February 14, 2018

Do paid teacher trainee programs lead to additional teachers in secondary education? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis

This paper evaluates the quantitative effects of two teacher traineeships that were implemented in the Netherlands to address shortages of fully qualified teachers in secondary education. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we estimate the effects of being selected to participate in one of the traineeships. We find no significant local average treatment effects of being selected on the probabilities of enrolling into academic teacher training, obtaining a full teaching qualification, and on working in education, although the point estimates are positive for the first two outcome variables.

The lack of significant results may partially be due to our small sample size. However, the specific design of the traineeship programs, that required candidates to find a school by themselves, may also contribute to these findings.