Evaluating the Impact of Relief Teachers on Academic Achievement in Kenyan Primary Schools

What is this about?
Researchers from the University of Oxford are involved in a unique experiment to engage policy makers Kenya in evidence based policy making in education. This is done with the explicit aim of institutionalizing the process of forecasting the effectiveness of different policy options by trialling them in a randomized controlled pilot programme. A number of policy options to address high pupil teacher ratios in Kenyan primary schools currently and previously discussed at cabinet level – but never implemented – are assessed under the direct control of the Permanent Secretary of Education with a team of officers in the Ministry of Education implementing the pilot programme and conducting the research with support from researchers at University of Oxford and University of Nairobi. The policy options explored are explicitly focussed on finding ways of increasing the quality of service delivery in primary education via employing relief teachers on short-term contracts and reforming school management structures.

Why is this project unique?
There is by now a vast body of evidence based on randomized controlled trials exploring various policy options including in Kenya. However, policy makers largely ignore this knowledge because they have not been involved in formulating the policy questions nor were they a stakeholder in its generation. In contrast, this project is fully conceived and implemented by the Ministry of Education of Kenya. To ensure ownership of the research and programme implementation by the MoE, much time and effort has been  invested in building up the capacities within the Ministry. Furthermore, by institutionalizing the programme within the Ministry, the feasibility of scaling up – and all the political sensitivities that that entails – are addressed even before any pilot work is undertaken influencing the exact questions and means of implementation. In sum, this policy research project is as much about the process of doing research that has real policy impact as finding answers to the specific research questions.

What is the policy context/background?
In 2003, the government of Kenya introduced free primary education in all Kenyan primary schools. While FPE has succeeded in increasing the quantity of children enrolled in school – by about 19% between 2002 and 2004 – there is widespread concern that school quality has suffered. Based on original analysis done by the authors, there is indeed evidence that this perceived drop in quality has led better off students to abandon the public sector and instead enroll in private schools and this move has negative externalities on the private sector.

There are two primary explanations for this decline: the failure of school budgets and staffing levels to keep pace with enrolment; and the loss of local accountability as school management and funding has become centralized. The relief teacher programme is designed to address both these issues.

How is the project going to be implemented?
This project – to be implemented jointly by the Ministry of Education(MoE, TSC, KNEC, KIE, KESI), World Vision Kenya, the University of Nairobi and the University of Oxford – will provide funding to employ two fully-trained teacher interns in 128 public primary schools: 16 schools in each of 8 areas (14 districts) spanning all 8 provinces. In parallel, World Vision Kenya will be providing training on school management and monitoring to 48 school management committees (3 members each) and in-service training to 256 relief teachers.  To benchmark the performance of the intervention, the project will conduct detailed school, teacher and School Management Committee surveys and student monitoring of learning achievements (also to be distributed to teachers for assessment) to rigorously evaluate the impact of additional teachers, SMC training and teacher training on pupils’ academic achievement.