Abstract
This paper examines the efficacy of class-size reductions as a strategy to improve pupils' learning outcomes in India. It uses a credible identification strategy to address the endogeneity of class-size, by relating the difference in a student's achievement score across subjects to the difference in his/her class size across subjects. Pupil fixed effects estimation shows a relationship between class size and student achievement which is roughly flat or non-decreasing for a large range of class sizes from 27 to 51, with a negative effect on learning outcomes occurring only after class size increases beyond 51 pupils. The class-size effect varies by gender and by subject-stream. The fact that up to a class-size of roughly 40 in science subjects and roughly 50 in non-science subjects, there is no reduction in pupil learning as class size increases, implies that there is no learning gain from reducing class size below 40 in science and below 50 in non-science. This has important policy implications for pupil teacher ratios (PTRs) and thus for teacher appointments in India, based on considerations of cost-effectiveness. When generalised, our findings suggest that India experienced a value-subtraction from spending on reducing class-sizes, and that the US$3.6 billion it spent in 2017-18 on the salaries of 0.4 million new teachers appointed between 2010 and 2017 was wasteful spending rather than an investment in improving learning. We show that India could save US$ 19.4 billion (Rupees 1,45,000 crore in Indian currency) per annum by increasing PTR from its current 22.8 to 40, without any reduction in pupil learning.
Highlights
Reducing class size has been a popular reform across countries in their search for improved quality of education, and many countries have legislated an official maximum class size
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) Working Papers are entirely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the RISE Programme, our funders, or the authors’ respective organisations
In India, at the secondary school level, official policy supports a class size of 30i and the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 stipulated a maximum class size of 30 in elementary schools, policies which necessitated the appointment of a large number of new teachers
Summary
Reducing class size has been a popular reform across countries in their search for improved quality of education, and many countries have legislated an official maximum class size. Even at the secondary school level, as per the official District Information System on Education (DISE) data, PTR in 2017-18 was 27.2 Against this background of increased public expenditure to reduce class-sizevi, it is important to ask whether class size reduction improves student learning outcomes, i.e. whether the expenditure to reduce class size was an investment in better quality education or merely unproductive spending of scarce taxpayer money. It is known from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) (various years) and from the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT, (2015) that between 2010 and 2015, pupils’ learning achievement levels fell, and that over the same period, PTR and class-sizes were reduced, suggesting simplistically a perverse positive temporal relationship between class-size and pupil achievement, rather than the expected negative one. A study by Banerjee et al (2006) in 175 government primary schools in two cities of India using RCT found that reducing class size had no impact on test scores, which they say is “consistent with the previous literature suggesting that inputs alone are ineffective”
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