IPSU Student Forum 2013
Understanding Development in Africa – a policy perspective
Nic Spaull www.nicspaull.com/teaching
September 2013

• Be able to answer the following questions:
– What is poverty?
– How do we measure it?
– Understand some of the issues around foreign aid to Africa.
– What is social policy?
– Why do we care about social policy (education, health, employment)?
– How do we evaluate policies? (Understanding randomization)
• Understand some of the developmental issues in Africa
– Foreign aid and Africa
– Education in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa
– Economics of health in Africa
– Unemployment in South Africa
• Be able to “think better” about Africa…
2

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
3

4

5

“Kaya, four, lives with her parents in a small apartment in Tokyo, Japan. Her bedroom is lined from floor to ceiling with clothes and dolls. Kaya’s mother makes all her dresses – Kaya has 30 dresses and coats, 30 pairs of shoes and numerous wigs. When she goes to school, she has to wear a school uniform. Her favourite foods are meat, potatoes, strawberries and peaches. She wants to be a cartoonist when she grows up.”

• “Indira, seven, lives with her parents, brother and sister near Kathmandu in Nepal. Her house has only one room, with one bed and one mattress. At bedtime, the children share the mattress on the floor. Indira has worked at the local granite quarry since she was three. The family is very poor so everyone has to work.
There are 150 other children working at the quarry. Indira works six hours a day and then helps her mother with household chores. She also attends school, 30 minutes’ walk away. Her favourite food is noodles. She would like to be a dancer when she grows up”

• “Dong, nine, lives in Yunnan province in south-west China with his parents, sister and grandfather. He shares a room with his sister and parents. The family own just enough land to grow their own rice and sugarcane. Dong’s school is 20 minutes’ walk away. He enjoys writing and singing. Most evenings, he spends one hour doing his homework and one hour watching television.
When he is older, Dong would like to be a policeman.”

• “The notion of human right builds on our shared humanity. These rights are not derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being.
They differ, therefore, from constitutionally created rights guaranteed for specific people.”
― Amartya Sen , The Idea Of Justice
10

11
What is poverty?
• “Poverty is the inability of an individual or a family to command sufficient resources to satisfy basic
needs”
(Fields Ch4)
Money-metric or multi-dimensional framework?
• Income and expenditure justified as poverty measure partly because of presumed correlation with well-being and empowerment.
• Important to understand that money is not end in itself, but means to an end
• $ correlated with food, shelter, nutrition etc but not well correlated with access to public services, safety, human rights etc
• Amartya Sen = Godfather

12
– Isolation from the community
– A lack of security
– Low wages
– A lack of jobs
– Poor nutrition
– Little access to water
– Poor educational opportunities
– (May, 1998 in Finn et al 2013)

Figure 1: The composition of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (Finn et al 2013)
Anyone who is deprived in more than 3 of the dimensions is classified as multidimensionally poor
13

14
• For example, a household is classified as deprived in terms of:
– Schooling if no household member has at least 5 years of education
– Enrolment if one child of school-going age does not go to school
– Water deprivation is defined as not having piped water on site
– Deprivation in child mortality is indicated by a child having died before age 15
– Nutritional deprivation is indicated if one person in the household is seriously underweight
• See Arden 2013 for full definitions
• What are some of the problems with this method?

Comparing poverty measures for South Africa for 1993 and 2010
(Finn et al, 2013)
15
“This means that the 8% who remained multidimensionally poor in 2010 were deprived in fewer dimensions of poverty than in 1993: roughly, in four areas instead of five (on average).
When the changes in H and A are taken together, they indicate that in 2010 there were significantly fewer multidimensionally poor people; and that those who were still poor, were somewhat less poor than in 1993.”
Severe poverty can be defined as being deprived in 50% or more of the indicators

16

17
Main areas of deprivation among the multidimensionally poor

• Political
• Ethical
 political stability & democracy
 Human rights
• Justice  Inter-temporal justice
• Social justice  Religious motivations
• Societal
• Survival


