Centralized teacher admission processes in Latin American

Centralized admission processes for teachers, such as the ones conducted in Peru and Ecuador, can improve transparency, efficiency, and equity in the assignment of teachers across schools. With respect to transparency, centralized admission processes can reduce discretion and corruption in teacher admission processes by ensuring equal access to information about rules and regulations, as well as by implementing objective mechanisms to define outcomes (e.g., assignment algorithms). With respect to efficiency and equity, in centralized processes, one can more easily identify areas of congestion (that is, more applicants than vacancies) and of shortage (vacancies without applicants), and design policies to attract teachers to hard-to-staff school. At the IDB, we have explored low-cost interventions in centralized teacher admission processes in Peru and Ecuador that proved to be successful at encouraging teachers to apply to more remote and disadvantaged vacancies, which often suffer from shortage of good professionals.