The Impact of Contract-teachers on Student Learning in Developing Countries: A Multi-level, Multi-country Analysis

Amita Chudgar

In developing countries, millions of new children are enrolling in schools, propelled by Education for All initiatives. This has led to a severe shortage of school resources, especially teachers. In response to this shortage, many developing countries are compromising the quality of their teacher labor force by hiring underpaid and underprepared teachers on a contract basis. But teacher quality is a crucial determinant of student learning; by compromising the quality of their teachers, these countries may be compromising the quality of their children’s learning. As this type of teacher hiring increasingly becomes a norm in developing countries, it becomes important to ask: How is this reliance on contract-teachers impacting student learning? What local or national responses may be available to mediate these implications? These questions are surprisingly under-researched despite their immediate relevance to education policy in developing countries. My study will address this gap in our knowledge using a unique dataset from eight francophone African countries where significant proportions of teachers are already hired on a contract basis. I will use propensity score matching and hierarchical linear models to analyze variations in policy and practices within and across countries to address these questions.

About Amita Chudgar

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