The skills that matter in the race between education and technology

Harry Anthony Patrinos, Practice Manager, Education, World Bank Prepared for the 2016 Brookings Blum Roundtable The threat of automation implies a race between education and technology. In most developing countries, education systems are not providing workers with the skills necessary to compete in today’s job markets. The growing mismatch between the demand and supply ofContinue reading “The skills that matter in the race between education and technology”

Trends in Returns to Schooling: Why Governments Should Invest More in People’s Skills

One of the biggest economic benefits of schooling are labor market earnings. For many people, education and experience are their only assets. This is why I believe that it’s very important to know the economic benefits of investments in schooling.   The rate of return equates the value of lifetime earnings to the net presentContinue reading “Trends in Returns to Schooling: Why Governments Should Invest More in People’s Skills”

Roundup of blogs and research – July 28, 2016

Assessing systems for hiring and deploying teachers in the Philippines Over the last decade, research from many different countries has demonstrated the important role played by teachers in improving students’ learning and increasing their competencies. Studies from countries as different as the US and Indonesia have shown the enormous benefits that follow from having adequateContinue reading “Roundup of blogs and research – July 28, 2016”

Shanghai Consensus: A Report on the Global Conference on Equity and Excellence in Basic Education

At the Global Conference on Equity and Excellence in Basic Education, May 17-19, 2016, in Shanghai, China (co-hosted by the World Bank, Shanghai Normal University and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission), we learned lessons from Shanghai, discussed challenges among participating countries (more than 25), and agreed to collaborate to promote education equity and excellence around the world.

Roundup of blogs and research

Here’s the evidence that low cost reading programs can have a big impact The importance of literacy for economic growth and development is already well established in economic research.  Literacy e… Source: Roundup of blogs and research

Roundup of blogs and research

Here’s the evidence that low cost reading programs can have a big impact The importance of literacy for economic growth and development is already well established in economic research.  Literacy enables people to access information and improve their productivity.  I believe that literacy is crucial to the diffusion of new technologies, especially among the poor.Continue reading “Roundup of blogs and research”

Estimating the return to schooling using the Mincer equation

Published in IZA World of Labor “The Mincer equation gives comparable estimates of the average monetary returns of one additional year of education Elevator pitch The Mincer equation—arguably the most widely used in empirical work—can be used to explain a host of economic, and even non-economic, phenomena. One such application involves explaining (and estimating) employmentContinue reading “Estimating the return to schooling using the Mincer equation”

Here’s the evidence that low cost reading programs can have a big impact

The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) was applied both before and after the program for both the control and treatment groups. The program’s impact was significant: initial sound identification increased by 0.91 standard deviations, letter sounds knowledge increased by 0.58 standard deviations, while familiar word reading increased by 0.04 standard deviations or an average of 0.51 standard deviations for all three domains.