Whether to Hire Local Contract Teachers? Trade-off Between Skills and Preferences in India

Sonja Fagernäs () and Panu Pelkonen

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: Whether to hire teachers locally on a contract basis, or via competitive examinations and training as government officials, is a major policy question in developing countries. Recruitment practices can have implications for the competence, motivation and the cost of teachers. This study relies on a Discrete Choice Experiment to assess the job preferences of a sample of 700 future elementary school teachers in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The students have been selected using either district-wide competitive examination or from a pool of locally hired, experienced contract teachers (para-teachers). Skills in English, Arithmetic and Vocabulary are also tested. We find a trade-off between skills and preferences, as teacher students hired using competitive examination have higher skills, but prefer posts in less remote regions. Most of the differences in job preferences between the two groups can be explained by geographic origin of the teachers, skills, experience and education.

Keywords: Education; Para-teachers; Discrete Choice Experiment; Skills; Preferences; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I28 J24 J28 J41 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-lab
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Working Paper: Whether to Hire Local Contract Teachers? Trade-off Between Skills and Preferences in India (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:1811

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