Contract Teachers vs. Permanent Teachers: Who are more effective?

Nandini Jayakumar

Research Question

What is the impact of contracting on quality of schooling? (Government Schools)
• Impact of contract teachers on learning outcomes?
• Cost and Efficiency of Contract teachers vis-a-vis Permanent teachers.
• Are schools following the RTE mandate to not employ teachers on short term contracts?

Research Method
• The source of data will be both primary and secondary. Primary data would involve interviews or focus group discussions, as the case might be, with concerned stakeholders; school managements, teachers unions, parents and students.
• The analysis will be qualitative in nature.
• Past Research: Much work has not been done in the Indian context. However, two main papers I found relating to the subject are:

1.The Relative Effectiveness and Costs of Contract and Regular Teachers in India by Paul Atherton and Geeta Kingdon
2.Contract Teachers: Experimental Evidence from India, by Karthik Muralidharan and Venkatesh Sundararaman

Feasibility Constraint
• With merely 6 weeks, it is difficult to undertake a quantitative study. The paucity of time restricts this paper to qualitative analysis.
• Resources required: Interviews need to be scheduled with teachers’ unions and school authorities. Having focus group discussions or interviews with students and parents might be a little difficult considering the fact that schools are shut for vacations at the moment. However, it can be undertaken in the 1st week of July when schools reopen. These resources could be used together with published articles and past research papers and any discrepancy analysed.

Evaluating Progress
• Literature Review: June 14- 23
• Data collection (Framing questionnaire, meeting concerned parties):June 24- July 8
• Analysis and Report Writing: July 9-18

Output
• Research Paper
• Op-eds