Innate preference for equality
Wasted human capital
• Philosophical  Ubuntu, egalitarianism
18

http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty.html
19

Marisa Coetzee
20

21

22

•
•
•
•
•
23

24
Aid – The ‘good’...
•

•
•
– BIG SOLUTION
Health – Education - Infrastructure
No infrastructure.
Capital, tech
No investment
Poverty
No saving
Living handto-mouth

Aid – The ‘good’...(cont)
• Initially = gap funding view of aid
• Developing countries are poor because they have too little money
• Consequently cannot buy sufficient capital, infrastructure and expertise
• Associated with big push view of development
• If developed countries can transfer sufficient goods/money, this should solve poverty and fuel growth in developing countries
• Successes
A.
ARV’s (40 000  1mil in 5 yrs)
B.
Smallpox eradication
C.
Measles (100 000  40 000)
D.
River-blindness
25

Easterly -
• $2.3 trillion over last 50 years
• What do we have to show for it?
• {Duflo counterfactual}
‘Post-hoc ergo propter hoc’
26

27
• “Two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, British economist Paul Seabright was talking with a senior Russian official who was visiting the UK to learn about the free market. “Please understand that we are keen to move towards a market system,” the official said, “But we need to understand the fundamental details of how such a system works. Tell me, for example: who is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London?”
The familiar but still astonishing answer to this question is that in a market economy, everyone is in charge. ”
• What does the bread supply in London have to do with aid?!
• Planners vs Searchers (Easterly)
– ‘Utopian social engineering’ vs ‘piecemeal democratic reform’
(Popper)

28
• “Two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, British economist Paul Seabright was talking with a senior Russian official who was visiting the UK to learn about the free market. “Please understand that we are keen to move towards a market system,” the official said, “But we need to understand the fundamental details of how such a system works. Tell me, for example: who is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London?”
The familiar but still astonishing answer to this question is that in a market economy, everyone is in charge. ”
• What does the bread supply in London have to do with aid?!
• Planners vs Searchers (Easterly)
– ‘Utopian social engineering’ vs ‘piecemeal democratic reform’
(Popper)
Conclusion?
SMALL SOLUTIONS

1.
If we want to end poverty in our lifetime, what does this require of aid? ?
( Sachs )
________________________________
29
1.
What can aid do for poor people?
?
( Easterly )

30
• “The fallacy is to assume that because I have studied and lived in a society that somehow wound up with prosperity and peace, I know enough to plan for other societies to have prosperity and peace. As my friend April once said, this is like thinking the racehorses can be put in charge of building the racetracks” (p22)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoV-wtxyQKY
31

(end of Day 1)
32

(Day 2)
33

“Social policy primarily refers to the guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare”
“Public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education , and labour”
“Social Policy is defined as actions that affect the well-being of members of a society through shaping the distribution of and access to goods and resources in that society”

– Most areas of social policy influence education (in some way), and are influenced by education (in some way)
– Bidirectional causality 
– Multiple benefits of education…

Society
 Improved human rights
 Empowerment of women
 Reduced societal violence
 Promotion of a national (as opposed to regional or ethnic) identity
 Increased social cohesion
Health
 Lower fertility
 Improved child health
 Preventative health care
 Demographic transition
S
Ed
H
E c
$
Economy
 Improvements in productivity
 Economic growth
 Reduction of inter-generational cycles of poverty
 Reductions in inequality
Specific references: lower fertility (Glewwe, 2002), improved child health (Currie, 2009), reduced societal violence (Salmi, 2006), promotion of a national
- as opposed to a regional or ethnic - identity (Glewwe, 2002), improved human rights (Salmi, 2006), increased social cohesion (Heyneman, 2003),
Economic growth – see any decent Macro textbook, specifically for cognitive skills see (Hanushek & Woessman 2008)

