation in which all members of the SMC and PTA took part in the decision-making processes informed by community issues about school improvement rarely took place as expected by policy. In effect, although decentralisation policies aim at strengthening local democracy, participation and efficiency in service delivery, they do not fully consider the conditions under which this might be achieved. Pryor (2005, p.196) points out that the Ministry of Education‟s shallow understanding of rural contexts with respect to its policy has led to pseudo-participation, and suggests that without a more sophisticated grasp of rural community life and work, the failure of decentralisation policies may be difficult to avoid.

This study further identified other complexities such as the impact of foster parenting and local politics on community engagement with schools. However, sometimes, it may not be the issue of lack of knowledge or understanding of these contextual differences, but rather, the willingness and the political will of policy makers to reflect contextual considerations in policies (Essuman, 2008).