Bridge India Launch: Teacher Recruitment Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

Bridge India Launch: Teacher Recruitment

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

Date: August 2016 Team: Academics, Bridge International Academies Acknowledgments: Special thanks to:

Submitted by:

https://newglobe.education/

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

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Contents 1.

2.

3.

4.

Introduction Project Background Findings Conclusion

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

Page 04 Page 05 Page 06 Page 08

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1. Introduction Bridge International Academies opened academies in Andhra Pradesh, India for the first time during the summer of 2016. The Academics team was charged with creating a hiring profile and vetting procedure to select teachers. This report summarizes findings from field research that was conducted to inform the final selection process.

While many traits were studied during this process, one large area of focus was English proficiency of candidates. Upon visiting our communities, we found that many comparable low cost schools branded as English medium were not actually teaching in English for a majority of lessons, and were teaching the majority of lessons in the local dialect. Many of the schools were staffed with teachers who did not have English skills necessary to teach an entire lesson or school day in English.

It was critical that Bridge International Academies avoid this outcome and hire teachers with the necessary English skills, not just so our academies would uphold their promise as true English medium schools, but also so that our teachers would not compromise the rigor of our curricular materials.

We subsequently piloted our lessons and English assessments in the field with teachers at comparable low cost schools, and used this data to map back to an appropriate suite of recruiting assessments. We also collected background and employment data of these teachers to determine market valuation of English ability.

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2. Project Background Our overall goals for this research were to determine a) the profile and English levels of the average teacher teaching at low cost schools in our communities and b) the profile and abilities of teachers at lowcost schools that strong enough English to deliver Bridge lessons and teach the full day in English (“MetStandard”).

2.1 Schools Visited To survey the profile and English levels of the average low cost teacher in our communities, we surveyed and assessed a total of 78 teachers across 8 different areas, at a total of 19 schools with comparable schoolfees.

Table 1: School Fees and Number of Schools Surveyed Area

N.

Average School Fee For Nursery

Burripalem Chilakaluripeta

3 1

4233 5000

Kolakaluru

3

5467

Mustabada

4

3750

Nadendla

2

5000

Namburu

3

3600

Nuzvid

2

3500

Sattenapalli

2

4250

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2.2 Instruments Used To assess the English levels of teachers, we used four adapted assessments from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), created by the University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning, and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), owned by the British Council and Cambridge English Language Assessment.

These assessments measured teachers on their timed reading comprehension, timed open-ended writing ability, reading fluency (as measured by words read per minute), and the ability to retell a passage they just read. More information on these assessments can be provided by request.

3. Findings 3.1 Schools Visited We found that teachers we surveyed at comparable schools were 30 years old (average), married (73%), and female (96%). The majority of them were not trained as teachers (71%), and years of experience ranged from 0 to 30.

Many teachers had children (64%), and a majority of those with children (69%) enrolled them in the same school, through a free or discounted child benefit programme. Almost all teachers also had a “free” commute.

This indicated that for most teachers, teacher salary they received was not diminished via daily cost towards transport. In addition, many teachers also applied minimal cost towards their child’s education.

Table 2. Demographic and Background Information of Teachers Surveyed Characteristics

Value

Trained as Teacher

Yes

29%

No

71%

Male

4%

Female

96%

Married

73%

Not Married

27%

Male, Married

4%

Male, Unmarried

0%

Female, Married

69%

Female, Unmarried

27%

No children

36%

Has children

64%

Free Commute Non-free Commute

97% 3%

Gender Marital Status Gender, Marital Status

Children Commute

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

Percentage of Sample

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3.2 English Ability Upon testing Bridge lesson guides with teachers and students in Andhra Pradhesh, we developed a series of minimum viable scores for each assessment (necessary to successfully deliver a Bridge lesson in 100% English), and labelled any teacher who passed all four assessments as “Meeting Standards” (see Table 3).

Unsurprisingly, we found that the performance of teachers on these assessments were positively correlated, and that teachers who did well on one of the assessments tended to do better on other English assessments as well. Bivariate correlations between the four assessments ranged from 0.26-0.55.

We found that teachers who met this standard of English proficiency constituted about 20% of the surveyed group of teachers. A large proportion of the group “Meeting Standards” was trained as a teacher (44%), and their salaries were also higher than the rest of the sample (see Table 6 below).

Overall, we found that teachers who were trained performed slightly higher on some assessments than untrained teachers, but that the magnitude of differences were modest (see Table 4).

For example, the difference between the average reading fluency score for trained versus untrained teachers was about 3 to 4 words per minute, indicating that a trained teachers could on average read 3 or 4 more words in a minute than an untrained teachers.

Table 3. English Levels of Teachers Meeting Standards and Teachers Not Meeting standards Meets Standards Does Not Meet Standards (Passed all four) (Did not pass all four) Assessment Minimum N. Min Mean N. Min Mean Viable Score Timed Reading Comprehension 7 16 9.0 14.3 62 1.0 6.4 Writing Exercise 15 16 19.0 34.5 62 0.0 16.2 Reading Fluency 100 16 118.0 154.5 62 41.0 127.1 Retell 20 16 20.0 38.7 62 0.0 11.6

Table 4. English Levels of Teachers by Trained vs Untrained Teachers Trained Untrained Assessment Mean Mean Timed Reading Comprehension Writing Exercise Reading Fluency Retell

9.95 19 135.55 18

7.37 17 131.87 17

3.3 Market Valuation in Comparable Schools Overall, bivariate correlations in our data showed a positive relationship between English ability and salary for this sample of teachers from comparable schools. Each of the four assessments separately had positive correlations with salary that ranged from 0.10-0.29.

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Table 5. Bivariate Correlations between English Assessment and Salary Assessment vs Salary

Correlation

Timed Reading Comprehension versus Salary

0.29

Writing Exercise versus Salary

0.21

Reading Fluency versus Salary

0.25

Retell versus Salary

0.10

Teachers who “Met Standards” (passed our minimum viable score on all four assessments) also had higher probability of being a trained teacher, and had higher salaries (average of 4875 rupees of monthly salary) than teachers who did not “Meet Standards” (average of 4155 rupees).

Table 6. Differences in Background and Salary between Teachers “Meeting Standards” versus Not Category

Value

Meets Standard s

Trained as Teacher

Yes No Mean

7 (44%) 9 (56%) 4875

Salary

Does Not Meet Standard s 15 (25%) 46 (75%) 4155

Higher salaries also corresponded to trained teachers and years of experience. In addition to the modest but positive correspondence in being trained and English ability, there was also a small, positive correlation between years of experience and English ability (0.15).

4. Conclusion These assessments were later integrated into the Interview stage of the teacher recruiting process, and were used to successfully vet candidates and staff the four new academies launched in summer of 2016.

While limited to a small group of communities, this field research showed that only 1 in 5 of teachers currently teaching at comparable low cost schools had the English skills necessary to staff a truly English medium school, and teach Bridge lesson guides without diluting its quality. The recruiting team therefore incorporated these conversion estimates into their planning of recruiting.

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This field research also showed preliminary estimates for the average compensation for the desired profile of teacher was higher than average, and this was shared for consideration with country leadership who were in charge of determining the final offer.

While qualitative observations of classrooms indicate that the hired teachers are able to teach fully English classes, the Academic team will next report a quantitative measure of English levels of the final teachers that were hired, and also study the overall diligence and efficacy of our teachers.

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Bridge India Launch: Teacher Recruitment

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

Summary of English Proficiency Strategy

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