The purpose of this report is to present findings from baseline survey that was done concerning indicators for the Strengthening Social Accountability in the Education Sector in Malawi (SSAES). The baseline was done to provide the benchmark against the project’s key indicators for the purposes of monitoring, evaluation and learning.
The SSAES is a 3-year World Bank funded project being implemented by CARE Malawi, in partnership with the Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC). The project is funded through the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), a World Bank facility that supports civil society and governments to work together to solve critical governance challenges in developing countries. The SSAES project will be achieved through two key objectives, namely: - i) increased level of efficiency, transparency and accountability in the procurement processes; and ii) decreased teacher absenteeism. The project has a crosscutting component of Advocacy, Knowledge Management and Learning. The project is covering a total of 90 schools in six districts of Mzuzu City, Kasungu, Dedza, Balaka, Mwanza, and Mulanje.

The baseline was a cross sectional study using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Primary data was done using five data collection tools: School questionnaire, household questionnaire, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), Key Informants Interviews (KII) and Observational methods. Data was collected from 6 project districts. A total of 360 household questionnaires, 46 school questionnaires, 15 Focus Group Discussions and 18 Key Informant Interviews were administered. Besides, the baseline used secondary data through desk review.