Teach or Perish: The Stavka System and its Impact on the Quality of Instruction

Gita Steiner-Khamsi

Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, 2016, issue 2, 14-39

Abstract: Steiner-Khamsi Gita - PhD Professor, Columbia University (New York, USA). Address: Columbia University, 116th and Broadway, New York, N Y10027. E-mail: gs174@tc.columbia.eduThe post-Soviet teacher salary system is referred to as a teaching load (stavka) system, because the number of teaching hours accounts for the wide range of teachers' income. This article discusses the challenges of the stavka system, presents a few changes and modifications over time, and provides examples of salary reforms of two countries: the 2007 teacher salary reform in Mongolia and the 2011 reform in K yrgyzstan. The UNICEF Kyrgyzstan study identifies six negative consequences of the high correlation between the salary and the number of hours taught: vulnerability of teachers, micromanagement of teachers, overcrowding of schools, vacancies as placeholders or strategic vacancies, excessive teaching loads, the redistribution of teaching hours to non-specialists. The Government of Mongolia successfully replaced the teaching load system with a workload system in 2007. In Kyrgyzstan, the re-stratification process led to a revolt of those who lost in the wake of the reform. Within a period of two years only, they ensured that the stavka-system was, with a few exceptions, put back in place.DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2016-2-14-39

Keywords: teachers; teacher salary systems; the teaching load (stavka); the weekly workload system; educational reforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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