Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel’s (GEEAP) interdisciplinary panel of the world’s top education experts provides educators with practical recommendations to improve children’s learning.

LONDON, May 9, 2023―The new 2023 Cost-Effective Approaches to Improve Global Learning report summarizes the latest evidence on what the “smart buys”, most cost-effective interventions are for improving learning of all children in low- and middle-income countries. Launched today at the Education World Forum in London, the report is authored by the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), an independent, multidisciplinary panel of leading global experts in education evidence and policymaking that is co-hosted by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank.

The report finds that investing in parent-directed early childhood development interventions, which coach parents in how to provide early childhood stimulation, has been proven to have a significant impact on children’s future learning. The GEEAP also found strong research evidence that in low-income countries, young children who benefit from these early childhood stimulation programs can enjoy benefits that last into adulthood. For example, an early-stimulation home visiting program in Jamaica yielded substantial gains in children’s educational attainment, IQ, mental health, and earnings in adulthood – up to a 37 percent gain at age 31. The panel also identified ways to reduce delivery costs, such as providing group sessions or leveraging community health workers who are already making regular home visits.

“This matters because the education challenge remains huge – according to the World Bank, 57 percent of children living in low- and middle-income countries could not read and understand a simple age-appropriate text by the age of ten. That was before the pandemic. Now, after the pandemic, that rate is estimated to have risen to 70 percent. Moreover, low- and middle-income countries closed schools for longer, on average, than in high-income countries, leading to increasing gaps in learning outcomes. So, it is urgent to invest in interventions we know are going to work,” said Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Panel member and Professor of Globalization and Education, NYU Steinhardt.

The Panel have sifted through over 13,000 research papers, and every approach recommended in the new report has been rigorously tested in multiple countries and has been shown to work when introduced by governments at large scale. The Panel has grouped interventions into different categories based on cost and learning impact:  three approaches are ranked as “Great Buys”, five as “Good Buys”, and eight as “Promising, but Limited Evidence”.  In addition, the Panel rated two common input-focused interventions as belonging in the “Bad Buys” category: 1) investing in computer hardware, and 2) investing in other education inputs without addressing major underlying problems – such as lack of teacher training or poor system governance.  Neither of these usually lead to additional student learning.

“The COVID-19 shock compromised spending on education in many low- and lower-middle income countries.  The GEEAP report is designed to help countries maximize the impact of their education budgets by highlighting cost-effective ways to ensure every dollar spent has an impact on the experience of the student in the classroom. Otherwise, their children will not gain the knowledge and skills they need for life,” said Jaime Saavedra, Panel member and Global Director for Education at the World Bank.

Another key cost-effective recommendation highlighted in the report is support to teachers with structured pedagogy programs, which has been successful in increased learning – especially foundational literacy and numeracy – at relatively low cost in Kenya, Liberia, and South Africa. USAID’s Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative, a structured pedagogy intervention in Kenya, produced reading fluency gains equivalent to over one full year of normal learning in Kenya, and was then scaled up across Kenya as Tusome Early Grade Reading. Early Grade Reading, a partnership between USAID and the Government of Kenya’s Ministry of Education.  Similarly, another “Great Buy” is targeting teaching instruction by learning level instead of by grade. Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) is a holistic approach to improving foundational skills. A version of this approach that includes an interactive pedagogy, has been developed and tested in Ghana and implemented at large scale in India, Cote d’Ivoire, and Zambia.  Now, after the pandemic, this approach of targeting instruction by children’s learning level – rather than just following a grade-based curriculum – is more important than ever.

Finally, providing quality pre-primary education also yields large long-term economic benefits in low- and high-income countries.  Several studies have shown how to provide preschool at low cost and at large scale, by leveraging existing education infrastructure and improving the quality of teacher training. Adapting preschool curricula to integrate them better into with primary education programs also helps sustain these gains over time.

“With more countries investing in early childhood education and development, the strengthened evidence on ‘what works’ in early childhood development is critical to ensure that money produces the best results,” said Rachel Glennerster, Associate Professor, Division of the Social Sciences and the College, University of Chicago; former Chief Economist at FCDO.

