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Over the last 10 years, a special cadre of middle-level management known as Resource Persons (RPs) was specifically created in India for carrying out teacher mentoring and monitoring activities. Despite being allocated almost one-third of the education budget targeted at improving learning outcomes, the RPs are a poorly understood cadre with little known about their roles, responsibilities and effectiveness. In this paper, drawing on detailed data collected from school audits, unannounced classroom observations, student, teacher and RP surveys in approximately 350 primary and upper primary schools in Jharkhand, India, authors assess RPs' mentoring and monitoring activities. This assessment points to several interesting findings. First, most children are behind their grade level in terms of achieving proficiency in reading and math. Second, teacher absenteeism remains a significant problem. Third, despite high levels of self-reported effort by RPs, these efforts do not translate into effective teaching activities. We postulate that asymmetries in contractual arrangements and demographic and social attributes between RPs and teachers limit RP mentoring efforts. Fourth, student responses on teaching methods are more consistent with independent classroom observations than teacher or RP reports on teaching activities. Our findings have three important policy recommendations: a) for improving teacher mentoring, more educated and qualified RPs must be hired and re-trained who are then entrusted with the sole responsibility of mentoring teachers; b) for improving teacher monitoring, governments should pilot student assessments of teaching activities along with independent school monitoring that eventually builds a culture of feedback based on accurate data to improve teaching and teacher mentoring; c) for improving both teacher monitoring and mentoring, the state should invest in holistically improving the use of enabler technology systems through technologies that work in constrained environments, a robust EMIS with strong data management capabilities, and a workforce with digital competence.

Education --- Education For All --- Monitoring And Evaluation