Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Going beyond the effects of COVID, we take a look at five education stories in 2020, from lead poisoning to selective schools, that may turn out to shape policy in the years to come.
With increased focus on the shortfall inlearning outcomes around the world (the “learning crisis”!), one might assume that just about every child is in school, or at least that every young child is in primary school. But sadly, that’s not the case: in low-income countries, just two-thirds of children complete their primary education!
To understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on re-enrollment for girls and boys, CGD and Malala Fund collaborated to analyze results from a series of rapid surveys that Malala Fund commissioned in Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. These surveys are among the first (to our knowledge) to elicit children’s self-reported likelihood of going back to school and their experiences during the pandemic.
With a constant stream of new studies emerging on how to expand access or improve learning in education, it can be hard to keep track and make sense of it all. In our new paper we curate more than 140 evaluations of education interventions, from national policies to small pilots, in African countries that came out since 2014.
In our new study–“Are Teachers in Africa Poorly Paid? Evidence from 15 Countries”–we pulled together representative household data from 15 African nations in the last 10 years and examined how well teachers are paid relative to other workers with similar skill and experience.
Policymakers making difficult decisions about when to reopen schools are balancing the health concerns of the pandemic against the social and economic repercussions of school closures. Ultimately, schools cannot stay closed forever and governments need to start planning for an eventual reopening, whenever that may be. In this fourth installment of our “Diaries from the Frontline” series, we highlight how TCF and Luminos are preparing their teachers, principals, and children for school reopenings.
In the second post in our “Diaries from the Frontline” series, we continue to examine how frontline education organizations are adjusting to the crisis. We examine how TCF and Luminos are supporting distance learning efforts for the students they serve.
With schools closed for hundreds of million students around the world, many have hoped that “edtech” can help keep children learning via internet, apps, and mobiles. A new database published by the EdTech Hub shows that though use of edtech products serving African countries has doubled in the last month, the total number of users is still very low, and most were viewers of one TV show. That, coupled with the fact that most firms come from just a few countries, suggests that edtech in Africa is far from maturity.
Better data can help us have a better response for COVID, so we piloted a mobile phone survey on 1,000+ respondents in Senegal in partnership with the Centre de Recherche pour le Développement Économique et Social. We published the results of the survey yesterday and we are now publishing some of the key findings.
Earlier today the West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations were suspended due to the threat of COVID-19. The cancellation does provide an opportunity to take a closer look at the exams and make sure that—when students do return—they will face a fair test.
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