– Education itself affects society & the individual in real and meaningful ways:
• Transforms individual capabilities, values, aspirations and desires (see Sen)
• Allows individuals to think, feel and act in different ways
• Enables new ways of organizing and supporting social action that depend on numeracy and literacy, technologies of communication and abstract thinking skills
(Lewin, 2007). Democratic participation, knowledge creation etc.
• Education increases peoples ability to add value (productivity)
• “Modernising societies use educational access and attainment as a primary mechanism to sort and select subsequent generations into different social and
economic roles” (Lewin, 2007: 3)  Distribution of income

38
?
Pretoria Boys High School

Quality of education
Duration of education
Type of education • IQ
• Motivation
• Social networks
• Discrimination
SA is one of the top 3 most unequal countries in the world
Between 78% and 85% of total inequality is explained by wage inequality
Wages

High productivity jobs and incomes (17%)
• Mainly professional, managerial & skilled jobs
• Requires graduates, good quality matric or good vocational skills
• Historically mainly white
• Vocational training
• Affirmative action
Low productivity jobs & incomes
• Often manual or low skill jobs
• Limited or low quality education
• Minimum wage can exceed productivity
Labour Market
University/
FET
• Type of institution
(FET or University)
• Quality of institution
• Type of qualification
(diploma, degree etc.)
• Field of study
(Engineering, Arts etc.)
Some motivated, lucky or talented students make the transition
High quality secondary school High SES background
+ECD
High quality primary school
-
Big demand for good schools despite fees
Some scholarships/bursaries
Minority
(20%)
Unequal society
Majority
(80%)
Low quality secondary schoo l
Low SES background
Low quality primary school
40 cf. Servaas van der Berg – QLFS 2011

41
• Impact of social grants on poverty?
• Labour market – focus for solving inequality?
(SVDB).brief explanation of Human Capital Model

42
“Wage inequality, deeply rooted in South Africa’s history, plays a central role in overall
• Impact of social grants on poverty?
• Labour market – focus for solving inequality? (SVDB) a massive increase in the human capital of those presently poor, but that prospects in this regard are inauspicious” (Van der Berg, 2010)

43
•
– It depends who you ask
– Survey method vs National accounts
– Which poverty line?
– Which distribution?

44
Global Poverty Comparison
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Ravallion - 2008
SiM&P 2009
1981
41,7
15,7
1984
35
11,2
1987
29,9
8,9
1990
29,8
8,2
1993
27
8
1996
23,6
7,2
1999
22,8
6,5
2002
20,7
6,2
2005
16,1
5,6

45

46
• Poverty has not gone up since the transition
• Differing views on when and how much it came down
• Depends which surveys you use, also which method (Surveymethod or national accounts anchoring)
• Common-sense methods are helpful
– Hunger decreased

47
Inequality

48
•
•
•

49
• (Leibbrandt et al, 2010)

50

51

• “Only a small top-end of households – less than 4% of all South African households – receive a total household income of more than R40,000 per month (for a four-person household, in 2008 Rands).” – Visagie 2013
52

53

54
Between-race inequality has declined
<
Within-race inequality has grown (especially amongst Africans)
• African population important!!

Hendrik van Broekhuizen
55

56

Quality of education
Duration of education
Type of education • IQ
• Motivation
• Social networks
• Discrimination
SA is one of the top 3 most unequal countries in the world
Between 78% and 85% of total inequality is explained by wage inequality
Wages

High productivity jobs and incomes (17%)
• Mainly professional, managerial & skilled jobs
• Requires graduates, good quality matric or good vocational skills
• Historically mainly white
• Vocational training
• Affirmative action
Low productivity jobs & incomes
• Often manual or low skill jobs
• Limited or low quality education
• Minimum wage can exceed productivity
Labour Market
University/
FET
• Type of institution
(FET or University)
• Quality of institution
• Type of qualification
(diploma, degree etc.)
• Field of study
(Engineering, Arts etc.)
Some motivated, lucky or talented students make the transition
High quality secondary school High SES background
+ECD
High quality primary school
-
Big demand for good schools despite fees
Some scholarships/bursaries
Minority
(20%)
Unequal society
Majority
(80%)
Low quality secondary schoo l
Low SES background
Low quality primary school
58 cf. Servaas van der Berg – QLFS 2011

