R4D Education

Two Commonwealth Scholarships available with CREATE

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:00:00 GMT

The DFID-funded Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) seeks applications from suitable PhD candidates for the 2010 Commonwealth Scholarships

DFID consultation on 2010 education strategy: Young Lives submission

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:11:00 GMT

Miscellaneous 2009 14 pp. This submission to DFIDs public consultation on its draft strategy for education in 2010 is based on Young Lives research to date as well as ongoing thinking about how work needs to develop as the two cohorts of children in the Young Lives study go through school and confront opportunities, constraints and choices in their education and daily lives.

This is Open Access Week

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:00:00 GMT

This week, 19-23 October 2009, is the first International Open Access Week, which aims to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access.

Hunger and gender inequality go hand-in-hand

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:00:00 GMT

The 2009 Global Hunger Index just released by IFPRI draws attention to the link between hunger and gender inequalities

Free Primary Education in Kenya: Enrolment, Achievement and Local Accountability.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:10:00 GMT

Miscellaneous T. Bold, Mwangi Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, and J. Sandefur 2009 CSAE Conference 2009, Oxford University, 23 March 2009. 30 pp.

Lessons from Kenyas introduction of free primary education.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:59:00 GMT

Miscellaneous Karin Loudon 2009 CSAE Economics Department, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. iiG Briefing Paper 03, 2 pp. In 2003 Kenya abolished all fees in state primary schools to encourage poor parents to send their children to school. This Briefing looks at the impact of this policy on education and enrolment.

Rewarding Achievements in International Development

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:00:00 GMT

DFID, in partnership with Marie Stopes International (MSI) and the Guardian, has unveiled the five finalists of the Guardian Achievements in International Development Award.

Training lifts the poorest out of poverty in Ghana

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Private-funded apprenticeships in Ghana are best at helping lift the poorest out of poverty according to the DFID-funded Research Consortium on Education Outcomes and Poverty

Helping vulnerable South African teenagers cope with the impact of AIDS

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Research from the he DFID-funded ABBA project (Addressing the Balance of Burden in AIDS) shows how programmes that give young people the skills to improve their education and manage family finances can address some of the costs associated with the AIDS pandemic in South Africa

Helping students become global citizens

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Thanks to DFID funding, students studying medicine, pharmacy and veterinary science will learn how they can contribute to international development

Working Paper 54. Pathways through Early Childhood Education in Ethiopia, India and Peru: Rights, Equity and Diversity.

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:31:00 GMT

Miscellaneous M. Woodhead 2009 Young Lives, Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, UK. ISBN: 978-1-904427-60-X, 32 pp. The potential of quality early childhood and primary education to help break inter-generational poverty cycles is widely recognised. My focus is on how far this potential is being translated into reality, through implementing positive early childhood policies in practice. The paper summarises evidence from Young Lives research into early transitions, based on both survey and in-depth qualitative research with 2,000 Young Lives younger cohort children in Ethiopia, Andhra Pradesh (India) and Peru. Primary education is still being consolidated in Ethiopia, and pre-school is a minority urban experience, mainly offered by the private sector. Peru offers a very different story, with a well-established government primary and pre-school system but concerns about quality and coordination between sectors. Andhra Pradesh offers the most complex set of challenges, with a long-established government system of ECCE, but an increasing trend towards use of private services, including amongst the poorest communities. The paper offers five broad conclusions, about the importance of: ensuring quality and equity in early education; better coordinated pre-school and school systems; targeting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children; recognising the full range of equity issues; and ensuring more effective governance, including governance of the private sector.

A separate 1-page Research Summary, which presents the main findings and policy implications of the Working Paper in easily understood language, is also attached.

