Education (SAO0009)

Commitment no. 4: “Education”
Increase transparency, technology and innovation so that the educational community (educators, managers, students, families and civil society) can monitor the implementation of the resources of the Educational Units (UEs) and participate in decisions on the allocation of investments.
Commitment start and end date: January/2019 - August/2020
Lead implementing agency/actor
Municipal Secretariat of Education (SME)
Commitment description
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
About R$ 10 billion are allocated annually in the public education budget of the city of São Paulo. However, because of the way the budget and its execution are publicized today, with their codes and technical terms, the information is difficult to understand and does not allow citizens to obtain details on the expenditures nor to identify the regionalization of expenditures by city area or by school.
Overall objective(s) and expected result(s)
By implementing this commitment, we seek to increase transparency and access to information on the budget used to maintain the educational policies of the city of São Paulo, allowing the citizens to follow up on the execution of such resources.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
The development of instruments that translate into simple language the budget of the Municipal Secretariat of Education, considering the territorial aspect, will increase the effective transparency of the department regarding its resources. In addition, it will provide society with mechanisms and information that will allow citizens to track how these resources are spent, as well as the actions taken to maintain the city educational policies.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
This commitment is essential as it provides greater transparency to data on Education budget execution, in a regionalized way, ensuring public access to more complete and detailed information. This allows better conditions for the citizens to get informed and participate in the decisions related to the allocation of investments in the educational units.
Additional Information
In April 2017, SME started its Open Government Policy, called “Pátio Digital”. Since then, it has been committed to promoting the opening of its data, processes, contents and technologies, with a view to effectively implementing the principles of open government in the Department, with a focus on building trust with society. The commitment, when concluded, will be considered as another important step in this movement of consolidation of this opening process promoted by the Department. Milestone activity with a verifiable deliverable
Start date:
End date:
Develop a digital tool that allows regionalized tracking of Regional Departments of Education (DREs) and Educational Units (UEs) resources/expenditures and public transfers in accessible language.
January/2019
August/2020
Promote open meetings and training with civil society on the mechanisms for following and social control of Education budget resources.
January/2019
August/2020
Promote, with the students of São Paulo Municipal Education System, projects based on the principles of open government aimed at their Educational Units, involving also school communities and surrounding communities.
August/2019
August/2020
Hold events to present the open government projects developed by the students and promote the share of experiences between them.
November/2019
August/2020
Contact information

Name of responsible person from implementing agency
João Cury Neto25
Title
Municipal Secretary of Education
Implementing agency department
Coordination of Active Transparency and Internal Control (COTAC)
Email and phone

smecotac@sme.prefeituta.sp.gov.br +55 11 3396-0257

Other actors involved

State actors involved

Civil society actors involved

Associação de Projetos Integrados e Desenvolvimento Sustentável (PIDS);
Fundação Escola de Comércio Álvares Penteado (FECAP); Movimento Cultural das Periferias (MCP).

4. Education

Commitment text:

Increase transparency, technology and innovation so that the educational community (educators, managers, students, families and civil society) can monitor the implementation of the resources of the Educational Units (UEs) and participate in decisions on the allocation of investments.

Milestones

4.1 Develop a digital tool that allows regionalized tracking of Regional Departments of Education (DREs) and Educational Units (UEs) resources/expenditures and public transfers in accessible language.

4.2 Promote open meetings and training with civil society on the mechanisms for following and social control [25] of Education budget resources.

4.3 Promote, with the students of São Paulo Municipal Education System, projects based on the principles of open government aimed at their Educational Units, involving also school communities and surrounding communities.

4.4 Hold events to present the open government projects developed by the students and promote the share of experiences between them.

Start Date: January 2019

End Date: August 2020

Editorial note: to see the complete text, visit

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Sao-Paulo_Action-Plan_2018-2020_EN.pdf

Context and Objectives

Overall objective and relevance

This commitment seeks to improve the transparency of decentralized budget information in the area of education. The format in which budget information is published today, full of codes and technical terms, is difficult for the general public to understand and is only accessible to an expert audience on the subject. ^[26] In addition, it is currently not possible to locate territorially 75% of the public expenditures made by the Secretariats responsible for policies that have a direct impact on the life of the population. ^[27]. In the case of the Municipal Secretariat of Education, this percentage is 78.4%. [28] This happens despite the fact that there are precise determinations in the Organic Law of the Municipality ^[29] for that disclosure to occur.

This issue of improving transparency in relation to the territorialized budget is a long-standing social demand of social movements in various areas. ^[30] Decentralized information is considered fundamental to qualifying the processes of participation, as it is the only way to effectively know how the different regions of the city are being targeted for investments and to more accurately detect concentrations and deficiencies of investments in the territory. This aspect becomes even more important when one considers that São Paulo is a city with deep socio-territorial inequalities. In addition, territorialized information on the budget is also necessary for monitoring the execution of resources.

To respond to this challenge, the commitment seeks to promote transparency through the development of a digital tool that allows the visualization of budget data related to the territory, based on the decentralized structures of the area of education, such as the Education Regional Boards ^[31] and the Educational Units. At the same time, the commitment also reinforces the public oversight capacity of society by including training activities so that civil society can better understand the budget and monitor the investment of resources in each territory. In this way, the proposed actions form a more consistent commitment, as they combine the dissemination of information with formative activities in which society can make sense of the proposed tool, thus making the transparency initiative more effective.

The commitment is, therefore, directly relevant to the access to information, as it will allow the visualization of data in a more friendly way than in the current system and allow the monitoring of the execution of resources in a decentralized way. It is also relevant to civic participation, as it engages with civil society by organizing meetings and training on the mechanisms of monitoring and control of budgetary resources of Education.

Verifiability and potential impact

The researcher believes that the objective of the commitment is sufficiently specific to be verifiable, but some milestones could be better detailed. Measurable framework 1 refers to the development of a digital tool that allows for the location of budget information in the territory in accessible language. Measurable framework 2 refers to promoting training activities so that civil society can make better use of the tool and monitor the execution of resources invested in education more effectively. In this case, it would be necessary to detail how many activities will be carried out. Additionally, it would be recommended to detail the training contents. To be more transformative, it would be advisable not only to inform the public about how to use the new tool but also to promote activities that allow the public to suggest features or assist in the collection of data so their role is not limited to end-users of the product.

Measurable milestones 3 and 4 refer to promoting students’ projects based on the principles of open government, involving school and surrounding communities. In this case, although the proposed activity is clear, it would also be necessary to define how many projects and events will be carried out and how they can connect and help with the improvement of transparency proposed within the adoption of the new digital tool for monitoring the execution of resources.

If implemented as described in the action plan, the proposed commitment and activities can have a moderate impact on the quality of information available to society. The digital budget transparency tool accompanied by training activities can be a significant step towards transparency, as it will allow for the visualization of the decentralized budget in the city, which, as already mentioned, is an old social demand, and for the accessibility of information for a non-expert public.

Next steps

Although the researcher considers this commitment to have only moderate impact potential, some actions should be more detailed to ensure that this potential is translated into concrete changes:

- A debate or participatory workshop could be promoted to allow civil society to have an opinion on the characteristics that will compose the digital tool to be developed;

- Define how many meetings and training sessions and the location where they will be held so that a significant number of people and organizations can adopt the new tool;

- Define how and how many Educational Units will be involved for milestones 3 and 4;

- Besides training civil society, it is advisable to include activities that better connect the new tool to spaces that foster dialogue on how to reduce maldistribution of resources.