Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication Addressing Inefficient Distribution of Teachers Between Schools: The Case of Tanzania With Malawi and the Gambia(Washington, DC, 2023-11-20) World BankTeachers are the single most important input to learning, and in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa teachers’ emoluments account for most of the spending on basic education (Bold et al., 2017). However, in many countries in the region teachers are poorly distributed between schools. Schools in remote areas are frequently understaffed compared to those closer to towns and large villages, reflecting a reluctance among teachers to accept postings in areas with significant hardship (Mulkeen, 2010). By contrast, schools in or close to towns and larger villages, where more facilities and amenities are available, often have more teachers than required by government standards, even where the overall supply of teachers nationwide is inadequate. An estimated 28 percent of the variation in staffing between schools in the region cannot be explained by variation in the size of enrollments in schools (Majgaard and Mingat, 2012). This represents a major source of inefficiency in public education expenditure, with significant shares of finance being spent to maintain teachers in comparatively overstaffed schools where they have limited marginal impact on learning outcomes. The impacts of these inefficiencies may be exacerbated by the need to ensure a suitable range of subject expertise among the teachers at a school.Publication Ensuring Efficient Provision of Teaching and Learning Materials: The Case of Mozambique(Washington, DC, 2023-11-15) World BankBooks are one of the most important inputs in student learning and are generally considered a cost-effective input for increasing the quality of primary education (Fredriksen et al., 2015). After salaries, which typically account for around 80 percent of spending on basic education in Sub-Saharan Africa, textbooks are in many countries the next largest area of recurring spending on basic education, accounting for 5–10 percent on average (ibid.). For textbooks to be beneficial for learning, they need to be appropriate to students’ language needs, and teachers need to be adequately trained to utilize them (Glewwe, Kremer, and Moulin, 2009); textbooks need to be utilized by teachers in class instead of simply being stored at school (Sabarwal, Evans, and Marshak, 2014). Where they are appropriately designed and utilized, however, providing textbooks has been found to be one of the most cost-effective inputs for learning at primary level (Michaelowa and Wechtler, 2006; McEwan, 2014). Despite their importance for learning, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa struggle to deliver an adequate number of textbooks to students on time. Among 38 Sub-Saharan Africa countries, 21 had pupil-textbook ratios in reading and math higher than 1.5 in the period 2010-15, with 12 having very high ratios of three or more (Bashir et al., 2018). As education systems have grown rapidly across Sub-Saharan Africa in response to the introduction of free education policies, governments have found it increasingly difficult and expensive to ensure that every student has the books they need to learn.