Madagascar - Education and training in Madagascar : towards a policy agenda for economic growth and poverty reduction (Vol. 1 of 2) : A summary of the key challenges

Report No. 22389-MAG Madagascar Education and Training in Madagascar Towards a Policy Agenda for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Volume 1: A Summary of the Key Challenges June 22, 2001 Human Development IV Africa Region Document of the World Bank  CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS (Exchange Rate Effective June 21, 2001) Currency Unit = Malagasy Francs (MGF) MGF 1.00 = US$0.000150 US$1 = MGF 6,657 Fiscal Year: January 1St- December 31st Abbreviations and Acronyms AGENATE - Agence Nationale d'Evaluation ARIF - Association Regionale Inter-professionnelle pour le developpement de la Formation professionnelle BEPC - Brevet d'Enseignement du Premier Cycle CEPE - Certificat d'Etudes Primaires Elementaires CERES - Centre de Ressources des Personnels des Etablissements d'Enseignement Technique et Professionnel CFP - Centre de Formation Professionnelle CiSco - Circonscription Scolaire (school district) CNFTP - Conseil National de la Formation Technique et Professionelle CNTEMAD - Centre National de T6le Enseignement de Madagascar CONFEMEN - Conference des Ministres de l'Education des Pays ayant le fran,ais en partage DEA - Dipl6me d'Etudes Approfondies DETP - Direction de I'Enseignement Technique et Professionnel DEUG - Dipl6me d'Enseignement Universitaire General DGFTP - Delegation Generale du Gouvemement a l'Enseignement Technique et a la Formation Professionnelle DirESEB - Direction de l'Enseignement Secondaire et de l'Education de Base ENI - Ecole Nationale d'Informatique ENS - Ecole Normale Superieure ENSET - Ecole Normale Superieure pour l'Enseignement Technique ESP - Ecole Superieure Polytechnique ESSA - Ecole Superieure des Sciences Agronomiques FIFP - Fonds d'Intervention a la Formation Professionnelle FRAM - Fikambanan'ny Ray-Amandrenin'ny Mpianatra (school-based parents association). GIREFTP - Groupements Inter-Regionaux d'Etablissements de Formation Technique et Professionnelle HIPC - Highly Indebted Poor Countries IHSM - Institut Halieutique des Sciences Marines IOSTM -Institut d'Odontologie-Stomatologie Tropicale de Madagascar IST -Institut Superieur de Technologie LTP -Lycee Technique Professionnel MBDPA -Ministere charge du Budget et du Developpement des Provinces Autonomes METFP - Ministere de l'Enseignement Technique et Professionnel MinESEB -Ministere de l'Enseignement Secondaire et de I'Education de Base MinESup - Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur ONCE -Observatoire National des Comp6tences pour l'Emploi ONETFOPP - Office National de lEnseignement Technique et de la Formation Professionnelle Privd PASEC - Programme d'Analyse des Systemes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN PAT - Personnel Administrif et Technique PDES - Plan Directeur de l'Enseignement Superieur PDI - Plan de Developpement Institutionnel PNAE - Programme National pour l'AAmelioration de l'Education PRAGAP - Programme de Renforcement et d'Amelioration de la Gestion Administrative et Pedagogique TEFISO - Teknica Fiofanana Socialista Vice President: Callisto Madavo Country Director: Hafez Ghanem Sector Manager: Arvil Van Adams Task Team Leader: Jee-Peng Tan  Madagascar Education and Training in Madagascar: Towards a Policy Agenda for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Volume 1: A Summary of the Key Challenges This summary is a self-contained synthesis of some key policy challenges in the three main education sub-sectors in Madagascar. It is based on the analysis documented in volume 2, the main report.   Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 A medium-term strategy for educational development 2 The economic development context and efficiency concerns 2 Equity concerns 4 Primary education 5 Low survival rates to the end of the primary cycle 6 Large disparities in survival patterns across population groups 6 High rates of grade repetition 7 Policies to improve the pattern of student flow 7 Weak link between funding and student learning 10 Secondary Education 11 The balance between the lower and upper secondary cycles 12 Economies of scale in service delivery and cost management in small schools 13 Vocational and technical education and training 14 The need for training 14 The weak demand for training and system's mediocre efficiency 15 An overly fragmented "map" of training institutions 15 A top heavy and hence costly management structure 16 Higher education 17 The system's lagging internal and external efficiency 17 An overly-fragmented and under-specialized "university map" 18 Weak management of over-time teaching and non-teaching personnel (PATs) 19 Improving management of education system 20 Mobilizing an effective response