School exclusion as social exclusion: the basic education policy origins of adverse incorporation and social exclusion in Bangladesh. CPRC Working Paper No. 148

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:16:00 GMT

Miscellaneous N. Hossain 2009 CPRC Working Paper No. 142, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-906433-50-5, 25 pp. Policies to expand basic schooling in Bangladesh have generally fit well with popular desires and preferences for upward mobility through education. But as Bangladeshi society becomes increasingly educated, the sizeable minority persistently excluded from school are experiencing new processes of adverse incorporation and social exclusion: economic opportunity, social and political participation and citizen engagement with the state increasingly depend on the acquisition of formal schooling. This paper explores the efforts of government to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty. It focuses on the practices and effects of the Primary Education Stipend Programme, a conditional cash transfer designed to attract the rural poor into school. It documents how the objects of policy rural poor children and parents - are seen by the state, and the sightings of the state they in turn receive. It also analyses the tools and technologies of the intervention, focusing on its targeting practices. It concludes that the failure of the programme to significantly increase educational access among the rural poor reflects how the tools and techniques of the intervention encode and recreate class and social distinctions, as well as administrative views on child labour and childrens rights that are sympathetic to poor parents. These distinctions and views shape implementation on the ground, so that the programme is in practice only weakly disciplinary in its efforts to educate the rural poor.

Conflict, education and the intergenerational transmission of poverty in Northern Uganda

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:43:00 GMT

Miscellaneous K. Bird and K. Higgins 2009 ODI Project Briefing 23, 4 pp. This Project Briefing draws on a study in Northern Uganda to examine the long-run, or intergenerational, impact of conflict. A research project conducted recently by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), titled Conflict, Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty in Northern Uganda, explores the role of education in supporting resilience and, in turn, poverty trajectories. The research has confirmed that conflict has long-term and intergenerational impacts on well-being and livelihoods. It has also found, however, that education supports resilience and helps prevent declines into chronic poverty during and following conflict, and that universal policies, such as Education for All, are not enough to address regional imbalances post-conflict.

Social and human development outcomes: Youth, Gender and Citizenship

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:32:00 GMT

Miscellaneous 2009 Presented at a conference "Enhancing Educational Quality and Outcomes in Africa: Research Findings and Implications for Education Policy" on 9 -10 March 2009. 15 pp.

RECOUP Ghana: Work in Progress and Policy implications

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:51:00 GMT

Miscellaneous L. Casely-Hayford 2009 Presented at a conference "Enhancing Educational Quality and Outcomes in Africa: Research Findings and Implications for Education Policy" on 9 -10 March 2009. 22 pp. This presentation outlines work on the various RECOUP projects in Ghana, capacity building, dissemination of research work, and policy implications.

Presentation on the Youth Gender and Citizenship (YGC) Research in Ghana: Preliminary findings

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:44:00 GMT

Miscellaneous 2009 Presented at a conference "Enhancing Educational Quality and Outcomes in Africa: Research Findings and Implications for Education Policy" on 9 -10 March 2009. 52 pp. This presentation gives preliminary results of research into the questions: Does education help young adults in impoverished communities achieve participatory citizenship? And how can educational outcomes improve the capabilities young people to become participatory citizens and help improve the quality of life in their communities?

Jobs and Skills in Ghana: What types of jobs have been created and where?

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:38:00 GMT

Miscellaneous N. Nsowah-Nuamah 2009 Presented at a conference "Enhancing Educational Quality and Outcomes in Africa: Research Findings and Implications for Education Policy" on 9 -10 March 2009. 39 pp.

DFID releases a new project database

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Information about projects funded by DFID, ranging from emergency aid for countries affected by conflict or humanitarian crises, to ongoing support to improve health, education and sanitation in the poorest countries, is now available online.

'Give a child a birthday' - tracking age of school enrolment in Ghana

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Late enrolment to primary schools in Ghana reduces the chances of completing education. CREATE is tracking enrolment and progress to determine the relationship between age in grade and educational performance.

Communications vacancies at DFID

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:00:00 GMT

DFID is seeking applicants for four posts in the Communications Team in its Policy and Research Directorate

DFID call for a synthesis of policy and research lessons from Latin America

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:00:00 GMT

DFID seeks to engage a consortium to capture and communicate some of the key policy and research lessons from Latin America

DFID seeks applications for three posts in the Research Uptake Team

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:00:00 GMT

DFID is seeking to fill three posts in the Research Uptake team within the Policy and Research Directorate - Team Leader and two Research Evidence Brokers

First call of the second phase of the joint DFID-ESRC scheme for development research

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:00:00 GMT

DFID and the Economic and Social Research Council announce the first call of the second phase of the joint DFID-ESRC scheme for development research, which builds on the success of the previous scheme launched in August 2005

