Learning Loss, Human Capital, and War in Ukraine (News and Research 302)

The Effect of the War on Human Capital in Ukraine and the Path for Rebuilding | In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The ensuing war has a devastating destructing impact in Ukraine. This article focuses on the humanitarian cost of war. The article develops a framework for the analysis of the effect of a war on country’s human capital. We then identify the following key directions for rebuilding and further developing human capital in Ukraine: quantity and quality of schooling for children, quality of higher education, training and retraining programs for adults, assistance for people with disabilities, post-deployment re-integration into the civilian sector, population growth and fertility, and promotion of self-motivating mechanisms.

Uzávěry škol přijdou pravděpodobně znovu, Evropu čekají další krize, musíme školství připravit, říká ekonom Světové banky (School closures will probably come again, another crisis awaits Europe, we need to prepare education, says a World Bank economist)

At school closures during covid have caused major problems for students and shown education experts that old ways of teaching are no longer enough, says Harry A. Patrinos, adviser to the World Bank’s Chief Economist for the Europe and Central Asia region. According to him, we need to think “out of the box” and introduce more hybrid learning to allow pupils and students to individualize their learning and be prepared if they are to be properly prepared for life. “We also need to think about what support teachers need. I don’t think they get enough. We need to adequately fund education itself with regard to outcomes, not inputs. We also need to ensure that systems are well resourced to improve the learning outcomes and success of pupils and students, their academic careers and post-graduation careers.”

STEAM Pakistan | Have you ever thought about building a race car? A few years ago, a group of young women from Pakistan actually managed to do that. In 2018, an all-girls team from NUST not only designed and built a race car for an international engineering competition, Formula Student but also won the Race Tech Magazine’s Spirit of Formula Student Award. Building an award-winning race car is a great achievement in itself but in the context of the state of science education in Pakistan and the particular challenges faced by girls, it is an incredible feat… A recent study led by Harry Patrinos and others at the World Bank concluded that the learning losses incurred during the pandemic were equivalent to roughly one-half years’ worth of learning… Taking heed of this situation the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFEPT) in partnership with the Malala Fund has launched a five-year project, STEAM Pakistan. Under this project, Malala Fund and its partner organisations are supporting MoFEPT to advance secondary school-aged students’ access to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education…

Schooling Ain’t Learning in Europe: A Club Convergence Perspective | Convergence in human capital is a key precondition to achieve income convergence in the European Union; however, so far research on this topic has nearly been absent. Our paper contributes to the literature by investigating the human capital convergence dynamics within the EU over the period 1990–2016 using a nonlinear dynamic factor model. While we find evidence of absolute convergence with respect to the average years of schooling, we identify four convergence clubs with respect to learning outcomes, and the divergence across those four clubs is increasing over time. A subsequent analysis of the determinants of the learning clubs reveals that institutional and learning spillovers are decisive for whether an EU Member State is on a high or low human capital trajectory.

How much does it pay off to invest in education in Serbia?  | The highest rate of return on investment in education among the observed CEE countries was recorded in Serbia. In Serbia, people with complete higher education earn 20% more than those with secondary education. The lowest rate of return on investment in higher education can be observed in Slovakia, where the person with higher education earns 10% more than a person with secondary education

Educator Incentives and Educational Triage in Rural Primary Schools | In low-income countries, primary school student achievement is often far below grade level, and dropout rates remain high. Further, some educators actively encourage weaker students to drop out before reaching the end of primary school to avoid the negative attention that a school receives when its students perform poorly on their national primary leaving exams. We report the results of an experiment in rural Uganda that sought to both promote learning and reduce dropout rates. We offered bonus payments to Grade 6 (P6) teachers that rewarded each teacher for the math performance of each of their students relative to comparable students in other schools. This pay for percentile (PFP) incentive scheme did not improve overall P6 math performance, but it did reduce dropout rates. PFP treatment raised attendance rates a full year after treatment ended, from 0.56 to 0.60. In schools with math books, treatment increased attendance rates from 0.57 to 0.64, and PFP also improved performance on test items covered by P6 books. PFP did not improve any measure of attendance, achievement, or attainment in schools without books.

Corruption risk assessment of the Georgian preschool and technical and vocational education sectors | This  report  presents  the  main  conclusions  of  the  corruption  risk  assessment  of  the  preschool   and   vocational   education   and   training (VET) education sectors of Georgia, carried   out   by   the   UNESCO   International   Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) of Georgia.