This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study; entitled Does information improve school accountability? Results of a large randomized trial, conducted in India.
... See More + Schools located in villages that received the campaign had significantly higher teacher attendance. Math score were significantly improved; however, there was no significant impact on language scores. School committees became more functional, they met more frequently, and participation increased significantly. The gains were larger in states that started with low levels of school outcomes. Funding for the study derived from Nike Foundation, Bank-Netherland Partnership Program.
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This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Teacher performance pay : experimental evidence from India, conducted in August 2005 in India.
... See More + The study observed the impact of a teacher performance pay program implemented across a large representative sample of government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on the student and school level. After two years, students in incentive schools performed significantly better than control schools. The mean treatment effect is 0.22 standard deviations. There are significant improvements across the performance distribution. Additionally there were no observations of adverse consequences, given that students also do better in non-incentivized subjects. The main mechanism of impact is increased teacher effort conditional on the teacher being present. The student's gender does not have a significant effect on the impact of the intervention. Funding for the study derived from the Andhra Pradesh, Department for International Development (DFID), Azim Premji Foundation, and the Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund.
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Empirical studies of the relationship between school inputs and test scores typically do not account for household responses to changes in school inputs.
... See More + Evidence from India and Zambia shows that student test scores are higher when schools receive unanticipated grants, but there is no impact of grants that are anticipated. The authors show that the most likely mechanism for this result is that households offset their own spending in response to anticipated grants. Our results confirm the importance of optimal household responses and suggest caution when interpreting estimates of school inputs on learning outcomes as parameters of an education production function.
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This study evaluates a community-based randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the impact of an information campaign on learning and other school outcomes.
... See More + The study was conducted in three Indian states, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), and Karnataka. UP and MP are two large north and central Indian states, respectively, and lag behind in economic and social outcomes, while Karnataka in southern India is economically and socially more developed. Even though all three states have devolved oversight roles to the community with respect to government schools, they differ in the extent to which such devolution has taken place. The information campaign disseminated state specific information to the community on its oversight roles in schools and education services that parents are entitled to. Information was disseminated in 11-14 public meetings in each treatment village over a period of two and a half years.
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Empirical studies of the relationship between school inputs and test scores typically do not account for the fact that households will respond to changes in school inputs.
... See More + This paper presents a dynamic household optimization model relating test scores to school and household inputs, and tests its predictions in two very different low-income country settings -- Zambia and India. The authors measure household spending changes and student test score gains in response to unanticipated as well as anticipated changes in school funding. Consistent with the optimization model, they find in both settings that households offset anticipated grants more than unanticipated grants. They also find that unanticipated school grants lead to significant improvements in student test scores but anticipated grants have no impact on test scores. The results suggest that naïve estimates of public education spending on learning outcomes that do not account for optimal household responses are likely to be considerably biased if used to estimate parameters of an education production function.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5629 APR 01, 2011
Educators and education policy makers are concerned with creating the best possible learning environment for students. How to do this, especially in primary school, where reading, writing and mathematical skills are first acquired, is the subject of policy debates in many parts of the world.
... See More + Should teachers be paid more? Can students be rewarded for good test results? Do schools need more supplies and better infrastructure? Should parents have access to better information about the quality of schools and parental rights and responsibilities? There are no clear answers yet. The World Bank supported a study of government-run primary schools in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The project, incorporating 500 schools, concluded that giving teachers cash bonuses based on the improvement in student performance was more effective at raising test results than giving schools cash grants for supplies or additional teachers. This project, which looks at only one school system in one country, will not end the debate over how to boost student performance. But it does offer a piece of the puzzle to help steer policy makers and educators as they move forward with new educational programs and projects. This Evidence to Policy note was jointly produced by the World Bank Group, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), and the British government's Department for International Development.
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This study evaluates the impact of a community-based information campaign on school performance from a cluster randomized control trial. The campaign consisted of eight to nine public meetings in each of 340 treatment villages across three Indian states to disseminate information to the community about its state mandated roles and responsibilities in school management.
