Allocation of teachers among public schools and minimization of cost: The case of public education in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Overall, in Sri Lankan public schools, the student–teacher ratio is very low. The number of teachers is considerably greater than the number of classes; sometimes the former is double or more than double the latter. In a school in which all the teachers are individually deployed in each class, many teachers have to remain idle. Thus, every day a certain number of teachers remain idle. This situation points to two issues. Firstly, in Sri Lankan public schools, resources are underutilized and hence costs are not minimized. Secondly, since there is an excess of teachers in schools, a formal and logical method is required to determine the optimal number of teachers. This article tries to develop a formula to determine the required number of teachers for a school, and thereby to find ways to minimize costs when employing teachers. Primary data on classes, teachers and subjects offered with respect to 40 public schools in the North Central Province were collected. When empirical data on the number of teachers in sampled schools were compared with calculated teacher requirements in terms of the developed formula, it was found that school authorities are underutilizing teachers. The article concludes that (a) based on the developed formula to determine the required number of teachers, many public schools have an excess of teachers and hence current transfer policy for school teachers is not logical, (b) teacher requirement can be decided according to the developed formula and (c) by adopting one teacher-two subjects-one school and one teacher-one subject-more schools models, government authorities can minimize costs further.