The best teachers usually don’t know who they are

"Nobody tells me that I'm a strong teacher”.

That’s what the best teacher in Los Angeles, Zinaida Tan, said in 2010 after the LA Times published the first ranking of teachers based on student progress. As the Guardian reports:

"Tan taught at Morningside Elementary, a decent if unremarkable school with an intake of mainly poor students, many of whom struggled with English. Year after year, students were entering Tan’s class with below-average ability in maths and English, and leaving it with above-average scores. You might imagine that before the Los Angeles Times published its rankings, Tan would have already been celebrated for her ability by her peers - that her brilliance would be well-known to fellow teachers eager to learn her secrets. You would be wrong on all counts.

When the Los Angeles Times sent a correspondent to interview Tan, they found her quietly carrying out her work, unheralded except by those who had taken her class and knew what a difference it had made to their lives. “Nobody tells me that I’m a strong teacher,” Tan told the reporter. She guessed that her colleagues thought her “strict, even mean”. On a recent evaluation, her headmaster noted she had been late to pick up her students from recess three times. It was as if Lionel Messi’s teammates considered him a useful midfielder who needed to work on his tackling."

We just found the exact same thing in Uganda. Ark Education Partnerships Group came up with the idea of doing a ranking of Secondary Schools based on value-added (adjusting for student’s starting point) rather than the current system of just looking at test scores at the end of school, which tends to reward schools that are able to select the best students, rather than necessarily teach them the most.

The Daily Monitor reports:

"Some of the 200 schools ranked best in the country yesterday, reacted to the news with shock and awe"

One of these surprise top-performing headteachers seems to have almost accidentally stumbled across a fundamental principle of modern education thinking, that all students can make progress if you teach to their level instead of focusing on just the brightest kids in the class.

"Mr Rajab Nsubuga, the head teacher of Hope Boarding Secondary School Lutembe, off Entebbe Road, the best Secondary School in the country, also said the ranking shocked him, adding that the school works on a philosophy that every student is a learner only that they accommodate slow, average and fast learners at their school."

Phil Elks and I wrote up a paper with the methodology here. One thing in particular we note is that from a quick count we found at least 24 other countries that have official national primary and secondary exams that could be used for similar analysis. And for all the technical flaws of value-added models, they’re a pretty clear improvement on what currently happens, which is rankings of schools based on raw test scores.

What’s the single biggest growth opportunity that no-one really tried?

Paul Collier and Astrid Haas just wrote an IGC blogpost “Why Kampala holds the single biggest growth opportunity for Uganda.” Single biggest? Well indeed, the first rule of blogging is HYPERBOLE, but then the first rule of reading blogs should be a heavy dose of scepticism. Second, I’m reminded of Michael Clemens’ presentation on The Biggest Idea in Development That No One Really Tried. Might migration (the kind that Paul apparently thinks is harmful for poor countries) hold a bigger growth opportunity for Uganda than better urban planning in Kampala?

At present, around 1% of Ugandans live and work overseas (roughly 400,000 of a population of 37.6 million). This 1% of the population send home 4% of Uganda’s GDP in remittances. According to a Gallup poll, around 35% of Ugandans would permanently move to another country if they were allowed to. If they all could, and sent back as much as current Ugandans abroad do, that would be a one-off 140% increase in Uganda’s economy. Or if Uganda had the same level of emigration as the UK does (8%, 5.2 million of a population of 64.1 million Brits live and work overseas), that would be a 28% increase in Uganda’s economy. And that’s totally ignoring the increase in income for the actual migrants themselves. Median income in Uganda is $2.5 per day (in PPP), so even a job on UK (“relative-") poverty pay levels of around $23 per day would be a NINE-FOLD increase for them. Needless to say, the main reason that more Ugandans don’t work in high-wage economies, is that the governments of high-wage countries impose restrictions on the entry of people, particularly those from poorer countries.

Brain drain I hear you say? Michael Clemens killed that one too (ethically it is pretty unreasonable to restrict individual's freedom to such an extreme extent, even if there were any real evidence that emigration of highly-skilled people hurt an economy, which there isn't anyway).

So yes, clearly planning Kampala’s urban development is important for growth. But does it really have more “potential” than something that could double the country’s economy overnight?

The Political Economy of Education in Uganda

This post was first published on the CGD Views from the Center Blog

Uganda goes to the polls in 30 days to elect its next president, but there is little sign so far in the public debate on education of the need to shift focus from inputs and enrolment to actual learning outcomes.

I was in Kampala last week piloting a survey on school management (more on that later), and spotted in the Daily Monitor a feature on the candidate’s campaign promises on education, reading as follows:

Yoweri Museveni

• One primary school per parish (to reduce average walking distances)
• Continue to increase the budget allocation for text books

Kizza Besigye

• Introduce compulsory universal primary education
• Increase remuneration for primary school teachers

Amama Mbabazi

• Recruit and train new teachers with the aim of reducing the teacher-student ratio
• Build more schools and classrooms

That’s zero mention of actual student learning outcomes from any of the leading candidates, and a complete focus on spending more money and providing more of the inputs that have been showntime and again to bear little relationship with improved learning outcomes.

NYU Professor David Stasavage published a paper in 2005 exploring how the introduction of elections in Uganda in 1996 helped lead to the removal of school fees in 1997. He also published a follow-up in 2013 noting how elections focus politicians on those things that are easily visible to voters. Fees for tuition at public schools are very visible to voters, and so one of the first things democratic politicians address. School quality is much less visible to the average voter, leading to much less focus on teaching and learning by politicians.

