Improve teacher salaries to boost education quality

Feb 10, 2009

I have been following with interest the strategies being taken by the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education. The most recent one has been the transfer of 70 head teachers and 300 teachers in government-aided secondary schools reported

By Godfrey Bagonza

I have been following with interest the strategies being taken by the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education. The most recent one has been the transfer of 70 head teachers and 300 teachers in government-aided secondary schools reported in The New Vision of February 1.

This is a good strategy to ensure an equitable distribution of high quality secondary school teachers in the country, but it would be better if teacher wage incentives are improved as well, to make the teaching profession more attractive.
Teacher quality is about the effectiveness of the teacher to achieve the desired educational outcomes.

Effective teachers are those whose students are learning and such teachers have mastery of content, knowledge of the subjects that they teach and their overall academic ability is above average. Such qualities are highly associated with learners’ attainment in terms of exam scores and this is well acknowledged by the ministry with this transfer of teachers.

However, there is need to consider the labour market for teachers in Uganda as a move to ensure not only equity in teacher distribution throughout the country, but also the efficiency of the strategy. Like any other service, the labour market for teachers in a country is determined by demand and supply of teachers which are also mainly determined by the prevailing wage incentives.

Our Ugandan teacher labour market presents a proper disequilibrium where you will find urban schools which seem to offer better wage incentives for teachers having better quality teachers, whereas rural schools which offer low wages fall short of such teachers.

Urban schools have an advantage over rural schools because parents in urban schools are mostly affluent and they can afford to add some extra pay in form of Parent Teacher Association to the wage of their teachers.

At the same time teachers of science and vocational studies are in short supply partly because their services are demanded by other occupations which offer better wages compared to the teaching profession.

I have had several friends who have left the teaching profession to banking, telecom companies, and even the local government because these other options offer better wage incentives.
The major setback to improved teacher quality in Uganda has been the low wages for teachers compared to other occupations.

The primary school teacher in Uganda earns an equivalent of $125 (sh206,000) per month while the secondary school teacher on average earns an equivalent of $312 (sh514,000) per month and this wage is very low compared to other occupations.

A copy typist in the local government who may be at the same level of education as a primary school teacher earns an equivalent $187 (sh308,000) and bankers who are at the same level of education as graduate teachers earn an equivalent of $536 (sh884,000) per month.

It is quite absurd that many teachers may not afford to pay fees for their own children in the schools where they teach because of low wages.

Again, many teachers may not access good credit facilities from banks to improve their standard of living. In order to make ends meet, many secondary school teachers rotate around schools doing ‘part time’ to earn something extra on top of what the Government gives them at the end of the month. This undermines their commitment to their mother schools and they are strained and naturally their output diminishes, eventually affecting learners’ attainment.

Therefore, my argument is that teachers’ wages should be progressively improved to match with the relative earnings in other occupations.

A progressive increase in teachers’ remuneration will reduce regional imbalances in teacher supply if the relative wage is uniform for all teachers in the country. This is because many teachers will prefer to move to rural schools where the cost of living is low compared to urban areas and this will ensure equity in the supply of quality teachers.

An increase in teachers’ wages is likely to reduce the number of high quality teachers leaving the profession to join other professions.

Eventually schools will attract and retain secondary school teachers in specific subjects such as Mathematics, Science and Economics when the relative earnings in teaching are favourable compared to potential foregone earnings in alternative careers.

Many students join the teaching course in the universities in Uganda not because they love the profession, but because they have not succeeded with other options.

Actually, a student would prefer to do a Bachelor of Science ‘flat degree’ in the university other than doing Bachelor of Science with Education which is professionally better, partly because the teaching profession seems not to be attractive.

Since I joined the teaching profession in 2001, the wage for a graduate secondary school teacher has never gone beyond sh600,000 yet the cost of living in the country is going up everyday.

It is true the biggest proportion of the education ministry budget goes to teachers’ wages, but the budget allocation to the ministry has been growing and this well justifies a progressive increase on teachers’ wages.

Therefore, much as transferring teachers may be a good policy for the education ministry, in my opinion, is it not the most urgent strategy to improve equity and efficiency in the teacher labour market.

Besides that, there is no evidence to show that a teacher who has been transferred from a well performing school will improve performance in a school with poor performance. In most cases, such teachers lose their motivation and may not produce good grades in the new schools.

Improving teachers’ incentives is more likely to increase their commitment and appreciation of the profession and it is important in enhancing education quality. The teacher is a crucial input of the education process.

The writer is a graduate student at the University of London, and a staff member of Kyambogo University

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