Pascaline Dupas, UCLA

Pupil-Teacher Ratios,Locally-Hired Contract Teachers,and School-Based Management:

Evidence from Kenya

Making Schools Accountable: What Works? World Bank, June 22, 2009

Kenya Extra-Teacher Study

Collaborative effort: Academics: Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer and myself Implementing NGO: ICS Africa Funding from World Bank (BNPP)

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

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 ksh

a month +benefits for civil service teachers Short-term contract, renewable after a year, school can fire

extra teacher if performance unsatisfactory

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 preparation level (70 schools)

Schools supposed to treat teachers equally Resources supposed to be shared equally

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

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?

Outcomes of Interest

Final outcome: Test scores Intermediate outcomes:

Teacher Effort Student Attendance

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

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

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

Long-term results only persist with tracking

Total Score 0.00 0.10 0.04 -0.01 0.09 0.12 0.20 0.02 0.10 0.06 0.22

(0.07) (0.08) (0.08) (0.10) (0.08) (0.09)** (0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.09)**

Mathematics 0.00 0.10 0.04 -0.01 0.10 0.13 0.18 0.03 0.12 0.06 0.20

(0.06)* (0.06) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)* (0.07)*** (0.07) (0.07)* (0.06) (0.08)**

Literacy 0.00 0.08 0.03 0.00 0.07 0.09 0.17 0.01 0.07 0.06 0.20

(0.07) (0.08) (0.09) (0.10) (0.09) (0.09)* (0.09) (0.09) (0.08) (0.09)**

Observations 3308 6101 2863 1378 1311 1399 1491 1380 1553 1309 1337

AllNon-

Tracked, All

Non-Tracked, no SBM

Initial Achievement

Tracking, Civil-Service Teacher

Non-Tracked,

with SBM

Initial Achievement

Tracking,no SBM

Initial Achievement

Tracking with SBM

Students in

non-ETP Schools

Initial Achievement

Tracking, Contract Teacher

Non-Tracked, Civil-Service

Teacher

Non-Tracked, Contract Teacher

Students in ETP Schools

Test Scores at the end of 2007 (one year after ETP program had ended)

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