Hard-to-staff schools—often rural, remote, or serving communities with high poverty—face a staffing reality that can feel impossible: fewer applicants, higher turnover, and (too often) less access to experienced, highly skilled educators. A major systematic review published in Economics of Education Review (Evans & Mendez Acosta, 2023) synthesizes what we know from low- and middle-income countries about what actually improves recruitment and retention in these settings.
Even if your district is not in a low- or middle-income country, the patterns are familiar: schools with fewer amenities and higher needs are harder to staff. The difference is that this review focuses on policies that governments implemented at scale and that researchers evaluated using experimental or quasi-experimental methods—meaning the evidence is stronger than opinion or anecdotes.
At TinyEYE, we work with schools that are trying to meet student needs despite staffing gaps. While TinyEYE provides online therapy services rather than teacher staffing, the same workforce pressures show up across roles: recruitment challenges, retention risk, and the urgent need for practical solutions that protect student access to services. This evidence review offers a useful lens for any school leader thinking about staffing strategically.
Why hard-to-staff schools struggle: it’s not just “vacancies”
The review highlights three overlapping staffing problems:
Quantity gaps: schools can’t fill open roles because fewer candidates apply, or because teachers leave more often.
Quality gaps: even when roles are filled, hard-to-staff schools may end up with more novice teachers, less-qualified teachers, or teachers without full credentials.
Representation gaps: many systems struggle to recruit women teachers (and sometimes teachers in key subjects) to remote or disadvantaged schools.
Why does this happen? The review points to a “compensating differential” problem: hard-to-staff schools often lack the amenities and supports that make jobs sustainable—housing availability, reliable infrastructure, teaching materials, professional development access, and even safe commutes. In some contexts, rural schools also show higher teacher absenteeism, which directly reduces student learning time.
What the evidence says works best: financial incentives (when designed well)
Across the studies the authors identified, financial incentives were the most evaluated policy lever—and often effective. These incentives typically take the form of hardship pay, salary bonuses, or wage premiums for working in eligible schools.
Key insights from the review:
Incentives often increase supply and reduce turnover. Many programs improved recruitment to hard-to-staff schools or reduced the rate at which teachers transferred out.
Size matters. Very small bonuses may do little. In one example from Brazil, a wage premium that had eroded over time (because it wasn’t updated) showed no impact.
Design matters. Some incentives improved teacher quality (not just headcount), especially when the program was structured to attract stronger candidates or retain high performers.
Student outcomes are often positive when measured, but results can vary by subgroup (for example, effects appearing more strongly for certain grades, genders, or baseline performance levels).
One important nuance: incentives can sometimes shift teachers from “almost hard-to-staff” schools into “most hard-to-staff” schools, improving one site while unintentionally weakening another nearby. That doesn’t mean incentives are bad—it means districts need to anticipate system-wide effects and monitor neighboring schools, not only the targeted ones.
The surprising low-cost winners: behavioral and informational “nudges”
One of the most practical findings in the review is that small, low-cost behavioral tweaks can measurably change teacher application behavior. Two examples stood out:
Messaging that reinforces purpose: In Peru, messages emphasizing the social impact of teaching (and prompting candidates to reflect on why they became teachers) increased the share of disadvantaged schools teachers included in their choices. In some groups, it also increased actual placement into these schools.
Changing the order of options: In Ecuador, simply listing hard-to-staff schools first in the online application platform increased the likelihood that candidates ranked them higher and accepted offers there.
These interventions are compelling because they are cheap and scalable. They won’t solve every shortage, but they can complement larger strategies—especially when budgets are tight or when financial incentives alone aren’t closing the gap.
What’s missing from the evidence (and why that matters)
Despite many countries using a wide menu of policies, the review found very limited causal evidence for several commonly discussed approaches, including:
housing support
moving or travel allowances
accelerated promotion pathways
additional training tied to hardship postings
mandatory rotations
study leave with pay
This doesn’t mean these strategies don’t work. It means leaders should treat them as “promising but not proven” and, where possible, build evaluation into implementation. If a district invests heavily in housing or promotion incentives, the smartest next step is to measure what changes: applicant volume, acceptance rates, retention, teacher attendance, and student outcomes.
Implementation pitfalls: the best policy can fail if it’s not delivered well
The review repeatedly returns to a simple truth: execution determines impact. Common implementation challenges included:
Payment delays or unreliable delivery: If teachers don’t trust they’ll receive the incentive on time, the incentive loses power.
Low awareness: In multiple settings, teachers didn’t know which schools qualified or didn’t see the incentive clearly during hiring.
Outdated eligibility rules: If hardship classifications aren’t updated, incentives may no longer match real working conditions.
Administrative data issues: Payroll mismatches and inaccurate postings can undermine both implementation and evaluation.
For school systems, the takeaway is practical: before launching a new incentive, pressure-test the operational pipeline. Can HR communicate eligibility clearly? Can payroll deliver reliably? Can the district update school classifications on a predictable schedule? Can leaders monitor spillover effects?
So what should school leaders do next? A simple action framework
Based on the review’s findings, here are practical steps districts can consider—whether the staffing challenge is teachers, specialized support staff, or related roles:
Start with clarity: Make hard-to-staff definitions transparent (distance, poverty index, vacancy history, turnover rate) and keep them updated.
Make incentives visible at the moment of choice: Put the information directly into the application workflow, not in a separate memo.
Use low-cost nudges alongside financial incentives: Re-order job lists, simplify comparisons, and test purpose-based messaging for candidates.
Track spillovers: Monitor nearby schools and “borderline” schools so you don’t solve one shortage by creating another.
Measure what matters: Don’t stop at hires. Track retention, attendance, and student outcomes (and disaggregate where possible).
Staffing hard-to-staff schools is not a problem with a single silver bullet. But this evidence review makes one point hard to ignore: well-designed incentives and smart behavioral design can move the needle, and in some cases at surprisingly low cost.
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