Transcript Focusing on teacher quality in Pakistan: urgency for reform

Focusing on teacher quality in
Pakistan: urgency for reform
(draws from various recent pieces of work)
Monazza Aslam
Senior Research Associate ASER
Pakistan
Introduction
• This talk will focus on the importance of
teachers and an examination into their
effectiveness in producing valuable
student outcomes.
• Why? to underpin equity, efficiency and
effectiveness in the delivery of teacher
services in the country.
Current status of teacher quality in South Asia.
• What does teacher quality encompass?
• What does it mean when we talk about teacher
quality?
• Why is it important?
• How does Pakistan fare in comparison to other SAR
countries?
Dig deeper…
•
•
•
•
Look specifically at the teacher labour market;
Deployment;
teacher salaries;
accountability.
What makes an effective teacher?
teacher competence
• Measuring competence;
• SchoolTELLS-Pakistan
• Look into teacher competence linked to effective inservice and pre-service training needs for Pakistan.
The Why of teacher quality
• Universally recognised that variations in teacher effectiveness
are important determinants of differences in school quality
(Hanushek and Woessmann, 2011).
• Poor quality schooling is one of the key factors documented to
lie behind educational failures in the South Asia region stems from a combination of factors but substandard teaching
cited as the foremost reason contributing to poor schooling
quality across the developing world.
• This is especially worrying because poor instruction and
ineffective teaching reduces the demand for education which
in turn reduces the pool of qualified teachers creating a
vicious circle of poor quality schooling.
• Research now confirms that improving weak teaching may be
the most effective means of raising school quality across the
developing world (Glewwe and Kremer, 2006, p. 995).
What makes a ‘quality’ teacher?
• ‘Quality’ encompasses a range of competencies and skills.
• Teacher quality in the very narrow sense of the term can be defined
as a ‘teacher’s ability to produce growth in student achievement’
(Eide et al. 2004).
• Despite initial research to the contrary, it is now recognized that
schools do make a difference in determining student outcomes and
a growing body of research acknowledges that teacher quality is
probably the most important institutional influence on
student outcomes (Goldhaber 1999, Hanushek 2002, Slater
2009).
• But research on teacher observables has also shown mixed results.
• Measuring ‘teacher quality’ is problematic – achievement
production functions linking observable T characteristics to student
outcomes or ‘fixed effects’ measuring teacher quality (US studies
mostly).
Evidence from South Asia
• Very few quality studies to date in the SA region that measure
teacher quality and effectiveness.
• Ones that do (Kingdon and Teal 2008, Aslam and Kingdon 2012)
find that standard resumé characteristics of teachers on which
recruitment and pay policies of a large number of teachers
(especially in government schools) are based, do not matter to
student learning.
• Study by Aslam and Kingdon (2012) finds evidence that the teaching
‘process’ and teaching styles such as lesson planning and interactive
teaching matter substantially for student learning in Pakistan.
• These considerations suggest that current criteria for recruitment
and remuneration in South Asia and elsewhere that rely on
certification characteristics of teachers are inefficient as they do not
identify or reward the most effective teachers.
Pakistan in comparison with other
countries in SAR
• Are more ‘experienced’/aged teachers a drain on
public funds? Or do they represent an
‘experienced workforce’?
• Is Pakistan facing a shortage of female teachers?
• Is ineffective deployment an issue?
Pakistan is reported as a country with shortage of
female teachers
Countries
with
% of1 female
Countries
with of Teacher
% of female
Source: UNESCO
2005, cited as Table
in ‘Managing Teachers:
The Centrality
Management
to of
Quality Education. Lessons
from Developing
Countries’, (CfBT,
a
shortage
teachers
a shortage
of 2008). teachers
female teachers
male teachers
Chad
11
Sri Lanka
79
Togo
12
Botswana
80
Benin
19
Guyana
85
Guinea Bissau
20
Philippines
87
Afghanistan
24
Mongolia
93
Nepal
29
Kyrgyzstan
97
Pakistan
36
Kazakhstan
98
Pakistan Pupil Teacher Ratios from all public schools in 2008-2009
Poor Teacher Deployment: Striking intra-country differences – KP vs
Punjab
(Source: Academy of Educational Planning and Management)
Pakistan fares reasonably well in terms of
% of trained teachers in the SAR region…
Percentage of
trained
teachers:
Nepal1
Banglades
h1
Bhutan1
Primary
66
54
91
90
97
63*
Lower
secondary
52
57
90
91
98
63*
Secondary
58
50
83
89
98
63*
Upper
secondary
64
42
72
93
86
63*
Note 1: 2008 UIS Data
Note 2: Authors’ calculations from Statistics on School Education 2007-08
Note 3: Authors’ calculations from Pakistan Education Statistics 2008-09
Note 4: 2007 UIS data
*Average for all levels.
