Global

There is an abundance of research about the costs of measuring the SDGs. Institutions with the mandate to measure the SDGs are busy estimating costs and making plans to improve both reporting and capacity within countries. However, some observers and commentators are skeptical about the benefits of measurement. This CIES 2019 presentation takes a “value of information” approach to calculating the benefits of having and using information by asking: what is the social (monetary) benefit of running an education system with full information versus running the same education system with only limited information?

This presentation unpacks findings from a seven-country teacher professional development study, presented by Dr. Benjamin Piper and Jessica Mejia at CIES 2019.

The Barometer offers a dynamic tool for interactive use of data on early grade reading outcomes. The ability to look at how the data are impacted by different parameters, like the level at which a reading benchmark is set, allows users to consider what benchmark and target for students achieving that benchmark in the near term may or may not be realistic. Furthermore, when such data are available, the Barometer also allows users to review the impact of interventions that have contributed to improving reading outcomes, and then factor in whether they can expect those kinds of improvements in the future, given the different investments and initiatives underway in their countries. The presentation is a short demonstration of these two features of the Barometer – target setting and considering the impact of previous or current interventions. Presented at CIES 2019.

This presentation introduces the panel of authors who presented at CIES 2019 about their chapter of the book.

Core EGMA instrument in English

The purpose of this brief is to answer the question: What are the considerations for effective ECE programming in the Asia region? To answer, we focus on the quality and sustainability, including governance and financing, of ECE. The four subject briefs provide evidence and present considerations for the following topics: ECE assessments, including measures of child learning and assessments of the quality of learning environments; Approaches to quality teaching and learning, focusing on emergent literacy and early mathematics, with consideration given to the language of instruction; Ensuring early childhood educator quality; and Sustainability of ECE.

Omidyar Network commissioned Scaling Access & Impact: Realizing the Power of EdTech to evaluate what might be necessary to enable, scale, and sustain Equitable EdTech on a national basis. We examined initiatives in Chile, China, Indonesia, and the USA that demonstrate how EdTech reached a broad spectrum of students. Download the executive summary to learn more about some of the events, actions, and initiatives that have contributed to the equitable scaling of EdTech as well as help inform policies using the highest-impact interventions.

This paper explores an innovative assessment framework for measuring children’s formal and informal mathematical knowledge. Many existing standardized measures, such as the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment, measure children’s performance in early primary grade skills that have been identified by researchers and policy makers as foundational and predictive of later academic achievement (Platas, Ketterlin-Geller, & Sitabkhan, 2016; RTI International, 2014). However, these standardized assessments only provide information on children’s mathematical ability as it pertains to skills and concepts that are a focus of school instruction, referred to as formal mathematics. While valuable, they leave unmeasured the mathematics that children use and develop as part of their everyday life, such as the strategies they use to solve simple arithmetical problems that arise as they move through their day (Khan, 1999; Saxe, 1991; Taylor, 2009). In this article, we draw from mixed methods studies which focus on capturing the informal mathematical skills that children develop outside of school in various contexts (Guberman, 1996; Nasir, 2000; Sitabkhan, 2009; Sitabkhan, 2015). We describe how the use of observations of children’s mathematical activities in natural settings and in subsequent cognitive interviews using mathematical tasks derived from those observations, can illuminate mathematical knowledge and skills that may otherwise remain hidden. We found that an assessment framework that focuses on both standardized measures of formal mathematical learning and contextualized measures of children’s everyday mathematics can provide a more complete and nuanced picture of children’s knowledge, and taken together can inform the development of curricular materials and teacher training focused on early learning.

This concept paper is targeted at Ministries of Education in developing countries, without an existing policy for Open Educational Resources (OERs), that are considering open licensing of early reading materials developed, in whole or in part, with USAID funding. The purpose of the paper is to: a) provide further background on the rationale for open licensing; b) explain what open licensing is and how Creative Commons licenses operate; and c) answer ministries’ most pressing questions about the implications of open licensing.

For many children in low-income countries, schools are danger zones and places to be feared. Policy makers, funders and implementers lack accurate information regarding the prevalence of school-related genderbased violence (SRGBV) and the way it manifests in the lives of children. RTI funded a study in March 2018 in Uganda that tested a new model of SRGBV data collection—the ACASI method—that shows promise in generating more accurate data.