The Fiscal Cost of Weak Governance

The relative return to input-augmentation versus inefficiency-reduction strategies for improving education system performance is a key open question for education policy in low-income countries. Using a new nationally-representative panel dataset of schools across 1297 villages in India, this paper shows that the large investments over the past decade have led to substantial improvements in input-based measures of school quality, but only a modest reduction in inefficiency as measured by teacher absence. In the data, 23.6 percent of teachers were absent during unannounced visits with an associated fiscal cost of $1.5 billion/year. There are two robust correlations in the nationally-representative panel data that corroborate findings from smaller-scale experiments. First, reductions in student-teacher ratios are correlated with increased teacher absence. Second, increases in the frequency of school monitoring are strongly correlated with lower teacher absence. Simulations using these results suggest that investing in better governance by increasing the frequency of monitoring could be over ten times more cost effective at increasing teacher-student contact time (net of teacher absence) than hiring more teachers. Thus, at current margins, policies that decrease the inefficiency of public spending in India are likely to yield substantially higher returns than those that augment inputs.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Muralidharan, Karthik, Das, Jishnu, Holla, Alaka, Mohpal, Aakash
Format:	Working Paper biblioteca
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016-02
Subjects:	EMPLOYMENT, PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS, COLLEGE, ITS, SCHOOL TEACHERS, NATIONAL SCHOOL, TEACHERS, ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES, NUMBER OF SCHOOLS, STUDENT-TEACHER RATIO, SCHOOL DATA, SCHOOL ENROLMENT, COLLEGE DEGREES, TUITION, DISTRICT EDUCATION, ENROLLMENT, SCHOOL DAY, EDUCATION POLICY, STRATEGIES, HEAD TEACHER, EDUCATION OUTCOMES, PAPERS, COLLEGE DEGREE, POOR PEOPLE, RESEARCH INSTITUTE, TEACHER PERFORMANCE, SCHOOL CENSUS, LEARNING GOALS, ACADEMIC YEARS, RURAL POPULATION, COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION, OPEN ACCESS, QUALITY OF EDUCATION, TRAINING, TEACHER TRAINING, EDUCATION INVESTMENTS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, SPECIAL EDUCATION, SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION, SCHOOL HOURS, SCHOOL DAYS, PARENTAL EDUCATION, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, STUDENT OUTCOMES, EDUCATION BUDGET, LEARNING, EDUCATION SYSTEM, RESEARCH, SCHOOL QUALITY, TEACHER SALARIES, TEACHER RECOGNITION, PRIMARY SCHOOL, ENROLLMENT FIGURES, PRIMARY EDUCATION POLICY, TEACHING, SCHOOL LEVEL, SCHOOL-AGE, RADIO, LIBRARIES, PRIMARY SCHOOLS, READING, SCHOOL YEAR, UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, SCHOOL FACILITIES, WORKERS, VALUES, PRIMARY DATA, PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS, PUBLIC EXPENDITURE, STUDENT, SCHOOLS, HEAD TEACHERS, LEARNING OUTCOMES, PUPIL-TEACHER RATIOS, URBAN SCHOOLS, STUDENT PERFORMANCE, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, TEACHING DUTIES, TEACHER RATIOS, TEACHER HIRING, LITERATURE, EDUCATION OF CHILDREN, CLASS SIZE, REPORT CARDS, RIGHT TO EDUCATION, SENIOR TEACHER, INFORMAL SCHOOLS, TEACHER, SCHOOL FEEDING, RURAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, TEACHER RATIO, ETHICS, REMOTE VILLAGES, EDUCATION, VILLAGE LEVEL, STUDENT TEACHER RATIO, SCHOOL HOLIDAYS, CLASS SIZES, HUMAN RESOURCES, SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION, SCHOOL SUPERVISION, PRIMARY EDUCATION SYSTEM, SCHOOL CENSUSES, PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATION, PUBLIC SCHOOL, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, UNIVERSITY, STUDENTS, SCHOOL GOVERNANCE, SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN, PRIMARY EDUCATION, DEGREES, TEACHER ABSENTEEISM, SCHOOL INSPECTIONS, CLASSROOM, TEACHING ACTIVITY, CIVIL SERVICE, SCHOOL, SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE, NUMBER OF TEACHERS, STUDENT LEARNING, SCHOOL SURVEYS, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, PRIVATE SCHOOL,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/02/25976238/fiscal-cost-weak-governance-evidence-teacher-absence-india https://hdl.handle.net/10986/23918
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