Incentives for teacher relocation: Evidence from the Gambian hardship allowance

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu We evaluate the impact of the Gambian hardship allowance, which provides a salary premium of 30-40% to primary school teachers in remote locations, on the distribution and characteristics of teachers across schools. A geographic discontinuity in the policy's implementation and the presence of common pre-treatment trends between hardship and non-hardship schools provide sources of identifying variation. We find that the hardship allowance increased the share of qualified (certified) teachers by 10 percentage points. The policy also reduced the pupil-qualified teacher ratio by 27, or 61% of the mean, in recipient schools close to the distance threshold. Further analysis suggests that these gains were not merely the result of teachers switching from non-hardship to hardship schools. With similar policies in place in more than two dozen other developing countries, our study provides an important piece of evidence on their effectiveness. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S

Teacher governance factors and social cohesion: insights from Pakistan

“…For example, in Gambia a policy to attract qualified teachers to schools in rural areas provided a salary premium, known as a hardship allowance, to primary school teachers who work in the poorest and most remotely located regions of the country. Findings suggest that while the hardship allowance was successful in recruiting qualified teachers to rural areas, in the most remotely located schools its impact was rather limited (Pugatch & Schroeder 2014). Furthermore, there was no evidence that the allowance succeeded in raising the share of female teachers in remote schools.…”

The Effects of Regional and Distance Education on the Supply of Qualified Teachers in Rural Iceland

“…; Brasche and Harrington ; Reininger ; Burton et al . ; Pugatch and Schroeder ; Kelly and Fogarty ). In Iceland, the production of teachers is higher in the more rural areas, but the retention of graduated teachers and the proportion of certified teachers is lower than in urban areas.…”

“…; Reininger ; Kelly and Fogarty ). While such monetary and non‐monetary incentives may alleviate teacher shortages in the short term, they do not necessarily draw applicants well suited for long‐term employment in rural schools (McEwan ; Brasche and Harrington ; Pugatch and Schroeder ; Kelly and Fogarty ). Such compensation schemes furthermore tend to have a strong urban bias and overlook the positive aspects of rural schools and rural communities (Boylan and McSwan ; McEwan ; Yarrow et al ; Reid et al .…”

Is teacher certification an effective tool for developing countries?

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