Person:
Linden, Toby
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Secondary education,
Tertiary education,
Skills and workforce development,
Roma,
India,
Southeast Europe,
Central Europe
Degrees
ORCID
Departments
Global Practice on Education, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Toby Linden is a British national who has worked for the World Bank since 1998. In his career he has focused on the countries of South East and Central Europe as well as India. He also was on secondment from the Bank to serve as Director of the Roma Education Fund, an international NGO working to improve the educational outcomes Roma (Gypsies), the poorest minority in Europe. His publications in the education sector include the World Bank's first book on lifelong learning and papers in secondary and higher education.
Publication Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
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Publication
How Much and What Kind of Teaching Is There in Elementary Education in India? Evidence from Three States
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)This study focuses on the link between teachers' 'time-on-task' (TOT) and the nature of tasks in classrooms. This study, carried out with concurrence from Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), is built upon the independent study commissioned by MHRD to explore teacher attendance rates in schools. This study ventures beyond the quantitative dimensions of teacher attendance (physical presence) to look at the 'time-on-task' (TOT) and nature of tasks, that is, the quantity and quality of teacher presence and interaction. Most specifically, it will provide insight into the work environment of teachers who are the key to service delivery and suggest implications for both policy and program interventions to empower teachers and introduce more accountability into the system. The McKinsey and Company study (Barber & Mourshed, 2007) identified three things that matter most: (1) getting the right people to become teachers; (2) developing them into effective instructors; and (3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child. In the present study, the attempt is to see whether the teachers are 'effective instructors' and the system is delivering the best to its children. The study aims to find out the factors that facilitate improved quality of instructional time on the one hand, and what it means to the whole process of improving learning levels on the other. In addition, there is an effort to understand the characteristics of various enabling inputs -
Publication
Getting the Right Teachers into the Right Schools: Managing India's Teacher Workforce
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018)India's landmark Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009) guarantees education to all children aged 6-14 years. The Act mandates specific student-teacher ratios and emphasizes teacher quality. Writing this into legislation took seven years, but the seven years since has proven that ensuring effective teachers are recruited and placed in all schools in a time-bound manner is considerably more challenging. This report takes a detailed look at the complexity of the teacher management landscape in elementary and secondary schools in nine Indian states. On a daily basis, the administrative machinery of these states has to manage between 19,000 to nearly a million teachers in different types of schools and employment contracts, and cope with recruiting thousands more and distributing them equitably across schools. This report examines the following issues: official requirements for becoming a schoolteacher in India; policies and processes for teacher recruitment, deployment and transfers; salaries and benefits of teachers; professional growth of teachers; and grievance redress mechanisms for teachers. For the first time in India, this report compares and contrasts stated policy with actual practice in teacher management in the country, using a combination of primary and secondary data. In so doing, the report reveals the hidden challenges and the nature of problems faced by administrators in attempting to build an effective teacher workforce which serves the needs of all of India's 200 million school children. The report examines states with varying characteristics, thus generating knowledge and evidence likely to be of interest to policy makers and practitioners in a wide range of contexts.