to the challenges 21 Tables Table 1: Output of graduates and their absorption on the labor market, Madagascar circa 1999 4 Table 2: Entry and survival rates in primary education, 1997 6 Table 3: Incomplete schools, multi-grade teaching, and time utilization in public and private 9 schools, 1998 Table 4: Time utilization of teachers in secondary schools, 1998 13 Table 5: Students in public vocational and technical education, 1998-1999 15 Table 6: Supply of characteristics of public vocation and technical education, 1999 16 Table 7: Enrollments in higher education, 1998-1999 17 Table 8: Supply of characteristics of the university faculty sector, 1998-99 18 Table 9: Volume of overtime teaching, 1997-98 19 Table 10: Administrative and technical support staff (PATs) 20 Table 11: Summary of key challenges 22 Figures Figurel: Profile of schooling in primary and secondary education 1998 6 Figure 2: High dropout and repetition rates make Madagascar's education system very inefficient 7 Figure 3: Relation between number of publicly-paid teachers and number of pupils across public 8 primary schools, 1998. Figure 4: Per-pupil spending and test scores among second graders across public primary schools, 10 1998 Figure 5: Unit costs in public lower secondary schools according to size of enrollments 13 Figure 6: Educational qualification of the workforce, 1999 14 Figure 7: Administrative expenses as a share of total current spending, 1998 16 Map IBRD 20035R1  ii Acknowledgements This summary and the main report are the products of close collaboration between the World Bank and the Government of Madagascar. The Bank team was led by Jee-Peng Tan (AFTHD), with Gerard Lassibille (Institut de Recherche sur l'Economie de l'Education, France) as the main team member; Lucia Navarro (Universidad de Malaga, Spain), Julia Lane (American University, USA) and Dandan Chen (YPP) as ad-hoc members providing specific inputs; Alain Mingat (AFTH2) as overall advisor; and Zafiris Tzannatos (MNSHD), Keith Hinchcliffe (SASED), and Jaap Bregman (AFTH4) as peer reviewers. The study benefited from overall management support from Arvil Van Adams, Hafez Ghanem, and Michael Sarris. The Malagasy technical working group consisted of senior policy and technical staff from the three education ministries, as well as representatives from other parts of government, as follows: Albert Rafalimanana, Dominique Fofa, and Joseph Sylvain, with overall management support from Andre Juckely Boto, and help with data compilation from Rabiary Andriaherisaina, Roger Andrianaivoson, Georges Gniarck, Jean-Claude Landry, Mariamo, Roland Rabeson, Honor6 Rajerison, Jos6 Rakotonaivojaoniriana, Jean Pierre Rakotovao, Jacqueline Ralisiarisoa, and Jules Razafimandimby (MinESEB); Daniel Robijaona, Emmanuel Rakotovao, and Ernest Randriamanampisoa, with overall management support from Hyacinthe Ralantonirina (METFP); Ying Vah Zafilahy, Chantal Rahalison, and Adolphe Randriantsoa, with overall management support from Lucien Rabenantoandro Rakotomanantsoa and help with data from Elisabeth Dama, Lala Rambeloson, and Daniel Razafimandimby (MinESup); Fleurette Nirinaharindrasana (MBDPA); Heri-zo Ralambomahay (PAIGEP/CTRSP/STA); and Harivelo Rajemison and Eric Ramilison (INSTAT/MADIO). Members of the technical working group wrote background papers (see Govt. of Madagascar 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, Nirinaharindrasana 2000; Rajenison 2000; Ralambomahay 2000; Ramnilision 2000), as well as provided critical help in assembling the databases used for the anlysis presented in the report. The work has benefited from inputs of various kinds from others as well, including N. Andrianaivo, C. Andrianalimanana, F. Chenakarnkul, R. Kalidindi, C. Kostopoulos, E. Murray, A. Onivololona, S. Paternostro, T. Rabenandrasana, E. Rabeson, J. Rabetokotany, V. Rahelimanantsoa, M. Ranaivoarivelo, A. Ranarisoa, D. Randriamanampisoa, D. Ramiandrisoa, R. Raoilison, J. Razafindravonona, S. Sosale, A. Velompanahy, D. Viens and J. Zalduendo. Interactions with the following representatives of the donor community and NGOs have also been helpful: 0. Akpaka (UNICEF); P. G. Le Boul and G. Thuaudet (Cooperation Franais-e ; B. Coquelin (UNFPA); V. Hubert (EU); P. Lambiliotte (Aide et Action); Y. Polard (Association Fran_caise des Volontaires du Progres); J. Randrianandrasana (UNESCO); and L. Ramanarivo (UNDP). The report has been financed by the World Bank with contributions from the governments of Madagascar, France and Norway.  