# **6. Conclusions**

Benchmarking policy intent in education is useful for assessing a country’s position on certain education areas relative to the policy position of other countries. For purposes of a more focused policy dialogue, benchmarking policy implementation can be of added utility to decision makers, since the difference between the value of an indicator of policy intent and the value of the same indicator in policy implementation can help fine tune the incentives and disincentives required at the school level to ensure that the policy has its desired effect.

In terms of the differences between the indicators of policy intent in school autonomy and accountability, and the indicators of policy implementation, as reported by the school principals of 230 schools that participated in the 2009 PISA survey, the results show the following:

1. School principals are already managing budgets related to personnel in ways that go beyond what the law intends them to do.  The difference between policy intent and policy implementation in budget management suggests that authorities at the Education Service Area level have found that important personnel management functions could be delegated to school principals, thus deepening school autonomy.

2. Personnel autonomy—the hiring and firing of teachers—also seem to be delegated to local areas under significant influence from school principals. In general, in all areas of personnel autonomy, school authorities are making decisions that are later corroborated by the Education Service Area.

3. In terms of parent participation through the school council, the indicator results show that parents already have more say over the school budget than what the law currently allows. Again, this bodes well for increasing autonomy at the school level.

4. In terms of school and student assessment, the results show an opposite trend. In theory, the current system of school and student assessment is at an advanced level. However, principals give it a lower rating because of perceived problems testing at the school level.

5. School accountability shows a mixed picture. The implementation indicators for the functioning of a national system of school and student assessment and for the manuals for interpreting school audits are significantly lower than the indicators of policy intent. The gaps in these indicators suggest problems with key aspects of accountability to parents.

6. In terms of the relationship between SABER indicators of policy implementation in school autonomy and accountability, and student learning, the results show that school autonomy budget planning and management, and in in personnel management are associated with higher PISA scores. These are key conclusions for education policy, since they seem to confirm the trend found in high performing countries, where giving schools more autonomy leads to higher learning outcomes.

The exploratory regression results are important because their statistical significance reinforces the notion of evidence-based policy reform, which is at the core of the SABER approach. The results point towards a consistent relationship between budget and personnel autonomy on student learning. The evidence presented here is significant enough to suggest as a next step to include budget autonomy and personnel management autonomy as components of evidencebased policy dialogue.

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