PROTOCOL: The Effects of School-Based Decision Making on Educational Outcomes in Low and Middle Income Contexts--A Systematic Review

The devolution of decision-making authority to schools has been widely adopted as the preferred model by many international agencies, including the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), as it is assumed that locating decision-making authority within schools will increase accountability, efficiency and responsiveness to local needs. Often described as 'school-based' or 'community based' management, the devolution of decision-making authority to schools includes a wide variety of models and mechanisms. For the purposes of this review, 'school-based decision-making' includes any model in which at least some of the responsibility for making decisions about planning, management and/or the raising or allocation of resources is located within schools and their proximal institutions (e.g. community organisations), as opposed to government authorities at the central, regional or district level. This review aims to answer the following overarching review question: "What is the evidence around how decentralising decision-making to the school level affects educational outcomes in low and middle income contexts (LMICs)"? This broad question has been broken down into two discrete sub-questions: (1) What is the impact of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes in LMICs? and (2) What are the barriers to (and enablers of) effective models of school-based decision-making?