Jukes, M.

Despite the growing interest in supporting learning through play across many low and middle-income countries, measures of how contexts can support learning through play are lacking.

Most of the research that informs our understanding of children’s social-emotional learning (SEL) comes from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies where behavior is guided by a view of the self as autonomous, acting on individual preferences.

Efforts to promote playful pedagogies in low- and middle-income countries face many challenges. Among these challenges are the norms of teacher-child interaction that have a strong cultural basis.

Play has the potential to transform the global learning crisis. In infancy and early childhood, play builds a strong foundation for later learning by improving brain development and growth (Goldstein, 2012).

Learning outcomes are low and instruction is poor in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These shortcomings are particularly concerning given the substantial learning loss due to COVID-19 from which many systems are suffering.

Learning outcomes are low and instruction is poor in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The Learning at Scale study aimed to investigate factors contributing to successful improvements in learning outcomes at scale in eight of the most effective large-scale education programs in LMICs (see the map of programs on the last page of this brief).

The Learning at Scale study was designed to identify existing early grade reading programs with demonstrated impact on basic skills at scale and to conduct in-depth investigations of these programs to determine what makes them successful.

Literacy instruction programs have arguably had limited success because they focus on the technical – but not the social – aspects of literacy instruction.

Improving learning outcomes at scale is hard. That may seem obvious, but only recently have policymakers and donors become aware of just how dire—and broad—the learning crisis is.