COMPARISON OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF REGULAR AND CONTRACT TEACHERS AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

This study was aimed at investigating the performance of regular and contract English teachers at government elementary schools located in southern Punjab province of Pakistan. As students’ achievement was taken as measure of teachers’ performance, their test scores were also compared in terms of gender and locality. For this purpose, a test in English subject was administered personally by researchers to 7th grade students of four purposefully selected schools in District Rahim Yar Khan. The students’ obtained test scores were analyzed by working out mean values, standard deviation and applying t-test of independent samples. It was concluded that there was significant difference in achievement of students taught by regular and contract teachers, and contract teachers performed relatively better than regular teachers. Comparison of performance of regular and contract teachers revealed that in both cases urban school students scored higher than students belonging to rural area. It is recommended that government of Punjab should not rely perpetually on contract policy for achieving the goal of enhancing financial efficiency and academic productivity, and appropriate measures may be taken for enhancing quality of school management and supervision, introducing effective reward and compensation system, and training teachers in modern teaching strategies.