A fundamental challenge of education is that students are different. Teaching children in a classroom of 20 or 30 students when these students vary enormously in their academic levels is an extraordinarily difficult task. In Indian government schools, this...

Providing quality education is a global challenge, particularly magnified in developing nations. The traditional teacher-centered approach has proven inadequate in developing higher-order skills – such as creativity, curiosity, and confidence – highlighting...

The provision of academic, social, and emotional guidance to young girls is key to helping secure a bright future by ensuring informed decision-making. In this regard, the team partners with Braveaurora – an NGO to pilot the girl mentorship program which...

This project aims to evaluate a two-tiered school-based socio-emotional learning and mental health program: (i) a universal curriculum component led by the classroom teacher, focusing on socio-emotional competencies; (ii) for students with mild mental distress...

In low and middle-income countries, women's agency has been and continues to be constrained, leading to lower levels of human capital compared with men. Barriers to women’s agency limit their capacity to advocate for investments in themselves, resulting in...

Student absenteeism presents a major challenge to the government in improving educational outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa despite the efforts to address the problem undertaken by the African governments over the past decade. Information asymmetry between...

This pilot project focuses on evaluating the impact of play-based learning intervention implemented by the Tanzania Early Childhood Education and Care (TECEC) in under-resourced communities of Mara and Mwanza regions. The intervention includes the design of...

Air pollution remains a persistent problem in cities in low-and-middle-income countries leading to a loss in life expectancy (Fang and Greenstone, 2019), lower worker productivity (Adhvaryu, Kala and Nyshadham, 2022), and declining test scores (Bharadwaj et al...

Evidence from a diversity of contexts has shown the potential economic, social, and political benefits of educating girls. Despite this, there is muted evidence on interventions that specifically target girls who have dropped out of school. Pratham's Second...

This research aims to evaluate the impact of the Government of Indonesia’s “Quality Reading Books for Students” program on students’ reading habits, literacy skills, and teachers’ practices at school, by using a randomized evaluation covering about 1,000 low...

In Ethiopia, millions of children face barriers to attending school due to internal displacement, resulting in the rise of illiteracy, and extending intergenerational challenges. Moreover, existing schools at their destination are incapable of accommodating...

Teachers’ stereotypes are recognized to be pervasive (Tiedemann 2002) and have consequences for children’s learning outcomes and educational choices (Carlana 2019). This literature overwhelmingly focuses on high-income settings and leaves largely unexplored...

The project aims to conduct an exploratory study on a digital foundational literacy and numeracy product for early years’ foundational stage (children aged 18-60 months) learners developed by their partner organization. Wunderkind Smart Learners (WSL) is a...

The proposal motivates an "adapt and test" approach to adapt Breakthrough's "Taaron ki Toli" (TKT) gender sensitization program for students participating in Avanti Fellows online education programs. Breakthrough’s content will be adapted into digital modules...

244 million children are currently out of school worldwide and are at high risk of never obtaining functional literacy and numeracy, significantly jeopardizing their futures. AREAi has developed a model to teach functional literacy and numeracy skills to out...

WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) is a low-cost behavior change intervention with a track record of improving short-term student outcomes in the US. WOOP fosters metacognitive skills of planning and self-regulation: goal setting (imagining a desired future)...

This project studies how to achieve lasting literacy and numeracy gains among the tens of millions of underserved children in rural areas of very low-income countries. To do so, it will measure the persistence or fadeout of massive literacy and numeracy gains...

Recent literature on human capital formation emphasizes the dynamic skills-building process throughout the life cycle. According to Cunha and Heckman (2010), deficiencies in building specific skills early in life make it difficult to catch up later. In 2014...

This study will measure the long-run effects of the Northern Uganda Literacy Project (NULP), a structured pedagogy-based, mother-tongue-first literacy intervention that focuses on training and supporting teachers in grades 1-3. The NULP has been shown to be...

While many children worldwide now have access to preschool, preschool quality varies, especially in low-income countries. What cost-effective and impactful interventions can a policymaker adopt to improve preschool quality and children’s holistic skills? The...

Climate change is primarily a water crisis, with 1.8 billion people expected to be living in “absolute” water scarcity by 2025 (UN 2022). In Jordan, the crisis is current, and piped water is only provided on “water days”, sometimes just once or twice per week...

The governments of Ghana and Sierra Leone have each designed an outcomes fund mechanism to improve student access, retention, and learning. Part of the rationale is to create a ‘market for impact’. The hope is that service providers with good insights into how...

The ability to analyze multiple options and make well-informed decisions, along with skills such as strategic planning, memory enhancement, and spatial understanding, are invaluable attributes cultivated through chess. Concurrently, studies have indicated that...

Curiosity and critical thinking are essential components of the learning process, enabling students to explore and evaluate information and ideas. By fostering curiosity and encouraging critical thinking, teachers can create a more engaging and effective...

Millions of children in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential, partly due to inadequate and unequal access to preschool education. These inequalities have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: in...

Early childhood is a critical period for acquiring foundational skills essential throughout a child’s education. The importance of mothers in supporting skill acquisition is recognized, but much remains to be known about how to effectively support both mothers...

Many of the most effective interventions to improve literacy and numeracy center on structured pedagogy. These programs aim to illuminate a path toward effective instruction by giving teachers a step-by-step guide for teaching content effectively. The goal is...

This study proposes a randomized trial in Morocco to measure the effects of a new teacher trainee internship program on (1) middle school student learning and (2) future-teacher retention and productivity. This is a large-scale trial that tests one of the main...

The OECD predicts that by 2030, 80% of the world’s poor will live in fragile states and 30% will live in “extremely fragile” countries. These countries exemplify how fragility, extreme poverty, political oppression, and gender deprivation reinforce one another...

The Government of Andhra Pradesh (GovAP) in India has launched one of the first government-run personalized adaptive learning (PAL) with edtech programs in over 500 schools. This program was designed based on existing evidence that PAL is an effective pedagogy...

Despite progress in addressing barriers to human capital in the last two decades, significant learning gaps persist. A new line of research suggests that holistic skills have been associated with positive impacts on later life outcomes. However, there is...

Preschool services in India fail to ensure school readiness and lack of parental stimulation in the home contributes to deficits in child development. These factors lead to longer-term underperformance and contribute to the perpetuation of poverty. Our...

Less than half of South African four- and five-year-olds are on track to be ready to start for Grade 1; this number decreases to about 40% for boys and children in the poorest two-thirds of households (Giese et al., 2022). Whilst access to Early Learning...

The Saharsh curriculum is being implemented in grades 1-8 across Tripura (India) public schools in the 2023-2025 school years by Labhya in partnership with the government of Tripura. Labhya is an Indian education non-profit and in partnership with governments...

Schools in Administration are 35 public institutions run by private agents in low-income areas of Bogota, Colombia. These private providers are chosen in competitive processes with a quality criterion. The providers have flexibility in the administration of...

In Pakistan, as in many developing countries, students are often multiple grades behind, and there is wide dispersion in learning levels within a single classroom. This ongoing study in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Pakistan uses a randomized...

This project will study the impact of regular psychological support on students' outcomes in Peru. The government implemented a program that randomly provided 500 out of 1,000 large schools with high reports of school violence the resources to hire a full-time...