Policies

KiuFunza - an experimental teacher pay program

Context and Issue

Despite numerous substantial reforms and considerable new funds directed towards public education in East Africa over the past ten years, student academic attainment in the region continues to lag. Results-based financing (RBF) has been implemented in numerous developing nations to motivate educators and other involved parties to deliver improved outcomes.

Solution 

Two performance payment designs were created to ensure better learning outcomes and incentivize the teachers. The following are the two designs. 

Simple Incentive Design (Proficiency)

The incentive design rewarded teachers based on the number of specific milestones (or proficiency) levels each student could achieve.

Complex System Design (Student test score ranking within a group)

This design first grouped students by baseline test scores and then rewarded teachers based on the rank ordering of each of their students within each
group. Hence, this system rewards teachers based on the gains of their students within the structure of a rank-order tournament.

Impact 

Both incentive schemes significantly raised test scores. However, despite the theoretical advantages of the more complex learning “gains” design, the simpler learning “levels” design was at least as effective in raising student learning

Analysis

These conclusions are based on the experimental studies, it is difficult to generalize the results from the experiment as there might be an influence due to a variation in the context across different countries.