Scores, Camera, Action: Social Accountability and Teacher Incentives in Remote Areas

Remote schools in developing countries are costly to supervise, resulting low teacher accountability and poor education outcomes. This paper reports the results of a randomized evaluation three treatments that introduced incentives based on community monitoring effort against locally agreed standards. The Social Accountability Mechanism (SAM) treatment facilitated joint commitment between members improve learning. Teacher performance was rated it, discussed monthly public meetings passed authorities. second third combined SAM with pay mechanism would penalize eligible teachers’ remote area allowance for performance. In SAM+Camera (SAM+Cam) treatment, cut absence as recorded by tamper-proof camera; while SAM+Score it overall rating. After one year, findings indicate improvements learning outcomes across all treatments; however, strongest impact 0.20 standard deviation is observed SAM+Cam. also finds small positive affected teachers SAM+Cam SAM, significant parental educational investments treatments. For SAM+Cam, additional data were collected year (one after project facilitators left). show SAM+Cam’s impacts investments—but not —persisted into year.