The study was conducted using stratified random sampling.
The stratified sample was set up in such a way to be representative at the national level. Madagascar has 22 regions and 111 districts, and at least one district was visited in each region. Two districts were selected in the six largest regions. Hence, 28 districts were visited in total. The selected districts were obtained through random selection, giving greater (less) weight to districts with more (less) public primary schools within the district. In each district, three communes were randomly selected, giving greater weight to the communes with more schools. Within each commune, three public primary schools were randomly selected. By ranking schools from large to small and ensuring that a school was picked out of each tercile, a representative sample of school sizes was chosen.
In order to track different resource flows from the decentralized district facility levels to the schools, surveys were organized at district and school levels. At the local level, the directors of the education facility as well as teachers were interviewed independently. To ensure compatibility, the surveys at district and school levels were held at the same time.
In total, 252 schools were visited. Due to closure of some schools during either the first or the second round (or both rounds), researchers ended up with reliable panel data on 229 schools. Finally, it is noteworthy that the second round of data collection faced greater challenges to collect the data and therefore results were less robust for the second round. (For example, researchers faced mismatching codes for some schools and health centers as well as personnel codes between both rounds; there were a lot of blank entries on school equipment and other line items in the second round, and there were more cases where collected information on certain budgets did not add up to the total of those budgets as reported by the enumerators in the second round).
Overall, in the province of Antananarivo 54 schools were visited, 63 schools were visited in Fianarantsoa, 36 - in Toamasina, 45 - in Mahajanga, 36 - in Toliara and 18 - in Antsiranana.