Gr 1 - Gr 2 - Gr 3 – Gr 4 – Gr 5 – Gr 6 – Gr 7 – Gr 8 – Gr 9 Gr 10 – Gr 11 – Gr 12
11 official languages in SA…
Mother-tongue instruction
De facto / De jure ?
Primary school High school
Main drop-out zone
External assessment…ANA and matric…
59

•
• Functionally illiterate: a functionally illiterate learner cannot read a short and simple text and extract meaning.
• Functionally innumerate: a functionally innumerate learner cannot translate graphical information into fractions or interpret everyday units of measurement.
60

SACMEQ III
(Spaull & Taylor, 2012)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
39
12
6
44
2
53
31
14
19
11
9
13
26
61
58
25
45 50
18
11
27
2
17
8
18
62
13
7
52
37 34
30
3
15
50 54
8
5
1
11
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1
29
Literacy
Enrolled and acquired higher order reading skills (Levels 6-8) by grade 6
Enrolled and acquired basic reading skills (Levels 3-5) by grade 6
Enrolled but functionally illiterate (Levels 1-2) by grade 6
Never enrolled or dropped out prior to Grade 6
0
34
3
46
2
50
2
53
8
50
10 10
5
58
64 77
59 51
12 14
44
7
37
11
34
11
39
2
24
8
11
15
8
11
13
71
11
5
Numeracy
Enrolled and acquired higher order numeracy skills (Levels 6-8) by grade 6
Enrolled and acquired basic numeracy skills (Levels 3-5) by grade 6
Enrolled but functionally innumerate (Levels 1-2) by grade 6
Never enrolled or dropped out prior to grade 6

SACMEQ III (2007)
Never enrolled
2%
Functionally illiterate
25%
Basic skills
46%
Higher order skills :
27%
Forthcoming paper with
Stephen Taylor 62

1%
SA Gr 6 Literacy
25%
5%
Kenya Gr 6 Literacy
7%
49%
46%
27%
Public current expenditure per pupil:
$1225
Additional resources is not the answer
39%
Public current expenditure per pupil:
$258
63

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
100
90
80
70
49
Zambia
Corrected estimates of the proportion of the Grade 6 aged population that are functionally literate (SACMEQ III)
$66
71
$1225
71
$668
80
82
$258
$459
87
88
70
75
54
Malawi Lesotho Uganda South Africa Zimbabwe Namibia Tanzania Kenya Swaziland
64


65

What are some of the determinants of the low quality education in South Africa?
• What do South African teachers know?
• Teacher content knowledge
• What are the levels of teacher absenteeism?
• Time on task and curriculum coverage
• What is the distribution of textbooks in SA?
• Basic LTSM
66

SACMEQ III (2007)  401/498 Gr6 Mathematics teachers
7
SACMEQ Maths teacher test Q17
Correct
1 2
Quintile
3 4 5
Avg
23% 22% 38% 40% 74% 38%
Correct answer
(7km):
38% of Gr 6
Maths teachers
2 education systems
67

Maths teacher content knowledge
(SACMEQ III)

Accountability: teacher absenteeism
(SACMEQ III – 2007 – 996 teachers)
Non-strike teacher absenteeism
SACMEQ III (2007)
25
20
4 th /15
15
Days per year
10
5
6
7
0
8 8
9 9 10
10 11 11
12
14 14
14
19
69

Accountability: teacher absenteeism
(SACMEQ III – 2007 – 996 teachers)
25
Non-strike Self-reported teacher absenteeism (days)
SACMEQ III (2007)
Non-strike teacher absenteeism Teachers' strikes
15 th /15
20
0
15
Days per year
10
5
0
6
0
0
7
0
8
12
8
0
9
0
9
0 0
0
2
0
0 0
0
10
10 11 11
12
14 14
14
19
70

