India Karnataka-Improving Education Governance The proposed IDF grant will support activities for improving governance and management of the primary education sector. The IDF has three inter-related objectives: (a) extending successfully tested innovative management practices to education officers in the lagging districts of Karnataka; (b) introducing new management practices to centrally located officers in the Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka; and (c) for rigorously evaluating the proposed activitie The objective of the proposed IDF grant is to support activities that will lay the basis for improving governance and management of the elementary education sector in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The primary development objective of the IDF grant is to support the re-orientation of the academic and administrative institutions in one of the state's key education department, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) such that they become more skilled in managing for results. The DPI oversees the implementation of quality enhancement interventions in elementary and secondary education. The proposed grant will support activities that will enhance the skills of managers, administrators and other key personnel in the DPI such that delivery of education services in the public sector is is undertaken with view to achieving better quality using effective and results-oriented management practices.  Additionally, activities under the grant activities will focus on the lagging areas of the state.  The proposed IDF grant will support two activities: (a) extending successfully tested innovative management practices to education officers primarily in the lagging districts and blocks of Karnataka; and (b) capacity development of heads of institutions supporting education administration at the district, block and cluster levels including in six backward districts. Each of the two activities will be  rigorously evaluated to assess their effectiveness with future scaling up of these activities in view.  The proposed IDF grant is intended to strengthen results oriented planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation done by the officers of the DPI, especially as implementers and managers of policies, programs and interventions aimed at improving education quality in government schools. The DPI oversees many large and small schemes for quality improvement, including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) which is the Government of India's (GoI) flagship centrally sponsored scheme for the universalization of quality elementary education in the country. The proposed grant will aid the effective implementation of SSA as it aims to develop key managerial capacities required for successful implementation of new interventions. Systematic and separate focus on developing managerial skills and capabilities in education officers is critical both for reorienting the DPI in its usual activities and for supporting the implementation of such large schemes as the SSA.  The Quality Imperative in Elementary Education:  Over the last decade India has witnessed high rates of economic growth driven by fundamental economic transformations in the sectors of information technology and services. These are essentially knowledge and skill-based sectors. As the economy continues on this path, it is becoming increasingly cognizant of challenges and constraints that will need to be resolved for sustained high rates of growth and for the economic mobility of its citizens. One such critical challenge is the provision of good quality education in public primary and secondary schools. Many Indian states, aware of the education challenges facing them, are spearheading the introduction of education reforms for improving education quality. Many of these reforms will be considered non-conventional from the stand-point of an earlier era of education policy-making. They include establishment of state-wide assessment systems, introduction of remedial teaching in basic education, new technologies for teaching-learning and introducing private sector management practices in the field of public education management.  Karnataka has been one such reforming state and has gained public recognition for the many innovations it has introduced in the education sector. It is among the few states of India that has established a state-wide education assessment system. The Karnataka State Quality Assurance Organization (KSQAO) was established in 2005 for regular assessment of schools and children on a sample basis. The state also introduced the semester system in schools; and the creative use of computers in the teaching and learning process.  Karnataka has also been one of the first states to introduce reform of departmental management practices. Public education management in all the states of India is done through a complex structure of institutions at the state, district, block and cluster levels which link with the ultimate point of education service delivery, the school. These institutions are expected to provide various degrees of academic and administrative support to schools and teachers. Recognizing that the quality of academic and administrative support to schools has a significant impact on the quality of education provided, Karnataka established the Policy Planning Unit (PPU) with the mandate for strengthening departmental management capacities. The PPU is staffed by officers of the DPI of the Government of Karnataka (GoK) and the Azim Premji Foundation (APF), reputed non-governmental organization (NGO) with which the GoK has broad collaboration in the field of school education. The PPU works under the guidance of the Comissioner of Public Instruction (CPI) in the state and reports to the CPI's office. The team leader of the PPU is a government officer.  With the PPU as the overseeing and implementing agency, the DPI pioneered the use of management practices by the education department officers through a previous IDF grant of USD 485,000 active for the period August 2004 - May 2007. The objective of this grant was to improve public expenditure management in the education department. Three main activities were funded by this grant:  1. Business Process Re-engineering Study of the Elementary Education Delivery System  2. Management Development Program for Department Officers  3. IT Training for Department Officers  These activities were aimed at two of the most basic obstacles to efficient public expenditure management: individual skills including management skills and system structures that were not streamlined to provide enabling support to department officers to execute quality improvement interventions. Under the previous grant, DPI officers at all levels were trained in the use of information technology for their day-to-day tasks and selected officers were coached in management practices. Seventy-five Management Development Facilitators (MDFs) were also trained and certified under the previous grant. The recommendations of the business process re-engineering study led to the establishment of more decentralized support to schools. Amongst other measures taken up following the recommendations, most significantly, an administrative unit was set-up at the cluster level.  Key outcomes from the first IDF grant:  Among the key outcomes from the implementation of the activities undertaken during the first grant were the following:  a.	Ownership of and commitment to the need for a large scale management development program by the Ministry and Departments of Education (Primary and Secondary Education, Public Instruction and State Project Office for SSA).  b.	The self-identification of departmental officers as change-agents. Significant shifts in behavior and activity included: (i) moving from assigning blame to finding workable solutions, (ii) shared understanding of one's role, (iii) moving from individual development to development of the team of subordinates, (iv) openness to feedback, and (v) greater professionalism as trainers, facilitators and listeners.  c.	Increased ability to use training in practical situations such as: (i) meetings and conferences for teachers, (ii) preparing training literature and management of training programs, (iii) guidance to schools during visits and giving and receiving feedback, (iv) orienting and training School Development Management Committees (SDMC), the local body that oversees the school, and (v) annual and monthly work-plan preparation at the nodal office and at the block and cluster levels.  The request for the current grant follows the successful implementation of the prior grant to extend these capacities to the lagging districts and block of the state, to develop and strengthen the capacity for education management and leadership of the DPI further through alignment with the district, cluster and block offices, particularly in the lagging areas; and for rigorous evaluation of the innovative practices introduced under the grant which will t provide the basis for the GoK to establish a separate education management cell in the department. The proposed grant will generate the pilot evidence and experience necessary for the GoK to take considered steps towards scaling up these activities with its own resources.  The proposed activities to be financed under the current IDF grant will help develop a more aligned DPI organization with strengthened institutions at the district, block, cluster and school levels which are better able to lead and manage evolving departmental goals. Instead of relying on casual bench-marking and past decisions, the education managers will acquire the skills for identifying and using all available evidence to formulate problems and/or solutions and identifying and using the most effective implementation methods. Successful implementation of the grant activities will improve the effectiveness of extant state policies and the efficiency of resource use in the backward blocks and districts.  The proposed activities are based on an approach that can be adapted for use by other states of India for re-orienting their own education departments.  Focus on Economically and Educationally Backward Blocks:  The grant proposes to introduce behavioral good practices in public education management, with particular focus on the backward districts and blocks of the state. Karnataka ranks high on many indicators of economic growth and development in the league of states in India.  While sub-optimal quality of governance is both a cause and consequence of poor development outcomes, policy-makers have to be careful when introducing governance related innovations in developing countries. Poor implementation and outcomes due to weak initial conditions can lead to good ideas being discredited. With this view point, the first IDF grant focused more on the economically better off districts of the state. With the successful implementation of the management development program in the first phase and the learning it has generated, the state would like to extend the governance innovation experiement to the lagging areas of the state. The proposed grant will build on the earlier experience as well as introduce new innovations at the district, cluster and block levels.