Co-production and Education Quality: The Case of Parents’ Associations in Souss-Massa (Morocco)

Abstract

As a foundation of economic development, service provision has evolved alongside public governance and shifted toward participatory approaches that actively engage citizens in the design and delivery of public services. Co-production, as an approach to citizen participation in service provision, has gained the interest of researchers and policy makers over the last two decades. Despite the growing body of research, there is still a need for more empirical evidence and methodological diversity to evaluate the outcomes of co-production. The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which the approach helps achieve efficiency and effectiveness in service provision by investigating the relationship between co-production and education quality from citizens' perspective. The data, for this study, were collected through survey questionnaire on a sample of 132 members of parents’ associations in Souss-Massa region in Morocco and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. The findings confirmed the theoretical assumptions regarding the positive impact of co-production activities in schools on education quality, demonstrating a significant positive relationship between the two variables. However, the anticipated moderating effect of professionals' engagement on this relationship was found to be statistically insignificant.