... See More + The findings from the first follow-up 2-4 months after the campaign show that providing information through a structured campaign to communities had a positive impact in all three states. In two states there was a significant and positive impact on reading (14-27 percent) in one of the three grades tested; in the third state there was a significant impact on writing in one grade (15 percent) and on mathematics in the other grade tested (27 percent). The intervention is associated with improvement in teacher effort in two states. Some improvements occurred in the delivery of certain benefits entitled to students (stipend, uniform, and mid day meal) and in process variables such as community participation in each of the three states. Follow-up research needs to examine whether there is a systematic increase in learning when the impact is measured over a longer time period and whether a campaign sustained over a longer time is able to generate greater impact on school outcomes.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4776 NOV 01, 2008
This paper presents findings from baseline surveys on student learning achievement, teacher effort and community participation in three Indian states, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
... See More + Results indicate low teacher attendance and poor student learning. Parents and school committees are neither aware of their oversight roles nor participating in school management. However, there is substantial heterogeneity in outcomes across states. Karnataka has better student and teacher outcomes as well as higher levels of community awareness and participation than the other two states. The authors find substantial variation in teacher effort within schools, but most observable teacher characteristics are not associated with teacher effort. One reason for low teacher effort may be lack of accountability. Regression analysis suggests low rates of teacher attendance are only part of the problem of low student achievement. The gains in test scores associated with higher rates of attendance and engagement in teaching are small in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, suggesting teachers themselves may not be effective. Ineffective teaching may result from lack of accountability as well as poor professional development of teachers. Further research is needed to examine not only issues of accountability but also professional development of teachers.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4777 NOV 01, 2008
After three decades of conflict, Afghanistan needs a well-trained and flexible workforce to help rebuild the country. The conflict has decimated Afghanistan's training infrastructure, torn the fabric of human society, and relegated the country to the status of one of the least developed in the world.
... See More + The country's efforts to emerge from near-total collapse is hampered by a number of factors, one of which is absence of a well-educated and -trained labor force able to acquire the skills and trades the country needs as it grows. A well-trained labor force will yield higher levels of productivity and be able to accommodate the changing needs of a post conflict economy while ensuring higher earnings and greater mobility for workers. Though most of the Afghan labor force is in the informal sector, skills acquisition judiciously combined with literacy and numeric programs should produce a workforce able to adapt modern production technologies and take advantage of opportunities through self-employment and small-enterprise development. The report is organized into four sections. Section one provides an introduction to Afghanistan. Section two focuses on recent economic trends and labor market demands. Section three is an overview of the country's education and training sector, while examining the main providers, recent changes in institutional framework, and key issues in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Finally, section four reviews possible reforms the country will need in order to improve the delivery of VET services.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 47078 OCT 01, 2008
This paper points out that performance pay for teachers is frequently suggested as a way of improving educational outcomes in schools, but the empirical evidence to date on its effectiveness is limited and mixed.
... See More + The authors present results from a randomized evaluation of a teacher incentive program implemented across a representative sample of government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The program provided bonus payments to teachers based on the average improvement of their students' test scores in independently administered learning assessments (with a mean bonus of 3percent of annual pay). Students in incentive schools performed significantly better than those in control schools by 0.19 and 0.12 standard deviations in math and language tests respectively. They scored significantly higher on "conceptual" as well as "mechanical" components of the tests suggesting that the gains in test scores represented an actual increase in learning outcomes. Incentive schools also performed better on subjects for which there were no incentives. The authors find no significant difference in the effectiveness of group versus individual teacher incentives. Incentive schools performed significantly better than other randomly-chosen schools that received additional schooling inputs of a similar value.
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This policy note analyses the evidence on the various equity issues relating to the participation and completion of elementary school education in India is based on the data collected by the national sample survey (NSS) and national family health surveys (NFHS), the latest year being looked at is 1998-99. this documentation of state-wise regional, community, gender and income inequities therefore do not take into account the progress made by states in reducing the inequities under the district primary education program (DPEP) program for the last 8 years. in fact, some of the issues which comes out of this study and needs attention is probably already addressed under some of the new programs already being undertaken by the MHRD, such as the sarva shiksha abhiyan (SSA). however, by filing these issues in a systematic manner, we hope to draw continued attention to the status of these issues in the programs.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 37835 DEC 01, 2003
