Teacher Gender,Student Gender,and Primary School Achievement: Evidence from Ten Francophone African Countries

Using an exceptionally rich, standardised education assessment dataset comprising over 1800 primary schools and 31,000 grade six students from 10 francophone Western and Central African countries, this study analyses the relationship between teacher gender, student gender, and student achievement. Findings indicate that, for girls, being taught by a female teacher increases math and reading performance. For boys, however, teacher gender has no effect. Similar, but less strong effects are also found for subject appreciation. Moreover, traditional academic gender stereotypes remain prevalent among both male and female teachers. Our findings suggest that hiring more female teachers in the region can reduce educational gender gaps without hurting boys.     

The Impact of the AIDS Epidemic on Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa

This is the first of two articles that consider the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Teachers are regularly singled out as being particularly vulnerable to HIV infection and as such they are considered to be a ' high-risk group'. However, this study presents recent evidence from high HIV prevalence countries in eastern, central and southern Africa that suggests that this is not the case. Teacher mortality rates are considerably lower than those for the adult population as a whole. Furthermore, while demographic projections show AIDS-related mortality for teachers increasing very sharply during the next 5-10 years, teacher mortality rates are in fact declining in a number of high prevalence countries mainly as a result of behaviour change and the increasing availability of anti-retroviral drugs. The second article critically reviews the available evidence on the impact of the epidemic on the education of orphans and other directly affected children.     

Sorting by Height: Education and Economic Outcomes of Women in Less-Developed Countries

Taller height is commonly found to correlate with educational and economic outcomes. Most studies focus on a relationship to earnings, and consider samples from individual countries. This paper takes a broader view by evaluating the associations between height, education, and economic outcomes in a pooled sample of women from 63 less-developed countries. Height is shown to have a generalised association to school participation, years of schooling, type of occupation, and relative household wealth. Women in countries with shorter average heights, greater urbanisation, and higher GDP per capita exhibit stronger height associations to education and wealth. These characteristics are generally reflective of Latin American and South/Southeast Asian countries relative to sub-Saharan Africa. The results are discussed in the context of early-childhood circumstances that affect both physical and cognitive development, which have lasting influences on adult outcomes.     

Historical Origins of Uneven Service Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Role of Non-State Providers

Abstract

Variations in non-state service provision are a relatively understudied dimension of wellbeing inequality in sub-Saharan Africa. This study from Madagascar documents long-term associations between nineteenth-century missionary education and the availability of private schools today. The article exploits an original data set with unusually detailed information on missionary education and contemporary local private school supply. The results indicate high levels of persistence in non-state schooling at the geographic level. The long tradition of faith-based education appears to contribute to religious differences that overlap only imperfectly with more widely studied ethnic divides.     

An Assessment of the Impacts of Sri Lanka’s Programme for School Improvement and School Report Card Programme on Students’ Academic Progress

Abstract

This paper examines two education programmes in Sri Lanka: the Programme for School Improvement (PSI), which decentralises decision-making power, and the School Report Card Programme (SRCP), which was designed to provide parents and other community members with information on the characteristics and performance of their local schools. Using a difference in differences identification strategy, it finds the following results. First, the PSI programme significantly increased Math and English reading test scores among Grade 4 students, but not first language (Sinhalese or Tamil) test scores. However, PSI has had no effect on any test scores of Grade 8 students. In contrast, the SRCP had no significant impacts on any test scores in either grade, and further inquiries revealed that the SRCP was never really implemented. Second, the paper examined the impact of both programmes on teacher and school principal variables. Overall, few effects were found, and in some cases effects were found that one would associate with reduced school quality. On a more positive note, the PSI programme does appear to have led schools to form School Development Committees (SDCs), as the programme stipulates, to establish a list of school priorities and to implement projects funded through local fundraising.     

Higher Education Funding Council (HEFC) methods in the 1990s: national and regional developments and policy implications

The Higher Education Funding Councils (HEFCs) were established to implement a devolved higher education funding policy. Over the 1990s, HEFC funding methods evolved to reflect government aims of expanding student places and reducing unit costs, while increasing equity, access and competition as well as teaching and research quality. This analysis tests the achievement of Funding Council methods and resulting block grant allocations against these goals. While research funding became more influenced by Research Assessment Exercise scores, student numbers continued to be a main force in the allocation of teaching grants. Despite variations in allocations between regions and institutional types, HEFC funding methods reinforced research and teaching funding differences between institutions.     

Support for Gender Stereotypes: Does Madrasah Education Matter?

