The number of countries that regularly participate in international large-scale assessments has increased sharply over the past 15 years, with the share of countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment growing from one-fifth of countries in 2000 to over one-third of countries in 2015.
... See More + What accounts for this increase? This paper explores the evidence for three broad explanations: globalization of assessments, increasing technical capacity for conducting assessments, and increased demand for the microeconomic and macroeconomic data from these assessments. Data were compiled from more than 200 countries for this analysis, for six time periods between 2000 and 2015, yielding more than 1,200 observations. The data cover each country’s participation in each of six cycles of PISA as it relates to the country’s level of economic development, region, prior experience with assessment, and OECD membership. The results indicate that the odds of participation in PISA are markedly higher for OECD member countries, countries in the Europe and Central Asia region, high- and upper-middle-income countries, and countries with previous national and international assessment experience; the paper also finds that regional assessment experience is unrelated to PISA participation.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7447 OCT 19, 2015
The primary and secondary education system in Kazakhstan has accomplished significant achievements. Kazakhstan has embarked on profound reforms to improve the quality of the education system and is increasingly looking to international standards and best practices.
... See More + Reform initiatives include the expansion of the pre-primary education network, the development of new mechanisms of school financing (including a new per capita funding scheme), the creation of resource centers to support small-class schools, further investment in school infrastructure, and a wider use of information technologies in schools. In this context of reforms, while there is an apparent desire to increase resources devoted to education and awareness that spending per student remains markedly lower than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average and that of other neighboring countries, there remains an official reluctance to expand public expenditure on education. This report analyses the effectiveness of the Kazakh school system and identifies policy areas with potential efficiency gains or requiring further public investment. The following policy priorities were identified to improve the effectiveness of resource use in the Kazakh school system: increase overall public spending on education as the sector gains absorptive capacity, while addressing key inefficiencies; review the organization of the school network and lengthen the school day; support disadvantaged students and schools; improve teacher quality and school leadership; and use evaluation and information systems to foster improvement and accountability.
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The primary and secondary education system in Kazakhstan has accomplished significant achievements. Kazakhstan has embarked on profound reforms to improve the quality of the education system and is increasingly looking to international standards and best practices.
... See More + Reform initiatives include the expansion of the pre-primary education network, the development of new mechanisms of school financing (including a new per capita funding scheme), the creation of resource centers to support small-class schools, further investment in school infrastructure, and a wider use of information technologies in schools. In this context of reforms, while there is an apparent desire to increase resources devoted to education and awareness that spending per student remains markedly lower than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average and that of other neighboring countries, there remains an official reluctance to expand public expenditure on education. This report analyses the effectiveness of the Kazakh school system and identifies policy areas with potential efficiency gains or requiring further public investment. The following policy priorities were identified to improve the effectiveness of resource use in the Kazakh school system: increase overall public spending on education as the sector gains absorptive capacity, while addressing key inefficiencies; review the organization of the school network and lengthen the school day; support disadvantaged students and schools; improve teacher quality and school leadership; and use evaluation and information systems to foster improvement and accountability.
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This report provides a systematic review and empirical evidence related to the experiences of middle-income countries and economies participating in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000 to 2015.
... See More + PISA is a triennial survey that aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 countries and economies have participated in the assessment, including 44 middle-income countries, many of which are developing countries receiving foreign aid. This report provides answers to six important questions about these middle-income countries and their experiences of participating in PISA: what is the extent of developing country participation in PISA and other international learning assessments?; why do these countries join PISA?; what are the financial, technical, and cultural challenges for their participation in PISA?; what impact has participation had on their national assessment capacity?; how have PISA results influenced their national policy discussions?; and what does PISA data tell us about education in these countries and the policies and practices that influence student performance? The findings of this report are being used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to support its efforts to make PISA more relevant to a wider range of countries, and by the World Bank as part of its on-going dialogue with its client countries regarding participation in international large-scale assessments.
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This paper uses data from a post-hoc evaluation of a performance-based teacher incentive program in the Kyrgyz Republic to examine the opinions of teachers receiving different pay bonuses based on their performance as assessed by external evaluators.
