This book is quite different from existing 'Western' books on school effectiveness. It describes and analyses the way in which schools operate in developing countries and also tries to explain why they are as they are. Examining them at three levels - the macro, the meso and the micro - the authors use a theoretical framework that they have termed 'post-bureaucracy.'

The book has four interlinked sections. First the authors examine the existing economic and theoretical contexts around school effectiveness, including an analysis of the causes of economic crisis and its impact on...