Suchergebnisse

This study examines how the teaching staff composition with respect to certification affects student achievement in compulsory Swedish schools. The share of non-certified teachers in compulsory schooling has increased dramatically during the last decade, starting a large debate about school quality. We apply an instrumental variable approach to estimate the causal effect of the percentage of non-certified teachers on student achievement. We find, in our preferred specification, that a one percentage point increase in the share of non-certified teachers is expected to decrease the average student's GPA ranking with about 0.6 units. A substantial effect if one considers the large differences in certification rate that do exist between schools and municipalities. The effect also appears to be stronger for students with highly educated parents.

The share of non-certified teachers in Swedish compulsory public schools has grown considerably during the last decade, from 7.2 percent in 1995/96 to 17.2 percent in 2003/04. Moreover, comparisons between schools and municipalities indicate large and increasing differences in the share of non-certified teachers over time. In this paper we study whether these patterns may be explained by restrictions in the supply of certified teachers. We do this by using a temporary targeted governmental grant, aimed at increasing the personnel density in schools, as an exogenous teacher demand shock. Our results show that the introduction of the grant decreased the share of non-certified teachers more in areas characterized by relatively high unemployment rates among certified teachers, i.e., where teacher supply restrictions were relatively low. These findings hence suggest that teacher supply restrictions do indeed matter for the composition of teaching staff.