IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/injoed/v61y2018icp127-141.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

School-level resource allocation and education outcomes in Sri Lanka

Author

Listed:
  • Abayasekara, Ashani
  • Arunatilake, Nisha

Abstract

Sri Lanka’s public education system suffers from poor examination outcomes and wide disparities in academic achievement across schools. Using School Census data for the year 2016 and a multilevel modelling technique, we examine the link between school-level resources and student performance at the O-Levels. Controlling for several factors, we find that schools with larger shares of in-field and experienced teachers and qualified principals perform better at the O-Levels. Teacher commitment—measured by teacher absenteeism—also matters. Our findings hold several policy implications for improving the equity of school-level resource allocation and, subsequently, educational outcomes in Sri Lanka.

Suggested Citation

  • Abayasekara, Ashani & Arunatilake, Nisha, 2018. "School-level resource allocation and education outcomes in Sri Lanka," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 127-141.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:61:y:2018:i:c:p:127-141
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.12.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059317304558
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.12.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Shawn Cole & Esther Duflo & Leigh Linden, 2007. "Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1235-1264.
    2. Duflo, Esther & Hanna, Rema, 2005. "Monitoring Works: Getting Teachers to Come to School," CEPR Discussion Papers 5426, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Paul W. Glewwe & Eric A. Hanushek & Sarah D. Humpage & Renato Ravina, 2011. "School Resources and Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature from 1990 to 2010," NBER Working Papers 17554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Charles T. Clotfelter & Elizabeth J. Glennie & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2008. "Teacher Bonuses and Teacher Retention in Low-Performing Schools," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(1), pages 63-87, January.
    5. Asankha Pallegedara, 2012. "Demand for private tutoring in a free education country. The case of Sri Lanka," International Journal of Education Economics and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(4), pages 375-393.
    6. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2010. "Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    7. Asim,Salman & Chase,Robert S. & Dar,Amit & Schmillen,Achim Daniel, 2015. "Improving education outcomes in South Asia : findings from a decade of impact evaluations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7362, The World Bank.
    8. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447.
    9. Harsha Aturupane & Paul Glewwe & Suzanne Wisniewski, 2013. "The impact of school quality, socioeconomic factors, and child health on students’ academic performance: evidence from Sri Lankan primary schools," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 2-37, February.
    10. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
    11. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kyriakides, Leonidas & Stylianou, Andreas & Eliophotou Menon, Maria, 2019. "The link between educational expenditures and student learning outcomes: Evidence from Cyprus," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Lipeng Chen & Yang Yu & Amsalu K. Addis & Xiao Guo, 2022. "Empirical Assessment and Comparison of Educational Efficiency between Major Countries across the World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, March.
    3. de Silva, Tiloka & Gothama, Supun & Premakumara, Priyantha, 2021. "Admissions quotas in university education: Targeting and mismatch under Sri Lanka’s affirmative action policy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sánchez-Jabba, Andrés Mauricio, 2014. "Bilingüísmo en Colombia," Chapters, in: Sánchez Jabba, Andrés & Otero Cortés, Andrea (ed.), Educación y desarrollo regional en Colombia, chapter 3, pages 103-128, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    2. Azam, Mehtabul & Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi, 2015. "Assessing teacher quality in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 74-83.
    3. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Dario Maldonado & Catherine Rodríguez, 2012. "Calidad de la educación básica y media en Colombia: diagnóstico y propuestas," Documentos de Trabajo 10078, Universidad del Rosario.
    4. Marine de Talancé, 2015. "Better Teachers, Better Results? Evidence from Rural Pakistan," Working Papers DT/2015/21, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    5. Bold, Tessa & Molina, Ezequiel & Filmer, Deon & Svensson, Jakob, 2018. "The Lost Human Capital: Teacher Knowledge and Student Learning in Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 12956, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Goel, Deepti & Barooah, Bidisha, 2018. "Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi," GLO Discussion Paper Series 231, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Cordero, Jose M. & Gil-Izquierdo, María, 2018. "The effect of teaching strategies on student achievement: An analysis using TALIS-PISA-link," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1313-1331.
    8. Sonia Bhalotra & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Nina Schwarz, 2022. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance, and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1138-1156, November.
    9. Rebecca Allen & Jay Allnutt, 2013. "Matched panel data estimates of the impact of Teach First on school and departmental performance," DoQSS Working Papers 13-11, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    10. Dahal,Mahesh & Nguyen,Quynh T., 2014. "Private non-state sector engagement in the provision of educational services at the primary and secondary levels in South Asia : an analytical review of its role in school enrollment and student achie," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6899, The World Bank.
    11. Roland G. Fryer, 2013. "Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 373-407.
    12. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2010. "Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials," NBER Working Papers 15898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Nadir Altinok & Manos Antoninis & Phu Nguyen-Van, 2017. "Smarter Teachers, Smarter Pupils? Some New Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers of BETA 2017-35, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    14. Todd Pugatch & Elizabeth Schroeder, 2018. "Teacher pay and student performance: evidence from the Gambian hardship allowance," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 249-276, April.
    15. Johnston, Jamie & Ksoll, Christopher, 2022. "Effectiveness of interactive satellite-transmitted instruction: Experimental evidence from Ghanaian primary schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Harounan Kazianga & Leigh Linden & Ali Protik & Matt Sloan, 2015. "Impact Evaluation of Burkina Faso's BRIGHT Program: Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c0250cd3f27d448ea70d909c3, Mathematica Policy Research.
    17. Park, Albert & Shi, Xinzheng & Hsieh, Chang-tai & An, Xuehui, 2015. "Magnet high schools and academic performance in China: A regression discontinuity design," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 825-843.
    18. Asim,Salman & Chase,Robert S. & Dar,Amit & Schmillen,Achim Daniel, 2015. "Improving education outcomes in South Asia : findings from a decade of impact evaluations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7362, The World Bank.
    19. Roland G. Fryer, 2011. "Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools," NBER Working Papers 16850, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. León, Gianmarco & Valdivia, Martín, 2015. "Inequality in school resources and academic achievement: Evidence from Peru," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 71-84.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:61:y:2018:i:c:p:127-141. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-educational-development .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.