Identifying the Impact of Education Decentralization on the Quality of Education (EQUIP2 Working Paper)

Introduction Low-quality education is an endemic problem in most developing countries. International tests of student achievement consistently show that developing countries score at the bottom of the performance scale. In many countries, raising education quality has replaced expanding coverage as the principal challenge facing education ministries. In fact, a recent study by Hanushek titled “Th e Long Run Importance of School Quality” shows large economic gains associated with improvements in education quality. Th e U.S.-based study fi nds that a one standard deviation increase in student achievement—enough to lift U.S. school performance to that of the best-performing European educational systems—would yield a 1 percent increase in the rate of per capita economic growth and, in 30 years, would generate a $1.4 trillion change in gross domestic product (GDP).