... See More + Overall, teacher opinions of the program were favorable, although teachers who received lower performance ratings held less favorable opinions about the motivational aspects of the program. Despite this, lower-rated teachers were more likely to report that they used what they learned to evaluate their own teaching, as compared with more highly rated teachers, and were more likely to take professional development courses in the years following the program's implementation.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6752 JAN 01, 2014
Despite a sharp increase in the share of girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some countries.
... See More + This paper argues that one explanation for this gender gap is the degree of social exclusion within these countries, as indicated by ethno-linguistic heterogeneity, which triggers both economic and psycho-social mechanisms to limit girls' schooling. Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity initially was applied to explaining lagging economic growth, but has emerged in the literature more recently to explain both civil conflict and public goods. This paper is a first application of the concept to explain gender gaps in education. The paper discusses the importance of female education for economic and social development, reviews the evidence regarding gender and ethnic differences in schooling, reviews the theoretical perspectives of various social science disciplines that seek to explain such differences, and tests the relevance of ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity in explaining cross-country differences in school attainment and learning. The study indicates that within-country ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity partly explains both national female primary school completion rates and gender differences in these rates, but only explains average national learning outcomes when national income measures are excluded.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4562 MAR 01, 2008
This report examines the alignment of staff learning with World Bank business priorities, by the beginning of fiscal year 2006 (FY06), a combination of three conditions: the sophistication of middle-income country counterparts, decentralization of the World Bank to over 100 country offices, and increased reliance on newly hired, local (frequently junior) staff and consultants-had created a situation whereby the highest performance risks in all regions related to staff capabilities.
... See More + Regional managers expressed concern about shortcomings in staff: (a) professional and technical expertise, including sensitivity to the political economy of the country and ongoing global issues; (b) practical operational knowledge, including project implementation skills; and (c) communications skills and country knowledge needed for being effective on the ground. Compounding this and despite the recognized efforts of many regional and strategic learning center learning coordinators, internal formal staff learning remained a low priority with front line managers. Moreover, the Bank's budget process was not designed to deliver resources for learning where they were most needed, with all regions receiving the same notional share of budget for learning in their annual budget envelope and most of this budget distributed to and managed by front-line units. Over three-quarters of regional learning resources were, de facto, not subject to Knowledge and Learning Board (KLB) review or included in Knowledge and Learning (K&L) Plans.
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During the past decade, capacity enhancement has become an increasingly important topic of discussion within the development community. Since the international development conferences in Doha, Johannesburg, Monterrey, and recently Shanghai, capacity enhancement has acquired a central place as a driver of sustainable development.
... See More + Both academics and practitioners have recognized that developing countries need to enhance the capacity of their private and public institutions and organizations to meet the challenges of development in a sustainable manner. This paper includes the following headings: the challenge; The World Bank Institute (WBI) intervention; underlying assumptions; evaluation method and instruments; evaluation results; and conclusions and implications.
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Scientific rigor is being re-introduced into evaluation research after some period of absence, with strong proponents of science in evaluation found among economists.
... See More + This paper describes efforts to introduce greater scientific rigor into self-evaluation of learning programs of the World Bank. These programs are designed for two sets of learners: (a) World Bank staff, and (b) government officials and policy makers, technical experts, business and community leaders and civil society stakeholders from developing countries. Efforts to introduce science-based evaluation methods discussed in this paper include use of: mixed methods, valid and reliable measures of learning, counterfactuals, scientific sampling, multivariate statistical analysis. The paper describes these efforts and concludes by reviewing the evidence from these evaluation about the features of effective learning programs for adult learners.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 31296 MAY 01, 2004
This paper analyses the level and determinants of WBI activity effectiveness and use by participants in five WBI focus countries: Brazil, Egypt, Russia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
... See More + It uses data drawn from surveys of 3,091 participants from these countries who participated in FY01-02 WBI activities; in all, a total of 793 participants from about 131 activities responded. Participant responses are supplemented by a survey of WBI Task Team Leaders (TTLs) responsible for these activities, who were asked a number of questions regarding the activity objective, features of its design and delivery, and follow-up.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 31298 MAY 01, 2004
One challenge facing countries in the Middle East and North Africa is born of the region's success over the past decades. In most countries, central governments made great efforts to extend access to basic education to all children while also dramatically expanding tuition-free post-basic education.
