REAP Incentives for Teaching Sub

Incentives for Teaching

Boosting teachers to lift students.

Pay Schemes for Improvement

Incentivizing teachers for good student performance can help to improve the effort they put in educating their students. Pay schemes can push teachers to teach better, but the challenge is to make sure the teachers focus on all students rather than a few.

China’s rural education system revolves around test taking.

Student performance on tests defines the reputation and revenue of schools. Teachers are incentivized to focus their efforts on students that are most likely to excel on tests. Students that fall behind are marginalized, and often leave school.

Pioneering a way to help all students learn.

REAP has partnered with the University of Chicago and school districts in China to develop a more effective way to incentivize teachers. Our incentive schemes reward teachers for focusing on all students, rather than a select few that excel on tests.

Changing teacher payment incentives works.

A series of REAP studies involving 400 rural schools shows students learn more when teachers are incentivized based on the performance of all students rather than a few. These payment reform schemes can be easily upscaled to other counties and provinces.

In for a Jiao, in for a Yuan

Our teacher performance pay research has shown that performance pay schemes can work. The incentives don't need to be large, and resources can be saved by making them just "big enough." We are working with government officials in Gansu to incorporate our payment reform scheme on a prefecture-by-prefecture basis.