Initiated by Integrity Watch in July 2014, the Community-Based Monitoring of Schools (CBM-S) Program is designed to bring more coordination between communities and local government education departments, increase transparency and accountability, and enhance the quality of education services through community monitoring and collaborative problem-solving. In this way, the program seeks to make officials more responsive, encourage communities to support the education sector, and help citizens advocate for policy change at local and national levels.

The CBM-S Program replaced Integrity Watch’s Community Score Card (CSC) Program, in which members of School Management Shuras (SMS) were empowered through training to evaluate education services, identify school problems, and seek local opportunities for solutions. Due to the lack of an effective monitoring system and the reactive nature of the SMS, Integrity Watch decided to alter its approach and switch to CBM-S programming, having already achieved notable success with CBM in other sectors. The CBM-S approach has proven highly effective in enabling community members to regularly monitor schools and collaborate with school management to resolve problems.