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Pascaline Dupas , UCLA

Making Schools Accountable: What Works? World Bank, June 22, 2009. Pupil-Teacher Ratios, Locally-Hired Contract Teachers, and School-Based Management: Evidence from Kenya. Pascaline Dupas , UCLA. Kenya Extra-Teacher Study. Collaborative effort:

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Pascaline Dupas , UCLA

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  1. Making Schools Accountable: What Works? World Bank, June 22, 2009 Pupil-Teacher Ratios,Locally-Hired Contract Teachers,and School-Based Management:Evidence from Kenya PascalineDupas, UCLA

  2. Kenya Extra-Teacher Study • Collaborative effort: • Academics: Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer and myself • Implementing NGO: ICS Africa • Funding from World Bank (BNPP)

  3. Kenyan Context: Free Primary Education • Free Primary Education started in 2003 • Enrollment in primary school increased from 5.9 to 7.6 million, particularly in lower grades • Reform reduced income for school committees; fewer locally-hired teachers • Average PTR in Grade 1: 80 in area of study • Greater heterogeneity of student preparation

  4. ICS Extra Teacher Program (ETP) • Ran for two academic (= calendar) years: 2005 and 2006 • Involved 140 schools: • 70 control, 140 ETP treatment schools • ETP Treatment: Provided funds to school committee to hire an extra teacher locally • Extra Teacher required to have same qualifications as civil service teachers • Salary: 2,500 Ksh(~$35) a month, compared to ~7,000 ksha month +benefits for civil service teachers • Short-term contract, renewable after a year, school can fire extra teacher if performance unsatisfactory

  5. Mechanics of the ETP program • Extra-Teacher assigned to 1st grade • Added one section in 1st grade: from 1 to 2 in most school, 2 to 2 in a few schools • Extra Teacher randomly assigned to one section; followed students in that section through Grade 2 (vs. rotation) • Division of students between sections was done at random (70 schools) or based on initial preparationlevel (70 schools) • Schools supposed to treat teachers equally • Resources supposed to be shared equally

  6. School-Based Management (SBM): • Add-on implemented in half of ETP schools • Designed to enhance role of parents in monitoring ETP teachers • Training of school committee on how to monitor contract teacher’s performance • Soliciting input from parents • Checking teacher attendance • Formal subcommittee to evaluate contract teacher’s performance; • Review meeting at end of first year of contract to decide whether to renew

  7. Questions this design can answer: • Can hiring contract teachers locally at low pay help increase students’ learning? Can contract teachers perform well despite their lack of experience and low pay? • Can empowering the community to monitor teachers’ performance increase teachers’ effort and students’ learning? • Does lowering the pupil-teacher ratio improve learning? • Do more homogenous classes increase average learning? Do they hurt the students who are “tracked” in the lower-performing class?

  8. Outcomes of Interest • Final outcome: Test scores • Intermediate outcomes: • Teacher Effort • Student Attendance

  9. Effects on Test Scores • Overall: test score gain of 0.16 standard deviations in ETP schools relative to comparison schools • But not every student benefitted equally show • Students of civil service teachers • No significant gain relative to comparison schools despite reduction in class size from ~80 to ~40! • Students of contract teachers • Scored 0.23 SD more than students of civil service teachers in same schools • Students in SBM schools • Not affected if assigned to contract teacher • If assigned to civil service teacher • No significant gains for literacy • Scored .18 SD more in math than comparable students in non-SBM ETP schools

  10. Possible explanations for test score results • Why such a large contract teacher effect? • Incentives • short term renewable contract, possibility to become permanent • more likely to be local • Less rotation • Continuity could be good for students • Also could increase accountability • Why didn’t reduction in pupil-teacher ratio increase scores? • Civil service teachers did not change teaching technique? • Increased absence? indeed • Why an SBM effect on civil service teachers? • Reinforce mission of contract teacher • Civil service teachers cannot expect contract teachers to take their classes

  11. Grouping Students by Initial Preparation • Tracking appears to be effective • Raises average test scores by approximately 0.13 s.d. • Gains throughout distribution of initial scores • Consistent with focus model of peer effects • Highlights importance of response of teacher behavior

  12. Long-term results only persist with tracking Test Scores at the end of 2007 (one year after ETP program had ended)

  13. Conclusions and Caveats • Scaling up ETP/SBM/dedicated teacher assignment combination attractive in this context • Raises test scores for students • Costs are modest • Caveats in generalizing • Contract teachers were trained • ETP teachers may be motivated by prospect of obtaining civil service positions • Hard to isolate impact of dedicated teacher (rotation effect) • Adding civil service teachers might have different effects

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