Building on Efforts to Improve Learning

Building on Efforts to Improve Learning | (News and Research 354)

How Ghana Is Improving Learning for Every Child | Anna Bjerde: During my last trip to Ghana, I saw a classroom full of eager young boys and girls, hands raised, waiting patiently to be called to answer questions – each vying to catch the eye of their teacher and craning their necks to be noticed. One after another, the children picked up their books, selected the sections they wanted to read, and then read with pride. This is a direct outcome of Ghana’s strong focus on reaching every child with quality education, as I witnessed that day when I visited the New Gbawe Municipal Basic School in Accra, a beneficiary of the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), a government initiative supported by the World Bank. GALOP is a great example of how projects can leverage the principles of the Western and Central Africa Education Strategy launched one year ago in Ghana to improve education for all in the region…

Getting every child reading. Are we up for the challenge? | Last week we celebrated International Literacy Day. Luis Benveniste reminds us that an unacceptable number of children do not know how to read. Seventy percent of children in low- and low-middle income countries are unable to read and understand a simple paragraph by the age of 10 (which we call learning poverty). This learning crisis squanders young peoples’ potential, negatively impacts the workforce of the future, and erodes the economic competitiveness of countries. However, getting every child reading is within our reach. So, how do we make every child literate? (1) Children need more effective literacy instruction in school; (2) Children need to practice reading in their homes and communities. (3) Enabling reading—both at school and at home—requires procuring and distributing books efficiently, affordably, and sustainably.

Do TV-aided model lessons in class improve student performance? Evidence from public primary schools in Papua New Guinea | Shimizutani, Taguchi, Yamada in Australian Economic Papers | TV-aided model lessons in class enhance the quality of teaching on the national examination test scores of Mathematics and Combined Subject (science and social studies and other topics) as well as English in the final year of primary education in Papua New Guinea. A panel event study to capture the different timings of the intervention across schools over multiple time periods finds that the project significantly and robustly improved test scores for girls only in English 3 years after the introduction of the project, but no improvement was seen for boys.

Learning during the Pandemic: Evidence from Uzbekistan |Iqbal, Patrinos | Using a unique dataset that allows assessing change in learning over time it is found that test scores in math for grade 5 students improved over time by 0.29 standard deviation despite school closures. The outcomes among students who were assessed in 2019 improved by an average of 0.72 standard deviation over the next two years, slightly lower than the expected growth of 0.80 standard deviation. The resilience in test scores could be due to the substantial effort in creating online resources that could be accessed by most students and their families.

Improving Learning in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries | Angrist, Aurino, Patrinos, Psacharopoulos, Vegas, Nordjo, Wong | A benefit-cost analysis of candidate interventions that could increase learning at low cost shows that two interventions – structured pedagogy and, teaching at the right level, with and without a technology component – generate large benefit-cost ratios. If deployed uniformly to reach 90 percent of the 467 million students in LICs and LMCs, these interventions would cost on average $18 per student per year or $7.6 billion annually, generating $65 in benefits for every $1 spent. Increasing education expenditure by just 6 percent could increase learning by 120 percent if directed toward these highly cost-effective interventions.

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Returns to Education Turns 50 | Submit a Manuscript to the Journal Education Economics for a Special Issue on the 50th Anniversary of the Returns to Education: An International Comparison | Manuscript deadline: 31 October 2023 | Special Issue Editor: Harry Patrinos, World Bank | Submit An Article | This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book, Returns to Education: An International Comparison, by George Psacharopoulos (assisted by Keith Hinchliffe). Education Economics is publishing a special issue to mark this occasion and the contributions of Professor Psacharopoulos. The focus of this special issue is research on the returns to education. Research on international comparisons and /or returns to education in less developed economies are especially welcome.