Does implementing problem-solving projects affect decisional style? Developing governance capabilities in school management committees

Abstract

ABSTRACT Faith in the power of local decision-making underpins decentralised democratic governance, but the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. It is in this context that school management committees (SMCs) were established in 2009–10 in India. Training these SMCs received has been criticised for focusing only a set of high expectations built around an idealised set of roles and responsibilities, and not on the members’ decision-making capabilities. We describe how problem-solving projects can be employed to develop such capabilities, through a field experiment in 50 SMCs, with another 50 serving as controls, that studied decisional styles of 603 SMC members. The analysis was based on a confirmatory factor analysis of a two-factor (vigilant and maladaptive styles) model, with the variation among SMCs controlled through a two-level model and path analysis. There was a significant positive effect on the vigilant decision-making style of those who participated in the programme (β = 0.195, p < .05), though maladaptive styles increased in both the treatment and control groups. Given that SMCs are expected to remain a feature of local governance structures, the importance of functional partnerships between the SMCs and school principals is indicated.