World Bank Group 104252 Education Global Practice Innovations in Education—Africa MARCH 2016 Teacher Management 2.0 Improving Teacher Deployment in Malawi Snapshot Weak national systems of teacher Mulkeen (2010) and Kadzamira deployment and accountability (2006) find sizable disparities A majority of the countries in the result in huge disparities in teacher of pupil-teacher ratios across Africa Region are struggling to distribution in the region. Instead of the districts of Malawi, with make meaningful progress in addressing the systemic challenges teachers concentrated near reforming teacher management. within the regulatory bodies and town and city centers, and in We know that promoting sound incentives structures that produce individual schools known for recruitment and deployment, this lop-sided distribution of having better amenities within performance management, teachers, governments often treat it rural areas. accountability, as well as timely simply as a teacher shortage issue. To address this, the Government guidance and support to teachers We still know relatively little about of Malawi requested Technical are critical in advancing second what actually works in moving Assistance in developing a data generation education reforms for teachers to where they are driven approach to address improving quality of learning in needed the most: remote schools. teacher distribution issues. the region. Why is Teacher Table I. Summary Statistics of Education Indicators Management Reform 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Critical for Malawi? n 31% primary completion rate – Total Schools  5,192 5,225 5,252 5,359 5,389 5,415 very high repetition and drop- Total Students (StD1 out rate, especially among rural 3,818,508 3,996,831 4,149,614 4,441,971 4,603,941 4,724,186 to STD8)  students. Total Teachers  58,328 62,859 63,696 70,314 72,717 68,947 n Highly inefficient spending on education: public spending Teachers on Established Posts n/a n/a  n/a  n/a  51,717 58,307 on education accounts for 7% of (Qualified)  Malawi’s GDP, of which two-thirds is spent on primary education — Pupils to Total 65.47 63.58 65.15 63.17 63.31 68.52 but quality of learning is very low Teachers Ratio  n Inadequate and poorly Including targeted rural allowances result In rural area  65.81 63.15 64 62.15 62.25 68.59 in inequitable distribution of teachers with pupil-teacher ratio In urban area  63.04 67.77 73.43 70.54 71.63 67.89 ranging from 7 to 1220 students Pupils to Qualified per teacher. n/a n/a n/a  n/a  89.01 81.02 Teacher Ratio  worldbank.org/education | @wbg_education Summary of Framework of Malawi to hold discussions with to develop a better understanding of school management committees, PTAs, system-level constraints on teacher The team has employed a multi- mother groups, teachers and learners management in Malawi. pronged approach to develop a technically sound and politically feasible solution to improve deployment of teachers in Malawi. DISTRICT-LEVEL VARIATION IN TEACHER DEPLOYMENT: This includes gathering relevant The lowest median value of pupil-to-qualified-teacher-ratio (PQTR) is 57 for databases from MoEST, Department Zomba Urban District, while the highest is for Mangochi District at 152. of Human Resource Management In 2015 data, we observe an overall pupil-teacher ratio of about 81:1. and Development (DHRMD) and the However, this ratio varies significantly across districts: National Statistical Office (NSO), and shaping them up for analysis. Secondly, PQTR by District 400 the team initiated dialogue with the Basic Education Directorate and PQTR (number of students) 300 Planning Department at MoEST about creating ownership on the proposed 200 framework, and to gather feedback from officials within the Ministry. 100 After this, the team conducted Focus Group discussions with district and 0 subdistrict officials, teacher union Kasungu Thyolo Balaka Zomba Rural Ntcheu Chikwawa Mzimba South Nsanje Lilongwe Rural East Dowa Blantyre City Mzimba North Mulanje Nkhata Bay Salima Neno Nkhotakota Mwanza Machinga Lilongwe City Mchinji Mzuzu City Chiradzulu Ntchisi Lilongwe Rural West Dedza Phalombe Zomba Urban Likoma Mangochi Karonga Blantyre Rural Rumphi Chitipa representatives, head teachers, and district and zone-level EMIS officers. This was complemented with visits to school sites in the central region ZONE-LEVEL VARIATION IN be re-calibrated using distance with additional allowances up to TEACHER DEPLOYMENT: measures as well as other key 45-50,000 MKW will be sufficient to factors that influence the choice of incentivize movement in remotest Our data indicate that teachers may teacher location. Slab-based systems school locations. tend to cluster in zones with better amenities, mainly: Table II. PTR in Khombwe Zone in Blantyre Rural District n Access to roads during rainy season n Close proximity (within 5 km) to a Number of Pupil to Pseudo-fair Number of Number of School Name  qualified qualified distribution Trading Center students  teachers  teachers  teacher ratio  of teachers Focus group discussions indicated that Chitakale  175 4 4 43.75 2 other factors which may contribute Chigwaja  854 16 14 61 6 to teachers’ choice of moving to rural/ Chibwana  334 4 4 83.5 3 remote schools include: Maliya  757 10 9 84.11 6 n Electricity Chilingani 2  452 3 3 150.67 4 n Access to piped water Namitalala JP  170 1 1 170 2 n Access to housing Chimembe  1228 7 5 245.6 8 n Health facility n Pupil-teacher ratio Chilingani 1  573 2 1 573 5 Khombwe  1672 4 4 418 12 The participants agreed that the Nkuyu Primary School  448 1 1 448 4 allocation of allowances should 2 TEACHER MANAGEMENT 2.0 Analytics to Improve Teacher Deployment The first step in the analysis was to in Malawi, and matched each school schools close to the trading center map the decision-making process with the trading center nearest to it. had some form of available teacher of a typical teacher in requesting Schools further away from a trading housing. movement from a remote school to center tended to have higher Like with hardship allowances, an urban center. pupil-teacher ratios. Schools in close the evidence suggests that the To map the regulatory structures proximity to their trading center also Government of Malawi is not and incentives that were in place, we had better access to roads, electricity targeting staff houses to schools conducted focus group discussions and piped water. Nearly 43% of the where they are needed the most. with the Head Teachers, Teacher Union of Malawi (TUM), and district / sub-district officials drawn from the central, northern, and southern regions of Malawi. Using GPS coordinates, all of In all the three regions, the the schools in our dataset are participants agreed that distance of placed on a map of Malawi schools to the nearest commercial hub, called the trading center, is the key factor in the choice of school they want to be assigned to. Other factors included proximity to a health facility, access to road, electricity and piped water supply. We also learnt that the current hardship allowance valued at MKW 10,000 (2% of average salary) are inadequate to cover even the daily commute expense of the teachers; it hardly serves as an incentive for teachers to stay in remote areas. Within each of Malawi’s districts, every school is then matched with the Hardship allowances are given to trading center that is geographically rural schools only, which means closest to it. almost 85% of the teachers in Here is an example of the Malawi end up getting a hardship Schools in Rumphi allowance. However, the geographical District: demarcations that define urban/ rural boundaries are outdated, and hardly reflect the locations of remote, rural schools versus ones in close proximity to trading centers. To address the problem above, we needed to devise an objective method for determining how remote any given school was. To achieve this, we used spatial data (i.e. GPS coordinates) from all schools and trading centers IMPROVING TEACHER DEPLOYMENT IN MALAWI 3 Pathways to Improve Teacher Deployment Incentives to teach in remote rationalization of incentives. Once center. Recognizing the dividends schools are virtually non- the ‘remoteness measure’ for each of this reform, the Government has existent in Malawi. In order to school is validated by the districts, the committed to operationalize a strategy improve distribution of teachers, hardship allowances and provision that hits at the distribution of teachers the Government needs to of new housing can be linked to the as a key results based component in introduce better targeting and distance of the school from trading the upcoming education project. Policy Objectives Issues That Need to be Addressed Gaps in Policy & Data Equitable Teacher Inconsistencies and discrepancies across District payroll information (HR database) inconsistent with where the Deployment payroll, school census and district-level teacher is according to administrative data (EMIS database) data. Weak internal teacher tracking system Lack of accurate district level list of teachers deployed in schools, and disconnect between the district that pays the teacher and the one where they are physically deployed. Huge variation in pupil-teacher ratios Policy framework for legitimate transfer of teachers is absent. across and within districts. Disproportionate distribution of vacancies across administrative grades, especially at PT4 (entry-level) grade Targeted and Inadequate hardship allowances Current hardship allowance provides little incentive for teachers to Rationalized received by more than 85% of teaching move to remote regions. incentives workforce Poor targeting of hardship allowances Current hardship allowances are based on rural/urban demarcation which does not factor in distance from trading center or other amenities available in the school. Inadequate provision of staff housing in The data does not show any relationship between more teacher remote schools housing and lower pupil teacher ratios. Currently teacher housing is not being targeted to schools that need it the most—remote schools. Standard Two, Government Junior Primary School, The task team conducts a focus group discussion with teachers Mchinji Rural District, Malawi and school committee members in the Mchinji district of Malawi. Photo Credits: Wathando Mughandira. Photo Credits: Wathando Mughandira. worldbank.org/education | @wbg_education