For more information or to download the report please visit the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel webpage.

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This press release was first published by The World Bank

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The Ministry of National Education and Literacy and Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa will implement the Targeted Teaching Program (PEC) in the Bagoué region, announced the regional director of Education and Literacy of Boundiali, Dramane Coulibaly, in an information note sent to the AIP.

“To achieve the national objective of the Ministry of National Education, PEC will be extended during the next school year to all schools in the Bagoué region, located in the north of the country. This is approximately 270 schools, thanks to funding from the Development Innovation Fund (FID),” Mr. Coulibaly said.

PEC is an evidence-based approach, which helps children acquire fundamental skills in French and Mathematics. It is implemented in more than a thousand schools in five regions and already impacts more than 158,000 children, particularly in the south of the country.

According to the country director of TaRL Africa in Côte d’Ivoire, Amos Dembélé, the Ministry of Education has shown its willingness to fully integrate PEC into the National Program for the Improvement of Early School Learning (PNAPAS). “We expect significant improvements in children’s reading and math skills in the near future,” he added.

TaRL Africa works closely with the Ministry of National Education and Literacy, providing technical support for quality implementation of PEC activities in schools.

It also accompanies the ministry by supporting the continuous training of teachers, by strengthening the technical skills of the personnel, who implement PEC, by supporting the mentoring, monitoring, evaluation and integration of PEC in didactic practices and regular pedagogical processes, and finally by supporting the strengthening of the education system.

This article was first published on FAAPA

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Moving on to Côte d’Ivoire, TaRL Africa is also exploring innovative approaches to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of mentoring support provided to teachers implementing the Programme d’Enseignement Ciblé (PEC), the government-led TaRL program in the country. Building on qualitative scoping research, an innovation has been developed to enhance the mentoring support offered by pedagogical advisors (mentors). This innovation comprises two key components: the strategic use of data to guide targeted school visits by mentors and remote mentoring through phone calls and SMS. A pilot phase for this innovation was conducted in May to assess its feasibility. The results from the pilot will inform a planned Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) in the coming months, which will evaluate the impact of this innovation, aiming for a more sustainable pedagogical support model and efficient program scale-up.

Meanwhile, in Zambia, to inform an evidence-driven and locally contextualized scale up strategy, the TaRL Africa Measurement Learning and Evaluation (MLE) team is conducting a rigorous scientific study to measure the impact of the Catch Up program on learning outcomes in Zambian primary schools. The study employs a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) methodology, ensuring a controlled implementation and measurement of the program across a randomly selected sample of schools and pupils. By utilizing this approach, the study aims to generate unbiased results that can inform the scale-up of TaRL programs not only in Zambia but also in other African countries with similar contexts. Taking place from June 2022 to November 2024, the study involves 273 schools in Central and Western provinces of Zambia, encompassing a sample of 8,025 pupils (4,089 girls and 3,936 boys).

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“To achieve the national objective of the Ministry of National Education, the PEC will be extended at the next school year to all schools in the Bagoué region, located in the north of the country, that is approximately 270 schools, thanks to a funding from the Development Innovation Fund (FID),” Mr. Coulibaly said.

The PEC is an evidence-based approach, which helps children acquire fundamental skills in French and mathematics. It is implemented in more than a thousand schools in five regions and already affects more than 158,000 children, particularly in the south of the country.

According to the country director of TaRL Africa in Côte d’Ivoire, Amos Dembélé, the Ministry of Education has shown its willingness to fully integrate the PEC into the National Program for the Improvement of Early School Learning (PNAPAS). “ We expect significant improvements in children’s reading and math skills in the near future,” he added.

TaRL Africa works closely with the Ministry of National Education and Literacy, providing technical support for quality implementation of PEC activities in schools.

It also accompanies the ministry by supporting the continuous training of teachers, by strengthening the technical skills of the personnel, who implement the PEC, by supporting the mentoring, monitoring, evaluation and integration of the PEC in didactic practices and regular pedagogical processes, and finally by supporting the strengthening of the education system.

