The Impact of a Gender Quota on Women’s Education in Afghanistan | Najam | Gender gaps in access to education have persisted in low- and middle-income countries, despite all but closing in high-income countries. Affirmative action for women in public universities in Afghanistan increased the share of women admitted by 32%. These findings highlight the promise of affirmative action as a strategy to bridge gender disparities in tertiary education in low- and middle-income countries.

Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Education Outcomes: A Review of Evidence | Venegas, Schwarz, Sabarwal | Extreme weather events are increasingly disrupting schooling. Yet, these are underrepresented in the climate change literature. Of 15 review articles on the economic impacts of climate change published since 2010, only three mention the impacts of climate change on education. Evidence implies a significant and adverse relationship between heat and learning. Studies suggest surpassing a high temperature threshold makes learning difficult and results in learning losses.

The World Cannot Afford to Ignore the Poorest Countries | “Countries will enjoy neither durable growth nor stability unless they can make productive jobs readily available for young people entering the workforce, and that will require substantial investment in health and education”

Indermit Gill and Ayhan Kose

Do 2 weeks of instruction time matter? Using a natural experiment to estimate the effect of a calendar change on students’ performance | Sanz, Tena |  This paper investigates the effect on academic performance of an exogenous educational reform that reduced the school calendar of non-fee-paying schools in the Madrid region (Spain) by approximately two weeks, leaving the basic curriculum unchanged. The consequences are identified by exploiting the fact that this measure did not affect private schools (control group) and the existence of an external cognitive test that measures academic performance before and after its application in the region. The reform worsened students’ educational outcomes by around 0.13 of a standard deviation. This effect was especially strong in the subjects of Spanish and Mathematics. The disruption had a more negative effect on students in the upper quartile than those in the lower quartile. Overall, the analysis shows a reduction in the gap across non-fee-paying schools and an increase in the gap between non-fee- and fee-paying schools.

The Public Purposes of Private Education: A Civic Outcomes Meta-Analysis | Shakeel et al | Since Plato and Aristotle, political theorists have discussed the important role of education in forming democratic citizens. They disagree, however, over whether public or private schools are more effective at nurturing citizenship. The authors conduct a statistical meta-analysis to identify the average association between private schooling and measures of four central civic outcomes: political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge and skills, and voluntarism and social capital. The search identifies 13,301 initial target studies, ultimately yielding 531 effects from 57 qualified studies drawing from 40 different databases. Private schooling boosts any civic outcome by 0.055 standard deviations over public schooling. Religious private schooling, particularly, is strongly associated with positive civic outcomes. The evidence is especially strong that private schooling is correlated with higher levels of political tolerance and political knowledge and skills.

Expert warns of declining performance in Greek education system | Experts have once again raised concerns about the structural deficiencies within the Greek education system, citing evidence indicating a decline in the performance of the country’s students. Speaking at the ongoing Delphi Economic Forum, Aigly Zafeirakou stated that data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) spanning from 2012 to 2022 reveals a more than 20-point decrease in the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, reading, and science on average. This decline exceeds the typical academic gains made by students around the age of 15 over the course of an entire school year.

Educational Pluralism and Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America’s Schools | Berner | This book envisions a K–12 education system that serves both the individual and the common good. It calls for education reform that will enable US public schools to fulfill the longstanding promise of American education. The book urges policymakers to embrace educational pluralism, an internationally common model in which the government funds diverse types of schools that deliver more universal content. See video.

New Developments in the Economics of Education | Exciting opportunity to present your research on the economics of education at the Public Sector Economics 2024 Conference September 23, 2024, in Zagreb, Croatia. Submit proposals by May 15 here. Keynote speakers:  Daniele Checchi, University of Milan, Italy and Harry Anthony Patrinos, World Bank.