Education and Training in Madagascar: Towards a Policy Agenda for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Introduction 1. The prospects for educational development are excellent in Madagascar today in light of the increasingly favorable policy environment for the sector. During the first half of the 1990s, public spending on education relative to the GDP declined by more than 40 percent, coinciding with a five-fold rise in the country's external debt interest payment. As the debt service burden began to ease after 1995, public spending on education began to recover, reaching in 2000 the same level of spending as at the start of the 1990s, around 3.0 percent of GDP. In the context of the government's strategy for poverty reduction, the sector's claim on public spending is expected to grow bigger still, rising to a projected 4.1 percent of GDP in 2003. At the same time, following the debt reduction agreement recently concluded with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, an estimated savings of $50 million in interest payment are expected to materialize annually for at least the next ten years. About 25 percent of the savings is being earmarked for spending on education, further boosting public spending on education to a projected 4.3 percent of GDP in 2003, a level of spending that is comparable to the average among low-income countries benefiting from debt reduction under the HIPC Initiative. 2. Given the large investment of resources involved, the education sector is rightly expected to make a significant contribution to the government's poverty reduction agenda. For policy makers and managers in the sector a key challenge is to identify sound directions for sector development in the medium- and long-term, and to align spending priorities and intra- sectoral policies accordingly. What then are the strategic options in this regard? Beyond fixing broad sectoral directions, policy makers also face the more immediate task of organizing and structuring the system to improve service delivery. What obstacles stand in the way of better performance, particularly in terms of educational access and outcomes among the poorest segments of the population? How can the government mount an effective policy response to overcome these constraints? 3. This note is intended as a contribution to the national dialogue on these questions. It summarizes the main findings of an education sector study that was recently completed by the World Bank in collaboration with the government of Madagascar and other partners. The results pertain only to the formal education system and are more appropriately viewed as a diagnosis of the main problems that hamper the system's performance, than as an evaluation of its achievements. Further, to the extent that the analysis relies on data that are only as recent as the  2 late 1990s, the findings obviously do not take full account of the impact of the latest reforms implemented as part of PNAE2, the government's education sector development plan launched in 1997. Nonetheless, the picture that emerges is that substantial scope remains for improvement throughout the system. Policy makers are in the enviable position of being faced with choices that can truly propel the education system's expansion along an efficient and equitable path, thereby contributing to the country's medium-term objective of achieving rapid economic growth and sustained reduction in poverty. A medium-term strategy for educational development 4. An overall medium-term strategy for the sector can be articulated by considering broad efficiency and equity goals. The former refers to the consistency between the relative priority across education sub-sectors, and the country's current economic conditions and their likely evolution in the coming years; the latter refers to disparities in the access to schooling across population groups as well as the distribution of public spending among them. The findings of the education sector study suggests that efficiency as well as equity goals in education would be served by a medium term strategy with the following orientation: Universalize basic education of reasonable quality while closely linking expansion of other levels and types of education and training to labor market demand. 5. This strategy accords well with the government's vision for poverty reduction which relies on two broad pillars: (a) maximizing overall economic growth; and (b) ensuring inclusion of the poor in the process by enlarging their capacity both to contribute to growth and to take advantage of the opportunities to escape from poverty as the economy expands. 6. The economic development context and efficiency concerns. Madagascar has the typical dualistic economy that is characteristic of most low-income countries: a dominant agricultural and informal sector employing the vast majority of the workforce, and a tiny modern sector. While this dualistic structure is likely to persist for some time, the economy's growth path will probably conform to the following common pattern: (a) a slowly growing modern sector as reflected in its share of the GDP and employment; and (b) rising labor productivity in the traditional sector which then frees up labor for work in the modern sector. 