All of this suggests that one way to improve student learning is to get citizens and politicians more focused on learning by better measurement and spreading of the insight that despite high enrolment, student skills are very poor. This is a key part of the theory of change behind the global ASER/Uwezo/PAL-Network movement of citizen-led student reading assessments. What sadly seems clear from Uganda is that this message has not yet got through. We’ve known since Uwezo’s 2010 assessment that children in Uganda are way behind where there should be (only 2 percent of grade 3 children could read and understand a grade 2 story).

My tip for anyone with the opportunity to grill the candidates on education policy would be to borrow Paul Atherton’s mantra:   “But can the kids read?”

The fiscal cliff in East Africa

So, when South Sudan makes a strategic choice to temporarily (but drastically) cut government spending in order to achieve political objectives, it is being "reckless". And when Western donors decide to temporarily cut government spending in Rwanda and Uganda in order to achieve political objectives, they are being... what exactly? Is there any evidence that sanctions are even effective? And it's lucky that our whiter than white British government has a totally clean record on corruption, human rights, and interfering in other countries... ahem, MPs expenses, Leveson, our Prime Ministers acting as arms salesman to Middle Eastern despots, our financial services industry laundering exactly the cash stolen from foreign governments that we pretend to care about, the invasion of Iraq... good job our citizens don't rely on foreign aid for basic service delivery then.

Probably the best Ugandan lifestyle & events website

InKampala.com went live today, check it out:

Ugandan billboard of the day

The UN has declared that internet access is a human right. So we’re [MTN] giving you that access for free.

 via Brian Swartz

And the Award for Best-dressed Finance Minister 2011 goes to....

Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka minutes before reading the 2011-2012 Uganda Budget (from the Sunday Monitor)

“Our Friends at the Bank”

A visit to a friend at the World Bank a couple of months ago reminded me of this fantastic film I saw as an undergraduate at SOAS.

Remember how evil World Bank conditionality used to force poor countries to cut their social spending on health and education? This documentary shows World Bank officials trying to convince Ugandan officials that they need to spend more on education instead of physical infrastructure.

I think my favourite part is Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni explaining the concept of prioritisation to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, and Wolfensohn eventually caving in with “My guess is you’ll get your way, which I think you are used to doing.”

You can buy the video here. (It’s a little pricey as I guess there was a limited market. It also comes with English commentary instead of the French version I managed to put up here).

The Manga Bible

I've been meaning to read the bible at some point. For literary purposes or something. But I'm too lazy. Until ARISTOC bookstore came to the rescue with this. Recommended.

Probably the best song about Boda-bodas (motorbike taxis)

From Maurice Kirya’s new album Misubbaawa - available here.

Thanks for this Jo in Kampala!

Markets not in everything

I went to the Kampala Coaches office on Friday to purchase a bus ticket to Juba.

Ticket lady: Sorry, we aren’t travelling to Juba during the election period.

Me: But the elections finished yesterday.

Ticket lady: Yes but we are waiting for things to calm down.

Me: Oh….

Ernest asks…

“What’s worse than seeing the driver in the speeding taxi you are trapped in whip out his mobile phone and start a conversation?”

My worst was the guy driving me from Entebbe to Kampala who decided to show me a Ugandan music video on the PORTABLE DVD PLAYER INSTALLED IN THE FRONT OF HIS CAR.

Taxi Driver: “Oh watch this bit its really good”

Me (in my head): “No!! Watch the fucking road you maniac!!”

Me (actually): “Er, yeah… that’s nice…”

My favourite Ugandan music video I saw about 5 times on a long bus journey a few years ago. The lyrics went something like “O mama I married a Mzungu (White person), please forgive me, he doesn’t know our ways, he doesn’t eat matooke (mashed banana), but I love him anyway,” complete with idiotic Mzungu in the video committing lots of social faux-pas. I would kill for a copy of that.

I also saw a good one in the Amen supermarket the other day which appeared to be showing the life of a Nigerian living in England. There were 3 scenes.

1. Man rapping as walking down a London street being a parking inspector
2. Man rapping as being the toilet attendant in a London club
3. Man rapping as being pushed into police car

Anecdotally, African immigrants do seem to make up a disproportionate percentage of London parking inspectors and toilet attendants. I’d say approximately 99%. Probably because everybody hates parking inspectors and nobody wants to be a toilet attendant. No wonder the guy is getting arrested by the end.

Towards the Free Movement of People between Uganda and Southern Sudan?

“I think we better abolish the visa regime and I am going to inform my government so that anybody with a South Sudanese or Ugandan travel document can walk into each other’s country and trade freely”, said [Ugandan Minister of Commerce] Otafire. 

He added that the use of visas “was an introduction of the colonialists to differentiate the people and their countries”. 

He said that abolishing travel permits between the two countries will allow open movement of goods and services which will in turn boost the economic development of the two countries. 

The minister added that enhanced trade will also boost relations between the neighbouring countries.

Gurtong

Those 19th Century Ugandans knew how to party

I just found some photos on my phone from a visit to the Uganda Museum in Kampala during my last stopover there (it took a day to get a new entry permit for Southern Sudan).

The Museum is small but worth a visit, its cheap and won't take more than 45 mins, and there's a nice cafe next door.

One of the sections is called 'Recreation', which consisted of displays on Banana beer, hemp and goat-fighting. Awesome.