in remote schools, resulting in continued disparities. Even where teachers are successfully placed in schools in remote areas, they may not remain for a significant period of time, exploiting these same formal and informal channels to obtain transfers to more desirable postings. A ‘rural allowance’ scheme is in place to motivate teachers to remain in remote postings, but it too is inadequately targeted with minimal incentive effect (see Asim et al., 2019, for a detailed exploration of these dynamics).

In recent years, a number of steps have been taken by the Ministry of Education (MoE) of Malawi, with support from the World Bank, to introduce more well-defined rules for allocation of teachers. Beginning in 2017, districts were advised to prioritize schools with the highest PTRs, not only those with PTR above 60. At the same time, districts were instructed to prioritize schools with fewer teachers than grades, in an attempt to address the common practice of multi-grade teaching in understaffed schools.<sup>4</sup> In this paper, we assess the level of adherence to rules-based allocation of teachers in Malawi’s schools over the period 2017-2019; and the impact of improvements in allocations on school PTRs and on outcomes. We draw data from multiple rounds of administrative data from the Government of Malawi’s Educational Management Information System (EMIS) database. EMIS data is collected via an Annual School Census (ASC) and includes a wide range of data on school size, conditions, staffing, finances, infrastructure and equipment. We employ data on grades offered, staffing and enrollment to establish the schools which meet each of the criteria established by the government. In addition, we employ administrative data on the allocation of new teachers to schools provided by district-level officials via the MoE.

Our ultimate outcomes of interest are student dropout and promotion rates. These outcomes are informed by the international evidence on the impacts of improvements in school teacher staffing and reductions in PTRs. We anticipate reductions in class sizes at the most overcrowded schools as a result of improved staffing, and our selection is also informed by the literature on the impacts of reductions in class sizes.

There is substantial evidence for a relationship between reduced PTRs and improved test scores (Angrist and Lavy, 1999; Kreuger, 1999; Muralidharan & Sundararaman, 2013), although other studies find no significant effects (Hoxby, 2000; Duflo et al., 2015; Angrist et al., 2017). Reduced PTRs can lead to improvements in learning through two channels. First, an adequate supply of teachers can lead to reduced class sizes, with benefits for learning.<sup>5</sup> Second, having an adequate level of staff can reduce schools’ reliance on multi-grade teaching where multiple classes are combined under a single teacher. Although the existing evidence-base is still limited, available research on the effects of multi-grade teaching suggests that it is harmful to student performance (Checci & De Paola 2017, Jacob et al. 2008).

Using administrative data, we are unable to present direct analysis of test scores. However, in Malawi, student promotion is closely linked to test performance, with mandatory repetition in most schools for students who do not pass a year-end assessment; we therefore measure repetition rates as a proxy for learning. Walter (2018), assessing evidence from a panel of 20 high-, middle- and low-income

> 4 Although in most schools achieving this standard require eight teachers, Malawi includes a number of ‘junior primary’ schools which only teach Grades 1-4, as well as other schools without a complete set of eight grades.

> 5 As is the case in Angrist and Lavy, 1999 and Muralidharan & Sundararaman, 2013.

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