School Governance, Teacher Incentives, and Pupil- Teacher Ratios: Experimental Evidence from Kenyan Primary Schools

This paper assesses a programme that allowed Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) to recruit novice teachers in Kenya. The study found that despite only receiving a quarter of the pay of government-employed teachers, these PTA-hired teachers had fewer days off and achieved better results for their students.
The study found that the benefits of the programme were limited by the fact that it was partially captured by local agents of the state. Civil-service teachers responded to the programme in two ways, both of which reduced the educational impact of the programme. First, as a result of the lower class sizes, they dropped their effort. Second, they encouraged PTAs to hire their relatives.
A governance programme that empowered parents within the PTA helped to mitigate against both effects. Good performers amongst the PTA-hired teachers were more likely to transition into civil service positions, and the authors estimate large potential benefits of contract teacher programmes on the teacher workforce.
The study demonstrates that endogenous behavioural responses under weak governance environments may help to explain why increases in resources have generally had disappointing effects on test scores in developing countries. Resources have a greater impact in an improved governance environment.