Accountability: teacher absenteeism
•
• 2007
: SACMEQ III conducted – 20 days average in 2007
• 2008
: Khulisa Consortium audit – HSRC (2010) estimates that 20-24 days of regular instructional time were lost due to leave in 2008
• 2010 : “An estimated 20 teaching days per teacher were lost during the
2010 teachers’ strike” (DBE, 2011: 18)
• Importantly this does not include time lost where teachers were at school but not teaching scheduled lessons
• A recent study observing 58 schools in the North West concluded that “Teachers did not teach 60% of the lessos they were scheduled
to teach in North West” (Carnoy & Chisholm et al, 2012)
71

(SACMEQ III – 2007 – 996 teachers)
KwaZulu-Natal
Western Cape Eastern Cape Limpopo
% absent > 1 week striking
% absent > 1 month (20 days)
% absent > 2 months (40 days)
32%
22%
5%
1.3 days a week
81%
62%
12%
97%
48%
0%
82%
73%
10%
72

SACMEQ III
(Spaull & Taylor, 2012)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
39
12
6
44
2
53
31
14
19
11
9
13
26
61
58
25
45 50
18
11
27
2
17
8
18
62
13
7
52
37 34
30
3
15
50 54
8
5
1
11
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1
29
Literacy
Enrolled and acquired higher order reading skills (Levels 6-8) by grade 6
Enrolled and acquired basic reading skills (Levels 3-5) by grade 6
Enrolled but functionally illiterate (Levels 1-2) by grade 6
Never enrolled or dropped out prior to Grade 6
0
34
3
46
2
50
2
53
8
50
10 10
5
58
64 77
59 51
12 14
44
7
37
11
34
11
39
2
24
8
11
15
8
11
13
71
11
5
Numeracy
Enrolled and acquired higher order numeracy skills (Levels 6-8) by grade 6
Enrolled and acquired basic numeracy skills (Levels 3-5) by grade 6
Enrolled but functionally innumerate (Levels 1-2) by grade 6
Never enrolled or dropped out prior to grade 6

Gr 1 - Gr 2 - Gr 3 – Gr 4 – Gr 5 – Gr 6 – Gr 7 – Gr 8 – Gr 9 Gr 10 – Gr 11 – Gr 12
Foundation Phase Intermediate Phase Senior Phase FET Phase
Matric
• Grade 12 – Various
• Roughly half the cohort
____________________________________
Underperformance
• Of 100 students that enroll in grade 1 approximately 50 will make it to matric, 40 will pass and 12 will qualify for university
Inequality
• Subject combinations differ between rich and poor – differential access to higher education
• Maths / Maths-lit case in point
• Are more students taking maths literacy because THEY cannot do pure-maths, or because their TEACHERS cannot teach puremaths?
1200000
Grade 10 (2 years earlier)
Those who pass matric
Proportion of matrics taking mathematics
Grade 12
Pass matric with maths
1000000
800000
600000
400000
40%
200000 10%
0
Matric 2008 (Gr
10 2006)
Matric 2009 (Gr
10 2007)
Matric 2010 (Gr
10 2008)
Matric 2011 (Gr
10 2009)
0%
74
30%
20%
60%
50%

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Gradients of achievement in the EASTERN Cape and in Quintile 5 (National)
13
Desired goal
12
12
Performance below “on-track” line creates increasing gradient of expectation
11
10
9
8
9
Zo ne
of ba ble ss im pro pro gre
6
On
-tr ac k l ine
Initial conditions
3
4
5
Off
-tra ck line
Gr1 Gr2 Gr3 Gr4 Gr5 Gr6 Gr7 Gr8 Gr9 Gr10 Gr11 Gr12
Actual grade
C.f. Lewin (2007: 8)
Spaull 2013
NB: Key assumption,
0.5 SD of national learning achievement is equivalent to one grade level of learning
-agreement from
TIMSS/PIRLS
Spaull, 2013

Gradients of achievement in the WESTERN Cape and in Quintile 5 (National)
13
12
11
Performance below “on-track” line creates increasing gradient of expectation
Desired goal
12
10
9
9
7
6
8
6
On
-tr ac k l ine
Of f-t rac k l ine
5
5
4
4
3
1
0
3
2
Initial conditions
Gr1 Gr2 Gr3 Gr4 Gr5 Gr6 Gr7 Gr8 Gr9 Gr10 Gr11 Gr12
Actual grade
C.f. Lewin (2007: 8)
Spaull 2013
NB: WC has relatively high % of
Q5 schools thus it should be more convergent by construction.
Spaull, 2013

