The Paisa Survey presented by Yamini Aiyar, Director, Accountability Initiative at an event on Tracking Social Sector Spending in India

1. Rules Vs. Responsiveness
Education Finances in the
context of Governance Transitions
The PAISA Survey
Accountability Initiative
Centre for Policy Research

2. Unpacking the total budget
Tracking school level
fund flow
Analyzing plans & fund distribution
Understanding school level
expenditure & governance
The PAISA Survey

3. Shifting policy context: Responsive
governance?
12th
Five Year Plan
……..the approach of the Twelfth Plan for school education will be to define
and measure outcomes, and allocate resources in ways that maximise
progress towards achieving these outcomes
RTE- SSA Framework, 2011-12
“…the need for creation of capacity within the education system and the
school for addressing the diversified learning needs…..…..planning and
implementation for universal access in the rights based approach would
require an understanding of community needs and circumstances as well as
decentralized decision making for meeting the diversified needs of
children.”

4. Whither learning? Whither decentralization?
Learning and school grants less than 1%

5. Bang for buck?
Crude estimates on implications of “costs” of education
To highlight inefficiencies at the frontline
• Raw cost differential: Government spends nearly three
times per-student compared to private sectors. Annual
excess of Rs. 50,000 crores
Excess is an outcome of high teacher salaries. Regular,
government school teacher makes 20 times more than private
sector teachers (Atherton and Kingdon 2010)
ASER data: Significant quality differential in learning between
Gvt vs pvt
• Learning adjusted cost differential: Excess cost of
achieving private sector learning levels is Rs. 232,000
crore or 2.78% GDP

6. Format-bound planning
Schools and districts rarely plan
 Who makes a school plan?
• 44% schools in PAISA sample had made
plans
What is a school plan process?
• Format filling exercise (Bihar’s 32 page
SDP format)
• DISE/ formats restrict the system from
actually reflecting school needs
District plan:
• Plans made but process are rarely taken
seriously.
• School plans are not part of the district plan
• Low demand (17% SCR, 26% BW) low
fulfillment. DISE hurdles

7. District’s rarely get the money they ask for
Nalanda, Bihar Kangra, HP

8. Centralization plays spoil sport
Proposed vs approved
 58% propose budget approved by GoI
 14% of qty related activities approved
A glimpse in to PAB negotiations
• State 1: In-service training and use of vehicles
• State 2: Denied “top-up” grant for text books
• State 3: No money for LEP because PAB disapproved of
the choice of activities
• Vague learning goals:
“The State has committed to formulate learning indicators for each
class and for attaining the learning outcomes, commensurately.”
(State 4)

9. Misalignment between plans,
resources and school needs
We got money for a boundary
wall. But the real problem in
our school is poor quality
drinking water”
(Bihar HM)
“ I went to the district office 7
times to follow up on this
classroom”
(Bihar HM)

10. When does money reach schools?

11. Funds approved vs funds released

12. Delays in timing of release
Includes releases by TFC

13. Gaps in grant receipts (2014-15)
PAISA: National Report

14. Schools receive money half way through
the financial year (2014-15)
PAISA National Report

15. Gap between district releases and receipts in
Schools: Medak, Andhra Pradesh 12-13
15
District Releases (MER)

16. Gap between district releases and receipts
in Schools: Medak, Andhra Pradesh 12-13
16
School Receipts (PAISA survey)

17. Gap between district releases and receipts in
Schools: Nalanda 12-13
District Releases (MER)

18. Gap between district releases and receipts in
Schools: Nalanda 12-13
School Receipts

19. Implications of late arrival
Rule Bound Expenditure……
• Schools use their own monies to
meet essential supplies and ‘adjust’
the books accordingly
• Expenditures are delayed (eg. 1.5
lakhs SMG money in HP blocks)
• Rule based expenditure (Building
less school in Purnea)
• Whitewashing a popular annual
activity – 56% schools whitewashed
their walls in 2013-14

20. Purnea ACR: 2012-2013Nalanda ACR: 2012-2013
School level progress is slow, civil works…..
“ I went to the district office 7 times to follow up on this classroom……after it
was sanctioned, it took nearly 4 months for the junior engineer to arrive and
approve the plans. In total, it took more than a year and a half for this
classroom to be built”
~ HM interviews, Nalanda (2013)

21. Immediate tasks….some tinkering at the
edges
• Improved financial management: Building a
just-in-time payment system. Eg. e-fms system for
MGNREGA
• Administrative support to school: Greater
information flows through SMS alerts, financial
training
• Improved planning: Linking school demand with
DISE. Eg. PlanPlus
But what of learning?

22. From schooling to learning
A performance based financing system to incentivize a focus on
learning
Three window funding for SSA
50%50% 25%25%
Learning grantRTE window
Performance incentive
25%25%