The importance of trust in education decentralisation in West Africa

Educational governance is the focus of much discussion among both academics and development practitioners internationally. Decentralisation is seen as a core tool for promoting democracy, good governance and economic development. However, although education decentralisation and trust are interrelated dimensions of governance and democracy, they are seldom considered together and rarely contextualised within educational governance and policy studies. The qualitative study described here used interview data from stakeholders to investigate the relationship between the social dimension of trust and the structural concept of decentralisation in Benin (West Africa). The findings suggest that trust in local government officials is a precondition for the effective devolution of education responsibilities. However, parents and teachers remain sceptical about devolution, partly as a consequence of Benin's pre-colonial and colonial history. The paper outlines the implications for governance systems seeking to link decentralisation to trust in order to both mediate and enact policy choices and decisions.