In practice, the theory of change process might depend on whether a clearly defined intervention already exists, or if we start from a problem that we have identified, and we seek to define a program (or intervention) to solve it.

Actually, these are two sides of the same coin; the crucial part is to recognize our starting point.

In the rural, scattered areas of Latin America, the students’ academic performance tends to be lower than in more urban areas.

This can be observed clearly in the results of standardized tests. It is a common problem faced by our countries and, as expected, this gap leads to a persistent inequality in future employment, income and quality of life opportunities available for people who are born and grow up in rural areas.

A policy that might be used to attempt to reduce the academic performance gap would be attracting better qualified teachers to rural areas in order to increase the quality of education.

For example, monetary incentives could be used to encourage a teacher to work in a rural area for a certain period of time in exchange for a monthly bonus equal to 15% of their basic salary.

However, several interesting questions arise when one thinks about the possible impact of this policy:

To what extent academic performance depends on teacher quality? Are there other determinants that complement teacher quality, and which should be addressed? They might include an adequate learning infrastructure, access to technology and to information, among others.

What type of teachers will we attract with a 15% bonus? Highly qualified teachers? Teachers of intermediate or low-quality skills?

Using a monetary incentive, would we attract those who are better prepared? Or those who have less (and worse) alternatives in urban areas? This will depend on how the incentive positions are filled. Is the applicant’s teaching quality and/or experience assessed?

Is it enough to offer a monetary incentive to attract teachers, or do we need to modify other characteristics of the rural area to make it more attractive?

Is a 15% bonus enough? Or for how long should an additional incentive be offered? The bonus should exceed the costs arising from the teacher’s relocation to a rural area.

What if, instead of attracting better teachers, we create training programs for teachers who are already in rural areas?

When implementing the monetary incentive policy to attract better teachers, we have to take all these questions into account (and several others).