http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018

Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

“The name of the dog is Puppy”

Grade 3

Could understand

Source: Uwezo (2014).

Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

Could not understand

“The name of the dog is Puppy”

Grade 3

Source: Uwezo 2014.

Rural India

4617

?Could not solve

_

Grade 3Source: ASER Centre (2017)

Rural India

4617

?Grade 5Could not solve

_

Source: ASER Centre (2017)

South Africa

Could not understand

“He had an old dog named Jack”

Who is Jack?

Grade 4

Source: IEA (2012)

South Africa

Could not pass a simple English test

English Secondary Language Students

Grade 5

Source: Draper and Spaull (2015)

Brazil

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

Progress in Math (PISA 15 year olds)

Source: OECD (various years)

Brazil

Time to reach OECD average in Math (PISA 15 year olds)

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

75 years

OECD average

Source: OECD (various years)

Brazil

Time to reach OECD average in Math and Reading (PISA 15 year olds)

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

>260 years

OECD average

Source: OECD (various years)

Education has great promise,

but too often it doesn’t deliver

The learning process

Teachers are one of the key ingredients

Good teachers matter

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Ecuador US (low) Uganda Pakistan US (high) India

Stan

dar

d D

evia

tio

ns

Moving from a 10th percentile teacher to a 90th percentile teacher would increase learning by…

Source: Buhl-Wiggers et al. 2017; Bau & Das 2017

The most effective interventions work through teachers

Language: 0.23Math: 0.14

Language: 0.12Math: 0.09

Language: 0.01Math: 0.02

Language: -0.01Math: 0.01

Structured pedagogy

Community-based

monitoring

Computer-assisted learning School-based management

Source: Snilstveit et al. 2016

Teacher knowledge often falls short

0102030405060708090

100

Teachers with “minimum knowledge”

Language Math Pedagogy

Source: Bold et al. 2017

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Criticallybelow

Below At level Above level

Content Knowledge of Grade 6 Maths Teachers in South Africa

Source: Venkat and Spaull (2015)

Teacher performance also can disappoint

Source: Bold et al. 2017

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

All Kenya Mozambique Nigeria Senegal Tanzania Togo Uganda

Teacher absence from school and from class

Absence from school Absence from class

Effective Professional

Development

Motivation and

incentives

Teaching to the level of

the students

How to get the most out of your teachers?

Effective Professional

Development

Training is taking place

Source: TALIS (2013)

No , 36%

Yes, undefined , 18%

Yes, 1 to 5 days , 21%

Yes, 10 or more days,

24%

Did you participate in professional development in the last 12 months?

(OECD sample)

Are teachers required to participate in professional development?

(Sample of middle- and low-income countries)

70 80 90 100

Chile

France

Japan

Spain

Norway

Cyprus

Israel

UAE

Netherlands

International average

Croatia

Singapore

Source: Evans and Yuan 2017, based on SABER Teachers (2017)

Most goes unevaluated

Source: Popova et al. (2017)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Teacherknowledge

Teacherbehavior

Studentlearning

No evaluation

HOW OFTEN ARE MAJOR TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS EVALUATED?

Much is likely ineffective

PROGRAM LINKED TO SALARY OR PROMOTION OPPORTUNITIES

PROGRAM PROVIDES COMPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

HAVE A SPECIFIC SUBJECT FOCUS

PROGRAM INCLUDES FOLLOW-UP VISITS

PROPORTION OF TIME SPENT PRACTICING WITH OTHER TEACHERS

HOW DO THE MAIN PROGRAMS COMPARE WITH THE BEST PROGRAMS?

Source: Popova et al. 2017

Effective Professional

Development

• Individualized, repeated training • India: Little pre-service but repeated follow-up

(Banerjee et al. 2007)

• Uganda: Regular mentoring for early grade reading (Lucas et al. 2014)

• Associated with a specific task• Chile: Lead reading groups (Cabezas et al. 2011)

• India: Storybooks and flash cards (He et al. 2009)

• Follow-up in schools: coaching & mentoring

There are approaches that work

What do we know about teacher coaching?

(44 studies in the United States)

• Big improvements in the quality of teacher instruction

• Moderate improvements in student achievement

• Challenge to implement at scale

Classroom observation and coaching in Brazil

• Feedback on classroom practice

• Expert coaching (in-person and via skype)

• Result• Increased time on instructional activities

• Higher student learning

• Especially in worst initial classrooms & best coaches

24

Coaching and mentoring teachers in the classroom

Source: Kraft et al. (2017) Source: Cunha et al. (2017)

Motivation and

incentives

Teachers often work under difficult conditions

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

PTR change ratio before and after Free Primary Education was implemented

Cambodia Cameroon Kenya Lesotho

Tanzania Uganda Zambia

Source: Evans and Yuan 2017, based on UIS database (2017)Source: Evans and Yuan 2017

• Large class sizes (especially in early grades)

• Salary delays or leakage

• Limited feedback or support

• Potentially declining status

Accountability comes in many forms

Source: Gill et al. 2016

Forms of Teacher Accountability

Outcome-based Rule-based Market-based Professional

Classroom windows

Public reporting of schoolwide test results

Minimum certification requirements

School ratings by local news media

Peer observation

Charter-school enrollment fairs

Coaching

Value-added incorporated in teacher

evaluations

Formal observation by principal

Advanced certification

Motivation and incentives can be strengthened

Motivation and

incentives

• Low-stakes report cards• Effective

• Pakistan: Whole market

• Mexico: Low stakes

• Uganda: Participatory vs standard

• Ineffective:

• Kenya: Student-only

• Financial incentives (but only if teachers know how to improve)• Positive in India• Conditional in Tanzania• Weak in USA

• Professionalization (Finland, Singapore)

Sources: Pakistan (Andrabi et al. 2017), Mexico (de Hoyos et al. 2015), Uganda (Zeitlin et al. 2011), Kenya (Lieberman et al. 2013)

Sources: India (Muralidharan & Sundararaman 2011; Muralidharan 2012), Tanzania (Mbiti et al. 2015), USA (Fryer 2013; Glazerman et al. 2009; Springer et al. 2010)

Teaching to the level of

the students

Only a small fraction of learners keep up with the curriculum

Probability of a correct answer on a math test, by grade,relative to curriculum standards, Andhra Pradesh, India

Grade

Source: WDR 2018 team, using data from Muralidharan and Zieleniak (2013).

Why?

• High performers are easier to teach

• Ambitious curricula

Helping teachers teach to the level of the students

Teaching to the level of

the students

• Diagnostics• Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda

• Not India

• Grouping• Kenya (Duflo et al. 2011)

• India (Banerjee et al. 2016)

• Remedial teaching• Ghana• India (camps, community

teachers)

• Dynamic ICT• India

Sources: Liberia (Piper & Korda 2010), Malawi (Bolyard 2003), Rwanda (Friedlander & Goldberg 2016), India (Duflo et al. 2014; Muralidharan & Sundararaman 2010), Kenya (Duflo et al. 2011), India (Banerjee et al. 2016), Ghana (Kiessel & Duflo 2014), India (Banerjee et al. 2007, 2016), India (Muralidharan et al. 2017)

Effective Professional

Development

Motivation and

incentives

Teaching to the level of

the students