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by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne, Montreal, Canada

Quality of education, a critical factor in Good Governance.

Evaluating the quality of governance of a democratically elected regime should not only be a preoccupation of the public sector but should also constitute a necessary prerogative of the people being governed. The most fundamental issue in the evaluation process must inevitably be whether the public governance reforms of a given regime could be assessed with performance measurement tools and models. Traditional modes of evaluation, with which the voter usually goes to the polls in a democratic environment to select her government, are "value for money", efficiency of service delivery and customer satisfaction. At best, these yardsticks have largely been political and economic abstractions which have prompted some academics and practitioners to consider the subject of governance-evaluation as being immeasurable or too much trouble. The issue is further aggravated by the fact that there is no scientifically approved or accepted model to assess the quality of public governance.

Overall public interest in good governance is now a common feature in the modern state, and is not restricted to the academics and practitioners who bore the burden of evaluating governance in the past. The increasing concern and interest in good governance may be attributed to the public being more educated and aware than before, which is now popularly known as "civic literacy", coupled with the proliferation of complex issues that have emerged with globalization and an international awareness that has spread to national boundaries. Therefore, an empirical demonstration of good governance has now become a compelling need that could provide the necessary tools for the public to develop their own desired models of governance which are capable of delivering goods that accord with their expectations. In this respect, while admittedly there are various methodologies developed at the local level to assess the quality of life and there exist global review processes such as the one employed by the World Bank to evaluate the quality of governance in whole countries, there are unfortunately no general indicators that could enable better understanding of whether a given governance is improving, nor has any conclusion been reached as to whether evaluating governance could go towards improving governance.

In the 1990s there was widespread interest in the public sector in achieving excellence in service delivery through quality governance. This trend went on the basic assumption that good governance resulted in improving the quality of life of the subject and governing processes. A system of positive reinforcement for the contributor through awards, financial rewards and quality control certification followed and for some time it was widely thought that a combined system of proactive governance and rewarding the contributing public sector would be the way toward progress. However, in recent times, governing bodies have come to realize increasingly that excellence of the public sector is not merely dependant upon the quality of services delivered if governance does not discharge political, social and environmental responsibilities. This new realization has given rise to the need for " public governance reforms" to deal with what are administratively termed "wicked problems". An example of a wicked problem is the funding for public sector education which is often unable to cope with increasing expenditure in the local government sector. In Germany for instance, many public agencies have been compelled to seek innovative approaches to reducing local welfare expenditure. However, recession has made it impossible to contain expenditure in the face of receding local resources. A public governance reform in such an instance could lie in partnerships with the private sector. The most compelling public governance reform would lie in the extent to which a governing body would involve the people, whose role in governance has been unacceptably thin and "consumerist". As service users, citizens should be consulted and they should, as members of a community, be inextricably linked with the decision-making processes that involve public initiatives.

In many recent instances of changes of government, it has often been seen that even when the voter has noticeably acknowledged improvement of services, he has not necessarily expressed greater trust in the incumbent government unless he had been drawn into the co-planning, co-designing and co-management of public initiatives. Therefore good governance is dependant on "trust" between the governed and the governing. Another aspect of good governance is the manner in which service is delivered to the governed. Major controversies in most governments around the world have often not been about low service performance but rather about ineptitude or self interest of the person carrying out the task. Transparency plays a significant role in this area, where complaints are often received by governments about the citizenry not being properly informed of the background of decision-making in given instances, thus exposing the politicians and officials responsible for such decisions, to charges of dishonesty and unfairness.

Public policy outcomes and interactivity of stakeholders are the two most critical indicators of good government. The first - public policy outcomes - have to be improved if a meaningful result is to be obtained toward good governance. In recent years, the interest of the citizen in public policy outcomes and the resurgence of security consciousness among the public has spurred both politicians and the public to seek evidence of whether their policies have made a difference in terms of achieving desired results. In order to assess good governance, the indicators should be looked at from a lateral perspective and not from a determinant of perceived adequacy. For example, in terms of his own security, the citizen would evaluate his government not by the quality of defence services provided but by the level of security from external attack perceived. In other words, however strong a military a government may provide, if it does not take measures to ensure that its citizenry is not exposed to danger (such as through acrimonious relations with other countries or from groups of individuals within the country), the citizen would not rate the government high in terms of governance. This is even more significant at the local or domestic level, where, however strong and sophisticated the police and crime prevention services may be in a State, if the level of community safety perceived by the citizen is low, the government would be deemed to be neglectful in governance. From an economic perspective, the quality of governance would be evaluated by the level of income and conditions of work rather than the economic development programs a State may embark upon. Healthwise, the indicator would be the level of health and feeling of well-being enjoyed rather than the quality of health care and social services available. Health is connected to environmental issues, where it is not the environmental protection or improvement services that matter but the quality of environment the people live in.

