2025

Moving to Tech-based Opportunity

Researchers:
  • Esma Ozer
  • Christelle Zozounghbou
Type:
  • Project development grant
Peer effects enter education production complementarily, yet students in underserved areas often lack access to high-achieving peers. This absence limits positive learning spillovers while exposing students to negative peer effects such as motivation deficits...
Education

Can Watching Optimally over Teachers be a Paved Way to Improving Pupils' Learning Outcomes? Empirical Evidence from a Field Experiment in Benin

Researchers:
  • Gildas Magbondé
  • Melain Modeste Senou
Type:
  • Project development grant
Our project is a one-year school-based pedagogical intervention targeted at public primary schools in Benin, which will be implemented over the period 2027-2028 following exploratory research over the period 2025-2026. It involves organizing inspections of...
Education

A Pilot Study of Parenting Program for Foundational Learning Gaps in Nigeria: Prospects for Suitable Interventions and Improving Learning Outcomes

Researchers:
  • Oluwabunmi Adejumo
  • Uchenna Efobi
  • Obianuju Nnadozie
Type:
  • Project development grant
This project aims to pilot a positive parenting program (PPP) that tackles the foundational learning challenges among underserved children (ages 3-11) in Nigeria. Harmonized test scores (HTS) data shows that student learning outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa are...
Education

Teacher Effectiveness - an Intervention on Bonding with Students

Researchers:
  • Benjamin Arnold
  • Sonia Bhalotra
  • Joseph Vecci
Type:
  • Pilot project
In poorer countries, an estimated 70% of children struggle to read for meaning. Available evidence indicates that classroom environment is a contributor to poor cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes (e.g. Carneiro et al. 2020 and 2022; Alan et al, 2024; Alan...
Education

Long Run Follow-Up to Delhi Voucher RCT

Researchers:
  • Lee Crawfurd
  • Dev Patel
  • Justin Sandefur
Type:
  • Full project
We follow-up on a voucher experiment conducted among low-cost private schools in low-income neighborhoods of East Delhi. The program was designed to mimic and hence test the model of the nation-wide Right to Education Act, which mandates private schools to...
Education

Teachers' Decentralized Tutoring, Pedagogy Support, Classroom Practices, and Primary School Performance in Rural Benin

Researchers:
  • Senakpon Fidele Dedehouanou
  • Gbetoton Nadege Djossou
Type:
  • Project development grant
Multiple studies have demonstrated that teacher absenteeism and substandard teaching quality are significant concerns in primary schools within developing countries. Numerous scholars emphasize the significance of institutional arrangements or innovations that...
Education

Student Outcomes and Teacher Identity: Evidence from Assam's Teacher Randomization

Researchers:
  • Patrick Agte
  • Arielle Bernhardt
  • Rohit Joseph
  • S.K. Ritadhi
Type:
  • Project development grant
Beginning in 2012, the state government of Assam, in India, implemented a policy in which new primary school teachers are posted to government schools based on random assignment to increase transparency. In 2016 alone, 7,234 teachers were posted across 10...
Education

Place-based Curriculum for Internally Displaced Students Adaptation to Climate Change: Experimental Evidence Using Caterpillars in Burkina-Faso

Researchers:
  • Bernadin Geraud Comlan Ahodode
  • Pouirketa Rita Nikiema
Type:
  • Project development grant
Burkina Faso is highly affected by climate change which represents an important health and education issue and contributed to the international displacement people (IDP) crisis. Inter-communal clashes over land, water, and other scarce resources have become...
Education

Can Gender-responsive Pedagogy and Weekly Office Hours in STEM Courses Reduce Gender Gaps in School Participation and STEM Fields?

