A Teacher Incentive Framework for Uganda
Abstract
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Teacher motivation is a critical issue in the Ugandan education system as it impacts significantly on teacher effectiveness and learner outcomes. Providing an effective teacher requires a set of coordinated policies, systems and structures that ensure attracting the right individuals into the teaching profession; providing good training programmes, ensuring an adequate supply of well trained teachers; providing the teachers with required tools and conductive environment to do teaching, ensuring there are systems and structures for inspection, and monitoring the teachers in the system; ensuring continuous training systems that equip teachers in service with the required new skills and competences through effective systems for teacher management; and career structures that result in consistent, high-quality performance by teachers. To undertake these activities, a framework is needed to provide guided action for all stakeholders.
This document provides the details of a Teacher Incentive Framework (TIF) for Uganda. This introductory chapter sets out the objectives of the TIF, the process description of how it was developed and the structure of the framework.
1.1 Objectives of the Teacher Incentive Framework
The main objective of the TIF is to stimulate thinking about teacher motivation, drive policy development, and energize the implementation of a national teacher motivation strategy in a systematic, pragmatic and sustainable manner. The development of a TIF is formally included in the newly developed Uganda National Teacher Policy (UNTP).
Teacher motivation cuts across a number of stakeholders including government, school management, teacher unions and community. At government level, the focus is mainly on policy development, remuneration, conditions of service, the quality of pre-service training and continuous professional development, and the effectiveness and transparency of the recruitment and deployment processes. These are all key in attracting and retaining motivated teachers at the school level. The nature and ownership of schools, conditions of work, school location and the head teacher's management style are also critical determinants of teacher motivation. At the teacher union level, access to professional development opportunities, contribution to policy development, participation in decision-making processes (having a voice), job stability and welfare are some of the support systems of teacher motivation. And finally, at the community level, teacher recognition, prestige, and the relationship with the community are some of variables for enhancing teacher motivation.
The proposed TIF is informed by an extensive review of teacher motivation issues in Uganda and other selected countries. This comprehensive literature review focused (submitted as a stand-alone deliverable for this assignment) on teacher motivation policies and strategies across a number of countries in East and Southern Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Botswana, South Africa, and Mauritius) as well as Brazil, Finland, Singapore, Chile, and China-Shanghai.
1.2 Methodological Process
The TIF design process comprised of four stages; (1) establishing requirements for the framework through literature review and survey of key stakeholders, (2) design of the TIF with its elements, (3) seeking of stakeholder feedback and (4) refinement of the TIF design and submission to the client. While some of these processes had distinct outputs, there is a linkage between each of the stages and this framework. There is a costed implementation plan attached to this framework.
The preliminary survey of the state of teacher motivation in Uganda was the starting point for this assignment. Various policy documents and studies which have been done on the subject in Uganda were reviewed. A range of inception phase activities were undertaken by consultants in consultation with TIET, UNICEF and the MOES M&E technical committee. The consultants subsequently conducted a survey involving a set of stakeholders- teachers, education policy makers, teacher's union, community, religious leaders, and development partners. This provided a good understanding of the state of teacher motivation across the country and the opinions of various stakeholders on what was needed to address low motivational levels.
A draft TIF was developed and subjected to internal and external review. The review process involved several stakeholder workshop sessions and use of experts. The framework benefited from additional information gathering through conducting specific interviews with key stakeholders in Ministry of Education and Sports, the Education Service Commission (ESC), NATU, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and Ministry of Public service. The interviews were supplemented by specific secondary education review of statistics from Education Management information system (EMIS), Ministry of Public Service and Ministry of Finance. This information gathered was used to refine the design of the TIF Uganda and the strategies proposed to guide implementation.
The draft TIF was presented to a stakeholder's meeting involving various categories of participants from Education Service Commission, MOES, UNICEF, consultants working on other education policies including the national teacher policy, CSOs working on teacher motivation, and the teacher's union.
The consultants subjected the framework to both internal and external quality assurance processes before it was edited and formatted. The framework guided the development of the costed implementation plan based on the action strategies and recommendations that had been made on each of the pillars of the framework. In addition, the relevant instruments/tools for assessment as well as the M&E framework for the assessment of TIF were developed. The final framework was presented to the MOES M&E technical working group for final approval before submission.
1.3 Document Structure
The rest of the document is arranged in seven chapters. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical basis of the model and a detailed description of the TIF. The chapter also discusses the theory of change which inspired the design of the framework. The core pillars of the incentives framework, namely financial rewards, professional incentives and accountability pressures are discussed in detail. Chapter 3 presents a situational analysis which includes the best practices table, the current policies, and the status of implementation to date.. Chapter 4 discusses the short-term strategies recommended for implementation while chapter 5 discusses the long-term priority actions. Chapter 6 discusses the monitoring and evaluation arrangements for the TIF. Finally, in chapter 7, we draw conclusions and summary best practices.
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