Abdelazeem Hamad, Dina Allam; (2019) Explaining persistence of decentralisation of education in Egypt. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text DinaAbdelazeem.PhDthesis2019.20November2019.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (5MB)

Abstract

This thesis examines why and how decentralisation remains central to education reform in Egypt since 1990, despite the mixed outcome. It focuses on three sets of explanatory factors: the national and international contexts, the actors involved and their interests, and policy transfer and influence mechanisms. Three decentralisation models are examined: community schools, school-based management and public-private partnerships. Documentary and network analyses are used to identify the key actors and interviewees. Using interviews and government and international agencies’ documents and reports, process tracing is then used to identify the mechanisms and influencing contextual factors. The thesis focuses on three stages of the policy process: adoption and formulation, implementation and retention to explain decentralisation persistence. International agencies influenced adoption by both coercion through funding pilots and persuasion through framing the models to fit the interests of political sponsors such as the First Lady, the Secretary-General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, Ministers of Education and the ruling party before the 2011 uprising. These sponsors were interested in a limited form of administrative decentralisation to raise financial resources for infrastructure to expand access to education, improve education quality and governance, improve their electoral position and respond to international pressures for democratisation and rights protection. The formulation of the models involved bounded-rational learning by national actors from foreign experts and experiences. The policy implementation and retention stages also involved coercion and persuasion by international agencies and bounded-rational learning by national actors. The data show that complementary mechanisms played a role in these two stages, but these were minor. These findings contribute to the emerging literature on the politics of education policymaking in developing countries by emphasising the importance of examining the different stages of the policy process and focusing on the role of context, actors and transfer and influence mechanisms.

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