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on Education |
| By: | Busso, Matias (Inter-American Development Bank); Montaño, Sebastián (University of Maryland); Muñoz-Morales, Juan S. (IÉSEG School of Management); Pope, Nolan G. (University of Maryland) |
| Abstract: | Teacher quality is a key factor in improving student academic achievement. As such, educational policymakers strive to design systems to hire the most effective teachers. This paper examines the effects of a national policy reform in Colombia that established a merit-based teacher-hiring system intended to enhance teacher quality and improve student learning. Implemented in 2005 for all public schools, the policy ties teacher-hiring decisions to candidates' performance on an exam evaluating subject-specific knowledge and teaching aptitude. The implementation of the policy led to many experienced contract teachers being replaced by high exam-performing novice teachers. We find that though the policy sharply increased pre-college test scores of teachers, it also decreased the overall stock of teacher experience and led to sharp decreases in students' exam performance and educational attainment. Using a difference-in-differences strategy to compare the outcomes of students from public and private schools over two decades, we show that the hiring reform decreased students' performance on high school exit exams by 8 percent of a standard deviation, and reduced the likelihood that students enroll in and graduate from college by more than 10 percent. The results underscore that relying exclusively on specific ex ante measures of teacher quality to screen candidates, particularly at the expense of teacher experience, may unintentionally reduce students' learning gains. |
| Keywords: | teachers, teaching experience, teacher screening, Colombia, test scores, college enrollment |
| JEL: | I25 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17294 |
| By: | Zheyuan Zhang (Capital University of Economics and Business); Hui Xu (Beijing Normal University); Ruilin Liu (Capital University of Economics and Business); Zhong Zhao (Renmin University of China) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of the Free Education Policy, a major education reform implemented in rural China in 2006, as a natural experiment on the intergenerational transmission of cognitive skills. The identification strategy relies on a difference-in-differences approach and exploits the fact that the reform was implemented gradually at different times across different provinces. By utilizing nationally representative data from the China Family Panel Studies, we find that an additional semester of exposure to the Free Education Policy reduces the intergenerational transmission of parent and child cognitive scores by an approximately 1% standard deviation in rural China, indicating a reduction of 3.5% in intergenerational cognitive persistence. The improvement in cognitive mobility across generations might be attributed to enhanced school attainment, the relaxation of budget constraints, and increased social contact for children whose parents are less advantaged in terms of cognitive skills. |
| Keywords: | Free Education policy, intergenerational transmission, cognitive skills |
| JEL: | H52 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2024-017 |
| By: | Kipchumba, Elijah (Trinity College Dublin); Porter, Catherine (Lancaster University); Serra, Danila (Texas A&M University); Sulaiman, Munshi (BRAC University) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact of a role model intervention on the gender attitudes, college aspirations and education outcomes of youths in Somalia. In 2018, we randomly selected elementary schools to receive a visit from a college student. Within each treatment school, we selected four grades, two to receive a visit from a female college student and two from a male college student. The "role models" gave unscripted talks about their personal study journeys, including challenges and strategies to overcome setbacks. Six months after the intervention we found a significant and large impact of (only) female role models on boys' and girls' attitudes toward gender equality but no impact on college aspirations. Data collected two and four years later from the cohorts graduating primary school produce smaller and non-significant treatment effects on the survey outcomes, but positive impacts on enrollment in high school and a lower probability of early marriage as reported by teachers. |
| Keywords: | role models, education, gender, aspirations, field experiment, Somalia |
| JEL: | J16 O12 I25 C93 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17261 |
| By: | Mezili Imad (Université d'Oran 1 Ahmed Ben Bella [Oran]); Belkhadem Ibtissem (Ecole Supérieure d'Economie d'Oran (ex. EPSECG Oran)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the alignment between the university education at ISTA Oran and labor market needs in Algeria. The high unemployment rate among Algerian university graduates points to a general problematic of mismatch between education and jobs. The main hypothesis is that there is a gap between the educational services and actual labor market requirements. The methodology used is a survey of 47 ISTA teachers. Overall, the study highlights the need for better training-employment alignment to positively impact graduates' employability. |
| Keywords: | Skills labor market innovative pedagogy university training JEL Classification Codes: J21 J24 A22 I23, Skills, labor market, innovative pedagogy, university training JEL Classification Codes: J21, J24, A22, I23 |
| Date: | 2023–12–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04684571 |
| By: | David J. Deming; Mikko I. Silliman |
| Abstract: | This paper synthesizes the economics literature on skills and human capital, with a particular focus on higher-order capacities like social and decision-making skills. We review the empirical evidence on returns to human capital from both a micro and macro perspective, as well as the evidence on returns to human capital investment over the life-cycle. We highlight two key limitations of human capital theory as currently implemented. First, prior work mostly assumes that human capital is one-dimensional and can be measured by education or test scores alone. Second, human capital is typically modeled as augmenting the marginal product of labor with workers being treated as factors of production, just like physical capital. We argue for a new approach that treats workers as agents who decide how to allocate their labor over job tasks. Traditional cognitive skills make workers more productive in any task, while higher-order skills govern workers’ choices of which tasks to perform and whether to work alone or in a team. We illustrate the value of this approach with stylized models that incorporate teamwork and decision-making skills and generate predictions about how returns to skills vary across contexts. |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32908 |