Teacher’s Characteristics and Performance in Education Service Delivery: Case of the Technical Efficiency of Primary Schools in Tanzania
Abstract
One of the basic questions on the educational system performance is how to improve school
outcomes using a minimum of resources. Education production function theory highlights a
relationship between education system performance and its main determinants. The purpose
of this paper is to assess the influence of teacher characteristics on the technical efficiency of
primary schools in Tanzania. To achieve this, micro data from the Service Delivery Indicator
survey, collected in primary education system, are analyzed using two complementary
methodological approaches: a non-parametric technique called Data Envelopment Analysis to
estimate efficiency scores of primary school in a first-stage; then Tobit regression to identify
the determinants of technical efficiency in a second-stage. The study findings show that there
is a significant relationship between teachers’ characteristics and efficiency of primary school.
These results permitted to formulate some recommendations to policy makers in terms of
education planning in Tanzania