Gouvernement ouvert dans l'éducation : les comités de gestion scolaire en Afrique subsaharienne

Open government in education: school management committees in Sub-Saharan Africa

School management committees (SMCs) represent a major break in the functioning of the education service in sub-Saharan Africa. Introducing a new paradigm in which school governance is shared among all stakeholders (including parents), they disrupt established legitimacies - professionals who may be a minority.

This in-depth review of the literature demonstrates the coexistence of a liberal approach, opening up school governance to the community, and a more regulated approach, organising the balance between the players. It highlights the difficulty of linking SMCs with parents' associations, the lack of expertise of their members, the absence of representation of the most disadvantaged and a lack of accountability of the SMCs themselves.

The author concludes with a series of recommendations, including:  giving priority to structured SMCs; recalling that SMCs should not be instruments for collecting money from parents; promoting access to clear information for SMC members; and promoting the exchange of experiences between SMCs, as well as the creation of local SMC federations.

ISBN: 978-2-9580288-0-0

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