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# **3. INSTRUCTIONAL TIME DATA COLLECTION AND FINDINGS**

A grant from the Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program for Global and Regional Initiatives (BNPP) offered the opportunity to compare time use in countries with different socioeconomic indicators in in 2004-2006. The first step in conducting an instructional time study was to search for innovative assessment methods and for experts knowledgeable about classroom observations and time use.<sup>102</sup> A research design was developed with the help of the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE), an institution that has curricular expertise and keeps a database of the hours countries spend in teaching various subjects. Then countries where IEG evaluations had been recently undertaken were contacted through World Bank task managers and were invited to participate in the study. Also some countries were invited where a new project was being appraised in hopes that baseline data would be collected.<sup>103</sup> The countries that showed an interest in carrying out studies were Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, and the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. To build capacity, and test the feasibility of the methods, the surveys were not administered by private companies or consultants. Instead, Ministries of Education in each country agreed to train and use local government staff and carry out interviews and observations on a representative sample of schools. The Tunisian _Centre National de l’Instruction et des Recherches Educatives_ (CNIPRE), and the Moroccan _Direction de l’Evaluation, de l’Organisation de la Vie Scolaire et des Formations Interacadémiques_ extensively collaborated with the Bank (See Annex A for methodological details).

_Methodology._ Efforts were made to develop a measurement method that would cost relatively little, be administered fairly quickly, and capture time loss from multiple sources. Studies on teacher absenteeism have relied on multiple visits to samples of schools. To keep costs low and implementation simple, the study made a single unannounced visit to the sampled schools and compared information on time loss parameters from multiple sources: (a) Recall and self-reports by principals, teachers, students, and parents, (b) school-level observations, and (c) classroom measurements of time use. Surveys were developed and piloted to obtain self-reports and school-level observations. Classroom-level observations were obtained through a quantitative instrument that registered the amount of time spent in various common classroom activities. It also recorded the percentage of students who appeared not to be paying attention to the instruction (off-task rate). This measure estimates

> 102. The team sought the advice of Jane Stallings (retired dean of education at Texas A&M and a pioneer in instructional time measurement), Stephanie Knight, Eugene Schaffer (professors and Texas A&M and the University of Maryland in Baltimore county respectively), David Markham (retired systems engineer), the members of an International System for Teacher Observation (ISTOF), and the World Bank Development Economics Department (DEC) that has carried out teacher absenteeism studies. 103. The Independent Evaluation Group conducts qualitative evaluations on a sample of completed projects that are called Project Performance Assessment Reviews (PPARs). Initial plans included Guinée and Cambodia.  Staff from Cambodia received training in instructional time assessment for use at a later time.