School Inspections, Bureaucrats, and School Quality: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

The government of Tanzania has recently reformed its school inspection program, reframing the formerly punitive function as a friendly source of support to schools, now called the School Quality Assurance (SQA) program. A key part of the reform is to replace the traditional school inspections with Whole School Visits (WSVs), conducted by $3-4$ School Quality Assurance Officers (SQAOs). Each SQA visit produces a set of diagnostics and recommendations across a range of domains that are shared with all stakeholders. The Ward Education Officers (WEOs) are then responsible for conducting follow-up visits to the schools to monitor compliance to these recommendations. We propose a randomized evaluation of the SQA program, as well as an additional treatment to increase monitoring and oversight by the WEOs. Out of a nationally representative sample of $397$ schools we randomly assign $198$ schools to receive the WSVs. Moreover, in half of these schools, also randomly assigned, WEOs are encouraged through text-based reminders to engage head teachers on how they are addressing the recommendations of the SQAOs. We collected baseline data in February-March 2019, midline data in Februray-March 2020, and plan to conduct endline data in November 2020. We will estimate the impact of these interventions on the beliefs and behaviors of the Ward Education Officers, head teachers, teachers, and the school community, as well as the learning outcomes of a cohort of students who were in grade 2 and 3 at baseline.