Education reform & innovation in the Global South | Co-Founder, EdWell & Metis | Ex-ALA
Fascinating study by Sai Pramod Bathena, GSL & others - on how phone call tutorials improve learning. Gets my mind whirring about the potential implications: it shows an intervention in between the spectrum of in-person teaching v learning software. I’m pretty skeptical of the latter (i.e. kids learning with no actual skilled teacher). Could this kind of approach be used in hard-to-reach places - where you basically just get every kid a dumb phone & they dial in to access well trained teachers in urban areas? Hope orgs can pick up, adapt & build on this intervention…
Our new mega-study just released in National Bureau of Economic Research WP series. So proud of this one. A 5-country randomized trial of effective education in emergencies approaches in India, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, & Uganda. Some of the fastest, multi-country evidence ever produced in education. Started during COVID-19 with relevance to education disruptions far beyond. https://lnkd.in/eDCQq86u School disruption =*huge* issue for education systems during+beyond COVID-19. Need to build resilience to enable continuous ed provision during shocks. We present new data documenting frequent school disruption. UN Global Fund Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) estimate that 222 million students are affected. We evaluate phone calls to deliver targeted education during school disruptions and enable learning continuity. Learning gains = .33 SD, equivalent to almost 4 years of quality education per $100 spent. And it worked just as well with government teachers as NGO instructors! A remarkable coalition of partners set out to study the impact of phone call tutorials to reach & teach students at home during COVID-19 disruptions in 5 contexts. A rare multi-country RCT to answer key Q: how this approach can scale across diverse education in emergency settings. The coalition: Nepal (Gvt + The World Bank Teach For All Street Child) Kenya (NewGlobe) Uganda (Building Tomorrow ) Philippines (Gvt + Innovations for Poverty Action) India (Alokit Global School Leaders ). Coordinated across countries by Youth-Impact + research partners University of Oxford Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Learning Collider. A massive *thank you* to funding partners who made this effort possible: Mulago Foundation Echidna Giving Jacobs Foundation UBS + SNF, Peter Cundill Foundation & Marshall Foundation who provided fast + flexible funding to partners around the world Since these studies, the Inter-American Development Bank + partner governments & NGOs have also replicated & studied a similar approach across 4 countries. cc Pablo Zoido Felipe Hevia Gonzalo Almeyda Mercedes Mateo Diaz This study built on an initial proof-of-concept in Botswana published in Nature Portfolio early on in the pandemic (https://lnkd.in/dBb_nS9K). We built on this study, exploring key scale questions: effectiveness across contexts, diverse ed in emergency settings, and w/ governments So many reasons this effort means so much. Two to start: the multi-country coalition and incredible people who made this happen & real-time evidence to address historic need + uncertainty. When the results came out, Moitshepi Matsheng Claire Cullen said: *this* is the type of evidence we should be producing. Couldn't agree more. Big thanks to a dream team of co-authors: Micheal Ainomugisha Sai Pramod Bathena Peter Bergman Robert Colin Crossley Claire Cullen Thato Letsomo Moitshepi Matsheng Rene Marlon Panti Shwetlena Sabarwal Timothy Sullivan
Chief Executive Officer at Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi
1yCant wait to read this one Noam Angrist ! Wow