The Economics of Classroom Time

2. The Economics of ClassroomTime How to help students spend more time learning

3. Education for All impliessufficient exposure to information • To retain knowledge and use it when needed, students need time to: • register incoming information in their memory • elaborate the concepts, connect existing with incoming knowledge • practice • receive knowledge through multiple modes

4. Do students get enough time to learn needed skills? • Educational researchers as well as observations by Bank task managers and OED indicate a different reality, particularly in the poorer countries • Here is a story of circles..

5. Education Ministries define instructional time • Total instructional time (by law/ decree): 700-1000 hours per year, depending on grade, country

6. Schools are open fewer days than expected • Days are reduced by extended holidays, floods, strikes, examinations, strikes, etc., e.g., 30% reduction in Mali

7. Teachers are not always at school or in the classroom • Teacher presence time, e.g., 75% attendance in some areas of India

8. Students are not always at school • Student attendance time, e.g., about 50% in some areas of Bangladesh

9. Students and teachers have limited contact time • Contact time is the intersection of teacher and student presence time

10. Students are engaged in learning only part of the time • Students may spend time copying (particularly if no books), unattended, disciplined, etc. In-class time on task may be 15-25%

11. The cumulative efficiency of the education systems may be as low as 7% in some countries! • So, quality of education is low. • Without private tuition, students may fail • Inefficient use of time costs governments money. • Governments pay teacher salaries and school expenses regardless of time. • Issue particularly serious when resources are few.

12. These observations led three colleagues to seek means for improving instructional time in borrower countries • Robert Prouty, HDNED (task manager) • Benoit Millot, AFTH2 • Helen Abadzi, OED

13. Resources from the Bank Netherlands Partnership Program will finance surveys to: (a) estimate the real instructional time available for students in low-income countries, (b) assess the magnitude, patterns, causes, and impact of the time wastage, and (c) recommend operational policy measures to maximize instructional time and pilot some if possible.

14. Our Goal: Help students attain the skills envisaged inthe EFA initiative • Develop and test viable methods to be used easily by countries to find out how time and their budgets are spent • Inform task managers, donor community • Help countries form policies to increase instructional time, use existing budgets better before trying to increase them • Lead to lending activities to increase instructional time

15. To test methodological and policy change potential • Instructional Time Surveys are currently planned for: • Tunisia • Morocco • Guinea • Ghana

16. Today’s Presentation • A brief overview of what is known on how countries spend their intended instructional time (Aaron Benavot) • How to measure students’ engaged time in learning time-on-task in classrooms (Jane Stallings and Stephanie Knight).

17. Presenters • Aaron Ben Avot • Professor, Anthropology and Sociology Dept. • Hebrew University of Jerusalem • International Bureau of Education (UNESCO) • Stephanie Knight • Professor, Endowed Chair in Urban Education • Dept. of Educational Psychology • Texas A& M University • Jane Stallings • Retired Dean, College of Education • Texas A & M University • President, American Educational Research Association - 1995

18. We have a lot to learn • We look forward to your opinions, ideas, and future collaboration. • Thanks for coming!