Actual Instructional Time in African Primary Schools: Factors that Reduce School Quality in Developing Countries

Why are teachers absent? Utilising the Capability Approach and Critical Realism to explain teacher performance in Tanzania

“…Within broader discourses, a variety of criteria are used to conceptualise teacher quality, however in relation to Tanzania and other developing countries, research often focuses on different types of teacher practice or behaviour as determinants or indicators. As previously mentioned, certain actions are often cited as constitutive of poor teacher performance, such as absenteeism (Benavot and Gad, 2004;Carr-Hill and Ndalichako, 2005), teacher-centred 'chalk and talk' pedagogies (Sumra, 2001), inadequate subject knowledge (Mrutu et al, 2005), and withholding content to support private tuition (Kironde, 2001). Broadly speaking, many of these actions are explained as acts predominantly governed by 'culture' or 'opportunism', which is problematic as they tend to reduce teachers' behaviours to either products of cultural structures (thereby overlooking teachers' capacity for deliberation and agency) or the result of purely voluntaristic action (which does not pay sufficient attention to International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) Tanzanian teachers have been criticised for a variety of behaviours such as absenteeism, lack of preparation and rote-teaching.…”

Impact of Literacy Interventions on Reading Skills in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries: A Meta‐Analysis

“…Many teachers are poorly trained (Akyeampong, Lussier, Pryor, & Westbrook, 2013) and earn low salaries, which can erode their job satisfaction (Gamero Bur on & Lassibille, 2016). In many places, teacher and student absenteeism rates are high, reducing children's opportunity to learn (Benavot & Gad, 2004;Dubeck, Jukes, & Okello, 2012). The adult literacy rate is 61% in low-income countries (UNESCO, 2017a), which has implications for children's learning in the home and modeling of literacy behaviors.…”

Trends in mathematics and science performance in 18 countries: Multiple regression analysis of the cohort effects of TIMSS 1995-2007

“…When school systems allocated a greater amount of time on any given subject, Inkeles (1979) reported that it yielded national differences in academic performance. Subsequent studies have affirmed the positive effects of instructional time on student achievement, especially time spent on subject-specific instructions (Frederick & Walberg, 1980;Benavot & Gad, 2004). Instructional time is often discussed in conjunction with instructional quality and content, and is an essential component of school resources (Baker et al, 2004a).…”

“…A comprehensive review of school effectiveness studies cited length of instructional time to be an important factor in influencing student achievement (Lewin, 1993). The actual amount of instructional time the students receive, as opposed to the intended instructional time that is often reported in large data surveys, matters more for learning outcomes, given the discrepancy between the intended and enacted curriculum in both developed and developing countries (Benavot & Gad, 2004).…”