7. Investments in human capital play an important role in responding to and facilitating the foregoing processes of economic transformation, addressing skills needs in both the modem as well as traditional sectors:  3 * For the modem sector, investments in technical and vocational education, and in post- secondary education are essential, but must be calibrated to the labor market's absorptive capacity. International experience shows beyond doubt that the growth and development of the modem economy depend primarily on sound macro-economic policies. Thus, even though a shortage of educated labor, whether in quantity or quality, can often constrain economic growth, a surplus would almost certainly not accelerate growth but would instead lead to unemployment and under-employment among the educated, and by implication, result in a wastage of public resources and produce frustration among those affected. To minimize these adverse outcomes, it would make sense to allow labor market signals to drive the expansion of vocational and technical education and post basic levels of education. * For agriculture and the informal sector, where the economic activities are highly diverse, the available evidence suggests that basic education is the most effective form of human capital investment. It improves the productivity of farmers and other workers in the traditional economy, while also contributing significantly to broader social objectives, including better health and greater social equity. For countries at Madagascar's current level of economic development, basic education yields far and away the highest economic and social returns across levels and types of education. 8. In relation to the foregoing assessment, Madagascar's current situation is highly unbalanced, as table 1 suggests. The education system produces far too many graduates at the highest levels: for example, 3,700 post-secondary graduates currently exit the system annually to compete for the 2,500 new jobs available each year requiring this level of education. At the same time, too few graduates are produced at the lower levels of the system: about two-thirds of each cohort of young people enter the workforce with either no schooling or with less than the full five years of primary schooling. 9. A strategy for education sector development must obviously take into account the current imbalance and prioritize accordingly in favor of basic education. To ensure that post- basic education develops in tandem with the labor market's absorptive capacity, it would be appropriate to create and implement selection mechanisms to regulate student flow through the system, particularly between cycles of schooling. Such mechanisms would improve on the current situation where selection occurs by default through massive dropping out within cycles of schooling throughout the system.  4 Output from the education system Annual flow of new jobs a/ Number in each cohort Number ofjobs Educational attainment ('000) Sector/type of employment ('000) No schooling 57 Agriculture 195 .= Incomplete primary 138 281 .5 3 Complete without CEPE 24 Informal sector ? Complete with CEPE I Incomplete lower sec. 17 t t Q X i : i ~~~~~~~~~ ~~Small firms ? Complete without BEPC 17 Comteize with0030E2IJt0t fiis& eLVII V X 18 10. Equity concems. The performance of the education system in this regard also leaves much to be desired at present. The share of public spending on education benefiting children from the richest 20 percent of Malagasy households is five times the share that benefits children from the poorest 20 percent. Among twelve other developing countries for which similar data are available, only Guinea has a higher ratio; and among the remaining countries, the corresponding ratio ranges between 1.2 and 2.8. From a longitudinal perspective, the current structure of the education system is such that the best educated 10 percent in any birth cohort claim an estimated 64 percent of the public spending on education accumulated by the cohort as it passes through the education system. Again, the result is much more inequitable in Madagascar than elsewhere in the world. For low-income countries in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, the corresponding share is, on average, less than half as high. Simulations  5 show that the picture in Madagascar can be improved dramatically by focussing on improving basic education, particularly survival rates at the primary level. 