EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE
(Part 1: Educational Policy)

By
Haileselassie Woldegerima
Assistant Professor

A Course offered to M.A students in

Educational Planning and Management
CONTENT
Part I: Education Policy
• Unit 1: General Framework for Education
Policy Analysis
• Unit 2: Generating Policy Options
• Unit 3: Evaluating Policy Options; Making
Policy Decisions and
Impact Assessment
• Unit 4: Overview of the Ethiopian
Education and Training Policy

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CONTENT (Contd.)
Part II: Management of Change
• Unit 5: Theories of change
• Unit 6: The context of change
• Unit 7: Elements of Change
• Unit 8: Implementing change

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Unit 1: General Framework for Education
Policy Analysis
1.1. Concepts and Definitions of Policy
1.2. Types of Policies
1.3. Policy Cycles
1.4. Approaches to Policy Making
1.5. Analyzing Existing Situation

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1.1. Concepts and Definitions of Policy
1.1.1. General Observations Around
Policy
• Policy is more than the text
• Policy is multi-dimensional
• Policy is value – laden
• Policies Exist in Context
• Policy Making is a State Activity
• Education Policies Interact with policies in other
fields
• Policy Implementation is never straight forward
• Polices Result in unintended as well as intended
consequences
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1.1.2. Meaning of Policy
• The concept of policy, as a guide to
function may take the form -of
– A declaration of goals and objectives
– A declaration of courses of action; and
– A declaration of social values
(Sapru, R.K. 2002:2)

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• Some definition of a policy
• “general directive on the main lines of
action to be followed (Y. Dror)
• “changing directives as to how tasks should be
interpreted and performed” (Peter Self)
• “decisions giving direction, coherence and
continuity to the course of action for which the
decision-Making body is responsible” (Geoffrey
Vickers)
• “a purposive course of action followed by an actor
or set of actors in dealing wit” a problem or matter
of concern” (James Anderson)
• “what ever governments choose to do or not to do”
(Dye 1992:2)

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Some definitions of policy (contd.)
As regards education:
• “education policy is giving direction to the
allocation of educational goals and school
funds, instructional personnel, curriculum
innovation, bargaining authority, and the
racial composition of student bodies”
(Campbell and Mazzoni
1976)
• “Policy intends to guide and determines
present and future decisions, connected
with schools and pupils, and the roles to
be played by parents and other interested
bodies”.
(MOE 2007:3)
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Views regarding Policy
a) Functionalist View
• Assumes that society has a value consensus
• Assumes agreement of policy perspectives
• Assumes implementation as straight forward.

But – Society is to be seen as consisting of competing

groups having different values and access to power
- Policy processes are on going and dynamic

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Views regarding policy (contd.)
b) Positivistic Approach
• A particular approach to knowledge which
purports to apply scientific methods to
solve policy problems

But – Policy problems are too complex to be

solved in simple technicist way – because
courses of action do not have simple linear
relationship with each other

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Views regarding policy (contd.)
c) Rational Model
• More prescriptive traditional approach,
which conceptualize policy in distinct and
linear phases, i.e. policy development or
formulation, implementation and
evaluation
But – policy is more complex, interactive and
multi - layered, i.e. two way interactive, top-
down and bottom-up approach

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Regarding the three phases of the rational model
a) Policy Development
− Problem definition
− Clarification of values, goals and
objectives
− Identification of options to achieve goals
− Cost/benefit analysis of options
− Selection of course of action
− Evaluation of course of action; and
− Modification of the programme

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Policy Development (contd.)
• Useful way to work through the above policy
development process
• In reality however, most policy is developed in a
more disjointed, less rational, and more political
fashion.
• Policy is much more than a specific policy
document or text.
• Policy is both a process and product; i.e. involves
the production of the text, the text itself, ongoing
modifications to the text and processes of
implementation into practice.
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b) Policy Implementation
• Should recognize bargaining and
negotiation and involvement at all
stages.
• Should recognize that policy processes
are inherently political in character
involving compromises, trade – offs and
supplements
• Thus, highlights the value laden nature
of policies, and also highlights the highly
political nature of policy processes.

