PETS and Absenteeism: The Indian Perspective Anit Mukherjee Fellow, NIPFP Results For Development Workshop July 21, 2009

What are the issues? Over the last decade, significant changes have taken place in social sector expenditure in India These changes have been systemic, structural, and strategic A large part of these changes have taken place due to the accepted wisdom that increased expenditure was not translating into better outputs The main reasons were: (a) money not reaching the target service provider or beneficiary; (b) the lack of accountability of the service providers themselves

Fund Flows and Accountability PETS and Absenteeism studies are the appropriate research methodologies to address these systemic failures Examples: Public Report On Basic Education (PROBE), 1999 Missing in Action: Teacher and Medical Provider Absence in Developing Countries (World Bank), 2004 Outcome: Increased awareness of lack of accountability in public service delivery Action: Increase in social sector expenditure; structural changes in delivery systems

The Broader Picture South Asia is considered to be one of the regions lagging behind in human development – especially education and health Governments are being increasingly held accountable for failure to provide universal schooling or healthcare Within countries like India, different states/regions are competing amongst themselves – which is a healthy sign and helpful for advocacy Donor focus has shifted from project-based funding to budgetary support – increasing importance of PETS type studies

The current drawbacks After a spurt in PETS and Absenteeism in the late nineties and early part of this decade, there seems to be a dearth of research of late Cross-country studies have almost dried up – so this initiative is very welcome Most academics and policy-makers still quote the figures from the World Bank study Situation on the ground is far more complex than it was in the beginning of the decade when the earlier PETS/Absenteeism studies were conducted

Changing Nature of Fiscal Transfers Nearly $10 billion (1% of GDP) goes directly to sub-national entities outside the budgetary grants system

Federal Government Allocations Allocations have increased in subjects that were under the domain of the States

Structural Change - Decentralized Framework Pre- Universal Education Program Broad Function Responsibility   Central Govt State Govt District Block Village Service Provider (School) GP Groups Standards Setting Planning Asset Creation Operation - Non Teacher Operation - Teacher Monitoring and Evaluation

Structural Change – Decentralized Framework Post – Universal Education Program Broad Function Responsibility   Central Govt State Govt District Block Village Service Provider (School) GP Groups Standards Setting Planning Asset Creation Operation - Non Teacher Operation - Teacher Monitoring and Evaluation

Planning and Implementation Still not harmonized across states – plan sizes big, implementation capacity is weak. Need to be careful about selection bias in choosing location of the study

In summary – Future of PETS Future PETS studies need to factor in changes that have happened over the last decade or so. These can be classified into three basic problems: Planning Capacity Fund Flows Absorptive Capacity The ultimate objective is to increase efficiency of public expenditure and better quality of public service delivery