Using Data to Make Effective Teacher Placement Decisions
By Monica Gadkari - Chief of Party - USAID Partnership for Education: Evaluating Systems | April 12, 2019
Through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Partnership for Education: Evaluating Systems Activity, Social Impact is helping Ghana’s Ministry of Education use data to match teachers to schools in the most efficient way.
Effective placement of teachers requires well-organized data. Data on factors such as language use, official language of instruction, pupil–teacher ratios, pupil–trained teacher ratios, class–teacher ratios, and efficiency measures must all be collected, mapped, and disaggregated to understand current district- and school-level conditions. These data must then be combined with and weighted against qualitative data to systematically guide teacher placement decisions.
To support a data-driven approach to teacher placement, Social Impact worked with the Ministry of Education to conduct a utilization-focused Teacher Rationalization Study to understand how placement decisions are currently made and how data can be integrated into these decision-making processes. To promote the use of the data, Social Impact worked with the assessment’s users on assessment design, review and interpretation of findings, and data collection itself. The result was clear: by actively engaging the assessment’s users throughout the study, Evaluating Systems produced actionable recommendations that were supported by the people who would need to implement them.
Three key benefits to organizational effectiveness emerged from this process. First, the assessment enabled all participants—at both USAID and the Government of Ghana—to understand the data more thoroughly and discuss how to use the data strategically to advocate for changes in policy and practice.
Second, participants became very comfortable using and interpreting data for teacher placement and thus became even stronger advocates for evidence-based decision making. We hope to see data- and evidence-based decision making applied not only to teacher placement decisions but to a wide range of Ministry of Education decisions.
Third, bringing together Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, and nongovernmental sector participants to interpret the findings gave them the opportunity to hear other perspectives, recognize these perspectives’ validity, and work together to come to consensus. This process fostered collaboration across Ministry units and divisions.
Asked why this work generated such enthusiasm and participation, Dr. Evelyn Oduro, Executive Secretary of the National Teaching Council and a co-chairperson of the working group leading the study, said, “I am happy that Evaluating Systems gave [the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service] the opportunity to come up with the recommendations ourselves. Honestly, this nurtures transparency of information and a culture of mutual respect in jointly pursuing improvement in Ghana’s education system. Many organizations conduct research in education and come out with recommendations for us to implement without consulting us. One cannot improve Ghana’s education system without collaborating with us. Being solely responsible for coming out with the Teacher Rationalization Study recommendations leaves us with no other option than to implement them.”