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c) Policy Evaluation
• There are debates regarding the evaluation of policy
process, i.e. as to whose interests and values are
represented.
• The Debates
(i) The Pluralist Approach
- accept a dispersal of values
and
power throughout society
- argue that governments should
attempt to please as many
interest groups in the policy process as
possible.

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Policy Evaluation (Contd.)
(ii) The elitist approach
- In contrast to the pluralist, this approach sees
governments as acting in relation to the values and
interests of dominant groups
(ii) Neo-Marxist approach
- Taking the elitist approach (position) even further,
argue that those who ‘control’ the economy have
more political influence than others.
(IV) Feminist Approach
- may be pluralist, elitist or neo-Marxist but all see
that
the state (government) as operating to reproduce
male interests and power.
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Mosha, H.J. writing about “Primary Education in
Tanzania” refers to a policy as:
• “a broad framework guide to the provision of education”; and
says that
• “Policies range from mere statements of intent declared by
politicians to well thoughtout and detailed Blueprints that
clearly delineate:
- priorities
- specify objectives
- spell out the means (instruments)
for their
implementation; and
- specify the ways of assessing their
effectiveness

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Mosha argues that:
• “Policy only becomes a public policy after it
has been universally adopted, implemented
and enforced by a given society”
• Having stated the above. Mosha presented
three basic models of policy formulation
and implementation: prescriptive,
descriptive and eclectic.

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a) Prescriptive
• Stipulate ideal stages of policy formulation
and implementation
• Their formulation and issuance is in the form
of directives, circulars and declarations.

b) Descriptive
• Based on the assumption that the ideal
state rarely exist in real society.
• To understand the policy making process
better, one must not only rely entirely on
rationality, but must also allow an element
of creativity.

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 According to Mosha, quality policy in the descriptive
model must undergo three basic stages in design and
implementation
(i) Meta policy-making stage
- where the major operations needed to
design and manage the policy making
process are delinated.
(ii) Policy making stage
- Involves situational analysis,
- determination of needs
- Setting of operational goals
- Generating and selecting alternatives’
and
- Determining the means for implementing
the chosen alternatives.
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 (iii) Post Policymaking Stage
- Involves motivating and execution of the policy;
- evaluating the policy after it has been executed; and
- using feedback or corrective actions
c) Eclectic
• They are integrative in nature
• Based on the assumption that no one set of constructs
identified by prescriptive and descriptive models can
act as an adequate guide for policy formulation and
implementation.
• Involves the process of
- Analyzing documents
- distilling out key policy
issues,
- Making policy
recommendations; and
- Seeking consensus on
critical policy issues
through involvement in a conference of
representatives from key stakeholders.

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1.2. Types of Policies
• There are different categories of policy.
• Following are some of the distinctions used in the
analysis of policy
• Distributive or Redistributive
• Symbolic and Material
• Rational and Incremental
• Substantive and Procedural
• Regulatory and Delegularatory
• Top-down and Bottom-up

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1.2.1. Distributive or Redistributive
• Refers to how any allocation of resources
or benefits is made.
• Distributive policies involve straight-
forward allocation of resources or benefit
or entitlements; e.g. allowance for all
students.
• Redistributive – provided to a targeted
group through means testing, Many special
needs policies are of this nature .

