1 - 6 of 6
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Schooling for All: Feasible Strategies to Achieve Universal Education
- Author:
- Justin Sandefur
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- This report debates the case for specific public investments in education in low- and lower-middle-income countries, drawing on evidence of what has worked not just in small-scale experiments but historically and in large-scale national programs. Its messages are intended more for economic policymakers than educators, as they speak to what can be accomplished with fiscal instruments (money) and where trade-offs must be made. CGD does not take institutional positions. Each chapter is authored by a different set of CGD researchers (with some editorial steer), and each commentary is written by external contributors (who were promised space to disagree). This introduction tries to summarize the main arguments across all these contributions, noting points of consensus and ongoing debate.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, Reform, and Sustainability
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. Gender Gaps in Education: The Long View
- Author:
- David Evans, Maryam Akmal, and Pamela Jakiela
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Many countries remain far from achieving gender equality in the classroom. Using data from 126 countries between 1960 and 2010, we document four facts. First, women are more educated today than fifty years ago in every country in the world. Second, they remain less educated than men in the vast majority of countries. Third, in many countries with low levels of education for both men and women in 1960, gender gaps widened as more boys went to school, then narrowed as girls enrolled; thus, gender gaps got worse before they got better. Fourth, gender gaps rarely persist in countries where boys are attaining high levels of education. Most countries with large, current gender gaps have low levels of male educational attainment. Many also perform poorly on other measures of development such as life expectancy and GDP per capita. Improving girls’ education is an important goal in its own right, but closing gender gaps in education will not be sufficient to close critical gaps in adult life outcomes.
- Topic:
- Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Inequality, Feminism, and Equality
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems
- Author:
- Dan Hoing and Lant Pritchett
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Accountability is rightly at the center of the conversation regarding how to improve governance systems, particularly health and education systems. But efforts to address accountability deficits often focus primarily on improving what can be counted and verified—what we term “accounting-based accountability.” We argue that introducing greater accounting-based accountability will only very rarely be the appropriate solution for addressing accountability problems. We illustrate this by exploring the role of Accountability ICT in (not) improving education system performance. Strengthening “real” accountability is not the same as improving data systems for observation and verification, and often attempts at the latter undermine the former. The development discourse’s frequent semantic misunderstanding of the term “accountability” has pernicious real-world consequences with real effects on system reform efforts and ultimately global welfare.
- Topic:
- Education, Governance, Accountability, and Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. What We Learn about Girls’ Education from Interventions that Do Not Focus on Girls
- Author:
- David Evans and Fei Yuan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Despite dramatic global gains in access to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the essential skills to succeed after they complete their schooling. Previous efforts to synthesize evidence on how to improve educational outcomes for girls have tended to focus on interventions that are principally targeted to girls, such as girls’ latrines or girls’ scholarships. But if general, non-targeted interventions—those that benefit both girls and boys—significantly improve girls’ education, then focusing only on girl-targeted interventions may miss some of the best investments for improving educational opportunities for girls in absolute terms. This review brings together evidence from 270 educational interventions from 177 studies in 54 low- and middle-income countries and identifies their impacts on girls, regardless of whether the interventions specifically target girls. The review finds that to improve access and learning, general interventions deliver gains for girls that are comparable to girl-targeted interventions. At the same time, many more general interventions have been tested, providing a broader menu of options for policy makers. General interventions have similar impacts for girls as for boys. Many of the most effective interventions to improve access for girls are household-based (such as cash transfer programs), and many of the most effective interventions to improve learning for girls involve improving the pedagogy of teachers. Girl-targeted interventions may make the most sense when addressing constraints that are unique to girls.
- Topic:
- Education, Children, Women, and Feminism
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
6. Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice
- Author:
- Anna Popova, David Evans, Mary E. Breeding, and Violeta Arancibia
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Many teachers in low- and middle-income countries lack the skills to teach effectively, and professional development (PD) programs are the principal tool that governments use to upgrade those skills. At the same time, few PD programs are evaluated, and those that are evaluated show highly varying results. In this paper, we propose a set of indicators—the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—to standardize reporting on teacher PD programs. Applying the instrument to 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs, we find that programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. We then use the instrument to present novel data on a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. The attributes of most at-scale teacher professional development programs differ sharply from those of programs that evidence suggests are effective, with fewer incentives to participate in PD, fewer opportunities to practice new skills, and less follow-up once teachers return to their classrooms.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, Labor Issues, Academia, and Teaching
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus