Smarter Teachers, Smarter Pupils? Some New Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Nadir Altinok, Manos Antoninis and Phu Nguyen-Van

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: We study the effect of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement in mathematics and reading by using a dataset from six Sub-Saharan African countries. By using a difference-indifference between pupils’ and teachers’ scores in two skills, we are able to avoid potential endogeneity bias. In most estimations, we do not find a significant teacher knowledge effect in most countries. The main reason is teacher absenteeism and the need to focus on core knowledge. Indeed, more knowledgeable teachers improve student learning only if certain conditions are met. For instance, a high level of teacher absenteeism and low teacher performance in a subset of items that are also administered to students can dampen the teacher subject knowledge effect on student learning. When these conditions are met, teacher subject knowledge has a significant and positive effect on student achievement in most countries.

Keywords: Teacher knowledge; Africa; Learning; SACMEQ; cognitive skills. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-edu and nep-ure
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Working Paper: Smarter Teachers, Smarter Pupils ? Some New Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2017-35

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