Decentralization and accountability contexts: district education officers' perspectives on education in post-devolution Pakistan

Through devolution reforms, district-level education managers in the developing world are working within a new accountability environment. This research examined district education officers' views regarding the role of education as it relates to tradition, gender and religion in post-devolution Pakistan, in order to gain insights into local education managers' accountability contexts in a conservative and educationally underdeveloped society. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve district education officers in the North-West Frontier Province (presently called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). It was found that the officers generally viewed the function of public schools as an agent of modernization, while acknowledging that schools should also transmit traditional values. The former perspective comes from their accountability to their employers and their own backgrounds, while the latter suggests they are responding to the needs of local constituents. They were also dealing with their accountability to local politicians and provincial bureaucracies. These multi-accountability contexts may pose a considerable challenge to local education managers, but may be effectively managed by forging a network of key stakeholders.