Projekt

The impact on school outcomes of the Zambian government's recent large-scale policy implementations are yet to be rigorously studied. The need to study the impacts of the large-scale educational policies in a rigorous manner is all the more important considering the Zambian government's ongoing commitment to further increase the level of investment in education. There is, therefore, a need to understand what has worked to guide smart policy formulation and implementation. Further, researching the impacts of Zambia's large-scale experimentation with educational policy over the last decade presents a unique opportunity to contribute to the literature on the economics of education in Africa, a literature that currently is in its infancy. To this end, the aim of this research project is two-fold: (1) To investigate the impact of the large-scale recruitment of teachers over the period 2005 to 2014 on schooling outcomes in Zambia and (2) To investigate the impact of monetary and non-monetary incentives on the motivation of teachers in Zambia. The first aim falls within the general literature on class size and here it is intended to exploit the spatial variation in class sizes (teacher-pupil ratios) that likely arose from the government's policy of prioritising rural areas over urban areas in the deployment of new teachers (GRZ, 2006; GRZ, 2011). The second aim falls within the literature on teacher incentives and whether these incentives have any impact on teacher attrition and the motivation of teachers in the class room. Here the fellow will look at two types of incentives: monetary incentives such as the rural-remote hardship allowance and non-monetary (or informal) incentives such as the wide but undocumented practise of offering land to teachers in rural parts of Zambia.

• Prof. Dr. Mamadou Diawara

  Universität Frankfurt am Main
  Zentrum für interdisziplinäre
  Afrikaforschung (ZIAF)
  Campus Westend
  Frankfurt am Main