An estimated 88.7 percent of teachers in England who qualified in 2022 were still teaching at schools one year after receiving their teaching qualification. By comparison, 86.4 percent of teachers who qualified in 2010 were still teaching a year after qualifying, with 70.8 percent of 2010 qualifiers still teaching five years later. Teacher supply Teacher retention has been an ongoing issue for schools in England due to various factors. While then number of qualified teachers has remained relatively steady between 2015 and 2023, it has not been enough to keep pace with the rising number of pupils in state schools. Additionally, teachers are working more hours on average to cope with a rising workload. Stagnant pay may also be a contributing factor to declining teacher retention, with average primary teacher starting salaries in England falling well behind many of its European neighbors. Teacher strikes National strikes took place in the UK on throughout 2022 and 2023, with members of four teachers unions taking industrial action. This strike action was related to teacher pay amid an ongoing cost of living crisis. Most state-school teachers in England and Wales had a five percent pay rise in 2022, but unions argue that with inflation exceeding ten percent that year, teachers were having to take real-terms pay cuts. The government was initially reluctant to negotiate with unions due to a squeeze on government finances and strike action across many sectors in the UK. By July 2023, however, a deal with the government was reached for the 2023/24 academic, whereby teachers would receive a 6.5 percent pay rise.

Abstract

This survey is part of a multi-country pilot study which combines surveys of primary schools with household and other micro surveys to assess service delivery systems in education, measure performance, and establish a baseline for examining the impact of policy and institutional reforms over time.

Work on the PESD project was launched in late 2001 as part of the World Bank’s analytical work on poverty in PNG. The project was launched in close consultation with the Government of PNG and AusAID.8 Work on the PESD survey started in early 2002.

The survey operation itself was implemented by the Education Department of the National Research Institute (NRI) in Port Moresby.

Geographic coverage

The PESD survey covered 214 schools in 19 districts across 8 provinces --Counting NCD as a province-- out of a total of 20 in the country, with two provinces selected in each of the four main regions.

The following provinces were covered: - Southern (Papua) region: Gulf; National Capital District (NCD) - Highlands region: Enga; Eastern Highlands - Momase region: West Sepik (Sandaun); Morobe - Islands region: West New Britain; East New Britain

These provinces cover a wide spectrum both in terms of poverty levels and educational development. They range from the relatively rich (NCD and Gulf with headcounts of 19 and 28%) to the poor Sandaun (headcount of over 60%), from the well-educated (NCD and East New Britain with adult literacy rates of 84 and 74%) to poorly-educated (Enga and Eastern Highlands with adult literacy rates of 26 and 38%), from those with high primary enrolment (NCD and ENB) to those with low enrolment (Enga, Gulf and Sandaun), from those with high grade 1-8 retention rates (NCD with 79%) to those with low retention rates (Eastern Highlands and Sandaun with just above 20%).

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Three districts were randomly selected within provinces with probability proportional to the number of schools in the district. In two of the provinces, viz. Gulf and West New Britain, that only had two districts, both were selected. Ten schools were then selected randomly within each district. In NCD, which does not have districts but is organized by wards/census enumeration areas, 30 schools were randomly selected.

The original sample included 220 schools. Many of the schools in the original sample could not be covered for a variety of reasons. In these cases, replacement schools (randomly selected from the same district) were used. A special effort was made to ensure coverage of remote schools. In particular, some sites were revisited later to cover schools that could not be surveyed during the first attempt due to logistical difficulties. The schools are widely dispersed throughout the country.

The PESD schools are further classified by the level of poverty and remoteness. The level of poverty is measured by the estimated poverty rate for the LLG where the school is located, and the remoteness index is based on a composite measure of distance and travel time from the school to a range of facilities. The PESD sample of schools is well distributed across the remoteness and poverty spectrum. (For further details on the measures of poverty and remoteness, see Annexes 2 and 3 of the survey report.) Also, while poverty rate and the remoteness indices are significantly correlated across the PESD sample, these attributes are not collinear. The weighted correlation coefficient is 0.15, while the unweighted correlation is 0.27, both statistically significant at the 5% level or better.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The survey used a series of instruments for collecting data at different levels. These included:

Instruments at the school level: - School survey – the main instrument (S1) - Grade 5 teacher survey (S2) - Board of Management survey (S3) - Parent survey (S4)

Instruments at the district/provincial level: - District Education Administrator (DEA) survey (D2) - Provincial Education Adviser (PEA) survey (P1)

An instrument for health centers: - Health facility survey (H1)

These instruments were used to collect data on a range of topics including: characteristics of the head teacher, teachers, characteristics of schools, inspectors, BOM, parents, school finances, classroom environment, teacher activity, resources for teaching, community-school interaction, organization and structure of DEA/PEA offices, District and Provincial Education Boards, budget process, school fee subsidy and other sources of funding, and roles and responsibilities in education.

The health facility survey was not intended to be a full service delivery survey in order to keep the field operations and costs within manageable limits. It was added as a rider to the school survey. Health facilities that could be reached within 20 minutes from the sample schools were covered. Thus, as against a sample of 214 schools, the survey covered 117 health facilities. A short instrument collected information on how often the facilities were open, the presence of staff, and the availability of key medicines. Table 2.2 in the survey report gives details of PESD sample coverage by instrument, province and district.