India2 Pakistan3 Srilanka4
But inequity exists in the distribution of
trained teachers by region and gender…
Urban
Rural
Total
Professional
Qualification
Male
%
Female
%
Male
%
Female
%
Male
%
Female
%
P.T.C.
41.3
58.7
62.3
37.7
57.8
42.
C.T.
45.2
54.8
64.0
36.0
58.7
41.3
B.Ed.
49.0
51.0
65.7
34.3
60.7
39.3
M.Ed.
Any other training
Untrained
Not reported
56.8
63.9
57.6
64.7
43.2
36.1
42.4
35.3
71.6
73.5
63.1
82.8
28.4
26.5
36.9
17.2
65.9
71.3
62.2
79.4
34.1
28.7
37.8
20.6
Total
48.2
51.8
65.2
34.8
60.8
39.2
ource: Academy of Educational Planning and Management; Figures for 2008-2009.
Note: This includes schools at all levels from primary to higher secondary. It also includes teachers
at mosque schools. PTC is Primary Teaching Certificate; CT is Certificate of Training; B.Ed. is
Bachelors in Education; M.Ed. is Masters in Education.
What do we know about teacher
‘effort’ in SA?
• Teacher effort exerted while in school in many
countries of the SAR region is at a pitiably low level,
as measured by very high teacher absence rates.
• The problem therefore is not even one of low quality
teaching but one of no teaching at all, for a
significant part of the time (World Bank, 2004).
• Teacher absence has been linked with low student
outcomes in a diverse group of countries (Miller et
al. 2007, Clotfelter, Ladd and Vigdor, 2006).
Introducing the SchoolTELLS-Pakistan
data
• Undertaken in April- May 2011 with World Bank funding.
• Covered 3 districts of Faisalabad, Mianwali & Rahim Yar Khan,
from the province of Punjab. The project covered twenty villages
in each of the three districts and two schools were selected from
each village, comprising a total sample of 120 schools.
• The main purpose of this research study was to get reliable indepth data to comprehensively understand the relationship
between student learning levels and factors that can influence
them, such as teachers’ background, children’s background &
ability, classroom environment and school environments.
• Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) or the centre for education and
consciousness was the collaborating entity in Pakistan which also
houses the secretariat for the South Asia Forum for Education
Development (SAFED) that has undertaken the pioneering
initiative of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)
Pakistan in 2008 and 2010.
Assessing competencies
• Learning levels of students from classes 3 and 5 were tested using
student tests, while the student ability or IQ was tested using the Raven’s
Progressive Test.
• Student background information was collected using a student
questionnaire.
• Learning levels of teachers were also measured using a teachers test.
The test was designed in such a way that it tested three main competencies:
1.
teachers’ understanding of the subject-matter from the primary
curriculum,
2.
their ability to spot student mistakes and
3.
their ability to explain content in an effective manner.
Unknown to the teachers and students, some of the questions in the
mathematics and language tests were common for the two groups. Additional
background information was also collected on issues such as teacher
experience, education, affiliation etc. as well as information on political
economy issues (such as union membership) and measures of teacher effort
(time on task, absence etc.).
• Rich information has been gathered on more
than 1500 students and more than 300 teachers
across the 120 schools in Punjab.
• One caveat of note is that these data are not
representative of Pakistan as a whole and the
findings from this research are meant to be
informative.
SchoolTELLS: Teacher absence is
high and mainly unexplained
• Poor motivation and a lack of accountability
(through credible sanctions and punishment) are said to
be the main reasons for the high rates of absenteeism
observed among teachers in developing countries.
• Data from SchoolTELLS-Pakistan from rural Punjab
reveals that on the day of the visit, 11 per cent of the
teachers were reportedly absent. The majority of this
absence was ‘unexplained’ rather than attributable to
official non-teaching duties. Illness accounted for most
of the explained absences.
• The teacher absence rate in private schools, where there
tend to be stricter accountability policies, is 7%. This is
lower than the absence rate of 12% found in Government
schools.
Teacher competence in rural Punjab…
• Teachers in rural Punjab are substantially
competent? This is unlike similar data that was
collected in India showing worryingly low levels of
teacher competence in these same three aspects of
competence (see Kingdon and Banerjee, 2009).
• For example, the average score of all teachers in
Pakistan in the language test was 69.5% while in
mathematics the score was 73.9%.
• Another way of looking at this: teachers did not have
100% knowledge of the very content they are
supposed to be teaching their students!
