How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions Using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric

Angrist, Noam ; Evans, David K. ; Filmer, Deon ; Glennerster, Rachel ; Rogers, F. Halsey ; Sabarwal, Shwetlena

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: YEARS OF SCHOOLING;    LEARNING LOSS;    EDUCATION OUTCOMES;    COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS;    GOVERNMENT POLICY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9450
RP-ID  :  WPS9450

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Many low- and middle-income countrieslag far behind high-income countries in educational accessand student learning. Limited resources mean thatpolicymakers must make tough choices about which investmentsto make to improve education. Although hundreds of educationinterventions have been rigorously evaluated, makingcomparisons between the results is challenging. Some studiesreport changes in years of schooling; others report changesin learning. Standard deviations, the metric typically usedto report learning gains, measure gains relative to a localdistribution of test scores. This metric makes it hard tojudge if the gain is worth the cost in absolute terms. Thispaper proposes using learning-adjusted years of schooling(LAYS) -- which combines access and quality and comparesgains to an absolute, cross-country standard -- as a newmetric for reporting gains from education interventions. Thepaper applies LAYS to compare the effectiveness (andcost-effectiveness, where cost is available) ofinterventions from 150 impact evaluations across 46countries. The results show that some of the mostcost-effective programs deliver the equivalent of threeadditional years of high-quality schooling (that is,schooling at quality comparable to the highest-performingeducation systems) for just $100 per child -- compared withzero years for other classes of interventions.