Assessing teacher quality in India

- We estimate teacher value-added (TVA) over two years at the senior secondary level.
- We find considerable variation in TVA.
- The observed teachers' characteristics explain little of the variation in TVA.

Using administrative data from linked private schools from one Indian district that matches 8319 pupils to their subject specific teachers at the senior secondary level, we estimate the importance of individual teachers for student outcomes in the high-stake senior secondary exam (at the end of twelfth-grade) controlling for prior achievement at the secondary level (at the end of tenth-grade). In addition to controlling for prior achievement, we exploit the fact that students took exams in multiple subjects during their senior secondary exam to control for pupil fixed effects. We find a considerable variability in teacher effectiveness over a two year course-a one standard deviation improvement in teacher quality adds 0.366 standard deviation points in students score. Furthermore, consistent with studies in the US, we find that although teacher quality matters, the observed characteristics explain little of the variability in teacher quality.