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What can Teachers do to Raise Pupil Achievement?
Monazza
Aslam,
CSAE, Oxford University
Geeta
Kingdon,
CSAE, Oxford University
WPS/2007-14
ABSTRACT:
Improving weak teaching may be one of the most effective means of raising pupil achievement.
However, teachers’ classroom practices and the teaching ‘process’ may matter more to student
learning than teachers’ observed résumé characteristics (such as certification and experience). There
may also be important differences in teacher characteristics across government and private schools
which may help explain the large documented public-private achievement differences often found in
studies. This paper delves into the black-box representing ‘teaching’ to uncover the teacher
characteristics and teaching practices that matter most to pupil achievement. This is done using
unique, school-based data, collected in 2002-2003 from government and private schools from one
district in Punjab province in Pakistan. The data allow exploitation of an identification strategy that
permits the matching of students’ test scores in language and mathematics to the characteristics of
teachers that teach those subjects. Within pupil (across subject rather than across time) variation is
used to examine whether the characteristics of different subject teachers are related to a students’
mark across subjects. The data is also unique in asking all subject teachers questions pertaining to
their teaching practices and these, often unobserved, ‘process’ variables are included in achievement
function estimates. Our pupil fixed-effects findings reveal that the standard résumé characteristics of
teachers do not significantly matter to pupil achievement. Perversely, however, teachers are found to
be rewarded for possessing these characteristics highlighting the highly inefficient nature of teacher
pay schedules. Our findings also show that teaching ‘process’ variables matter significantly to student
achievement. There are important differences across school-types.
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Monazza Aslam and Geeta Kingdon,
"What can Teachers do to Raise Pupil Achievement?"
(June 27, 2007).
The Centre for the Study of African Economies Working Paper Series.
Working Paper 273.
http://www.bepress.com/csae/paper273
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