Search

Growing evidence suggests that teachers in developing countries often have weak or misaligned incentives for improving student outcomes. In response, policymakers and researchers have proposed performance pay as a way to improve student outcomes by tying concrete measures like achievement scores to teacher pay. While evidence from randomized experiments generally indicates that performance pay programs are effective at improving student achievement in developing countries, there has been considerable variation in how much these programs affect student achievement. The goals of this study are to: (1) examine the impacts of different teacher performance pay designs on student achievement, both for the average student and for students across the baseline achievement distribution; and (2) examine the mechanisms through which different teacher performance pay designs affect student achievement (for the average student and for students across the baseline achievement distribution). The sample includes a total of 8,892 students and their grade 6 mathematics teachers from 216 schools from 16 nationally-designated "poverty" counties in Yulin Prefecture (Shaanxi Province) and Tianshi Prefecture (Gansu Province) in rural, northwest China. To test the impacts of the different teacher performance pay designs, researchers designed a cluster-randomized controlled trial. In this trial, schools were randomly allocated to 4 different treatment arms: (1) control--no teacher incentive pay; (2) levels incentive--performance pay contract stipulating rewards based on student achievement levels on endline tests; (3) gains incentive--performance pay contract based on student achievement gains from baseline and endline tests; and (4) pay-for-percentile incentive--performance pay contract stipulating rewards based on student growth percentiles. Surveys were used to collect information from the students, teachers, and school administrators. Findings reveal that: (1) Only "pay-for-percentile" incentives had a positive, statistically significant impact on average student achievement; (2) Teacher incentives based on "levels" or "gains" were ineffective; (3) "Gains" incentives led teachers to only focus on certain types of students, which led to negligible learning (on average) across all students; and (4) Pay-for-percentile incentives led to score gains across all students (on average). The results of this study may have important implications for how Teacher Performance Pay Policy can be implemented in China and in other developing countries.

A number of developing countries currently identify vocational education and training (VET) as a key approach to building human capital. For example, the promotion of VET at the high school level ("vocational high school", which is used here interchangeably with VET throughout the paper) has become a policy priority among emerging economies such as Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and China (Newhouse and Suryadarma, 2011; National Congress of Brazil, 2011; Ministry of National Education of Indonesia, 2006; China State Council, 2010). The rationale underlying these policies is that increases in the proportion of vocational--as opposed to academic--high school enrollments can more effectively build human capital. For VET to successfully build human capital in these countries, however, it must meet two prerequisites. The first prerequisite is that VET must help students learn specific (vocational) skills. Vocational high school, in particular, must help youth acquire specific, medium-level skills that can either directly be used in the labor market after graduation or serve as a foundation for vocational college (Kuczera et al., 2008). Second, in addition to specific skills, for VET to be considered successful, it must help students acquire general skills (Kuczera et al., 2008; Chiswick, Lee and Miller, 2002). Despite the increasing interest in VET among policymakers, there is surprisingly little evidence from developing countries as to whether vocational high school, especially in comparison to academic high school, actually helps students acquire specific and general skills. The authors aim to begin to fill what appears to be a gap in the literature on VET in developing countries by examining whether vocational high school students are, in fact, learning specific and/or general skills. Toward this overall aim, they seek to accomplish three goals: (1) to assess the impact of attending vocational versus academic high school on the dropout rates, specific skills and general skills of the "average" student that is attending academic and vocational high schools; (2) to estimate the "heterogeneous impacts" of attending vocational versus academic high school on the dropout rates and skill levels of disadvantaged (low-income or low-ability) students; and (3) to establish whether vocational high school leads to any absolute gains in specific and general skills. Results indicate that attending vocational (relative to academic high school) substantially reduces general skills without improving specific skills. Attending vocational high school also increases dropout, especially among disadvantaged (low-income and low-ability) students.

To sustain its economic growth in the coming years, China will have to increase the country's supply of skilled labor by enabling its workforce to attain to higher levels of formal education. Unfortunately, when children in poor, rural areas today grow up, they may not be able to enjoy China's future economic prosperity because of their low levels of education. Credit constraints combined with the high cost of attending school can induce students from economically disadvantaged households to prematurely leave school (Banerjee et al., 2000). Even when schooling is free, there may be high opportunity costs of going to school (Angrist and Lavy, 2009). The highly competitive nature of education systems in many developing countries can also discourage students in poor, rural areas from continuing their education (Glewwe and Kremer, 2006; Clarke et al., 2000). Misinformation about the returns to schooling is another important, but less researched, factor that may undermine the likelihood that students continue school. However, this may only be part of the problem. There may be a number of other constraints. First, even if students understand that there are high returns to high school, they may not know how to prepare for high school, i.e., entrance requirements and which types of high schools are available. Second, beyond economic returns, students may not see the links among their own interests and aptitudes, going to high school and the careers options available to them. The term "career planning skills" is used here to refer to the knowledge about how to attend high school (requirements, options, planning, etc.) and the awareness of the links among one's own interests and aptitudes, high school and future career options. The main purpose of this study is to measure the impact of offering information or teaching career planning skills on dropout, academic achievement, and plans to go to high school among grade 7 students in poor, rural areas in China. Results from the study suggest that information and counseling have negligible to quite small impacts on the outcomes of the average junior high school student in poor, rural areas.