A district level study on the deployment, allocation and utilisation of teachers between and within Malawi’s primary schools: an accountability and political settlements approach Asma Zubairi Lucy Cavendish College October 2020 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my late father Munawar Islam Zubairi and my mother Nasim Fatima Zubairi. Without you I could not have done this PhD as you both placed such importance on education from when I was very young and allowed me to embark on a journey which would not have been possible without the many sacrifices you had to make, together with your unwavering support and love for me. Daddy, I wish you had been around so I could reflect with you my ups and downs of this PhD journey. I missed your humour and optimism, and the encouragement you had always unwaveringly given to me in everything I did while you were still alive. Mummy, thank you for always believing in me. You often said daddy would be proud if he were still alive, and this helped to keep me committed to finishing what I started. But it was also your love and belief in me that kept me going. i Declaration This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This thesis is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any work that has already been submitted before for any degree or other qualification except as declared in the preface and specified in the text. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the Education Degree Committee. I hereby declare that the sources of which I have availed myself have been stated in the body of the report and in the bibliography and the rest of the work is my own. ii iii Abstract A district level study on the deployment, allocation and utilisation of teachers between and within Malawi’s primary schools: an accountability and political settlement approach By Asma Zubairi Despite Malawian government policies being aimed at reforming the persistent unequal distribution of teachers, teachers continue to be concentrated in urban areas and in later standards of primary schools. Why these policies have failed remain underexplored in empirical research. The aim of this thesis is to identify what contributes to this persistent inequitable distribution of teachers between and within schools in Malawi. The thesis highlights the need to understand relationships of accountability related to teacher management and the effect of power and politics on these relationships. In doing so, this thesis contributes to an emerging field in international education that explores the influence of politics on service delivery. The study utilised the Levy-Walton framework which seeks an understanding of the impact of politics on service delivery. Additionally it focuses on the the multiple levels of governance within a sector such as education, starting at the top level where policies are made through to the bottom level of front-line service delivery. Guided by this framework, the thesis adopted an explanatory mixed methods design to explore the patterns relating to the deployment, allocation and utilisation of teachers. The focus of study was Zomba Rural district, one of the worst performing districts in Malawi with respect to unequal distribution of teachers between schools. Within this district, purposive sampling utilising a deviant approach was adopted in order to select two primary education zones and four primary schools. This enabled comparability across different cases of schools/ zones which were experiencing either a shortage or surplus of teachers. I collected administrative quantitative data from government sources for all primary schools in the country. These data were used to illustrate trends concerning the equitability of teacher distribution between schools. I also administered a school survey in the 26 primary schools falling under the two primary education zones selected for study. The purpose of this survey was to quantify how teachers were being allocated between different classes in iv each school, and the time each teacher utilised for teaching. Lastly, I collected qualitative data from semi-structured interviews conducted with central, district and zonal government officials, together with headteachers and teachers in the four schools I chose. The interview data were intended to gain different stakeholder perspectives on the main reasons for the persistence of the inequitable and inefficient teacher deployment, allocation and utilisation. Through analysis of the administrative data, I found that approximately half of Zomba Rural district’s teachers were deployed to schools for reasons other than enrolment. This appears to be partly related to political interference resulting in a skew in teachers towards certain constituencies. During the Presidency of Joyce Banda (2012-14), whose home area is within Zomba Rural district, I found that the total number of teachers working in the district rose significantly. In addition with respect to the distribution of teachers within schools, my analysis of the survey data revealed a clear preference by headteachers to allocate teachers to Standard 8 – the last and only standard of the primary school cycle where national examinations take place. Moreover the practice of “team-teaching” – where two or more teachers share teaching responsibilities for a class officially meant to be taught by one teacher – resulted in actual time spent by teachers teaching being well below that officially mandated. From the semi-structured interviews, I found evidence of interference from the national and local political elite in matters pertaining to teacher deployment and utilisation. Additionally, several factors contributing to the perceived lack of hierarchy between headteachers, local/ district government officials and teachers led to the poor enforcement of official government policy. Poor inspection and monitoring by government officials was also found to be a contributory factor in the weak implementation of policies relating to effective teacher management. Lastly, absent, poorly defined or contradictory policies led to greater discretionary decision-making powers at the district and local levels of government. The findings illustrate ways in which formal accountability relationships between teachers and education officials responsible for managing them were weakened through the informal relationships supplanting them. While previous studies relating to teacher management in Malawi have broadly quantified the inequity and inefficiency of teacher deployment, allocation and utilisation, this thesis makes an important contribution in redressing what has overwhelmingly been an apolitical approach to understanding this long-standing problem v affecting Malawi’s education system. The combination of both quantitative and qualitative data allowed for a richer interrogation of the influence of politics and power in allowing the problem to persist. Additionally, through my engagement with multiple stakeholders from different levels of the education sector, the thesis brought together the distinct perspectives on how politics and power affected different actors in fulfilling their responsibilities. vi vii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors Professor Pauline Rose and Professor Ricardo Sabates Aysa who have supported and guided me through the PhD journey. Their critical engagement with my work helped me so much in the process of communicating to the readers what I wanted this PhD to say. I also wish to thank Dr. Ben Alcott who, prior to leaving to take up his post at the Institute of Education at the University of London, was fantastically supportive as an engaging supervisor and always made me believe in the importance of my work and of my place at the University of Cambridge. To Professor Kwame Akyeampong and Dr. Rob Gruijters who acted as my examiners, I wish to express my thanks and gratitude for your deeply engaging comments with regards to my research during the viva voce and how I can take my work forward in a meaningful way. To Professor Dixie Maluwa-Banda at the Centre for Educational Research Training (CERT) based at Chancellor College (University of Malawi) who kindly hosted me for the duration of my fieldwork. Thank you to you and other colleagues at CERT for being so welcoming to me and providing me with an office for the duration of my fieldwork in Zomba, together with being an invaluable source of support in assisting me with the logistics of organising my fieldwork schedule. I especially want to thank my friend and colleague at CERT Dr. Esme Kadzamira without whom the fieldwork would have been so much less enjoyable. I learnt so much from you based on our long discussions about Malawi’s education system and political history. The visits to African Heritage to have coffee and mango juice with you were always such a lovely part of my fieldwork experience. Thank you for being so open and generous with your time and friendship. To the unnamed participants in this study which included Government officials, headteachers, teachers and community leaders. Without you this PhD would not have come to fruition. Your reflection, hospitality and humour were integral to reaching this end piece. Thank you all so much for being so generous with your time and your knowledge. To officials at the Ministry of Education who granted me access to data I am eternally grateful. Thank you also to Ken Longden for imparting your knowledge of Malawi’s education system which were fascinating and added huge richness to what I was exploring. To Stella Makhuva viii who assisted me in transcribing the interviews thank you for your diligence in the work you produced. Thank you too to my research assistant Gertrude Finyiza who accompanied me to the schools I undertook my research in. To my friends and ex-colleagues from the Ministry of Education in Malawi it was so wonderful to see you all again almost a decade after leaving Malawi.