The records of the Ministry of Education will show that in 2003/4, when I was the minister, it began “discussions with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (MLHSS) to discuss areas of possible collaboration, e.g. in the areas of screening for disabilities and the allocation of subsidies for parents of school age children” (“Ministry of Education Achievements 2003 and Targets 2004”). What was in mind then was the establishment of a conditional cash transfer scheme (CCT), which had already shown its usefulness in many Latin American and Caribbean countries.
At the time, CCTs were relatively new. The first large-scale scheme in the region, the Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA), was established in Mexico in 1997. The Jamaican Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) was established in 2002, but the programme that caught our imagination in this part of the region was Brazil’s Programa Nacional de Bolsa Escola and Programa de Erradicaçao do Trabalho Infantil, (PETI) which was established in about the mid-nineties.
Typically, these programmes provide money to poor families on condition that they send their children to school or regularly take them to the requisite health care facility. But the types of benefits offered vary; some programmes offer cash while others offer cash and other benefits or services such as food items, relevant training, etc. As late as 2003, “reliance on market principals, using demand-side interventions to directly support beneficiaries [was considered] a marked departure from traditional supply-side mechanisms such as general subsidies or investments in schools, health centers and other providers of social services” (Laura B. Rawlings, Laura B and Gloria Rubio -2003- “Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: Lessons from Latin America” World Bank).
Where CCT programmes also differ from the older generation of social welfare programmes is in the emphasis placed on monitoring and evaluation. A Harvard study, which evaluated the Jamaican programme in 2010, claimed that “The implementation of conditional cash transfer programs has been accompanied by systematic efforts to measure their effectiveness and understand their broader impact on households’ behavior, a marked departure from the limited attention that has been paid to rigorous impact evaluations in the past” (Levy, Dan & Jim Ohls – 2010 –“Evaluation of Jamaica’s PATH Conditional Cash Transfer Programme,” Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA).
A brief consideration of the organisation and outcomes of Jamaica’s PATH programme provides some insight into the general workings of these types of systems. Originally, PATH rationalized three then existing welfare programs to increase administrative effectiveness across the board.
It now benefits five categories of people: children from birth to secondary; the elderly poor; persons with disabilities; pregnant and lactating women and poor adults not in the elderly category (http://www.mlss.gov.jm/pub/index.php?artid=23).
To qualify for a PATH grant, one must be a member of a poor family and pass a means test. In relation to education, which is our main concern here, children over 6 must be attending a government-funded school and must maintain a minimum monthly attendance record of 85%, in order to receive the education grant. Up to 2008, the value of the grant was standardized for all categories of beneficiaries but in that year, to encourage greater school attendance and retention at the secondary level, differential benefits were introduced. Since 2010, non-compliant beneficiaries receive a minimum benefit instead of none at all and the remainder of the benefit is paid if and when they become compliant.
Central to the management of PATH are the parish review and appeals committees established in each parish to address the concerns of beneficiaries and civil society. Each committee has about nine members: and an appointed chairperson and representatives from the regional offices of the Ministries of Education and Health, the parish, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the local community, the Child Development Agency, and the parish manager of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
The committees are mandated to review the concerns of applicants who were rejected for a grant and the situation of existing non-compliant beneficiaries. They also hear appeals from persons dissatisfied with termination from the programme.
The Harvard study concluded that PATH was effective in improving attendance both at school and health care facilities. In terms of school attendance, the estimated increase was statistically significant at about 3 per cent over the baseline level. In health, the increase was approximately 38%. “As with educational outcomes, the magnitude of this effect appears to be broadly consistent with the corresponding effects in other countries that have implemented CCTs” (Levy, Ibid).
But while the programme was successful at increasing attendance, the study found no evidence that it was able to affect longer-term education and health quality outcomes, such as marks in school, advancement to next grade, or health care status. Although the authors of the study recognised that in some respects their methodology may have been wanting, they made the following important observation: “Another potential explanation behind the finding is that increasing attendance to school and health centers is simply not enough by itself to substantially improve longer-term outcomes” (Ibid).
In Guyana, it was suggested that the MLHSS implement the intervention because that ministry is responsible for social security and distributes a public assistance grant (a temporary financial assistance designed to assist the infirm, aged, handicapped, orphans, persons affected by HIV and all other persons who cannot adequately maintain their households) to the kinds of households that were relatively more affected by poor attendance. Furthermore, rather than the Ministry of Education developing its own costly distribution infrastructure, the MLHSS already had a substantial infrastructure on the ground that could be developed, perhaps along the Jamaican model, to fulfill this task. To distribute public assistance, Cabinet usually appoints country-wide, for a two year term, about 28 local boards of guardians.
It must be obvious that the $10,000 annual grant that the government has now decided to give to all public school age children bears little resemblance to the kind of systematic approach associated with CCT programming. Recently, the Minister of Education has been calling for more parental involvement to prepare children for school life.
Simple exhortation will not make this happen; parents need to be given opportunities and incentives to act and a properly focused school grant system could be of some use. Fortunately, it might not be too late to attempt to structure, focus and optimize the value of this latest education intervention.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
