DDI_ALB_2004_PETSE_v01_M Antonina Redko 2011-09-15 NADA v01 (September 2011) Public Expenditure Tracking Survey in Education 2004 PETSE 2004 ALB_2004_PETSE_v01_M Public and Private Finance Institute, Albania Ministry of Education and Science, Albania National Institute of Statistics Ministry of Local Governments and Decentralization Ministry of Finance NADA Hooman Dabidian Cindy Audiguier Public Expenditure Tracking Survey A Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) is a diagnostic tool used to study the flow of public funds from the center to service providers. It has successfully been applied in many countries around the world where public accounting systems function poorly or provide unreliable information. The PETS has proven to be a useful tool to identify and quantify the leakage of funds. The PETS has also served as an analytical tool for understanding the causes underlying problems, so that informed policies can be developed. Finally, PETS results have successfully been used to improve transparency and accountability by supporting "power of information" campaigns. PETS are often combined with Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS) in order to obtain a more complete picture of the efficiency and equity of a public allocation system, activities at the provider level, as well as various agents involved in the process of service delivery. While most of PETS and QSDS have been conducted in the health and education sectors, a few have also covered other sectors, such as justice, Early Childhood Programs, water, agriculture, and rural roads. In the past decade, about 40 PETS and QSDS have been implemented in about 30 countries. While a large majority of these surveys have been conducted in Africa, which currently accounts for 66 percent of the total number of studies, PETS/QSDS have been implemented in all six regions of the World Bank (East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). Education Public spending on education in Albania as a share of GDP declined by one third from 5% in 1991 to 3.4% in 2002. As a result, public spending has been limited to the bare essentials, at the expense of important needs that it is assumed can be deferred, such as maintenance of schools and the provision of equipment, materials and teacher training. Inadequate public spending resulted in rapid deterioration of the quality of education, but also increased private costs for participating in education, often resulting in declining enrollment rates for children coming from poor families, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. This study aims to contribute to the overall Albanian government/World Bank assessment of public spending on education and poverty. In particular, the study analyzed how municipalities and communes were funding education activities from their block grants; what share of Municipality-Commune (MC) allocations for education intended for schools were reaching these schools; and how these funds were used at school level and the effectiveness of MC funding for educational purposes. The survey gives an overview of administration and management levels (e.g., Ministry of Education and Science, regional level, districts, and schools), levels of funding and resource distribution. The survey covered 201 schools from 20 municipalities and communes. Albania National - Municipality-Communes; - Schools. Sample survey data [ssd] The scope of the study includes: - Municipality-Communes (MC): education institutions in MC, resources, expenditure by nature and funding source, arrears, Ministry of Education and Science staff paid by MC, budgeting and resource allocation process. - Basic Education Schools: enrollments, classes and teachers, inputs received from the Regional Education Directorate. - Boarding Institutions: number of boarders, list of staff (2002-2004), inputs received from the Regional Education Directorate. - Complete Schools: enrollments, classes and teachers, list of teachers (2002-2004), list of non-teaching staff (2002-2004), inputs received from the Regional Education Directorate. - Vocational Schools: enrollments, classes and teachers, list of teachers (2002-2004), inputs received from the Regional Education Directorate. - General Secondary Education Schools: enrollments, classes and teachers, list of teachers (2002-2004), list of non-teaching Staff (2002-2004), inputs received from the Regional Education Directorate. 20 municipality-communes (MC) were selected in 8 regions and 9 districts. The original sample included 202 schools, out of which 158 were basic education schools, 19 - secondary schools, 11 - comprehensive schools, 8 - vocational schools and 6 boarding institutions. 30% of the schools were sampled in four biggest MCs (Korçe, Shkoder, Elbasan and Tirana). Face-to-face [f2f] The following survey instruments are available: - Municipality-Commune Questionnaire; - Basic Education School Questionnaire; - General Secondary Education School Questionnaire; - Complete School Questionnaire; - Vocational School Questionnaire; - Boarding Institution Questionnaire. The questionnaires collect detailed information on staff, enrollments and expenditure at municipality-commune and school levels. While it was expected to gather data on operation and maintenance (O&M) expenditure both at school and municipality-commune (MC) level, it appeared that schools did not record such information since the bills were directly paid by MC. O&M school expenditure were only collected at MC level and it was not therefore possible to compare O&M expenses as observed at school with operation and maintenance expenses declared by MCs. More generally, schools do not keep any financial record. Assessing what they receive from districts in terms of supplies (paper, chalk, school registers, certificates, etc.) and teaching materials (textbooks, teacher guides, etc.) was assessed in units which were costed later on at the district level. Access to MCs and their records of expenditure was also difficult and could only succeed thanks to special letters of introduction signed by the Ministry of Local Governments and Decentralization. A number of basic education schools have multiple locations and buildings, with a center school and satellites. In various MCs it proved impossible to get O&M expenses by individual schools, since information was only available globally for the center and satellites. Use of the survey data must be acknowledged using a citation which would include: - the identification of the Primary Investigator (including country name) - the full title of the survey and its acronym (when available), and the year(s) of implementation - the survey reference number. Public use file The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.