... See More + As increasing numbers of students complete basic education, their demand for higher levels is similarly increasing. Public expenditures for education are rising exponentially and will soon be unsustainable. Creative solutions to the problems presented by the financing challenge will be needed, including allowing a greater role for the private sector, relying more on local communities for school management, and using technological solutions for delivery of higher education. A second challenge is increasing the educational attainment of girls and women, particularly among the poor. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly integrated in world markets for manufactured goods. Their ability to compete in these markets and in globalizing service markets will depend on the quality of human capital they bring to the competition. Ensuring that all citizens are literate and numerate, that many possess a wide range of problem solving skills beyond that basic level, and that some have world class professional skills will require new curricula, improved teacher training programs, and pedagogic methods that encourage higher order cognitive skills.
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One challenge facing countries in the Middle East and North Africa is born of the region's success over the past decades. In most countries, central governments made great efforts to extend access to basic education to all children while also dramatically expanding tuition-free post-basic education.
... See More + As increasing numbers of students complete basic education, their demand for higher levels is similarly increasing. Public expenditures for education are rising exponentially and will soon be unsustainable. Creative solutions to the problems presented by the financing challenge will be needed, including allowing a greater role for the private sector, relying more on local communities for school management, and using technological solutions for delivery of higher education. A second challenge is increasing the educational attainment of girls and women, particularly among the poor. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly integrated in world markets for manufactured goods. Their ability to compete in these markets and in globalizing service markets will depend on the quality of human capital they bring to the competition. Ensuring that all citizens are literate and numerate, that many possess a wide range of problem solving skills beyond that basic level, and that some have world class professional skills will require new curricula, improved teacher training programs, and pedagogic methods that encourage higher order cognitive skills.
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One challenge facing countries in the Middle East and North Africa is born of the region's success over the past decades. In most countries, central governments made great efforts to extend access to basic education to all children while also dramatically expanding tuition-free post-basic education.
... See More + As increasing numbers of students complete basic education, their demand for higher levels is similarly increasing. Public expenditures for education are rising exponentially and will soon be unsustainable. Creative solutions to the problems presented by the financing challenge will be needed, including allowing a greater role for the private sector, relying more on local communities for school management, and using technological solutions for delivery of higher education. A second challenge is increasing the educational attainment of girls and women, particularly among the poor. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly integrated in world markets for manufactured goods. Their ability to compete in these markets and in globalizing service markets will depend on the quality of human capital they bring to the competition. Ensuring that all citizens are literate and numerate, that many possess a wide range of problem solving skills beyond that basic level, and that some have world class professional skills will require new curricula, improved teacher training programs, and pedagogic methods that encourage higher order cognitive skills.
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This book is concerned with educational assessments that are systematic, usually sample based, collections of data that include a measurement of student achievement to guide policy.
... See More + The book is organized into four parts. Part 1 develops the framework for placing national assessments in the context of various testing purposes, examines the origins of educational assessments, and describes national assessments, including their purposes and characteristics. It concludes by looking at the uses of data from public examinations for educational assessment. Part 2 is concerned with the stages in establishing national assessment systems, their costs, and the development of the test formats required. Part 3 provides five country case studies of national assessment systems. The countries studied are Chile, Colombia, Egypt, England and Wales, and Thailand. The book concludes with a review of the lessons learned from these five studies.
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Publication 16023 AUG 31, 1996
Murphy, Paud; Greaney, Vincent; Lockheed, Marlaine E.; Rojas, Carlos [editors]
This monograph summarizes the results of a World Bank research project that rigorously compares private and public secondary school cost and achievement in five developing countries - Colombia, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Tanzania and Thailand.
... See More + All case studies address the following question: Would a high school student, selected at random from the general student population, perform better in a public or private school? In the absence of experimental data, the studies compare students' performance on standardized tests in a cross-section of public and private schools. Student background, motivation, innate ability, and prior performance are controlled through the use of various statistical techniques. In addition, the authors compare the costs of public and private schoolss. The principal findings are: 1) although students in private school come from more privileged families than those in public school, on average, there is a significant overlap between the two groups; 2) with student background and selection bias held constant, students in private schools out-perform students in public schools on a variety of achievement tests; 3) unit cost of private schools are lower than those of public schools; 4) private schools are organized for greater school-level decision making and emphasis on enhancing student achievement; this seems to affect the mix of inputs that private versus public schools choose. The finding cited in this book should not be interpreted as a call to abolish or privatize public schools. One immediate implication for policy is that over-restrictive regulations on private schools (including outright prohibition in some countries) may be suppressing an efficient way to provide education. Another implication for policy is that, in some cases, governments could encourage greater private sector participation in education. It should be stressed, however, that the relative efficiency of private schools is highly dependent on the institutional regime and structure of the incentive under which they currently operate. A final implication for policy is that public schools could emulate at least some of the teaching and administrative practices of their private counterparts. The usual assumption in considering government policies toward private schools is that the quality of education they provide is not commensurate with what is being paid by the consumers, due to the asymmetry of information between consumers and providers. This widely held assumption is complemented by the view that bureaucrats have better information regarding the technology of education. The evidence, however, is that private schools, which are more autonomous and responsive to students and their parents, will deliver education in a cost-effective way.