One of the most critical factors in assessing good governance is education. The popular misconception that a State which provides high level educational services provides good governance no longer holds sway, as it is the awareness and understanding of the people of world and domestic issues and their level of competence at work are what count as results of good governance. Another determinant is the comfort that people enjoy in their homes rather than the sophistication achieved in house building and repair services. Finally, on the issue of recreation and social interaction, it is not the recreational and social services available that are considered as important but the quality of leisure and cultural experiences people enjoy.

As for measurement of the quality of life improvements, it would not be difficult for a government to determine the overall holistic quality of life of its subjects by conducting a survey as to how many are happy or content with their quality of their lives and what they lack. The Human Development Index (HDI) of The United Nations, launched in 1990, the latest of which came out in 2002, aims at reinstating people in the epicenter of the development process. The HDI, which is an annual publication, ranks nations according to their citizens' quality of life rather than their economic status. Some of the criteria used by the United Nations in this evaluation are life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income. In 1997, the European Commission launched its European Urban Audit with the primary intention of sharing information among European cities with regard to quality of life enjoyed by EC citizens. The evaluation started with 58 pilot cities and has now reached the number of 200 cities within Europe. Perhaps one of the most useful analogies is the Compass Project of the Bertelsmann Foundation of Germany, which aims, with a four pronged strategy, to improve some cities and local administrations. The first of these strategies is to develop a long term external vision and strategic objectives with the assistance of and in consultation with the citizens. The second is to build a set of quality of life indicators which admits of comparison between the pilot cities and administrations. The third is to develop proposals for improvement through data and information collected, and finally an evaluation is made as to the extent to which the action taken met with expectations.

The United Nations HDI envisions that the kind of world we would be living in the future would involve: increased life expectancy and therefore increased population; increased aged population; increased disposable incomes; increased migrations; and increased concerns on environmental issues. These are all issues that would require a compromise between economic theory and social justice, if good governance were to prevail in social units. In this context, although indicators of good governance may generally vary according to the social unit concerned, such variance would be negligible compared to specific indicators that would apply globally, both internationally and nationally. Some of these indicators are: involvement of citizens; accountability of actions of the governing body; transparency; equality in social inclusion (gender, ethnicity, age, religion etc); ethical conduct; integrity; ability to compete in a global environment; ability to work as partners with other governments or bodies; fair procedures and due process; and respect for the rule of law. A State's adherence to the rule of law is extremely important as a determinant of good governance. It carries the principle that law (as administered by the ordinary courts) is supreme and that all citizens (including members of the government) are equally subject to it and equally entitled to its protection.

Given all these indicators, a government is faced with the inevitable question as to whether strict conformity with the principles of good governance would guarantee high quality achievement and the peoples trust. One yardstick could be the Corruptions Perception Index ( CPI) developed by Transparency International in 1995 which has so far covered 102 countries. .Transparency International dedicated its 2003 issue to fighting corruption through access to information.

Information is the seminal and single factor that enables the public to be aware of corruption and the measures taken by the authorities to root it out. Information strengthens the public will as well as awareness of the legislative and practical efficacy of a government. Access to information also obviates the traditional practice of secrecy in official communications, which has, over the past several decades if not centuries, enabled governments to hold as privileged and classified certain material which could expose corruption. One of the most effective ways to inhibit corruption is to enable the public to have access to information. The starting point in international legislation is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which provides that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression and that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. The New York Times, on 2 September 2002, quotes the words of Judge Keith in the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit who invoked in Orwellian terms : "When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation. A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution."

The first conclusion that one can reach is that good governance is no longer assessed by the provision of services by a government or other governing body but rather by the extent to which improvements were made possible to the quality of life of the individual. The second is that good governance has an international connotation, in that it should be assessed with the assistance and application of international standards. Also, good governance must be rewarded, for example through rewards along the lines of the Nobel Peace Price for "best practices"in good governance. Recognition should be given through "satisfaction surveys" where a direct causal nexus could be drawn between the manner in which the governed was enabled to reach a level of satisfaction with governance provided. Positive changes in expectation and results obtained should be weighed against perceived adequacies of government in the provision of services.

Trust in government, through increased levels of health and well-being (which must necessarily include a sense of security of life, habitation and movement) both from cultural and religious perspectives should be a primary indicator. The elimination of corruption is a key to good governance, and civil society, which has been overwhelmingly proactive in building awareness on human rights issues, has succeeded in persuading the international community of the value for transparency and honesty in public transactions. Arguably, the most important key to good governance is benevolence and understanding. A good government must assure its people that it has their well-being at heart and pro actively move towards achieving that goal.

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