A Small Dream

Tue, 19 May 2009 01:00:00 GMT

A tale of how one young woman, Humaira Bachal, transformed the lives of girls and her entire community in a squatter settlement in Karachi, and how DFID-funded researchers helped local film makers tell her story

Supporting science journalism in Africa and the Middle East

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:00:00 GMT

A dozen new teams of science journalists from different countries across Africa and the Middle East trained through the DFID-funded SjCOOP Programme are collaborating on science related stories

The camera never lies: children's views of health in their communities

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:00:00 GMT

Young Lives children hosted a photo exhibition in Addis Ababa for the Day of the African Child

The contribution of post-basic education and training to poverty reduction: evidence from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:28:00 GMT

Current

For 25 years within the World Bank, and increasingly within other multilateral and bilateral agencies, education and particularly primary education have been held to have a powerful relationship with many other development outcomes, and, through these, with the reduction of poverty more generally. This primacy of primary education is symbolised in its position as a Millennium Development Goal (MDG), and hence within DFID as an element in their Public Service Agreement (PSA).

The present research builds directly on this foundation role for basic education, but extends it to examine in what ways and under what conditions post basic education and training (PBET) can also be expected to contribute to poverty reduction. It considers the extent to which PBET can provide skills and knowledge necessary for countries to develop capacity to reduce poverty and to ensure that the full benefits of basic education can be harnessed.

To synthesize state-of-the-art research on the potential contribution of post-basic education (secondary, tertiary and skills development) to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and poverty reduction.

Dissemination of project outputs will be promoted throughout the project's lifecycle, and beyond.
Outline the project ideas to an international meeting on capacity development in JICA, Tokyo.
Present the findings of the first data collection phase to the annual meeting of the Working Group on International Co-operation of Skills Development.
Use the Centre of African Studies Occasional Paper series to publicise findings from all the teams.
A special project meeting will be organised end-on to the major Oxford Conference to review a preliminary result from both phases and to feed selected papers into the main conference. Project dissemination will occur.
A special issue of Norrag News will be published (and aid policy bulletin) on the theme of learning capacity and poverty reduction.
Encourage submission of articles by junior team members to some of the following journals with which they are closely associated: Compare, IJED, Journal of Modern African Studies, BOLESWANA Educational Research Journal, African Affairs and NIEPA Journal.
At the end of the project, the main DFID report will be submitted and it is expected that the project would also feature as part of the DFID Education Papers.

Organisation of a special panel in the 2004 Conference of the Development Studies Association. This first paper was published, in 2005, in a special issue of the Journal of International Development supported by DFID, appropriately entitled 'Bridging Research and Policy'. Our DFID research chapter will also appear in the book of the same title to be published in the summer of 2006.
Six country studies were all completed in near to final draft by March 2005. It was possible for them all to be available as background papers, by the time of the Centre of African Studies' (CAS) International Conference in Edinburgh in April 2005. This CAS Conference was itself deliberately oriented around the key themes of the DFID project, and hence the published volume from the CAS conference, Revisiting Education, Training and Work in Africa (CAS October 2005) set the DFID research on five African countries within a larger African context.
Workshop (April 2005) with high level policy makers from Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and India in order to get early feedback on the research from these senior members of the policy community.
The individual country studies were versioned into academic papers for the UKFIET's Oxford International Conference on Education and Development, September 2005. This panel was entitled 'Educating and Training out of Poverty', and thus was organised in large part around our DFID research theme. All the DFID country studies that were presented in Oxford were also accepted by the International Journal of Educational Development.
Country studies translated into short, sharp Policy Briefs. These are on the website (http://www.cas.ed.ac.uk/research_and_publications/projects/projects-2006.htm) along with the country studies and the academic versions of the papers. But packages containing the Policy Briefs, the Executive Summaries of our country studies and the country studies themselves have been sent to carefully selected policy makers in each of our research countries. The same package was also sent to the DFID advisors' meeting in Nairobi in early 2006.
It also proved possible for our DFID research to be fed into the main donor agencies concerned with the relationship of skills and poverty reduction. Both in the Working Group for International Cooperation in Skills Development and in the European Training Foundation in November and December of 2005 respectively, major presentations on Skills and Poverty Reduction were made at these agency meetings in Italy. While a little earlier in the year, the results of our DFID work were also presented to a meeting of all of USAID's education advisors in Washington.
The summaries of our six country studies along with many other articles on the Education-Poverty Reduction relationship have been a key element in the Aid Policy Bulletin, NORRAG NEWS NO. 37, which was published in May 2006.
A further opportunity to present the results of the research was in the biennial conference of the African Studies Association of the UK in SOAS in September 2006.
Final synthesis report