This paper examines the influence of the institutional nature of schools on gender stereotyping by exploring contrasts between non-religious and Islamic faith (that is madrasah) schools among secondary school-going adolescents in rural Bangladesh. In particular, differences in gender attitudes across school types are explored to elucidate what about schools matters. Using a uniquely designed survey to assess the influence of school type on student characteristics, we find large differences in stereotypical gender attitudes by school type and student gender. Madrasah students in general, and unrecognised madrasah students in particular, show unfavourable attitudes about women and their abilities compared to their peers in non-religious schools. However, these differences are diminished considerably in ordered probit models suggesting that school-level differences are explained by teacher characteristics such as the nature of teacher training and average family size of teachers. These estimated effects are robust to conditioning on a rich set of family characteristics.     

Universities and Knowledge-based Development in sub-Saharan Africa: Comparing University–Firm Interaction in Nigeria,Uganda and South Africa

Research on the changing role of universities in firm learning, innovation and national economic development has not extended systematically to low income countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on an empirical survey of firms and case studies of university practices, the article examines conditions of universities, firms and their potential for interaction across a national system of innovation in three countries, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa, in order to contribute to such analysis. In so doing, it attempts to open up a research agenda in terms of the specific challenges African countries face.     

Job Satisfaction of Public Sector Employees in Sub-Saharan Africa: Testing the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire in Ghana

Public sector administration in sub-Saharan Africa experiences a myriad of problems of the logical perception between worker dissatisfaction and demotivation of job standards. This study tested the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) in a typical public sector organization in sub-Saharan Africa. A total of 100 usable surveys were analyzed with SPSS. A very low level of job satisfaction was indicated, and more than 83% of respondents indicated dissatisfaction in their pay and the amount of work they do. Significant differences in job satisfaction scores were also found in the educational level of staff, and between genders. The study outcome highlights the roles of employees and organizational weak spots of human resource management (HRM) practices in a typical sub-Saharan African country, and provides an alternative pathway in employee satisfaction and performance outcome.     

Institutional effects on democratic transitions: Neo-Patrimonial regimes in Africa, 1989–1994

The outcomes of political transitions during the late 1980s and early 1990s varied considerably across sub-Saharan African countries. In their well-received book, Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle (1997a) concluded that the differences in sub-Saharan Africa's incumbent neo-patrimonial regimes shaped contingent factors such as political protests and military interventions that were important to transition outcomes, but did not themselves directly influence the success of transitions. Shortcomings in their statistical analysis, however, cast doubt on this conclusion. This article presents an ordered logit analysis of Bratton and van de Walle’s rich data set that corrects these flaws. It concludes that institutions did more than merely shape contingent events; they had powerful and independent direct effects on the outcomes of political transitions in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Frederick Solt is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With the support of a Fulbright-García Robles grant, he is currently conducting dissertation fieldwork on subnational democratization in Mexico. I would like to thank Guang Guo and Evelyne Huber, as well as theSCID editors and anonymous external reviewers, for their helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this work.     

State Business Relations and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa by examining the effect of effective state-business relations on economic growth for a panel of 19 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970–2004. We propose a measure that we argue captures the various dimensions of effective state–business relations in sub-Saharan Africa. We then estimate standard growth regressions using dynamic panel data methods with this measure, along with the more conventionally used measures of institutional quality such as degree of executive constraints, the rule of law, the degree of corruption and the quality of the bureaucracy. Our results show that effective state–business relations contribute significantly to economic growth – countries which have shown improvements in state–business relations have witnessed higher economic growth, controlling for other determinants of economic growth and independent of other measures of institutional quality.     

Democracy, Colonization, and Human Capital in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines an empirical anomaly. In most developing regions, poor democratic nations enroll more primary school students than their authoritarian counterparts. Regime type, however, cannot account for the wide variance in enrollment in Africa. This study demonstrates that colonial heritage is a good predictor of primary school enrollment for low-income countries in Africa. Additional analysis shows that colonization's impact on education has not diminished since independence. Rather, the initial differences in enrollment between the former French and British colonies have grown over time. The results hold important implications for the study of political institutions and their impact on economic development. Even after they no longer exist, political institutions can have substantial lingering effects on important developmental outcomes. David S. Brown is an assistant professor of political science at Rice University. His work has appeared recently inThe American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, and inComparative Political Studies. His work focuses on the political economy of development and is based on cross-regional work with specialization in Latin America. Specific areas of interest are human capital, democracy, and the international determinants of domestic politics.     

The Politics of Finance: How Capital Sways African Central Banks

While there is a large literature on the politics of central banking its insights are difficult to translate to sub-Saharan Africa. This article addresses gaps in this literature by considering how the interests of those who control financial resources sway African central banks. Case studies of Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda demonstrate that variation in the sources of capital on which countries rely to finance investment helps to account for the pattern of variation in central bank policy stances. The analysis further develops and probes arguments about power derived from the control of capital in the context of developing countries.     

