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Qualification and experience profiles The low proportion of qualified teachers working in rural schools is one of the
most serious problems preventing the attainment of EFA with reasonable learning outcomes in most LICs. Rural-urban differences in the qualification
profiles of teachers are usually very large. For example, in Namibia, 40 per cent of teachers in rural schools in the north are qualified compared to 92 per
cent in the capital Windhoek and neighbouring areas. In Uganda, two-thirds of primary school teachers in urban schools are qualified, but only half in rural
schools. The qualification divide is particularly acute in conflict and post- conflict situations. In Sierra Leone, for example, 96 per cent of teachers in the
capital in Freetown are qualified, but less than 25 per cent in the remoter, war- torn northern districts.
Younger, inexperienced teachers tend to be posted to schools in rural areas in many LICs. In Nepal, for example, two-thirds of teachers are under 35 in
rural schools, but only one-third at urban primary schools. Younger teachers tend to be single. Spouse separation can also seriously constrain deployment
in some countries for example, Botswana, especially where both partners have well-paid jobs.
Gender profiles In most countries, women teachers at government-funded schools are
disproportionately employed in urban schools because it is generally accepted that they should not separated from their husbandspartners and there are
pervasive cultural concerns about posting single female teachers away from their family homes. For example, in Madhya Pradesh, 59 per cent of primary
school teachers in urban schools are female, but only 13 per cent in rural schools. The local recruitment of women as Shiksha Karmi
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teachers has circumvented this deployment constraint in some Indian states.
Some countries have attempted to overcome the paucity of female teachers in rural areas by introducing new staffing norms. For example, in Nepal, every
primary school is expected to have one female teacher. However, this has not been enforced in many areas.
4.2 RECRUITMENT The extent to which the recruitment process is centralised is a key factor in
shaping deployment outcomes. Teacher recruitment is school-based in some countries, especially where missions and other faith-based education
agencies FBEAs own and manage sizeable proportions of schools for example, in Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. In these situations where
the FBEAs are the ‘employing authority, teachers typically apply for vacant positions at individual schools and the Ministry of Education is merely
informed once recruitment decisions have been made. Although recruitment is
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Shiksha Karmi are community-based schools, which are supervised by communities and local councils and receive funding mainly from the state. NGOs have been heavily involved in
setting-up and managing many of these schools.
17 decentralised to the agency and school levels, there is often poor
accountability. More serious still, without centralised posting of teachers, vacancy rates at hard-to-staff schools are typically very high.
At the other extreme are highly centralised teacher recruitment systems where teachers are appointed by the Ministry of Education and then posted to
schools for example, in Ghana. However, even where recruitment is centralised, some ministries have to consult with FBEAs as the owners of the
schools over the appointment of staff, particularly head teachers. This further complicates principal-agent relationships in the recruitment and deployment
process. In some countries, a sizeable proportion of the teachers who are recruited do
not meet laid down minimum entry requirements. Even in a relatively developed country such as Brazil, ‘unclear lines of accountability have
encouraged patronage relationships and recruitment of under-qualified teachers’ World Bank, 2001. In the worst cases, teaching positions are
purchased. In India, government-assisted schools expect ‘donations’ from prospective staff. Teaching jobs in these schools are particularly attractive
since teachers receive the same, relatively attractive salaries as government teachers.
Other common recruitment issues include the following:
• Public sector recruitment freezes in many countries have meant that large proportions of new teachers are recruited informally and are not
put on the payroll. Even officially appointed teachers face long delays in getting on the payroll in many countries, which is very de-motivating.
• Enrolment figures are frequently inflated in order to maximise teacher recruitment and other resource allocations.
• Stop-start recruitment is common in many countries usually as result of poor planning. The underestimation of enrolments in rapidly urban
areas is a common problem. • It is often difficult to estimate how many teacher trainees will apply for
teaching jobs because, in many countries, very sizeable proportions of trainees do not intend to pursue careers in teaching.
4.3 DEPLOYMENT PRACTICES The main reasons for poor deployment are strong teacher resistance,
