Cost-effective approaches to improve global learning: What are the “Smart Buys” for improving learning in low- and middle-income countries?

• In Event: Publicizing public goods in education: New evidence and tools to improve the sector

Proposal

More than half of all children in low- and middle-income countries do not learn to read with comprehension by age 10, despite the ambitions of Sustainable Development Goal 4 for “inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all.” Given the scale of the challenge, resources within each country need to be directed to the most cost-effective approaches possible. The investment over the past decade in research into ways to improve learning gives us an opportunity to increase the value for money of education programs.

The new Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel has considered the body of research in this field and used deliberations and judgement to classify interventions based on their cost-effectiveness at improving learning outcomes, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LICs and MICs). This note is intended to be helpful for technical staff in Ministries of Education, donor agencies, Local Education Groups, and non-profit organizations in thinking through appropriate interventions, and should be used alongside context-specific analysis and system diagnostics.

Their findings encourage systemwide improvements in learning and to make them sustainable over the long term, systemic reform is likely to be extremely important. The report provides guidance on the contexts in which a specific intervention is likely to be useful in improving learning. The novel approach of this resource is to group different interventions and classes of education interventions into the following tiers of cost-effectiveness, reflecting both size of impact and strength of evidence: “great buys” and “good buys” which are cost-effective with strong evidence; “promising but low-evidence” where some small rigorous studies showing high levels of cost-effectiveness, but overall the evidence base is more limited; and, “bad buys” where strong, repeated evidence that these programs have not worked in the past in many situations or are not effective or cost-effective. Despite the rapid growth of the evidence base, there are also many important interventions for which rigorous, actionable evidence is still in short supply, these and the “promising but low-evidence” category should help in setting future research priorities.

To classify interventions, the Panel has reviewed a range of recent (within the last 15 years), rigorous evaluative research on education and learning, primarily in low- and middle-income countries, that, where possible, includes some measure of cost-effectiveness. The interventions discussed are chosen because they have been rigorously tested using methodologies that can distinguish the causal effect of an intervention. They are also backed up by a body of other evidence, including evidence that the problem that the intervention is designed to address is widespread in low- and middle-income countries.


Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel members

Kwame Akyeampong - Professor of International Education and Development, The Open University
Tahir Andrabi - Dean, LUMS School of Education, and Professor of Economics, Pomona College
Abhijit Banerjee - Professor of Economics, MIT
Rukmini Banerj - CEO, Pratham Education Foundation
Susan Dynarski - Professor of Public Policy, Education and Economics, University of Michigan
Rachel Glennerster - Chief Economist, UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO)
Sally Grantham-McGregor - Emeritus Professor of Child Health and Nutrition, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, Faculty of Pop Health Sciences
Karthik Muralidharan - Professor of Economics, University of California San Diego
Benjamin Piper - Senior Director, Africa Education, RTI International
Jaime Saavedra - Global Director, Education, The World Bank
Sylvia Schmelkes - Provost of Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City
Hirokazu Yoshikawa - Professor of Globalization and Education, NYU Steinhardt

Authors

• Anna Rudge, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

• Benjamin Piper, RTI International