Publication: Learning-adjusted years of schooling: Defining a new macro measure of education
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2020-08-01
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2020-08-01
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The standard summary metric of education-based human capital used in macro analyses is a quantity-based one: The average number of years of schooling in a population. But as recent research shows, students in different countries who have completed the same number of years of school often have vastly different learning outcomes. We therefore propose a new summary measure, the Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS). This measure combines quantity and quality of schooling into a single easy-to-understand metric of progress, revealing considerably larger cross-country education gaps than the standard metric. We show that the comparisons produced by this measure are robust to different ways of adjusting for learning and that LAYS is consistent with other evidence, including other approaches to quality adjustment. Like other learning measures, LAYS reflects learning, and barriers to learning, both inside and outside of school; also, cross-country comparability of LAYS rests on assumptions related to learning trajectories and the validity, reliability, and comparability of test data. Acknowledging these limitations, we argue that LAYS nonetheless improves on the standard metric in key ways.
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Publication Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09)The standard summary metric of education-based human capital used in macro analyses—the average number of years of schooling in a population—is based only on quantity. But ignoring schooling quality turns out to be a major omission. As recent research shows, students in different countries who have completed the same number of years of school often have vastly different learning outcomes. This paper therefore proposes a new summary measure, Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS), that combines quantity and quality of schooling into a single easy-to-understand metric of progress. The cross-country comparisons produced by this measure are robust to different ways of adjusting for learning (for example, by using different international assessments or different summary learning indicators), and the assumptions and implications of LAYS are consistent with other evidence, including other approaches to quality adjustment. The paper argues that (1) LAYS improves on the standard metric, because it is a better predictor of important outcomes, and it improves incentives for policymakers; and (2) its virtues of simplicity and transparency make it a good candidate summary measure of education.Publication How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions Using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10)Many low- and middle-income countries lag far behind high-income countries in educational access and student learning. Limited resources mean that policymakers must make tough choices about which investments to make to improve education. Although hundreds of education interventions have been rigorously evaluated, making comparisons between the results is challenging. Some studies report changes in years of schooling; others report changes in learning. Standard deviations, the metric typically used to report learning gains, measure gains relative to a local distribution of test scores. This metric makes it hard to judge if the gain is worth the cost in absolute terms. This paper proposes using learning-adjusted years of schooling (LAYS) -- which combines access and quality and compares gains to an absolute, cross-country standard -- as a new metric for reporting gains from education interventions. The paper applies LAYS to compare the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness, where cost is available) of interventions from 150 impact evaluations across 46 countries. The results show that some of the most cost-effective programs deliver the equivalent of three additional years of high-quality schooling (that is, schooling at quality comparable to the highest-performing education systems) for just $100 per child -- compared with zero years for other classes of interventions.Publication Incentivizing Schooling for Learning : Evidence on the Impact of Alternative Targeting Approaches(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)This paper evaluates a primary school scholarship program in Cambodia with two different targeting mechanisms, one based on poverty level and the other on baseline test scores ("merit"). Both targeting mechanisms increased enrollment and attendance. However, only the merit-based targeting induced positive effects on test scores. The paper shows that the asymmetry of response is unlikely to have been driven by differences between recipients' characteristics. Higher student and family effort among beneficiaries of the merit-based scholarships suggest that the framing of the scholarship mattered for impact. The results suggest that in order to balance equity and efficiency, a two-step targeting approach might be preferable: first, target low-income individuals, and then, among them, target based on merit.Publication Learning in the Time of COVID-19(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-29)This note discusses the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and related school closures on primary students’ access to learning in Nepal. The primary source of data is a phone-survey with households that have children enrolled in public schools (grades 3-5) collected from November 2020 to February 2021. The authors describe student learning, parental perception of student levels, access to learning during school closures, and families’ emotional health during Coronavirus (COVID-19).Publication An Expansion of a Global Data Set on Educational Quality : A Focus on Achievement in Developing Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)This paper assembles a panel data set that measures cognitive achievement for 128 countries around the world from 1965 to 2010 in 5-year intervals. The data set is constructed from international achievement tests, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which have become increasingly available since the late 1990s. These international assessments are linked to regional ones, such as the South and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring of Educational Quality, the Programme d'Analyse des Systemes Educatifs de la Confemen, and the Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluacion de la Calidad de la Educacion, in order to produce one of the first globally comparable data sets on student achievement. In particular, the data set is one of the first to include achievement in developing countries, including 29 African countries and 19 Latin American countries. The paper also provides a first attempt at using the data set to identify causal factors that boost achievement. The results show that key drivers of global achievement are civil rights and economic freedom across all countries, and democracy and economic freedom in a subset of African and Latin American countries.
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