This study presents policy options for improving the effectiveness of primary schools in developing countries. It examines problems common to most developing countries and presents an array of low-cost policy alternatives that have proved useful in a variety of settings.
Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.
This book focuses on how politics shapes the capacity and commitment of elites to tackle the learning crisis in six developing countries. It deploys a new conceptual framework to show how the type of political settlement shaptes the level of elite commitment and state capacity to improving learning outcomes.
Almost any economist will agree that education plays a key role in determining a country’s economic growth and standard of living, but what we know about education policy in developing countries is remarkably incomplete and scattered over decades and across publications. Education Policy in Developing Countries rights this wrong, taking stock of twenty years of research to assess what we actually know—and what we still need to learn—about effective education policy in the places that need it the most. Surveying many aspects of education—from administrative structures to the availability of health care to parent and student incentives—the contributors synthesize an impressive diversity of data, paying special attention to the gross imbalances in educational achievement that still exist between developed and developing countries. They draw out clear implications for governmental policy at a variety of levels, conscious of economic realities such as budget constraints, and point to crucial areas where future research is needed. Offering a wealth of insights into one of the best investments a nation can make, Education Policy in Developing Countries is an essential contribution to this most urgent field.
Why do women in most developing countries lag behind men in literacy? Why do women get less schooling than men? This anthology examines the educational decisions that deprive women of an equal education. It assembles the most up-to-date data, organized by region. Each paper links the data with other measures of economic and social development. This approach helps explain the effects different levels of education have on womens' fertility, mortality rates, life expectancy, and income. Also described are the effects of women's education on family welfare. The authors look at family size and women's labor status and earnings. They examine child and maternal health, as well as investments in children's education. Their investigation demonstrates that women with a better education enjoy greater economic growth and provide a more nurturing family life. It suggests that when a country denies women an equal education, the nation's welfare suffers. Current strategies used to improve schooling for girls and women are examined in detail. The authors suggest an ambitious agenda for educating women. It seeks to close the gender gap by the next century. Published for The World Bank by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as a key to improving their efficiency. In India, the current government flagship program on universal primary education organizes both locally elected leaders and parents of children enrolled in public schools into committees and gives these groups powers over resource allocation, and monitoring and management of school performance. However, in a baseline survey we found that people were not aware of the existence of these committees and their potential for improving education. This paper evaluates three different interventions to encourage beneficiaries' participation through these committees: providing information, training community members in a new testing tool, and training and organizing volunteers to hold remedial reading camps for illiterate children. We find that these interventions had no impact on community involvement in public schools, and no impact on teacher effort or learning outcomes in those schools. However, we do find that the intervention that trained volunteers to teach children to read had a large impact on activity outside public schools -- local youths volunteered to be trained to teach, and children who attended these camps substantially improved their reading skills. These results suggest that citizens face substantial constraints in participating to improve the public education system, even when they care about education and are willing to do something to improve it.
Annotation This book seeks to provide answers to the following questions: Where do we stand today in relation to the target of universal primary completion? Is universal primary completion achievable by 2015? What would he required to achieve it? The book includes a CD-ROM containing a "hands-on" version of the simulation model developed by the authors and all of the background data used.
This booklet discusses strategies for reducing repetition of grades by students at primary, secondary, and higher education levels. Large numbers of pupils repeat their grades every year, and these repetition rates are considered good indicators of an educational system's effectiveness. A high repetition rate indicates that a large number of pupils have not reached the level of learning achievement expected of them. Causes of repetition are varied and not easily detectable and probably vary from one country to another, within a country, from school to school, and from one educational level to another. Some strategies for reducing repetition are targeted at the children and their home environment; others are more closely related to the school, the content, and the teaching methods; and still others have to do with the overall policy and system. The author warns against any drastic legal type of intervention and argues in favor of combining various measures so as to arrive at a comprehensive, multipronged strategy. (Contains 63 references.) (DFR)
Exemplary stories of innovation from around the world In an age of rising inequality, getting a good education increasingly separates the haves from the have nots. In countries like the United States, getting a good education is one of the most promising routes to upper-middle-class status, even more so than family wealth. Experts predict that by 2030, 825 million children will reach adulthood without basic secondary-level skills, and it will take a century for the most marginalized youth to achieve the educational levels that the wealthiest enjoy today. But these figures do not even account for the range of skills and competencies needed to thrive today in work, citizenship, and life. In a world where the ability to manipulate knowledge and information, think critically, and collaboratively solve problems are essential to thrive, access to a quality education is crucial for all young people. In Leapfrogging Inequality, researchers chart a new path for global education by examining the possibility of leapfrogging—harnessing innovation to rapidly accelerate educational progress—to ensure that all young people develop the skills they need for a fast-changing world. Analyzing a catalog of nearly 3,000 global education innovations, the largest such collection to date, researchers explore the potential of current practices to enable such a leap. As part of this analysis, the book presents an evidence-based framework for getting ahead in education, which it grounds in the here-and-now by narrating exemplary stories of innovation from around the world. Together, these stories and resources will inspire educators, investors, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and policymakers alike to rally around a new vision of educational progress—one that ensures we do not leave yet another generation of young people behind.
Low levels of student achievement and school quality persist in developing countries. This document reviews the importance of school quality in increasing literacy and influencing economic growth in developing nations. Improvements are discussed in terms of: (1) school quality and economic development; (2) defining school quality; (3) improving school quality; and (4) increasing school efficiency. Evidence suggests that low school quality accounts for low literacy levels and achievement among children in developing nations and that little progress has occurred in improving school quality in the poorest countries since 1970. Definitions of school quality should focus on characteristics that influence student achievement and on efforts that encourage more efficient management and effective local school staff. Little research has been conducted about the influence of teaching practices and classroom organization on achievement levels, but access to textbooks and writing materials and teacher quality consistently influence student achievement. Methods for studying the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of management practices in terms of increased school quality are reviewed, and investments that can be reduced without causing detrimental effects are identified. Tables and a 94-item bibliography are included. (Author/JHP)