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Publication WDP309 DEC 31, 1995
Jimenez, Emmanuel; Lockheed, Marlaine E.; Cox, Donald; Luna, Eduardo; Paqueo, Vicente; de Vera, M. L.; Wattanawaha, Nongnuch
Does participation improve performance? Establishing causality with subjective data. Winners and losers in transition: returns to education, experience, and gender in Slovenia.
... See More + An eclectic approach to estimating the determinants of achievement in Jamaican primary education. Natural resource management and economywide policies in Costa Rica: a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling approach. The role of infrastructure in Mexican economic reform. The current account in developing countries: a perspective from the consumption-smoothing approach. Comment on "Measuring the Independence of Central Banks and Its Effect on Policy Outcomes," by Cukierman, Webb, and Neyapti.
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Publication 14870 MAY 31, 1995
Isham, Jonathan; Narayan, Deepa; Pritchett, Lant; Orazem, Peter F.; Vodopivec, Milan; Glewwe Paul; Grosh, Margaret; Jacoby, Hanan; Lockheed, Marlaine; Persson, Annika; Munasinghe, Mohan; Feltenstein, Andrew; Jiming Ha; Ghosh, Atish R.; Ostry, Jonathan D.; Anyadike-Danes, M. K.
This paper presents the results of recent research comparing the relative effectiveness and efficiency of private and public secondary schools in five developing countries, which show a robust private school advantage in terms of student achievement and unit costs.
... See More + The paper explores the effect of school-based management and autonomy and finds that principals of private schools were more likely to use their decision-making power to improve the conditions of learning in their schools. The study has important implications for public education policy, insofar as it suggests how gains in public school efficiency may be achieved by enabling public schools to adopt the management practices of private schools.
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This paper provides a conceptual framework for addressing efficiency in education, considers how this concept compares to other related concerns and issues, and discusses constraints on improving efficiency.
... See More + It argues that both the complexity of the educational process and the absence of relevant information hinder the use of efficiency measures for informing education policy decisions.
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This paper examines the challenge of developing educational assessments. It defines and describes educational assessments and attempts to provide insight into building assessment and educational research capacity by exploring institutional and social conditions under which applied research in sciences flourish in developing countries.
... See More + The discussion points out that successful conduct of research in other applied sciences have required institutions which are stable, have a highly qualified staff, replicate themselves through training programs, enable their professional staff to communicate with peers internationally, and are situated in social environments characterized by freedom of thought, and have adequate resources and commitment to research quality. In light of these supportive institutional and social environments, the Bank support for educational assessments is reviewed and suggestions on how donors can help strengthen educational policy research capacity are provided.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 10771 MAY 31, 1992
Lockheed, Marlaine E.; Population and Human Resources Department
Decentralization policies are at the heart of education reform efforts in many countries internationally. Two important types of policies are those that: (a) remove barriers to private education; and (b) devolve authority and responsibility for schools from central level administrations to intermediate level organizations and ultimately to schools, relying more on local communities for financing, with an overall goal of improving effectiveness.
... See More + While both types of policies are largely uninformed by empirical evidence regarding their impact on such education outcomes as student learning, in developing countries the evidence regarding the effects of local control is much weaker than that regarding private schools. This paper extends the literature on the impact of private education on achievement, while providing the first evidence on the impact of local control on achievement in a developing county. It analyzes data from 214 secondary schools in the Philippines to answer questions regarding: (a) the relative effectiveness of local, government and private secondary schools; and (b) the factors that account for observed differences.
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