High teacher competency is also not
reflected in higher student learning
Multigrade teaching
• Multi-grade teaching has become a common strategy to meet MDG
goals and to deal with issues of teacher shortages and absences
particularly in remote rural areas in several developing countries.
• Research on the effects of Multigrade teaching on student learning
to date has shown mixed results (Little 2008).
• Several studies report a disadvantage associated with multigrade
teaching (example Kochar (2007) found that students in multigrade settings in Andhra Pradesh in India performed at a lower level
than their counterparts in monograde settings. Rowley (1992) found
that monograde schools in Pakistan showed cognitive differences in
favour of children in monograde schools. Suzuki’s (2006)
observation of multi-grade settings in Nepal found that one major
negative impact was that for some proportion of the day there was a
group of children who were neglected/ignored with no teacher
taking responsibility for their learning or directing them towards
self-learning during this time.)
SchoolTELLS data reveals
inconsistencies in grade groupings
• In the one visit randomly made during the SchoolTELLS survey, data reveal
that 43 percent of the children in primary school were sitting in a monograde
environment.
• However, it was also found that in 8 percent of the cases, all five primary
grades were sitting together.
• These findings suggest considerable instability in grade-grouping
configurations within the same school year, making it difficult for the teacher
to prepare teaching for a given mix of classes.
• This provides one potential explanation for why despite having competent
teachers; students in rural Pakistan have such low levels of learning. Much of
this may stem from frequent teacher absence (as mentioned previously) which
results in ad-hoc-ism about classroom organisation. T
• Persistence of multigrade settings in developing countries needs to be
reflected in teaching training courses in order to prepare teachers for this
eventuality.
Teacher Remuneration
• The provision of high-quality schooling requires
an adequate supply of competent teachers.
• Among the factors that influence this supply,
perhaps the most important are: the salary
offered to teachers, relative earnings offered in
alternative careers and varying non-pecuniary
conditions of work (work load, job stress, status
and satisfaction etc.).
Benchmarking teacher salaries
A. Compare teacher salaries to per capita GDP –
how well off is the teacher in comparison to the
average person in a country?
B. Compare teacher salaries to salaries of
(comparable) persons in non teaching jobs;
Furnishing a measure of economic and
social distance…
• One of the means of benchmarking teacher
wages is to compute the ratio of teacher salaries
as a proportion of GDP per capita/per capita
income in a country.
• This ratio tells us how affluent the teacher is,
with respect to the average person in the
country.
• Thus, it furnishes a measure of the economic
and social distance between the teacher and the
taught.
Pakistan - Ratio of teacher salary to per capita income (Rupees), by province
Province
Punjab
Sindh
NWFP
Balochistan
Pakistan
Average
monthly
household
income
(2004-2005),
rupees/month*
Average
household
size (1998
Census)x
(a)
9488
10413
9395
8849
9685
(b)
7
6.1
8
6.8
6.9
Estimated
monthly Annual per
per capita
capita
income
income
(c)
1355
1707
1174
1301
1404
(d)
16265
20485
14093
15616
16844
Annual
Teacher
teacher
Annual
salary
salaries in per capita
as
2008+ income in multiple
2008
of per
prices**
capita
income
in 2008
(e)
115172
128624
106572
127070
119480
(f)
22283
28064
19307
21394
23076
Source: * Pakistan Statistical Yearbook (2007), Government of Pakistan, Statistics Division, Federal Bureau of Statistics; x Pakistan
Statistical Yearbook (2007); + We identified teachers using the occupation codes in Pakistan Labour Force Survey (2008). The reported
salaries are for all teachers in government and private school jobs teaching at all levels. ** Column (f) shows column (d) figures inflated to
2008 prices using the Wholesale Price Index for Pakistan reported in Pakistan Statistical Yearbook (2007).
(g)
5.2
4.6
5.5
5.9
5.2
How does Pakistan compare with India? Select states….
