Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

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Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, is a diverse ...

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  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    Mozambique: Lessons from a Pilot to Assess the Effectiveness of Performance-Based Grants in Primary Schools
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) World Bank
    Many developing countries have invested substantial resources in expanding their primary and secondary education systems, resulting in large gains in the number of students completing basic education. However, in many countries this growth has outpaced the ability of education ministries to effectively monitor the quality of their schools. This has resulted in limited progress in improving teacher attendance in the classroom and has resulted in limited learning time and poor learning outcomes. Results-based financing (RBF) has been used in to address these challenges by creating stronger incentives to achieve better results. The World Bank provided technical assistance to the ministry of education of Mozambique to design and implement a pilot to assess the effectiveness of performance-based school grants in 552 primary schools. A rigorous impact evaluation should be implemented to monitor the program’s effectiveness in securing desired education results.
  • Publication
    Zambia: Can Financial Incentives and Better Communication Improve the Last-Mile Delivery of Textbooks?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-01) World Bank
    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.
  • Publication
    Tanzania: A Simple Teacher Incentive System Can Improve Learning
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12) World Bank
    Tanzania devotes about one-fifth of government spending to education, focusing much of the funding on expanding school access. Primary school enrollment rates have surged, yet the quality of education services and learning outcomes remain poor, with only 38 percent of children aged 9–13 able to read or do arithmetic at the second grade level. Teachers play a critical role in helping children learn, but in Tanzania, many do not show up to teach. Poor motivation and lack of accountability have contributed to the high absenteeism and commensurate loss of instructional time. One way to strengthen teacher motivation and management is through performance pay. Teacher incentive schemes link bonuses or other rewards to specific targets, whether outputs (e.g., verified classroom presence) or outcomes (e.g., student test score improvement). Performance pay can help achieve learning results at low cost compared to teacher base salaries. In Tanzania, the Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund supported a randomized control trial comparing two types of teacher performance pay systems and their effect on early grade learning.
  • Publication
    Zanzibar: Can Goal-setting and Incentives Improve Student Performance?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) World Bank
    The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund at the World Bank funded an evaluation that measured how two different incentive approaches affected the academic performance of grade 9 students in Zanzibar (Tanzania). The first approach allowed students to set personal goals at the beginning of the school year regarding their performance by the end of the year. The second approach combined this goal-setting exercise with non-financial rewards such as certificates or in-kind prizes for students who met their goals. These approaches were designed to answer the following questions: (i) whether students setting goals for themselves has any effect on their performance in school and (ii) whether this effect is strengthened when combined with non-financial incentives.
  • Publication
    Cameroon - Can School Grants and Teacher Incentives be Used to Increase School Access and Improve Quality?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) World Bank
    The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund at the World Bank funded a feasibility study and a pre-pilot of performance-based school grants and teacher incentives among 20 rural primary schools in Cameroon. The purpose was to assess whether these RBF mechanisms could feasibly be used to improve transparency, financial management, and monitoring at the school level, increase community satisfaction, and draw lessons from the implementation of these RBF mechanisms to enable the initiative to be scaled up throughout Cameroon. While it is not possible to draw conclusions about the effect of this RBF program on education access or quality given the short time period and small sample size, this pre-pilot demonstrated that RBF is feasible in rural primary schools in Cameroon and highlighted the importance of several critical preconditions that must be in place for RBF to be effective. These preconditions include a simple and context-appropriate design, clear communication with key stakeholders, effective monitoring tools to assess school and teacher performance, and community involvement.
  • Publication
    Tanzania - Can a Simple Teacher Incentive System Improve Learning?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) World Bank
    The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund at the World Bank co-funded an evaluation that compared the effectiveness of two different teacher performance pay sys - tems in early primary schools in Tanzania. These performance pay systems are part of KiuFunza , an experimental teacher pay program introduced by Twaweza East-Africa, a civil society orga - nization, in collaboration with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and Economic Development Initiatives (EDI).
  • Publication
    Mozambique: Can Information and Incentives Increase School Attendance?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) World Bank
    Although more children than ever are starting school in Africa, in many countries dropout rates remain high and few students complete their schooling, especially girls. Results-based financing (RBF) has been used in many developing countries to attempt to incentivize various stakeholders such as students, parents, and teachers to achieve better results. RBF mechanisms work by linking financial incentives to measurable results, for example school attendance, dropout rates, or student test scores. Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are one such RBF mechanism that has been used in many developing countries to incentivize individuals to take actions that they may not otherwise take, such as attending school or using preventive health services. CCTs work by giving individuals a cash transfer, conditional on verification that they have completed the prescribed behavior. CCTs have been shown to be effective in increasing school attendance in many countries, but their cost and complexity makes them difficult to manage for countries with limited administrative and budgetary capacity.
  • Publication
    Systems in Action: Tanzania
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) World Bank
    Education systems are large, complex organizations that encompass not only various sets of actors and inputs, but also the relationships that allow those actors and units to work together. When standards, rules, accountability relationships and financing levels are aligned towards shared education goals, the education system as a whole, in all its complexity and size, is coherent and able to perform well. Improving learning outcomes therefore requires much more than simply increasing resources; education systems must be strengthened at the component and the system level, to help equip children, youth and adults with knowledge and skills for life. The World Bank helps countries ensure ‘learning for all’ through support to countries on both the financing and knowledge fronts. The Education Global Practice within the World Bank champions a systems approach, by holistically evaluating which education policies and programs are most likely to create quality learning environments and improve student performance, especially among the disadvantaged and excluded.
  • Publication
    Reforming Civil Service in Sierra Leone through Collective Leadership
    (Washington, DC, 2014-06) World Bank
    Improved capacity of the civil service in Sierra Leone is critical to deliver services for citizens. The government is tackling challenges of poor performance through a flagship public sector reform program (improving productivity through management and pay reforms), a part of which involves reform of the civil service. The World Bank is supporting the government on this civil service reform through a lending project on pay and performance. The project targets changes in three areas: (1) competitiveness in the pay of civil servants; (2) performance management and accountability of civil servants; and (3) recruiting and staffing to fill key positions. The World Bank leadership practice is supporting a collaborative leadership process to advance the pay and performance project results. They provided rapid results approach (RRA) coaching to approximately five inter-agency implementation teams to achieve the indicators set by the project, and facilitated discussions with the teams and the leadership team for the civil service reform agenda, in order to review progress and conduct problem-solving that will address implementation challenges.