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1.2.2. Symbolic and Material
• Refers to the extent of commitment to
implementation by those responsible for
formulating a given policy.
• Implementation of a given policy will be
affected significantly by three factors

- the clarity of the goals

of the policy
- the complexity of the
implementation process; and
- the extent or
otherwise of the resource
commitment to the policy.
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Symbolic and Material (contd.)
• Symbolic – tend to have broad, vague,
ambiguous, abstract goal statement with little or
no source commitment and little thought given to
implementation strategies.
– Can have a strategic function in legitimizing
the vews of certain groups and altering the
political climate.
• Material include a commitment to the
implementation through the provision of
resources

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1.2.2. Rational and Incremental
• Rational – Advocates outlining a set of
prescriptive stages for the development
of policy.
• Incremental – Argue that policy
development works overtime by building
on currently existing policies and
practice.

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1.2.4. Substantive and Procedural
• Substantive – deal with what
governments are intending to do.
• Procedural – deal with how things are
to be done and by whom.

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1.2.5. Regularatory and Deregularatory
• Regularatory – is about controlling
practices; e.g. sexual harassment
(prohibiting certain behaviours).
• Deregulatory – usually associated
with an ideological commitment to
minimal government or state
intervention; e.g. cost-sharing in
higher education.

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1.2.6. Top-Down and Bottom-up
• Top-Down – are those where the policy
is formulated, say, in the central (e.g.
MOE) and then disseminated and
distributed “down” through the system to
schools.
• Bottom-up builds on currently existing
practice and pressures for change, i.e.
reform.

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1.3. Policy Cycles
• Policy analysis can be carried out at any point
(i.e. from formulation to final evaluation) in the
policy cycle analysis.
• There are at least four types (stages) in the
policy cycle.
• These are:
• Exploratory
• Preparatory
• Implementation
• Evaluation

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Policy Cycles (contd.)
a) Exploratory
At this stage,, policy analysts seek to
understand what is going on, search for
options, sector analysis (situational analysis)
b) Preparatory
seeks to identify several options, suggests
pluses and minuses of options.
c) Implementation
comes after policy has been launched. Policy
analysts can see or determine how well it is moving
forward and what the obstacles are
d) Evaluation
Examine policy impact e.g. “National Assessment of
Learning Achievement”.

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1.4. Approaches to policy Making
• Synoptic and Incremental model
• The organizational Bureaucratic and
Government politics model
• The consolidated model

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Approaches to Policy making (contd.)
a) Synoptic and Incremental Model
• Synaptic – This approach tends to be more characteristic
of centralized societies that have strong planning
agencies which develop and seek to implement long-
term plans.
- Assumes a relatively perfect ability to collect
knowledge and predict the future
- Assumes a broad agreement on the criteria for
making policy decisions.
- Assumes a commitment on the part of the policy
makers.
• Incremental – more characteristic of highly participatory
societies that have dynamic political and economic
environments.
- Assumes imperfect knowledge, uncertain criteria and
a disposition to adjust decisions according to
circumstances.

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Approaches to Policy Making (contd.)
b) The Organizational Bureaucratic and Government
Politics Model
• Organizational Bureaucratic
- Decision emanates from a process of orderly review in
which various units of an organization and where invited
stakeholders participate.
- Final decision reflects consensus that emerges from
consultation
• Government Political Model
- Where key political figures representing societal-based
consistencies are key.
- The figures (individuals) have their political interests in
mind as they negotiate in policy decisions.

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Approaches to Policy Making (contd.)
c) The Consolidated Model
• This is joining the two previous models

Synoptic
mode
II I
o Authoritarian o Rational

Societal Organizational
Personalistic Bureaucratic
mode
Mode
IV
III
O Political o Democratic
Local Government

Incremental
Mode

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1.5. Analyzing Existing Situation
1.5.1. Key Players in the Education
context
1.5.2. Outcomes and their Measurement
1.5.3. The supply of Education
1.5.4. The Demand for Education
1.5.5. The Structure of the Educational
System

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1.5.1. Key Players in the Education Context
• National Government
• Donors
• Local Government and Communities
• Cultural Organizations
• Teachers and Principals
• Employers
• The Family and the Child

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1.5.2. Outcomes and Their Measurement
• To make decisions on what to emphasize in an
educational programe, it is important to know the current
status of education.
• Use both quantitative and qualitative indicators.
- Access - Efficiency
- Equality - Other factors
- Quality -
School Facilities
-
Educational Budget
and Expenditure
• Internal Efficiency – built on information about
enrollments, repeaters and drop-outs from repeated
school surveys.

