Ending Poverty Through Education: New Evidence from India and Africa

To reduce poverty and accelerate economic development, governments must invest in primary school education for all. But with limited resources, it is important to invest in programs that increase access, raise test scores, and are cost-effective. How can policy-makers meet these objectives? This briefing will showcase lessons from rigorously-tested school programs in India, Kenya, and Ghana.

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Agenda

9:00 am Welcome

9:30 am  Achieving Universal Quality Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Karthik Muralidharan from the University of California, San Diego will present results from nearly 10 years of primary field research conducted on the quality of primary education in India.  He will also discuss policy challenges and options for effectively implementing the recently passed “Right to Education” Act in India.

Papers presented:

• The Impact of Diagnostic Feedback to Teachers on Student Learning: Experimental Evidence from India
• Teacher Absence in India:  A Snapshot
• Contract Teachers:  Experimental Evidence from India
• When Can School Inputs Improve Test Scores?
• Teacher Performance Pay:  Experimental Evidence from India

10:15 am  The Importance of Context in the Evaluation of Educational Interventions

Leigh Linden from the University of Texas will review the results of three primary and pre-primary education projects in India, and discuss how integrating particular treatments into the existing educational context affects the estimated treatment effects.

Papers presented:

• How to Teach English in India:  Testing the Relative Productivity of Instruction Methods within the Pratham English Language Education Program
• Compliment or Substitute?  The Effect of Technology on Student Achievement in India

11:00 am  Girls’ Scholarships in Kenya = Education as Liberation?

Michael Kremer from Harvard University will discuss a girls’ scholarship program implemented in the early 2000’s in Kenya, and how over a decade later, women’s social and political attitudes and decisions have shifted with more education.

Papers presented:

• Incentives to Learn
• Education as Liberation?

11:30 am From India to Ghana:  How Research Revived Remedial Education (slides will not be made available to the public)

Annie Duflo, Executive Director of Innovations for Poverty Action, will speak on a pioneering evaluation of a remedial education project in Ghana.  The Teacher Community Assistant Initiative, first developed in India, has been adapted, re-evaluated, and scaled-up across India, resulting in 33 million children reached through the Read India program.  The project is now being piloted and tested in Ghana.

12:00 pm Closing