Researchers:
  • Sèdami Nadège Marsove Attolou
  • Hamdy Bonou-Gbo
  • Lazare Kovo
  • Christelle Zozoungbo
Type:
  • Pilot project
STEM-related sector workers earn higher and face lower unemployment rates; yet, women are underrepresented in these sectors (29.2% of global workforce), reflecting the existing but overlooked girls’ low participation and achievement in STEM-education fields...
Education

First and Second Generation Impacts of Secondary Education Scholarships for Girls: Setting up a Long-run Randomized Study in Cameroon

Researchers:
Type:
  • Path-to-scale project
A 15-year RCT in Ghana found that secondary school scholarships for girls significantly increased adult income, and cognitive development and survival of their children (revision requested, AER). While free primary education has expanded across Africa, few Sub...
Education

Child-focused Ultra-poor Graduation

Researchers:
  • Moritz POll
  • Hyun Soo Suh
Type:
  • Full project
We evaluate the impact of promoting non-agricultural entrepreneurship among young mothers on their children’s development and early learning through a novel ultra-poor graduation program (UPG) in Malawi. To our knowledge, this is the first UPG to combine the...
Education

Girls Arise Into Adulthood: The Long-Run Effects of Negotiation Training

Researchers:
  • Mwamba Kapambwe
  • Remmy Mukonka
  • Cármen Pegas
  • Dina Rodrigues
  • Besnart Simunchembu
Type:
  • Full project
Ashraf et al. (2020) conducted an RCT to evaluate the impact of negotiation skills training on girls’ educational outcomes in Zambia. The research team found that a two-week negotiation training given to eighth-grade girls significantly improved educational...
Education

Breaking Barriers: Leveraging Mobile Technology to Foster Numeracy and Literacy Among Disabled Children in Nigeria

Researchers:
  • Luke Adebisi
  • Oluwaremilekun Adebisi
  • Adedoyin Awolowo
  • Jonathan Udoh
Location:
Kwara State, Nigeria
Type:
  • Project development grant
Individuals with disabilities represent the largest multicultural minority in the world, with 1 out of 20 children under 14 years living with a severe or moderate disability (Azoulay, 2020). However, educational outcomes for this prevalent minority remain...
Education

Developing a Self-Concept Intervention with Centre for Girls' Education

Researchers:
  • Isabelle Cohen
  • Jiayuan Wang
Location:
Kaduna State
Type:
  • Project development grant
This project seeks to refine and test a self-concept intervention that will tackle the effects of gender stereotypes on girls’ identity formation, learning outcomes, and choice of vocation. Normative stereotypes can influence both the academic performance and...
Education

School Fees and Under-investment in Human Capital

Researchers:
  • Michelle Layvant
Type:
  • Full project
Over half of girls enrolling in the first year of primary school in Uganda drop out before completing all seven years. This research examines a key factor in dropout decisions: school fees. Similar to many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, households in Uganda...
Education

Incorporating Environmental Education into the School Curriculum

Researchers:
  • Maulik Jagnani
Location:
Metro Manila
Type:
  • Project development grant
Despite a long history and recent efforts to integrate environmental education into school curriculums, effective implementation remains challenging due to teachers’ varied beliefs about climate urgency and different levels of prior exposure to these topics...
Education

mEducation Scale-up in the Philippines

Researchers:
  • Noam Angrist
  • Claire Cullen
  • Janica Magat
  • Rene Marlon Panti
Type:
  • Path-to-scale project
The Philippine basic education system has been facing many challenges, particularly in the quality of education and poor learning outcomes. Recent large-scale assessments revealed that Filipino learners rank among the lowest in literacy and numeracy (PISA...
Education

Air Filters and Student Learning

Researchers:
Location:
Bogota
Type:
  • Full project
Air pollution has been documented to have large detrimental effects on health, test scores, and productivity. Governments have long-term goals of reducing air pollution, but in the meantime, cost-effective policy alternatives are needed in the short term...
Education

A Randomized Evaluation of an Enhanced Preschool Intervention on Child Learning and Female Empowerment in Kenya

Researchers:
  • Helen Baker-Henningham
  • Teresa Mwoma
  • Dorothy Naivasha
  • Simon Onywere
  • Oteyo John Samson
  • Judith Waudo
Location:
Tharaka Nithi County
Type:
  • Full project
Inadequate training of preschool teachers alongside limitations in the provision of age-appropriate learning resources across classrooms in Kenya compromises nourishing children’s full developmental potential in their formative years, which can have accruing...
Education

