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2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Smarter Teachers, Smarter Students? Some New Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Authors : Nadir Altinok, Phu Nguyen-Van

Published in: International Trade, Economic Development, and the Vietnamese Economy

Publisher: Springer Nature Singapore

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Abstract

We study the effect of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement in mathematics and reading by using a data set from six sub-Saharan African countries. By using an estimation based on within-teacher within-student strategy, we can avoid a potential endogeneity bias. In most estimations and most countries, we do not find a significant teacher knowledge effect. The main reasons are teacher absenteeism and the need to focus on core knowledge. For instance, a high level of teacher absenteeism and low teacher performance in a subset of items that are also administered to students can attenuate the teacher subject knowledge effect on student learning. When the conditions of low absenteeism and high teacher performance are met, teacher subject knowledge can have a significant and positive effect on student achievement.

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previous chapter Allocation and Effectiveness of Foreign Aid: An Overview
next chapter Social Capital, Income, and Subjective Well-Being in Developing Countries: Evidence from Vietnam
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
For example, Harbison and Hanushek (1992) on Brazil; Tan et al. (1997) on the Philippines; Bedi and Marshall (2002) on Honduras; Santibanez (2006) on Mexico; Behrman et al. (2008) on Pakistan; Marshall (2009) on Guatemala; and Metzler and Woessmann (2012) on Peru. For a recent review of literature on the education production function in the developing countries, see Behrman (2010), Glewwe et al. (2011), and Murnane and Ganimian (2014).
 
2
SACMEQ is a survey on reading and mathematics achievement levels, which was administered to grade 6 students in 15 countries/regions in three waves: 1995, 2000, and 2007. The survey also included a teacher knowledge test on these two subjects. Countries included in SACMEQ are Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
 
3
While SACMEQ II was conducted in 2000, the third wave was completed in 2007.
 
4
PASEC is a pupil assessment conducted by the CONFEMEN. It is mainly conducted for francophone countries.
 
5
Teacher scores are not scaled with a specific mean. However, we found that the overall mean score in reading is equal to approximately 750 with a standard deviation of 70, whereas for math, we find higher values (mean 790 and standard deviation 105).
 
6
Excluding students who are taught by different teachers may create a selection bias. To control this, we added estimations of teacher knowledge effect where we focused on samples of students who are not taught by the same teacher (see Table 1 columns 9 and 10). Selection bias is shown to be absent since results are not significant for most countries, especially those where the proportion of students taught by similar teachers is low.
 
7
This question (number 21 of the teacher questionnaire) is formulated as follows: ‘How many days were you absent during this school year due to the following reasons? (Please write the numbers in the box for each country. Please write “O” for a particular category if you were not absent for this reason.)’. Possible reasons: 21.01. ‘My own illness’. 21.02. ‘My own injury’. 21.03. ‘Family member’s illness’. 21.04. ‘Family member’s injury’. 21.05. ‘Funerals (family, colleagues, friends)’. 21.06. ‘Medical appointment(s)’. 21.07. ‘Bad weather / road not accessible’. 21.08. ‘Official business (e.g.: meeting, examination, course)’. 21.09. ‘Maternity leave’. 21.10. ‘Security reasons (riots, civil disturbance, etc.)’. 21.11. ‘Teachers’ strikes’. 21.12. ‘Other reasons’.
 
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Metadata
Title
Smarter Teachers, Smarter Students? Some New Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors
Nadir Altinok
Phu Nguyen-Van
Copyright Year
2022
Publisher
Springer Nature Singapore
Book
International Trade, Economic Development, and the Vietnamese Economy

Print ISBN: 978-981-19-0514-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-19-0515-5

Copyright Year: 2022

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0515-5_9