Media sees only this 
What are the root causes of low and unequal achievement?
Matric pass rate
MATRIC
HUGE learning deficits… 77

78

Dysfunctional Schools (75% of schools) Functional Schools (25% of schools)
Weak accountability
Incompetent school management
Lack of culture of learning, discipline and order
Inadequate LTSM
Strong accountability
Good school management
Culture of learning, discipline and order
Adequate LTSM
Weak teacher content knowledge
High teacher absenteeism (1 month/yr)
Slow curriculum coverage, little homework or testing
High repetition & dropout (Gr10-12)
Extremely weak learning: most students fail standardised tests
Adequate teacher content knowledge
Low teacher absenteeism (2 week/yr)
Covers the curriculum, weekly homework, frequent testing
Low repetition & dropout (Gr10-12)
Adequate learner performance (primary and matric)
79

• Grade 6 [2007]
• Data: SACMEQ
• (Spaull, 2011) 0 200 400 600
Learner Reading Score
Poorest 25%
Second wealthiest 25%
800
Second poorest 25%
Wealthiest 25%
1000
80

Gr 1 - Gr 2 - Gr 3 – Gr 4 – Gr 5 – Gr 6 – Gr 7 – Gr 8 – Gr 9 Gr 10 – Gr 11 – Gr 12
Foundation Phase Intermediate Phase Senior Phase FET Phase
PIRLS 2006 – see Shepherd (2011) prePIRLS 2011
• Grade 4 – all 11 languages
• 433 schools, 19259 students
____________________________________
Underperformance
• 29% of gr4 students did not reach the low international benchmark – they could not read
• SA performs similarly to Botswana, but 3 years learning behind average Columbian Gr4
•
•
Inequality
• Linguistic inequalities: Large differences by home language – Xitsonga, Tshivenda and
Sepedi students particularly disadvantaged
• PIRLS (2006) showed LARGE differences between African language schools and
Eng/Afr schools
Howie et al (2011)
*Data now available for download
0 200 400 reading test score
African language schools
600 800
English/Afrikaans schools prePIRLS 2011 Benchmark Performance by Test Language
Xitsonga
Tshivenda siSwati
Setswana
Sesotho
Sepedi isiZulu isiXhosa isiNdebele
English 10
Afrikaans 12
24
34
36
47
53
57
29
38
31
South Africa 29
Did not reach
High International Benchmark
69
90
88
71
76
66
64
53
47
43
71
62
0
0
0
0.1
0.1
0.2
Low International benchmark
Advanced International benchmark
0.25
0.8
0.4
19
15
6
81
Intemediate International Benchmark


In most government reports outcomes and inputs are not usually reported by quintile, only national averages

82

Implications for reporting and modeling??
83

• Children who cannot read, write and compute properly (Functionally illiterate/innumerate) after 6 years of formal full-time schooling
• Often teachers lack even the most basic knowledge
• 2 education systems – dysfunctional system operates at bottom of African countries, functional system operates at bottom of developed countries.
• More resources is NOT the silver bullet – we are not using existing resources
• Little accountability to parents in majority of school system
• Little accountability between teachers and Department
• Teacher unions abusing power and acting unprofessionally
84

1.
Acknowledge the extent of the problem
• Low quality education is one of the three largest crises facing our country (along with
HIV/AIDS and unemployment). Need the political will and public support for widespread reform.
2.
Focus on the basics
• Every child MUST master the basics of foundational numeracy and literacy these are the
•
•
•
• building blocks of further education – weak foundations = recipe for disaster
Teachers need to be in school teaching (re-introduce inspectorate?)
Every teacher needs a minimum competency (basic) in the subjects they teach
Every child (teacher) needs access to adequate learning (teaching) materials
Use every school day and every school period – maximise instructional time
3. Increase information, accountability & transparency
•
•
•
At ALL levels – DBE, district, school, classroom, learner
Strengthen ANA
Set realistic goals for improvement and hold people accountable
85

