What can Teachers do to Raise Pupil Achievement?

The paper aims to explore the relationship that might exist between student’s achievement and teaching characteristics and practices by application of production function on data generated from a purpose-built school-based survey 2002- 2003 conducted in Lahore, Pakistan. Students achievement in test scores in Mathematics and English is compared to characteristics of  teachers that teach the subject and emphasis is placed on whether the unobserved variables in terms of teaching process are significant in pupil achievement or not. The findings of the research reveal that contrary to the popular notion, teachers resume including certificates and qualifications have no impact on student achievement. Despite this finding, teacher’s salary tends to be based on resume which indicates inefficient salary schedules and these are more apparent in government schools as opposed to private schools.  

Teaching process variables such as lesson planning, interaction during class and conducting quizzes on a regular basis have a positive impact on student achievement. Good government and private schools hire teachers that are effective and have the desired English language and interactive skills whereas private schools are also able to retain these teachers through incentives and reward based payments.  Gender analysis reveals that girls tend to perform better when learning from female teachers and this has several policy implications for schools.