11. To summarize, the results of the education sector study strongly suggests that a sector development strategy that extends basic education of adequate quality to all children, while calibrating the expansion of the other levels to the rhythm of economic activity and trends in the demand for qualified labor, would be both efficient and equitable. In the sections below, this paper summarizes what such a strategy might imply in terms of policy challenges in each of the education sub-sectors. Primary education 12. At the 2000 Dakar Education For All Forum, basic education was defined as including the primary cycle as well as the first cycle of secondary schooling. In Madagascar's current context, the primary cycle continues to warrant top priority, however, not least because the system's performance at this level remains very weak. Survival rates are low, particularly among children from poor families, while grade repetition occurs much too frequently and student learning remains highly inadequate. Many of these problems reflect weak management of the allocation of teachers across schools, poor organization of time use, and ineffective oversight of the pedagogical process in schools and classrooms. Based on the results of the sector study, the key policy challenges in primary education would appear to be the following: * Improve survival rates to the end of the primary cycle and reduce grade repetition; * Rationalize teacher allocation across schools and improve the efficiency of time utilization by teachers; and * Enhance student learning by ensuring adequate provision of teaching materials, but especially by improving management of the pedagogical process in schools and classrooms.  6 13. Low survival rates to the end of the primary cycle Figure 1 offers a graphic illustration of the problem. While the share children who enter first grade is respectably high at 81 percent, only 33 percent of the I entrants reach the end of the cycle, Figure 1: Profile of schooling in primary and secondary education 1998 implying that only 27 percent of the children in each birth cohort attain the 1.0 full five years of primary schooling. This 0.8 poor outcome is clearly undesirable, 0.6 given that children generally require at 0.4 least 4 years of schooling of reasonable quality to become permanently literate 0.2 and numerate as adults, skills that will 0.0 2 _ 1 2 3 ~4 5 6 7 8 9 0 I 12 enhance their economic productivity as well as their chances of escaping from Grade poverty. 14. Large disparities in survival patterns across population groups. To Madagascar's credit, differences in schooling outcomes between boys and girls are limited, unlike the situation in many low-income countries, and disparities across provinces are also not as large as those observed in elsewhere. Even so, ae t a k ) f: \ xwadl po:SraeoSS Cen rate the lagging performance in two Madaga3car 4adagascar &I8 33 27 of the provinces is noteworthy: in By province Toliara, the rate of entry to grade Antlananarvo 93 48 44 1 reaches only 58 percent, while Antsiranana 86 43 37 in Toliara and Fianarantsoa the PFiianarasoa 77 22 17 survival rate to the last grade in Mahajanga 74 34 25 the primary cycle reaches only 22 lTamasiia 86 31 27 Toiata 58 23 13 and 23 percent respectively (table By locality 2). As a result, the full cycle of Urbian 99 61 60 primary schooling is attained by Rural 75 16 12 only 13 and 17 percent, By household income respectively, of each cohort of Richest 20% 99 70 70 Pooresi 40% 66 9 6 children in the two provinces. P . _ _ 15. In Madagascar, the most striking disparities are between urban and rural areas and across income groups. Whereas 60 percent of urban children achieve a complete primary education, the corresponding share is only 12 percent among rural children. The gap by income  7 group is even wider, with 70 percent of the children from the richest 20 percent of families attaining a complete primary education, compared with only 6 percent among children from the poorest 40 percent of the families. Differences in entry rates are part of the reason for this outcome: while nearly all the children from the richest families enter grade l, only two-thirds do so among those from the bottom 40 percent. An even more important reason is the disparities in survival rates:70 percent among children from the richest families, compared with only 9 percent among children from the bottom 40 percent. These results suggest that the country's poverty reduction strategy would be meaningful only if substantial efforts for improvement are directed at children from poor families, especially those in rural areas. 16. High rates of grade repetition. In addition to the problem of low survival rates, the Malagasy education system also suffers from one of the highest rates of grade repetition in the world, averaging about 31 percent for the system as a whole. Such a high rate Figure 2: Hig dropout and repetition rates make is wasteful not only because repeaters Madagascar's education system very inefficient take longer to complete their studies and 1.0 Hz therefore cost more to educate, but also o.s Ii