A) Increase accountability {US model}
• Create a fool-proof highly specified, sequenced curriculum (CAPS/workbooks)
• Measure learning better and more frequently (ANA)
• Increase choice/information in a variety of ways
B) Improve the quality of teachers {Finnish model}
• Attract better candidates into teaching degrees  draw candidates from the top (rather than the bottom) of the matric distribution
• Increase the competence of existing teachers (Capacitation)
• Long term endeavor which requires sustained, committed, strategic, thoughtful leadership (something we don’t have)
C) All of the above {Utopian model}
• Perhaps A while we set out on the costly and difficult journey of B??
86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

• “Accountability systems and incentive structures, no matter how well designed, are only as effective as the capacity of the organization to respond. The purpose of an accountability system is to focus the resources and capacities of an organization towards a particular end. Accountability systems can’t mobilize resources that schools don’t have...the capacity to improve precedes and shapes schools’ responses to the external demands of accountability systems (Elmore, 2004b, p. 117).
• “If policy-makers rely on incentives for improving either a school or a student, then the question arises, incentives to do what? What exactly should educators in failing schools do tomorrow - that they do not do today - to produce more learning? What should a failing student do tomorrow that he or she is not doing today? For both parties, perhaps it is as simple as trying harder, a behavioural change ripe for incentives to influence. If the solution is not that simple, however, trying harder will lead to marginal gains. Greater gains will materialize only for those who know what to do. There will be students and teachers who try hard and fail – and they will be penalized for their failures.
The spectre of that entails political risks … At the classroom level, even teachers who have been motivated to change by accountability must know what to do differently to convert struggling learners into accomplished ones…It is difficult to sanction someone for an unacceptable outcome – and, in democratically governed institutions, to justify the sanctioning as fair – when no one can describe, with reliability and precision, how to produce an acceptable outcome” (Loveless, 2005, pp. 16, 26).
94

• “In the absence of accountability sub-systems, support measures are very much a hit and miss affair. Accountability measures provide motivation for and direction to support measures, by identifying capacity shortcomings, establishing outcome targets, and setting in place incentives and sanctions which motivate and constrain teachers and managers throughout the system to apply the lessons learned on training courses in their daily work practices.
Without these, support measures are like trying to push a piece of string: with the best will in the world, it has nowhere to go. Conversely, the performance gains achieved by accountability measures, however efficiently implemented, will reach a ceiling when the lack of leadership and technical skills on the part of managers, and curricular knowledge on the part of teachers, places a limit on improved performance. Thus, the third step in improving the quality of schooling is to provide targeted training programs to managers and teachers.
To achieve optimal effects, these will need to connect up with and be steered by accountability measures” (Taylor, 2002, p. 17).
95

96

97

98

99

“The left hand barrel has horizontal wooden slabs, while the right hand side barrel has vertical slabs. The volume in the first barrel depends on the sum of the width of all slabs. Increasing the width of any slab will increase the volume of the barrel. So a strategy on improving anything you can, when you can, while you can, would be effective. The volume in the second barrel is determined by the length of the
shortest slab. Two implications of the second barrel are that the impact of a change in a slab on the volume of the barrel depends on whether it is the binding constraint or not. If not, the impact is zero. If it is the binding constraint, the impact will depend on the distance between the shortest slab and the next shortest slab” (Hausmann,
Klinger, & Wagner, 2008, p. 17).
100

Low social mobility
Low quality education
Hereditary poverty
Persistent patterns of poverty and privilege
101

