The Relationship between Teachers’ Time Allocation and Student Scores in Rural, Low-income Schools in Punjab, Pakistan

Existing research suggests a mixed relationship between instruction time and student achievement. Some research suggests that student achievement increases with lesson planning and teacher feedback. We use the Learning and Educational Achievement in Pakistan Schools
(LEAPS) dataset collected in 2003–2005 from Punjab, Pakistan, as well as student fixed-effects to study the relationship of teacher instruction time, class preparation time, and grading time with student achievement. We find an insignificant relationship between English, Math, and Urdu instruction time and the scores of students in each respective subject. Similarly, our results show an insignificant relationship between class preparation time and grading time, and the average scores of students, respectively. We also check if the relationship changes for better qualified or trained teachers by running interactions with qualification and training variables. Our results show that the strength and direction of the relationship do not vary by teacher qualifications and training.