This article was first published on AIP

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For Immediate Release: 

MENA Expands Foundational Learning Intervention to Northern Côte d’Ivoire

May 23, 2023

The Ministry of National Education and Literacy (MENA), together with Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa has announced the implementation of the Programme d’Enseignement Ciblé (PEC) in the  Bagoué region (DRENA of Boundiali) in the North of Côte d’Ivoire. TaRL, known as PEC in Côte d’Ivoire, is an evidence-based approach that helps children acquire foundational skills in French and Mathematics. PEC is currently implemented in over 1000 schools in five regions, reaching more than 158,000 children, with a focus on the Southern part of the country. To achieve the Ministry’s national scale objective, PEC will now expand to all the schools of the Bagoué region,  reaching around 270 schools supported by the Funds for Innovation in Development (FID).

According to the Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Éducatifs de la Confemen (PASEC 2019), despite massive investments in education in Côte d’Ivoire that have improved school enrollment, many children do not acquire basic skills in the early years of schooling and are never given the opportunity to catch up. The report reveals that Ivorian children finish primary school with significant gaps in French and Mathematics: 59.5 percent of children lack foundational reading skills, and 41.2 percent do not master basic mathematics skills. Children perform even worse in the Northern part of the country, which is more rural and suffers from high poverty rates, partly due to the 2002-2007 civil war.

“We have learnt a lot of lessons implementing PEC and look forward to scale in all of Côte d’ivoire,” Dramane COULIBALY, Director of the DRENA of Boundiali.

TaRL Africa has been working closely with MENA, providing technical support towards in-service training of teachers, building technical skills of key government personnel implementing PEC, supporting mentoring and monitoring and evaluation, and integration and mainstreaming of PEC into regular didactic practices and pedagogical process.

Speaking about the announcement, TaRL Africa Country Director Amos Dembélé said, “We are pleased to see the acceleration of political and strategic decision-making to implement drastic actions to tackle the learning crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, as a prelude to the PASEC 2024, bringing happiness to children, especially those of the Bagoué region. Through funding mechanisms like CLEF and PforR (Performance for Results), MENA has shown its commitment to scaling up PEC within PNAPAS (Programme National d’Amélioration des Premiers Apprentissages Scolaires), and has reported significant improvements in children’s reading and maths.”

-ends- 

About TaRL Africa: 

• TaRL Africa is a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with teams in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zambia. TaRL Africa began as a joint venture by Pratham and J-PAL in 2019, with the goal of supporting governments and organisations across Africa to accelerate children’s foundational skill learning using the evidence-based TaRL approach. TaRL Africa supports governments and partners to design, pilot, and scale up TaRL in over 12 countries in Africa. Together with partners, TaRL Africa reached over four million children with TaRL programming by 2022. To get more information about our work visit our website https://www.teachingattherightlevel.org

Notes to the Editor:

• CLEF is an innovative public-private partnership focused on systematically scaling investments to improve access to quality education in Côte d’Ivoire. The partnership is a pooled funding facility that has joined forces with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, the cocoa and chocolate industry, and philanthropic organizations to improve access to quality education for all children as a tool to promote children’s rights and combat child labor.

• PforR : aims i) to improve access to education and health services in preschools and primary schools; (ii) improve learning outcomes; and (iii) implement performance-based management throughout the service delivery chain.

• PNAPAS : The general objective of the PNAPAS is to federate all initiatives and actions in the Ivorian education system to strengthen basic skills in a single program to improve learning in reading, writing and arithmetic under the umbrella of MENA in order to contribute to the achievement of universal primary education.

• In the year 2021-2022, successfully implemented the PEC in approximately 1000 schools. The program spanned nearly 20 weeks and aimed to improve reading and numeracy skills among students.

At the beginning of the program, the data revealed that 73 percent of the children were non-readers, while only 27 percent could read words and stories proficiently. However, after the completion of the program, there was a significant improvement in literacy skills, with the percentage of non-readers decreasing to 43 percent and the percentage of proficient readers increasing to 56 percent. For numeracy, at the beginning, there were 22 percent of subtraction doers and by the end of the program there were 53 percent of children who could do the subtraction question.

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