Fixing Governance from Below: Why Short Route of Accountability Cannot Solve the Education Crisis

Why do so many well-intentioned efforts to improve education in developing countries fall short? Despite decades of donor-driven initiatives, millions of children remain out of school, and even those who attend often struggle to learn.

In Fixing Governance from Below, Masooda Bano critically examines the repeated failures of decentralizing education systems and promoting community participation as solutions to learning crises. Drawing on compelling research from Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and Indonesia, the book reveals how international aid programs--designed based on what works in Western contexts--routinely misjudge local realities. At the same time, national governments implement costly, donor-approved reforms to gain international credibility, while real, on-the-ground issues remain unaddressed. Challenging conventional wisdom, Bano questions the assumption that more participation, more training, and more decentralization automatically lead to better educational outcomes. She highlights how different tiers of governance are inter-linked and so are the incentive structures: while bottom-up measures can enhance accountability in countries with strong national-level oversight, they cannot replace it. Further, the author illustrates why top-down mandates for ＂community involvement＂ often fail, whereas organic, locally-driven participation tends to succeed.

With sharp insights and thought-provoking analysis, this book calls for a fundamental shift in how we approach educational reform--one that respects local contexts, prioritizes genuine accountability, and moves beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. More than just an academic critique, it is a call to rethink the strategies shaping the future of millions of children.

Masooda Bano is a Professor of Development Studies at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), University of Oxford. She conducts large-scale comparative studies using ethnographic and survey data, focusing on collective action dilemmas in service provision in developing countries, as explored in Breakdown in Pakistan (2012). She is also the author of The Revival of Islamic Rationalism (2020), The Female Islamic Education Movements (2017), and The Rational Believer (2012). Bano specializes in bottom-up accountability approaches, especially in the education sector. She has led major research grants, advised on significant education initiatives, and contributed to global media outlets.