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Outcomes and Their Measurement (contd.)
• Learning acquisition “actual learning” as an
outcome. Determine how much children learn
through various forms of tests.
• Relevance – achievement tests, and success on
them do not necessarily show relevance of
content achieved through tests
• Equality and Equity
Equality – equality of access
Equity – implies a judgment concerning
relative fairness

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1.5.3. The Supply of Education
• Important questions
– Who are the key players in the supply of
education?
– To what extent does the policy
encourage non-government and private
sectors to supply education?
– To what extent is government committed
(financially) to supply education?

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The supply of Education (contd.)
• Regarding expenditure on education
– Educational expenditure as a percent of Gross National
Product (GNP)
• Most developing countries spend about 1% of
GNP.
- Educational expenditures as a percent of total
government expenditure
• Those that spend about one-fifth (i.e. 25%) of
government expenditure on education can be said
to have a serious commitment to education. Less
than 15% reflect a weak commitment.
- Expenditure on primary or basic education as a percent
of national allocation for education
• If governments spend about 25% have shown
serious commitment

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1.5.4. The Demand for Education
• Demand – the price that consumers are
willing to pay for a certain volume of goods
or services
• Demand for education competes with other
demands
• The price of education should thus be
reasonable relative to perceived benefits.

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The Demand for Education (contd.)
• Cross – national indicators of demand
- Geography - Class
- Ethnicity - Population growth
1.5.5. The Structure of the Educational System
Schooling Structure)
Ethiopian
• Pre-primary Ages 4 - 6
• Primary 1 – 4, 5 - 8
• Secondary 9+10, 11+12
• Tertiary
Considerations – Relatedness to resource strength of a country
- Labour requirements

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1.5.6. Country Priorities
• Manpower Development Rationales
- Develop general skills for development
• Social Equity Rationales
- Equalize educational opportunities to
reduce regional disparities in access
- Private basic education as a human right
• National Building Rationales
- Promote self-sufficiency and self-reliance
- Language

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Country Priorities (contd.)
• Improving quality of schooling rationales
– improve education quality through
curriculum development
– Improve teacher training
– Increase private education standards
– Improve in-service professional
development

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Unit 2: Generating Policy Options
2.1. The construction of New Facilities
2.2. Inducement to attract and retain teachers
2.3. Greater Parents and community involvement
2.4. Sensitive Management and Increased
financing
of Primary Education
2.5. Issues of Access

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2.1. The Construction of New Facilities
a) Location of schools/New School Building
b) School design/scale
c) Controlling cost, insuring quality
d) Teachers’ quarters and other Amenities
e) Polling instructional resources

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2.2. Inducement to Attract and Retain
Teachers
• Shortage of Teachers
• How to handle shortage of Teachers
• Teacher Recruitment and deployment

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2.3. Greater Parents and Community
Involvement
a) Problems
– failure to involve community
leaders in school
affairs
– design of curriculum to favour urban children
and neglecting the rural
– failure to deliver instructional materials in
timely manner
– insistence on an overly rigid schedules for
the schools
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Greater Parents and Community Involvement
(contd.)
b) Solutions
- More reliance on local government
through delegating responsibility
- Developing Community based strategy
- Bridging the value gaps
- Adjustment to the child’s familiar
obligation
- Watching costs
- Community Involvement

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2.4. Sensitive Management and Finance
• Creating partnership with local communities
• Revenue generation by schools
• Flexibility, e.g. curriculum
• Government support for schools should be
need based; not uniform
• Empower school leadership
• Continuous management training
• Encourage case studies

