Teacher and Parental Perceptions of Performance Pay in Education: Evidence from Tanzania

Abstract

This paper presents evidence on teacher opinions regarding performance pay from a large experimental evaluation that included 3 interventions: a school grants program, a teacher performance pay program, and a combination of both programs. The experimental evaluation was conducted in a nationally representative sample of 350 public primary schools in Tanzania. We report 4 sets of results. First, approximately 96 percent of teachers support the idea of teacher performance pay, while 61 percent favor at least some performance linked element in a future salary increase. Further, 80 percent of head teachers support performance pay. Second, we find that exposure to a performance pay program has a limited positive impact on teacher support. Third, contrary to arguments from performance pay critics that such programs adversely affect the work environment in schools, we find that teachers in all the experimental arms report higher satisfaction with the work environment and job support. Fourth, we find that a majority of parents (55 percent) prefer performance pay over school grants, but exposure to the experimental programs does not change this preference. This research is part of the ‘Research on Improving Systems of Education’ programme