Implementing Quality Education in Low Income Countries (EdQual)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:40:00 GMT

Current

EdQual seeks to open up the black box of schools and classrooms to identify educational processes that constitute quality teaching and learning and create quality schools. The RPC uses comparative cross-national qualitative methods of action research and case study to identify effective teaching and leadership practices and strategies that can be implemented in existing conditions. These are complemented with secondary data analysis of a large dataset on school quality, which will identify indicators of quality relevant to the African context. Most of EdQual's research is conducted in sub-Saharan research, the world region with the lowest enrolment ratios and achievement rates. EdQual involves policy makers and practitioners in determining research priorities and in designing practical solutions.

EdQual's five large scale projects focus on:

Teaching and learning of science and mathematics with new curricula in South Africa, Rwanda and Pakistan
Use of ICTs to enhance teaching and learning of science and mathematics in Rwanda and South Africa
Transition in language of instruction and use of bilingual language strategies in Tanzania
Leadership and management of primary schools for quality improvement in Ghana and Tanzania
Identifying indicators of education quality relevant to the sub-Saharan African context through secondary analysis of the SACMEQ (Southern and East African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality) II dataset.

Themes that cut across all projects are:

Raising gender awareness
Meeting the needs of disadvantaged learners
Developing strategies for remote and overcrowded learning contexts
Empowering teachers as reflective practitioners
Developing the capacity of partner institutions in Africa to become centres of excellence in one of the five project areas.

An applied research project is exploring the ways in which information and communications technology (ICT) can improve access to teacher education in the global south...

R4D Education

Two Commonwealth Scholarships available with CREATE

DFID consultation on 2010 education strategy: Young Lives submission

This is Open Access Week

Hunger and gender inequality go hand-in-hand

Free Primary Education in Kenya: Enrolment, Achievement and Local Accountability.

Lessons from Kenyas introduction of free primary education.

Rewarding Achievements in International Development

Training lifts the poorest out of poverty in Ghana

Helping vulnerable South African teenagers cope with the impact of AIDS

Helping students become global citizens

Working Paper 54. Pathways through Early Childhood Education in Ethiopia, India and Peru: Rights, Equity and Diversity.

School exclusion as social exclusion: the basic education policy origins of adverse incorporation and social exclusion in Bangladesh. CPRC Working Paper No. 148

Conflict, education and the intergenerational transmission of poverty in Northern Uganda

Social and human development outcomes: Youth, Gender and Citizenship

RECOUP Ghana: Work in Progress and Policy implications

Presentation on the Youth Gender and Citizenship (YGC) Research in Ghana: Preliminary findings

Jobs and Skills in Ghana: What types of jobs have been created and where?

DFID releases a new project database

'Give a child a birthday' - tracking age of school enrolment in Ghana

Communications vacancies at DFID

DFID call for a synthesis of policy and research lessons from Latin America

DFID seeks applications for three posts in the Research Uptake Team

First call of the second phase of the joint DFID-ESRC scheme for development research

A Small Dream

Supporting science journalism in Africa and the Middle East

The camera never lies: children's views of health in their communities

The contribution of post-basic education and training to poverty reduction: evidence from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

Implementing Quality Education in Low Income Countries (EdQual)

Global Research On User-Fees In Education

Learning to Compete: Education, Training & Enterprise in Ghana, Kenya & South Africa

Distance education practice: training and rewarding authors

Sector Wide Approaches to Education - A Strategic Analysis.

Vocational Education and Training in Tanzania and Zimbabwe in the Context of Economic Reform

Cost Sharing in Education - Public Finance, School and Household Perspectives

Promoting girls' education in Africa - The design and implementation of policy interventions

Girls and basic education - A cultural enquiry

Gardens for life

Understanding TB-HIV Related Stigma in Zambia

Fufu for thought in Ghana

DEEP Impact: How ICT can Improve Teacher Education

Lessons from Kenyas introduction of free primary education.