by Ana Santiago

The capacity of countries to compete in the global economy depends critically on the capacity of meeting increasing demands for high-level-skills, making school quality a pressing issue.

Despite increased spending in education (1) and many reform efforts, the region has not substantially improved learning in its schools over the past decade: Latin America scores at the bottom of every global test of international student achievement. Progress has been made in education access, achieving almost universal primary education, expanding preprimary, secondary and tertiary education (2). However, regional and national inequalities continue to hinder LAC educational achievement, raising concerns about equity in the distribution of learning opportunities (3).

The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers (4)

The current literature supports the fact that teachers are the main driver of in-school effects on student attainment. Further, it provides evidence on the difference made by a good and effective teacher; counteracting other negative effects, such as a disadvantaged background (6).

Teachers are the essential link in the chain from education spending to student learning, so improving teacher effectiveness is a critical component for improving student outcomes. Teacher effectiveness in turn depends on: (a) skills and knowledge – whether they know what to teach and the best way to teach it, and (b) teacher behavior in the classroom – whether they do their best to apply what they know? (6)

The context in which teachers work has significantly changed over the past decade, yet teaching has not been sufficiently adapted to these new situations: teachers basically continue to have the same preparation and toolkit that they had before. Unless actions to update teaching to the new environment take place, there will not be a substantial improvement in quality in the system and corresponding reduction in inequalities.

This implies a new challenge to update the profession in a rapidly changing environment and in the unlikely perspective of increases in spending as those of the past decade. The improvement of human resources (i.e. teachers, technical staff, and principals) has become the main education-related concern for most countries in LAC. The new frontier in educational reform is thus the human resources policy. However, altering the human resources policy of a sector is a complex, long-term endeavor and entails delicate consideration of political economy issues.

The IDB has defined a mid-term research agenda to contribute to the discussion and policy implications of what constitutes a good and effective teacher, as well as the requirements to update the profession in this new context, especially for Latin American and Caribbean.

The applied research of what the new conditions mean, as well as how the results could be introduced into the profession spans various topics and age groups:

(i) Early Childhood –content, method, and group dynamics between teachers- in Latin America where access will rapidly increase, thus imposing a challenge to maintaining quality (ii) Overcoming the aggressive environment faced by many youth: violence, discipline, and effective tools for teachers to maintain interest in learning for this age group; (iii) Teaching in an increasing context of technology, as well as the cognitive and non-cognitive skills (21st century skills) required in the labor force and global economy; (iv) Numeracy and literacy in the context of inequality: matching certain type of teachers to specific contexts and problematic, where good and effective teachers can be the equalizer factor in a region with high inequality.

Selected Bibliography

* Ana Santiago is an evaluation economist in the Education Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
(1) Investment in education is increasing. Public spending as a proportion of GDP increased form 2.7% in 1990 to 4.3% in 2002-03, and is above the average for low- and middle-income countries. However, spending per student remains low: annual spending per pupil in primary education is substantially lower than in OECD countries (ranges from around $190 in Nicaragua to $1,400 in Chile, but in contrast with $4,800 in OECD).
(2) Preschool and secondary enrollment rates in most countries are below those of countries elsewhere with similar levels of income – and particularly below the East Asian tigers. Forty percent of children still do not enroll in preschool; 35% do not enroll in secondary school.
(3) School equipment is insufficient in a number of countries in the region and represents a serious constraint on the equality of education. Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru have many primary schools lacking several or all of the following: sufficient toilets, potable water, libraries, books and computer rooms. Poorly equipped schools tend to be attended by children from poorer households, exacerbating underlying inequalities in opportunity.
(4) McKinsey Report (2007) "How the world's best performing school systems come out on top".
(5) Hanushek, E (2002) “Teacher Quality” in Teacher Quality, Hoover Press, Lance Izumi Ed. Hanushek, E et al. (2005) “The market for teacher quality” WP11154 National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge, MA.
(6) Evidence suggesting that the main driver of student learning at school is the quality of the teachers is widely accepted. The only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction. Research using data from Tennessee established that if two comparable eight-year olds were placed with different teachers, one a low performer the other a high performer, their outcomes diverged by more than 50 percentile points within three years. Comparing with the evidence that suggests that reducing class size form 23 to 15 students improves the performance of an average student by eight percentile points6; teacher quality comes out a more efficient measure to increase student attainment.

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