Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

664 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9388

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Understanding the Key Determinants of Early Childhood Education in Chad
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08-23) Beram, Ngarsaim Espoir
Chad had the lowest Human Capital Index (HCI) in the world in 2018 (0.29), and little progress has been achieved since then (0.30 in 2020). This weak performance is largely driven by poor quality of education: the total expected years of schooling was estimated at 5 years but represented only 2.6 years of learning when adjusted for quality. Learning poverty was estimated at 98 percent. The primary school completion rate was only reached 45 percent in 2020. These poor learning outcomes could be attributed to the low level of development of Early Childhood Education (ECE). In rural areas, children have limited access to ECE because only 20 percent of available services are in rural areas and because they belong to the poorest households. Out-of-school children live largely in households whose head has no education (70 percent). When parents do send their children to ECE services, there is a strong tendency to start late, at 5 years instead of at age 3.
Impact of COVID-19 on Learning: Evidence from Six Sub-Saharan African Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05) Dang, Hai-Anh; Zezza, Alberto; Abanokova, Kseniya
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc upon global learning, with many countries facing severe school disruptions and closures. An emerging literature based on household survey data points to the pandemic as having exacerbated inequalities in education and learning in countries from Italy to Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This brief offers new analysis on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning outcomes for six sub-Saharan African countries. The authors analyze detailed household level data from several rounds of panel phone surveys collected by the World Bank in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda. These surveys were first implemented between late April and early June 2020, after school closures due to the pandemic. In each survey round, the surveyed households were asked a set of core questions on topics such as knowledge of COVID and mitigation measures, access to educational activities during school closures, dynamics of employment, household income and livelihood, income loss and coping strategies, and received assistance.O
COVID-19 Impact Monitoring at the Household Level: Burkina Faso, Brief No. 5
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01) Tsimpo Nkengne, Clarence; Tiberti, Marco; Backiny-Yetna, Prospere R.; Costantini, Marco; Koncobo, Zakaria; Tiendrebeogo, Adama
This note presents the results of the fifth round of a nationally re presentative telephone survey ( HFPS). Data collection took place between December 9 and December 30,2020. In addition to the 2,011 households successfully interviewed in the fourth round, in an effort to maintain sample size, additional 84 households that had not been successfully interviewed in previous rounds but did not ref use to participate in the survey were called in this fifth round. 9 households were excluded from the sample of Round 5 as they ref used to participate in Round 4. 1,968 households (93.9 4 percent of the 2,095 attempted) w ere contacted and 1,944 (92.79 percent) were successfully interviewed in Round 5. Of those contacted, 24 households ref used outright to be interviewed. The questionnaire includes key modules that had already been administered in previous rounds, namely, access to food and health services, employment and income, and shocks. Major additions were made to the questionnaire: (i) a module on Covid-19 (coronavirus) testing and vaccination; (ii) expansion of the education module to cover the resumption of classes and get an idea of the impact of Covid-19 on school attendance. For the sake of simplicity, this note focuses on these two new themes.
Monitoring COVID-19 Impacts on Households in Ethiopia, Report No. 5: Gendered Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ethiopia - Results from a High-Frequency Phone Survey of Households
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-12) Ebrahim, Menaal; Ambel, Alemayehu A.; Buehren, Niklas; Bundervoet, Tom; Hailemicheal, Adiam Hagos; Abebe Tefera, Girum; Wieser, Christina
The analysis is based on a sample of 3,058 households in both urban and rural areas in all regions of Ethiopia. The 15-minute interview covers a diverse set of topics such as access to basic services, child educational activities during school closures, employment dynamics, household income and livelihood, income loss and coping strategies, food security and assistance received. In this brief, we focus on topics where gendered differences were striking.
Innovation in Education: Improving Learning Outcomes through ICT Technology
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-24) World Bank
Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa identify technology as a viable complementary tool to improve learning outcomes in primary and secondary education. New research evidence from The Gambia suggests that a student-centered computer-assisted learning (CAL) program significantly improves student performance and teaching effectiveness in secondary schools. Policy action to complement traditional pedagogical methods with interactive technology in classrooms can help countries translate their gains in access to education into greater achievements in learning and skills.
Zambia: Can Financial Incentives Improve the Last-Mile Delivery of Textbooks?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Hong, Seo Yeon; Cao, Xiaonan; Mupuwaliywa, Mupuwaliywa; Hong, Seo Yeon
Zambia has invested heavily on education with an allocation of about 20 percent of the government budget, but this investment has not translated into better student learning outcomes in primary education. Among the main reasons for this is the severe shortage of learning materials, particularly textbooks in both English and local languages. A public expenditure review of the Zambian education system has shown that 91 percent of schools lack textbooks and on average five to six pupils share less than one textbook, including textbooks in local languages To address this shortage, the REACH Trust Fund provided a grant to investigate the factors related to the availability of textbooks in schools and to evaluate a set of financial incentive mechanisms for improving the last-mile delivery of textbooks. The questions that the research set out to answer were: What is the current status of textbook distribution in Zambia and what are the factors that influence their availability? Do financial incentives have any impact on textbook distribution and availability? What kind of financing scheme might be effective in improving the last-mile delivery of textbooks? Does providing information to schools about textbook availability increase the numbers that are available in schools? A study was conducted in 2018–2019 with the objective of answering these questions. It focused on textbooks procured for use in Zambian literacy and English courses for students in grade two in 2016 and grade four in 2018. The study surveyed 243 schools in 27 districts in Zambia that had not received grade four Zambian language literacy course books until July 2019 as a result of the severe resource constraints that they were experiencing. The study used the difference-in-difference estimation methodology to identify the causal links among the factors contributing to availability and delivery of textbooks to schools.
Nutrition Fuels Human Capital: Ghana's School Feeding Programme
(Global Delivery Initiative, Washington, DC, 2020-05) Global Delivery Initiative
One important step in Ghana’s effort to develop its human capital was the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP). This multi-sectoral program, initiated in 2005, had multiple objectives: it was a nutrition program, an education program, and a social safety net. Ghana also linked the program to agricultural development, especially smallholder production, thus helping to create new markets for locally grown food.
South Africa - Results-Based Financing and the Book Supply Chain: Motivating Writers and Publishers to Create Quality Storybooks
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12) World Bank Group
Literacy serves as an essential building block for learning, so when children master reading, they are more likely to succeed in school generally. To support the South African government’s campaign to improve literacy rates and foster a love of reading among children, room to read implemented an initiative that included results-based elements to increase the availability of affordable, quality storybooks in African languages. The project brought together public and private sector players in the book supply chain to develop new national standards on storybooks and translations, and helped to identify and build capacity of smaller publishers and writers to publish African-language storybooks. In doing so, the project demonstrated how results-based financing can be effective in the production and procurement stages of the book chain in South Africa. Results-based financing motivated and engaged publishers and writers to participate and stay engaged in the two-year project, which armed them with the skills and knowledge they need to continue to create and publish quality storybooks on their own. The success of the South Africa project underscores the potential of using innovative models such as pooled procurement, open licensing, and one day one book workshops along with results-based financing to increase the availability of quality children’s books in a cost-efficient manner. By strengthening the book chain, the project ultimately helped to foster children’s love of reading and helped them to become better learners.