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language and cognitive

language and cognitive abilities are very alarming because they are important predictors of performance throughout school and into early adulthood. 35 Poor foundations are evident in other crucial determinants of school performance such as socioemotional and executive functions. Socioemotional skills include teamwork, motivation, and confidence, while executive functions (which rely on both socioemotional and cognitive skills) include planning, organizing, implementing, and multitasking, among others. 36 The evidence on these developmental dimensions is more limited because of measurement difficulties. Still, gaps in working memory and sustained attention (executive functions) for poorer children are evident starting at 6 months of age and through the preschool years. 37 Even in Madagascar, a very poor country, wealth gradients are apparent after accounting for maternal education and household inputs—gaps that widen with age. 38 There are wealth gradients of socioemotional development as well. One in every three children between the ages of 3 and 4 in a range of countries fails to meet basic milestones in socioemotional development, such as the ability to control aggressive behaviors, avoid distractions, and get along with peers. 39 Because learning is cumulative and skills beget skills (see spotlight 1), the cognitive and socioemotional developmental gaps that emerge at young ages worsen over time. So do learning gaps: poor developmental foundations and lower preschool skills mean disadvantaged children arrive at school late and unprepared to benefit fully from learning opportunities. As these children get older, it becomes harder and harder for them to break out of lower learning trajectories. Teachers often lack the needed skills and motivation Teachers are the most important determinant of student learning. Estimates suggest that in the United States, students with great teachers advance 1.5 grade levels or more over a single school year, whereas those with a poor teacher advance just 0.5 grade levels. 40 Across kindergartens in Ecuador, differences in learning outcomes for language, math, and executive function are strongly associated with differences in teacher behaviors and practices. 41 No other schoollevel factor has an impact nearly this large on student achievement. 42 But high-quality teachers are in short supply in low-income countries. 43 Less than 25 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans currently complete secondary education. 44 Thus there are simply not enough qualified candidates to meet the growing demand for teachers. In some countries, teacher training colleges have had to lower their entry requirements to ensure an adequate supply of teachers. These colleges also push trainees through the programs in two years or less to try to fill the need for primary school teachers. 45 In Latin America, there is evidence that candidates entering the teaching profession are academically weaker than the pool of higher education students. Fifteen-year-olds who identified themselves as interested in a teaching career had much lower PISA math scores than students interested in engineering in every country in the region, and they scored below the national average in nearly all countries. 46 Teachers may also not always have the necessary pedagogical skills; classroom observations in six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa found that few public primary school teachers are able to assess children’s abilities and evaluate students’ progress, and few engage in the practices typically associated with good teaching. 47 As a result, teachers often do not have sufficient mastery of concepts they are expected to teach. In several Sub-Saharan countries, the average teacher does not perform much better on reading tests than the highest-performing grade 6 students. 48 Across six countries in the region, 40 percent of primary school teachers are not as knowledgeable as their students should be (table 3.1). 49 In Bihar, India, only 10.5 percent Table 3.1 Fewteachersreachminimumthresholdsofperformanceonknowledgeassessments Percentage of teachers who score at least 80 percent on a test of grade 4 material Kenya Mozambique Nigeria Tanzania Togo Uganda Subject Average (2012) (2014) (2013) a (2014) (2013) (2013) Equivalent to student language curriculum 61 66 77 24 41 54 90 Equivalent to student mathematics curriculum 56 82 26 31 62 24 55 Source: Bold and others (2017). a. Data based on four states in Nigeria. 80 | World Development Report 2018

Figure 3.10 Alotofofficialteachingtimeislost Percentage of time officially allocated to schooling that a teacher is scheduled to teach, is present in the classroom, and is actually teaching 100 80 Percent 60 40 20 0 Morocco Egypt, Arab Rep. Lebanon Yemen, Rep. Lao PDR Tunisia Cambodia Nigeria Senegal Brazil (Pernambuco) Togo Madagascar Zambia Tanzania Kenya Uganda Mozambique Ghana Percentage of time teacher is scheduled to teach present in the classroom teaching Sources: WDR 2018 team, using data from Abadzi (2009): Brazil (Pernambuco state), Ghana, Morocco, and Tunisia; Benveniste, Marshall, and Araujo (2008): Cambodia; Benveniste, Marshall, and Santibañez (2007): Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Millot and Lane (2002): Arab Republic of Egypt, Lebanon, and Republic of Yemen; World Bank (2016a): Madagascar; World Bank (2016b): Zambia; World Bank’s Service Delivery Indicators, 2012–13 (http://www.worldbank .org/sdi): Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. Data at http://bit.do/WDR2018-Fig_3-10. Note: For Brazil, Cambodia, Ghana, Lao PDR, Senegal, Tanzania, and Tunisia, data include public schools. For all other countries, data include both public and private schools. of tested public school teachers are able to solve a three-digit by one-digit division problem and show the steps correctly. 50 Many developing countries suffer significant losses of instructional time (figure 3.10). Unannounced visits to primary schools in six countries found that in public schools, on average, about one teacher in five was absent on a typical school day. 51 Even when teachers are present in school, they may not be teaching. In seven Sub-Saharan countries, students receive only about two and a half hours of teaching a day—less than half the scheduled time. 52 Teacher absenteeism and low time on task when in class—combined with other factors such as informal school closures or student absenteeism—mean that only about one-third of the total instructional time is used in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Guatemala. 53 Even in middle-income countries in Latin America, about 20 percent of potential instructional time is lost—the equivalent of one less day of instruction a week. 54 There are many reasons for this loss of instructional time, including poor training and other demands on teachers, and some teachers may perceive it as justified (box 3.3). But whatever the cause, lost teaching time reduces student learning. This problem is particularly concerning because the bulk of national education budgets goes to teacher salaries. In Latin America and the Caribbean, teacher salaries absorb nearly 4 percent of the regional gross domestic product (GDP). 55 Staff compensation accounts for 80 percent of public spending on education in some countries (figure 3.11). If one in five government primary school teachers is absent from school, developing countries are wasting considerable resources. According to recent data on 1,300 villages in India, nearly 24 percent of teachers were absent during unannounced visits, at an associated fiscal cost of US$1.5 billion a year. 56 Reducing absenteeism in these schools would be over 10 times more costeffective at increasing student-teacher contact time than hiring additional teachers. School management skills are low The effective management of schools relies on capacity and autonomy for decision making at the school level, which are often lacking. Higher management quality 57 and school leadership are associated with better education outcomes. 58 Yet in many developing countries effective school management is missing The many faces of the learning crisis | 81

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