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3.5. Issue of Access
• Encouragement of Alternative Basic
Education
• Multi-grade classes
• Pastoralist and Semi-agriculturalist
Education
• Enhancing Internal Efficiency
• Adult and Non-Formal Education

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Unit 3: Evaluating Policy Options, Making
Policy Decisions and Impact Assessment
3.1. Evaluating Policy options
3.2. Roles of Pilot Study
3.3. Making Policy Decisions
3.4. Principles of Policy Implementation
3.5. Policy Implementation and Impact
Assessment

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3.1. Evaluating Policy Options
3.1.1. Benefits
• Much that happens in education is related to factors
outside the schools and beyond the control of school
personnel.
• Each benefit/intended outcome has its unique
measurement.
• Measurement
- Access – by enrollment rates
- Relevance – by employment
rates
- Efficiency – by dropout of
repetition rates
- Learning – by scores on
achievement tests
- Values – valued behavioural
indicators
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Evaluating Policy Options (contd.)
3.1.2. Costs
• Highlight the breakdown of costs by
components
• A major expenditure is teachers salaries
• Possible cut down of teachers’ salaries
volunteer teachers from community; use of
peer and tutors
• Usually text-book is a low cost area

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Evaluating Policy Options (contd.)
• Policy promulgation is only the first step
• Some tentative generalizations to implementation
– The more complex a policy, the greater the difficulty of
implementation
– The more bureaus involved, the greater the difficulty
– The more highly placed is the advocacy of a policy a
more promising is the chance of implementation
– The greater the stability in position of Individuals
involved in implementing the more promising is the
chance of implementation.
– The more thorough the process of consultation with
beneficiaries, the more promising is the chance of
implementation.

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3.2. Roles of Pilot Study
• Educational systems can be very large and the
policies they serve very diverse
• Innovations introduced may not be acceptable
• Thus – introduce innovation in selected areas
- pilot stage can be scheduled for a fixed
period – and then a summative evaluation
can be carried out
- Consequences of pilot study should be
positive
- Positive result of pilot study – to
expand
innovation
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3.3. Making a Policy Decision
• A rational model of policy-making
entertains a variety of options
• Option chosen – that with the highest in
terms of desirability, affordability and
feasibility

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3.4. Principles of Policy
Implementation
• Inform stakeholders about the goals and plans
associated with the intervention and seek their
comments
• Identify certain indicators that could be
periodically measure the change associated with
the innovation
• Initiate a practice of periodic visit by
implementation teams to selected sites
• Modify continuously on the basis of reports from
teams.
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3.5. Policy Implementation and Impact
Assessment
• Implementation assessment refers to
periodic checks of the ongoing
• Impact assessment – tends to refer to
some form of summative evaluation
towards the end of the designed time
period of completing the activity
• Example – Assessment of learning (student
performance in national exams)

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Unit 4: Overview of the Ethiopian
Education and Training Policy
4.1. The Policy Formulation Process
4.2. Main Features of the Education and
Training Policy
4.3. Education Policy Implementation Plan

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4.1. The Policy Formulation Process
• Formulation of a policy task-force
consisting six teams, namely:
– Curriculum and teachers affairs
– Education and language
– Education organization and finance
– Education assessment
– Educational logistics and issues of
support; and
– Integration of education, training,
development and research
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The Policy Formulation Process (contd.)
• Draft of policy took about two years
• Forums organized for obtaining feedback
on the policy study
• A five-day workshop organized where
pertinent institutions and professionals
participated
• Regarding policy formulation process-
persisting views

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4.2. Main Features of the Policy
• The Education and Training Objectives
• The Education and Training Policy Strategy
– Curriculum
– Educational Structure
– Educational Measurement and Evaluation
– Teachers
– Educational Organization and Management
– Educational Finance
– Languages of Education

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4.3. Education Policy Implementation
Plan
• The successive Education Sector
Development Programmes (ESDP’S)

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