Teacher Rotation and Student Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

One of the biggest challenges in supplying education services to poor populations is low personnel morale, low engagement, and high absenteeism. This problem is particularly severe in Uganda, where teacher absenteeism rates are estimated at 27 percent. However, Uganda’s district-centralized teacher deployment system, where teachers are transferred every five years and can be placed in any school in a given district, offers a unique opportunity for low-cost motivation of teachers. In partnership with a rural district in Eastern Uganda, researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to study whether rewarding top-performing teachers with a future posting of their choice incentivizes teachers to improve their attendance and the quality of their teaching.