What Do Teachers Know and Do? Does It Matter? : Evidence from Primary Schools in Africa

Bold, Tessa ; Filmer, Deon ; Martin, Gayle ; Molina, Ezequiel ; Rockmore, Christophe ; Stacy, Brian ; Svensson, Jakob ; Wane, Waly

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: teacher absenteeism;    education;    teacher performance;    teacher effectiveness;    education policy;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7956
RP-ID  :  WPS7956

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

School enrollment has universallyincreased over the past 25 years in low-income countries.However, enrolling in school does not guarantee thatchildren learn. A large share of children in low-incomecountries learn little, and they complete their primaryeducation lacking even basic reading, writing, andarithmetic skills—the so-called "learning crisis."This paper uses data from nationally representative surveysfrom seven Sub-Saharan African countries, representing closeto 40 percent of the region's total population, toinvestigate possible answers to this policy failure byquantifying teacher effort, knowledge, and skills. Averagingacross countries, the paper finds that students receive twohours and fifty minutes of teaching per day—or just overhalf the scheduled time. In addition, large shares ofteachers do not master the curricula of the students theyare teaching; basic pedagogical knowledge is low; and theuse of good teaching practices is rare. Exploitingwithin-student, within-teacher variation, the analysis findssignificant and large positive effects of teacher contentand pedagogical knowledge on student achievement. Thesefindings point to an urgent need for improvements ineducation service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa. They alsoprovide a lens through which the growing experimental andquasi-experimental literature on education in low-incomecountries can be interpreted and understood, and point toimportant gaps in knowledge, with implications for futureresearch and policy design.