State
Andhra Pradesh
Assam
Bihar
Jharkhand
Gujarat
Jammu and Kashmir
Madhya Pradesh
Chhattisgarh
Maharashtra
Punjab
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal
Simple means for states
2008 per capita net
domestic product at
factor cost
(base=1999-2000)*
2008 per capita
net domestic
product in
current (2008)
prices×
(a)
27362
16272
10206
16294
19521
33198
19708
12481
24720
23642
(b)
42958
25547
16023
25582
30648
52121
30942
19595
38810
37119
Annual
teacher
salaries in
2008+
(c)
89876
127853
187685
124290
123862
103415
157147
124383
107886
149073
166609
103396
108534
119540
Teacher
salary as
multiple of
per capita
income
in 2008
(d)
2.1
5.0
11.7
4.9
4.1
2.9
5.4
5.3
2.8
4.2
Kingdon (2010)
estimates of teacher
salary/per capita
income 2004**
(e)
2.8
12.4
2.8
3.8
4.5
3.1
4.6
7.3
4.8
5.1
Teacher Pay relative to other occupations
(Source: Authors’ calculations from Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2000 and 2008)
Pakistan
Teachers
Legislators
Professionals
Associate
Professional
Clerks
Service
workers/shops
Skilled Agriculture
Crafts
Plant/Machine
operators
Elementary
All non-teachers
(weighted average)
2000
Mean Monthly Ratio of Teacher
Salary (in 2005 Salary/Salary in
US$)
other
occupation
230
351
0.7
314
0.7
253
0.9
2008
Mean Monthly Ratio of Teacher
Salary (in 2005 Salary/Salary in
PPP US$)
other
occupation
303
384
0.8
360
0.8
303
1.0
239
221
1.0
1.0
300
239
1.0
1.3
170
215
251
1.4
1.1
0.9
234
242
227
1.3
1.3
1.3
172
1.3
179
1.7
257
0.9
277
1.1
SchoolTELLS evidence reaffirms this…
• SchoolTELLS Pakistan data reveals that the average monthly salary
of a primary school teacher in rural Punjab is Rs. 17,000 as
compared to Rs. 3800 earned by their private school counterparts.
• The salary of government schools teachers is roughly more than 6
times as much as the per capita monthly income of the average
person in Punjab. This is likely to be an underestimate of the
multiple as the latter figure includes the earnings of urban workers.
This furnishes a measure of the economic and social distance
between the teacher and the taught as it is believed that the greater
the distance is, the more detrimental it can be to student learning
(see Kingdon and Rawal, 2010).
• Salary increases are intended to improve the quality of public
services delivered to citizens. The pay-rises are premised on higher
salaries attracting better individuals into teaching and also on the
idea that higher salaries motivate higher effort while in service, as
per efficiency wage theory.
• However, Kingdon (2010) argues that salary
increases unrelated to performance are not
necessarily efficiency enhancing. This is true in a
system where salaries are linked to a national pay
scale as is the case for teachers as well as the
bureaucracy and military etc. in Pakistan. Even
more importantly, Aslam and Kingdon (2012) also
show that teacher salaries in Lahore are not related
to higher student learning suggesting that simply
raising teachers’ salaries will not necessarily lead to
an improvement in student achievement.
Aslam and Kingdon (2012)
• Estimate education production functions linking student
achievement (1880 + 8th grade students across 65
government and private schools in Lahore), to student,
school and teacher characteristics;
• This paper develops the idea that teachers’ classroom
practices and the teaching ‘process’ may matter more to
student learning than teachers’ observed résumé
characteristics (such as certification, qualification and
experience).
• There may also be important differences in teacher
characteristics across government and private schools
which may help explain the large documented publicprivate achievement differences often found in studies.
• This paper delves into the black-box representing ‘teaching’ to
uncover the teacher characteristics and teaching practices that
matter most to pupil achievement. T
• The data allow exploitation of an identification strategy that permits
the matching of students’ test scores in language and mathematics
to the characteristics of teachers that teach those subjects.
• Findings reveal that the standard résumé characteristics of
teachers do not significantly matter to pupil achievement.
Perversely, however, teachers are found to be rewarded for
possessing these characteristics highlighting the highly inefficient
nature of teacher pay schedules. Our findings also show that
teaching ‘process’ variables matter significantly to student
achievement.
• There are important differences across school-types – teachers in
private schools are seen to adopt practices that enhance pupil
learning.
Conclusions
• There is a need to address issues pertaining to all
three aspects – equity, efficiency and effectiveness
in the delivery of teaching services in the country.
• Have seen inequity in the distribution of trained
teachers and ineffective deployment across the
country.
• Have also seen the need to develop teacher
competence through effective training.
• Multi-grade settings prevail especially in rural
settings and there is a need to acknowledge and
build this reality into teacher training curricula.
Address teacher remuneration issues…
• The key policy implication is also that teacher
remuneration and tenure should be linked to
teacher performance and effort to increase efficiency
within the schooling system rather than being
simply linked to a mechanical pay scale in a system
where jobs for life are guaranteed without linkages
to effort.
• This is critical also for rewarding better-performing
teachers who work in extremely difficult conditions
without the most basic materials and infrastructure
and whose work beyond the call of duty engenders a
love for learning and knowledge in the most arduous
situations.