Routine Activity Theory,Target Congruence,and School Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Teacher Victimization

Teachers at school are typically considered as handlers or guardians of students and managers of classrooms—in roles that foster learning and protect students from harm. Thus, relatively little research attention is given to identifying the risk factors for teacher victimization in comparison with the great deal of work addressing the correlates of student victimization at school. The present study fills this gap in the literature on school violence by examining the individual- and school-level predictors of teacher victimization. The authors’ analysis is framed using a multilevel opportunity theoretical approach, incorporating measures of teacher activities, self-protection, teacher attributes that suggest target vulnerability and target antagonism, school-level norms supportive of delinquency, and school-level guardianship. These various risk and protective factors are examined using hierarchical negative binomial regression models with data from over 4,100 teachers in 98 schools in Kentucky.     

Japanese aid to Africa: Patterns,motivation and the role of structural adjustment

This article presents estimates of capital flight from 25 low-income sub-Saharan African countries in the period 1970 to 1996. Capital flight totaled more than $193 billion (in 1996 dollars); with imputed interest earnings, the accumulated stock of flight capital amounts to $285 billion. The combined external debt of these countries stood at $178 billion in 1996. Taking capital flight as a measure of private external assets, and calculating net external assets as private external assets minus public external debts, sub-Saharan Africa thus appears to be a net creditor vis-à-vis the rest of the world.     

The Education Gap of China’s Migrant Children and Rural Counterparts

Rural residents in China today face at least two key decisions: a) where to live and work; and b) where to send their children to school. In this paper we study the second decision: should a rural parent send their child to a public rural school or have him or her attend a private migrant school in the city. While there is an existing literature on the impact of this decision on student academic performance, one of the main shortcomings of current studies is that the data that are used to analyse this issue are not fully comparable. To fill the gap, we collected data on the educational performance of both migrant students who were born in and come from specific source communities (prefecture) in rural China and students who are in rural public schools in the same source communities. Specifically, the dataset facilitates our effort to measure and identity the academic gap between the students in private migrant schools in Shanghai and Suzhou and those in the public rural schools in Anhui. We also seek to identify different sources of the gap, including selection effects and observable school quality effects. According to the results of the analysis, there is a large gap. Students in public rural schools outperform students in private migrant schools by more than one standard deviation (SD). We found that selection effects only account for a small part of this gap. Both school facility effects and teacher effects explain the achievement gap of the students from the two types of schools, although these effects occur in opposite directions.     

If you build it,will they come? School availability and school enrolment in 21 poor countries

Increasing the supply of schools is commonly advocated as a policy to promote schooling outputs and outcomes. Analysis of the relationship between the school enrolment of 6- to 14-year-olds and the distance to primary and secondary schools in 21 rural areas of low-income countries (including some of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa) suggests that the two are often statistically significantly related. However, the magnitudes of the associations are small: simulating large reductions in distance yields only small increases in average school participation, and only small reductions in within country inequality. There are a number of reasons why this result might hold. Average effects might mask heterogeneity in the impact by initial distance to the nearest school, as well as by economic status; the existing quality of schools might be low and the simulation assumes that this would be the average quality of new schools; and the cross-sectional nature of the data make it hard to rule out that schools might be placed where they are ‘most needed’ which would bias the results towards zero. Sensitivity analysis suggests none of these drive the result: the results suggest that expectations for large overall increases in enrolment as a result of school construction should be tempered. They also suggest areas for more research to guide policy: in particular on the interaction between school quantity and quality; the potential importance of demand side subsidies; and the cost effectiveness of different approaches.     

Participation in a School Incentive Programme in India

Education policy has recently focused on improving accountability and incentives of public providers for actual learning outcomes, often with school-based reward programmes for high performers. The Learning Guarantee Programme in Karnataka, India, is prominent among such efforts, providing cash transfers to government schools that achieve learning at specified high levels. This study examines whether schools that self-selected into the incentive programme are different than those that did not. The answer has important implications for how to evaluate the impact of such a programme. Although we find no significant differences in resources and characteristics, we do find significant and substantial differences in test scores prior to selection into the programme, with better performing schools more likely to opt-in. These findings also provide insight into how incentive-based programmes that focus on levels of (rather than changes in) achievement can exacerbate inequality in education. Failing schools, since they are more likely to opt-out of incentive programmes, are likely to require other targeted programmes in order to improve. In addition, our findings reinforce the value of randomised controlled trials to evaluate incentive programmes since evaluations that rely on matching schools based on resources (if, for instance, pre-programme test scores are unavailable) will be biased if resources poorly predict test scores.