In all the debates about improving school quality one voice is often conspicuous only through its absence: the actual users of schools, including parents, communities and children. There are reasons for this, but perhaps the clearest is that it is harder for such a disparate group as parents and local communities to come together and be heard on the global stage. Parents face what economists call a ‘collective action problem’. This is why one focus for Save the Children’s education work in the coming few years will be to provide a platform for such voices. We want to help bring together a network of organizations and individuals who are worried about the quality of the schooling currently being provided and, working with others, to bring their perspectives to bear on the international education debates. There are some inspiring organizations and individuals out there. UWEZO in East Africa is a civil society organization which is working on behalf of local communities to shine a light on poor quality, seeking to empower parents and communities to demand improvement. Organizations such as Equal Education are demanding better from the South African government, with a highly professional campaign to improve school infrastructure. But there will be many thousands of unsung heroes-–small organizations, children and young people’s groups and passionate individuals–carrying out similar work across the global south. If you are one of them, or if you know any of them, then Save the Children would love to hear from you. Please contact us. Giving the powerless a voice Bringing these critical perspectives to bear on international discussions about the future of education is important in itself. It is vital to give the powerless a voice in global debates. However, there is another reason for this focus: empowering parents and local communities will almost inevitably be a much larger part of improving schools at the national level. Why do I say that? There is good reason to believe that parents and communities are going to be even more demanding of schools in the future. As many countries’ economies grow, more households are breaking out of poverty, aspiring to join the ranks of the growing middle class. According to the work of Nancy Birdsall at the Center for Global Development, India is currently projected to end under $4 poverty by 2050 with rapid expansions in both the middle class and what she has termed the ‘vulnerable’ class (households earning between $4-$10/day). Even in the poorest regions, the growth of, what some have labelled, the ‘vulnerable middle class’ is going to have big future impacts. The chart below shows the African Development Bank’s assessment of the growth of the ‘vulnerable’ and ‘middle’ class in sub-Saharan Africa. Note: In the AfDB report they use the term “floating class”, rather than “vulnerable”. This blog uses “vulnerable” in the interests of being consistent with the CGD work quoted above. Parents want good education for their kids Millions of parents already make humbling sacrifices for their children to receive an education, but given these big social changes, the impatience and demand from the ultimate users of schools for improvements will potentially become greater and greater. There is one rather grim future scenario, though. This increased scrutiny of educational quality—and more people with even just a little disposable income—will lead to burgeoning of families opting out of state schools which are struggling to improve quality. In this excellent study from Caine Rollerston and Modupe Adefesco-Olateju one parent’s view when asked about her children perfectly captures the risk: “Four of them (her children) were in public school, but realizing how the teachers in the schools are behaving towards the children, not teaching them, allowing them to loiter around; I moved them to a private one”. Parents want to send their children to good quality publically funded schools, but increasingly feel forced to take another decision. Indeed, as Oxfam’s development expert Duncan Green has argued, working to empower civil society is a complicated affair: “Civil society can be a force for pressuring the state to be more responsive to citizens and more equitable, or can be a source of exclusion and the reproduction of inequalities.” But there is another more optimistic future. There is enormous potential to harness this parental pressure for improvement. Already parents are involved in the management of schools through School-Based Management Committees, something which Save the Children is supporting in many countries including in Nigeria. Greater transparency about public spending, for example through Public Expenditure Reviews, is increasingly being used to help citizens hold governments to account for the results of public spending. And organizations like UWEZO and their sister ASER in India show that with the right information about school performance it is possible to start empowering communities and parents to demand that their children’s right to learn is delivered. In bringing together and harnessing the voice and power of parents, communities and pupils to help improve the quality of publicly funded basic education, Save the Children wants to work with others to ensure that we avoid the grim future outlined above. Instead we want the voices of parents and communities in the global south to become a force for achieving all children’s right to learn. Provide a comment below. Get involved and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter on helping children learn and grow.