Teachers and schools

Indicators that provide information about teachers, schools, and other human and material resources for school systems can be understood as educational inputs. In order to strengthen access to quality schools policy makers must anticipate the resources required to meet educational goals. Data on teachers, schools, and other inputs can support this planning process by identifying teacher shortages, overcrowded schools, and other resource needs or inefficiencies. In its background paper for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2010, Estimating the Costs of Achieving Education for All in Low-Income Countries*, EPDC emphasized the resource needs of low-income countries, estimating that meeting EFA targets would require 4.3 million more pre-primary and primary classrooms.

While an understanding of teachers, schools, and classrooms can be important for effective planning and employment of educational resources, the picture these indicators present is not always complete. Specifically, they offer limited insight into certain factors that impact quality, such as teacher knowledge, pedagogical training, teacher absenteeism, instructional methodology, the conditions of schools, and the appropriateness of materials and supplies to their educational context. Another shortcoming of school input ratios is that, because they are calculated in aggregate and may not capture information on possible disparities in the distribution of resources across individual schools.