Many Ugandans say education takes the number one spot in their expenses…Our qualitative fieldwork revealed that a large proportion of microfinance loans are used to pay for education, even if those loans are by name for business or...
Media Coverage
October 29, 2015
Over the last two decades, near universal access to primary schooling has been achieved in Ghana. Access at the secondary level has also improved, but secondary school is much more expensive, both for families and for the Government. Policymakers are now confronted with the next question: what, if anything, should be done to promote access to secondary school? To answer this question, it is important to understand the benefits of secondary school.
Media Coverage
October 08, 2015
National Public Radio's Morning Edition went to Zambia to report on IPA's study there adapting the Harvard Business School's negotiation curriculum for girls there. The project is exploring whether equipping girls with negotiation skills can better help them navigate the many challenges they face and stay in school.
Media Coverage
September 10, 2015
Annie Duflo was invited along with leaders of large organizations including the ONE Campaign and Oxfam, to write about the upcoming UN Sustainable Development Goals in the Huffington Post. She discusses what we've learned from the Millennium Development Goals, particularly from experience in education. You can read more about education research here, and the article here.
Media Coverage
September 03, 2015
IPA Executive Director Annie Duflo spoke with Burkina Faso's L’Economiste du Faso about how to improve the quality of teaching and ultimately pupils learning performances. They discussed IPA's reasearch in Ghana using out of class tutors to improve student classroom performance, which you can read about here. The full article is here (PDF).
Media Coverage
August 11, 2015
The Ghana Graphic reports on IPA's work there on a scalable way to improve early childhood education in the country.
Media Coverage
June 19, 2015
The Wall Street Journal Weekend Review section had front page feature on Innovations for Poverty Action and randomized controlled trials called "The Anti-Poverty Experiment." It explains how IPA approaches evidence-baesd policy through rigorous evaluations, and how the approach has changed the field, featuring perspective from Dean Karlan, Esther Duflo, Richard Thaler and others. The story also explains how behavioral economics is being integrated into anti-poverty programs and looks at several of them. It was also featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Real Clear Politics. An...
Announcement
April 21, 2015
On April 17, the Ministry of Education of Peru, J-PAL LAC and IPA Peru hosted a workshop aimed at presenting to the Ministry’s implementing units how they can collaborate with EduLAB, the innovation lab on education policy established within the Secretariat of Strategic Planning of the Ministry of Education.
EduLAB identifies areas for improvements in education policy and works with academics to develop low-cost, evidence-based interventions to address them. Interventions designed in the framework of the lab are subsequently rigorously evaluated using administrative data, which...
Media Coverage
December 04, 2014
IPA partner Twaweza reports on our randomized controlled trial of school funding in Tanzania. The study is testing if making school funding dependent on student achievement changes education outcomes for students. Twaweza explains that positive early findings were recently reported to government officials.
Media Coverage
December 03, 2014
Senior staff from IPA-Peru and J-PAL Latin America & Caribbean recently presented at an event in Asunción, Paraguay for practitioners and policy-makers.
Media Coverage
December 03, 2014
Senior staff from IPA-Peru and J-PAL Latin America & Caribbean recently presented at an event in Asunción, Paraguay for practitioners and policy-makers.
Media Coverage
December 03, 2014
Senior staff from IPA-Peru and J-PAL Latin America & Caribbean recently presented at an event in Asunción, Paraguay for practitioners and policy-makers.
Dean Karlan, Leigh Linden, Julian Jamison, Jonathan Zinman
October 23, 2014
Uganda has one of the highest primary school drop-out rates in the world. Though the country abolished most primary school fees in 1997, a recent UNICEF report found that 81% of parents cited financial constraints as the reason why their children dropped out of school. In a new op-ed in Uganda’s Daily Monitor, Oliver Schmidt points out:
Media Coverage
October 22, 2014
IPA's research in Uganda on encouraging youth savings for educational expenses through a school based program was featured in that country's Daily Monitor. Researcher Oliver Schmidt points to qualitative findings showing that education expenses are a primary reason named for taking out loans, and the research by Dean Karlan and Leigh Linden finding one variation of a combination of programs involving parent outreach and flexible savings commitments, which increased school supply purchases for kids and subsequent test scores. The full story is here, and...
Esther Duflo
August 04, 2014
J-PAL Europe, the Ministry of Basic Education and Literacy of Burkina Faso, and IPA Burkina Faso co-hosted an international conference on education on July 10-11 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, featuring the presence of Mrs. Koumba Boly, Minister of Education of Burkina Faso, and Esther Duflo, Professor of Economics at MIT and director of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). More than a hundred and fifty people gathered to learn about evidence from several impact evaluations implemented in Western Africa, including the Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI) and speed school (SSA/P) ...
Media Coverage
July 16, 2014
