The Problem with Teachers: The Political Settlement and Education Quality Reforms in Bangladesh

• DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2964808
• Publication Date: 2017-05-10T15:04:00Z
• Authors: Naomi Hossain; Mirza Hassan
• Keywords: Settlement (finance)

Why has Bangladesh failed to raise quality in basic education when it successfully expanded school provision? This paper explores this problem through analysis of the influence political settlement on design and delivery third Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP3), an US$8bn reform plan. From document review, key informant interviews comparative case study teacher motivations performance, concludes that elite consensus need for mass runs out comes raising standards: teachers are politically important, so reforms more carrot than stick – form training, increments, new entitlements. The centralised administration its weak incentives enforce unpopular ensure discretion at frontline/school level, performance depends ultimately their inherent motivations. But past generation seen these decline with changing sociology teaching profession: less respected, relatively well-paid often women (who have lower social status demands time), while average public pupil is ‘harder reach harder teach’. improving, but incrementally, line a economy generated positive teachers, without holding them accountable performance.