(day 3)
102

S E P T 2 0 1 3

 Write a 3 page memo to the Minister of Education of a SACMEQ country of your choice that identifies a problem of educational quality that needs immediate attention.
 Explain why this should be considered a problem (and not just the normal state of affairs), provide concrete and timely evidence to justify your claims (numbers are useful ), two possibilities for solving the problem and your one recommendation.
 For example, you could identify a gap in reading achievement between urban and rural schools in Uganda, discuss the implications for the teacher supply in rural schools, note that the problem could be solved by either a rural-incentive system for teachers and principals, or by providing additional training and support to rural teachers and principals, and recommend an example of such an incentive system from Botswana’s education system. (All of these would be based on existing evidence which you need to show you are aware of)

 Your “analysis” of the SACMEQ III (2007) dataset should
NOT make up the sum total of your research for your policy recommendations (P.S you will fail if it does, also, if your solutions are
“just common sense” rather than backed up by rigorous research you will also fail
)




Using the SACMEQ dataset is just to give you a feel for actual data and to focus the areas you can look at.
Look at international publications and websites like UNESCO’s EFA reports, SACMEQ website, JPAL interventions/reports, 3ie, Center for
Global Development (CGD), and obviously Google and Google Scholar.

NB – once you’ve chosen your topic and country(s) make sure you do a Google
Scholar search and make reference to the existing research on your topic – only include the three (max) most relevant academic articles.
You need to judge the validity of your sources – don’t quote newspapers or Newsweek for example.
Short doesn’t mean “easy” or “less work”  It’s more difficult to write simply and succinctly, and also easier to see if students know what they are talking about 








Find your topic of interest. There are only a few that can be supported using your version of the dataset:

Gender, preschool, English, library books, teacher gender, reading score, maths score, health score, PC usage, free school meal, reading textbook, math textbook, PTR, website, rural, school socioeconomic status (SES) reading level and maths level (Obviously combinations of these are recommended)
Do a preliminary descriptive analysis of your topic using the SACMEQ data
– note any interesting points
Spend some time on the websites I suggested looking for papers/policybriefs/reports etc. on your topic – get familiar with them.
Decide on your problem (use SACMEQ) and decide on your two potential solutions (using research)
Write it up
Make sure the layout looks appealing and “interesting to read” – you may include appropriate pictures (see JPAL examples)
Come back to the SACMEQ dataset – get the figures you want to use and make beautiful graphs that show what you are pointing to CLEARLY

 Layout and structure are almost as important as content

Should be visually appealing (see JPAL examples)


Include informative and interesting graphs and if appropriate a table
Use bold font and varied font-size to good effect (see JPAL)

Always be aware of who your intended reader is – a timeshort policy maker in a developing country (writing in different registers is an important skill)
 You should include references but use end-notes (i.e. all references at the end of the document in small font

(Lockheed, 2009)

 You need to print your policy-brief (preferably in colour) and hand it in at the start of the last lecture – same due date for the essay (if you choose to write an essay rather than do a policy-brief).




SACMEQ III

2007 Grade 6 numeracy and literacy
Using pivot tables to calculate measures of:



Preschool attendance by quintile
Average reading and maths scores by gender
Textbook access by quintile and province
Aims




Using pivot tables to extract meaning from data
Use grouping in pivot-tables
Understand “percent of row total” and “percent of column total”
Using conditional formatting



See these links if you are still having trouble with Excel pivot tables: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fYg9QzEWa0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_DQstWaHY

1.
What percentage of students in Malawi have “NEVER” attended preschool? _____
2.
Which country has the highest proportion of students with their own reading textbook?_______
3.
What is the average number of library books present in URBAN schools in South Africa?_______
4.
Which country has the largest urban-rural difference in mathematics textbook ownership?________
5.
Which country has the largest gender difference in average reading achievement?_________
6.
Which country has the largest gender difference in average mathematics achievement?_________
7.
What is the average reading score for all children who attended preschool for “AT LEAST 2 YEARS” and spoke
English at home “ALL THE TIME”_____
8.
What proportion of Grade 6 students in South Africa have at least one year of preschool?_______
9.
What is the average reading & math scores of students in East Africa (Tanzania, Uganda, Zanzibar and Kenya)?
Reading: _________ Mathematics: ____________
10.
What proportion of all the boys had been to at least one year of preschool?_____ Girls?______

113

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html
114