The Greatest Education Intervention Ever...Will Likely Fail
marketpower.substack.com
Note: I know it has been a while since my last newsletter! When school started, I got out of routine. The good news is I have posted a few videos since that last newsletter, so go find Market Power on YouTube and you can see them. Addressing education in developing countries is a major policy priority. Since human capital accounts for about 30% of the difference between rich and poor countries, improving education can have a significant effect on pulling countries out of poverty. Even better, about 65% of the difference comes from differences in productivity, and a more educated population could make significant gains in productivity. So there is an easy case that we should be working to improve education around the world.
Hmm... I'm not sure what you are claiming the greatest education intervention is. Surprisingly, removing absenteeism is not, in fact, what the literature ranks as the strongest education intervention. In the big meta-analyses of Rachel Glennerster[1] and the RCTs of Duflo[2], the best bang for buck in classroom learning is tracking and ability grouping, outflanking teacher absenteeism, class size, and teacher training by quite a margin.
But you know how it is. Government capacity to make or even allow good interventions to occur is often weak. But almost all developing countries have a private school system, and those systems do frequently and reliably can outperform the government system as you say[3]! But is ability grouping likely to fail? I don't think so. You only need the administrators and teachers at the school to get on board. That seems to be a job which NGOs could do successfully, without stepping on any government toes or regulations.
Hmm... I'm not sure what you are claiming the greatest education intervention is. Surprisingly, removing absenteeism is not, in fact, what the literature ranks as the strongest education intervention. In the big meta-analyses of Rachel Glennerster[1] and the RCTs of Duflo[2], the best bang for buck in classroom learning is tracking and ability grouping, outflanking teacher absenteeism, class size, and teacher training by quite a margin.
But you know how it is. Government capacity to make or even allow good interventions to occur is often weak. But almost all developing countries have a private school system, and those systems do frequently and reliably can outperform the government system as you say[3]! But is ability grouping likely to fail? I don't think so. You only need the administrators and teachers at the school to get on board. That seems to be a job which NGOs could do successfully, without stepping on any government toes or regulations.
[1]https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1739
[2]https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/34658/How-to-Improve-Education-Outcomes-Most-Efficiently-A-Comparison-of-150-Interventions-Using-the-New-Learning-Adjusted-Years-of-Schooling-Metric.pdf
[3] https://econjwatch.org/articles/big-questions-and-poor-economics-banerjee-and-duflo-on-schooling-in-developing-countries