2024

Improving Learning Outcomes in Burundi through the Use of Television in the Classroom

Researchers:
  • Sylvestre Bwatemba
  • Francesca Marchetta
  • Michel Armel Ndayikeza
  • Arcade Ndoricimpa
  • Jean Claude Nyamweru
Location:
Bujumbura
Type:
  • Project development grant
There is a lack of solid evidence on the impact of using televisions in classrooms in low-income countries, despite the potential benefits that such a low-cost technology could bring to education in these settings by addressing the issue of teacher quality...
Education

Scaling up Technology Aided Formative Learning in Government Schools

Researchers:
  • Hannah Ruebeck
  • Sheetal Sekhri
  • Kartini Shastry
Location:
Uttar Pradesh
Type:
  • Path-to-scale project
The intervention involves the teacher-directed use of educational technology focusing on foundational learning in first and second grade. The smartphone app, Chimple, uses a game-based approach, provides simple performance metrics, and enables formative...
Education

Combining Apprenticeship and Formal Education as an Insurance Device to Reduce Gender Gap in Educational Outcomes

Researchers:
  • Nadège Marsove Attolou
  • Hamdy Bonu-Gbo
  • Lazare Kovo
  • Christelle Zozoungbo
Type:
  • Pilot project
How to improve the gender gap in educational outcomes and labor market participation, especially in Africa, is a perennial source of concern for academics and policymakers. Despite free-education policies and widespread informational campaigns on return to...
Education

Improving Student Learning in Remote Areas with Digital Tools: A Randomized Experiment in Rural Senegal

Researchers:
Location:
Kédougou Region
Type:
  • Full project
In Senegal, as in many SSA countries, teaching quality has been shown to be problematic, and the cause of insufficient learning from students. The team is currently evaluating the short-term impact of delivering a digital kit to teachers in 140 schools in the...
Education

Science on the Move: How Mobile Pedagogy Shapes Human Capital?

Researchers:
  • Samreen Malik
  • Nishith Prakash
Location:
India
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Improving Learning by Promoting Mental Health and Socioemotional Skills in Adolescence with a School-based Intervention

Researchers:
Location:
Colombia
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Adolescent Girls' Life Skills Program in Nigeria

Researchers:
Location:
Nigeria
Type:
  • Path-to-scale project
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...

Play-based Learning Intervention for Early Childhood Development in Rural Tanzania

Researchers:
  • Tukae Mbegalo
  • Nneka Osadolor
  • Zakayo Zakaria
Location:
Tanzania, United Republic of
Type:
  • Pilot project
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...

Reading Books and Literacy Training Program in Indonesia

Researchers:
Location:
Indonesia
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Teachers' Attitudes and Behaviors in Tanzania

Researchers:
Location:
Tanzania, United Republic of
Type:
  • Project development grant
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...

Evaluating the Impacts of the FastTrack Program in Nigerian IDP camps

Researchers:
  • Sharon Wolf
Location:
Nigeria
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Large-scale and Long-term Evaluation of a Whole-of-school Self-regulation and Planning Skills Intervention

Researchers:
Location:
Colombia
Type:
  • Pilot project
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)...

2023

The Educational Impact of Water Scarcity in Jordan

Researchers:
Location:
Jordan
Type:
  • Pilot project
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 Impact of Chess Education on Students' Human Capital

Researchers:
Location:
Kenya
Type:
  • Pilot project
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...

Providing Remote Education to Afghan Girls

Researchers:
Location:
Kandahar, Mazar, Jalabad, and Kabul
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Shaping Minds: The Transformative Effects of Theater-Based Learning

Researchers:
  • Nishith Prakash
Location:
Champawat in the state of Uttarakhand
Type:
  • Full project
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...

Teaching Mental Health: Evaluating India's Saharsh Curriculum?

Researchers:
  • Kevin Carney
  • Avinash Moorthy
Location:
Tripura
Type:
  • Full project
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...

2022

2019

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