To enhance primary enrolment rates, many African countries have launched large teacher recruitment programmes in recent years. Given tight budgetary constraints, teachers are no longer employed in civil service positions, but on the basis of (fixed term) contracts typically implying considerably lower salaries and a sharply reduced amount of professional training. We analyse the effect of this change on educational quality in Niger, Togo and Mali, on the basis of very informative data, which are comparable across these countries. We use a variety of estimation techniques, including a non-parametric estimation of quantile treatment effects. Our results demonstrate that contract teachers tend to reduce inequalities in student outcomes. Overall, the effects are positive in Mali, somewhat mixed in Togo and negative in Niger. This ordering is consistent with theoretical expectations related to the manner in which contract teacher programmes were implemented differently in each of the three countries under study. Copyright (c) 2009 Royal Statistical Society.

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Revue française de sciences sociales | janvier-mars 2012Enseignement supérieur : les défis de la professionnalisation Peut-on classer les universités à l'aune de leur performance d'insertion ?Can universities be ranked on the basis of their graduate employment performance? Können universitäten nach ihrem eingliederungsvermögen eingestuft werden? ¿Es posible clasificar las universidades según sus resultados de inserción ?

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