Toward Effective Education Financing and Accountability: Case Study and Conceptual Consideration

Information is increasingly viewed as a powerful tool for ensuring accountability in the education sector. Data have the potential to leverage change for improved service delivery and ultimately better learning outcomes largely because they increase the transparency of school quality. Yet in order to engender change, information must be easily accessible, which presents challenges in the developing context. 

Recognizing the value of transparency in education, this study focused on the feasibility of a centralized school accountability data source in Kenya. My Kenya is a proposed online data source, modeled after the My School initiative in Australia, which tracks three key indicators with the potential for immediate impact- teacher absenteeism, school financing, and the textbook-to-student ratio at the county level for Kenyan primary and secondary schools.  The online data source will empower parents to demand greater school accountability toward better student outcomes and administrators to track and advocate for greater equity in educational financing. This paper identified the largest barriers to a centralize data source and investigated a number of national school accountability projects developed on the international stage to glean lessons learned.