Increasing the supply of schools is commonly advocated as a policy to promote schooling outputs and outcomes. Analysis of the relationship between the school enrolment of 6- to 14-year-olds and the distance to primary and secondary schools in 21 rural areas of low-income countries (including...

Student learning can be raised by school autonomy and parental participation through separate channels, but this paper suggests a mutually supportive effect. Increased school autonomy increases the rent that can be distributed among stakeholders at the school, while institutions for parental...

Sub-Saharan Africa has just experienced one of the best decades of growth since the 1960s. Between 2000 and 2012, gross domestic product (GDP) grew more than 4.5 percent a year on average, compared to around 2 percent in the prior 20 years (World Bank various years). In 2012, the region's GDP...

Interventions targeting early childhood development, such as investment in preschools, are often seen as promising mechanisms to increase human capital and to reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality. This paper presents results from a randomized evaluation of a large...

This volume is a systematic stock-taking of the evidence on school accountability reforms in developing countries. It provides a measured and insightful review and assessment of the results of a variety of approaches that developing countries are experimenting with in their quest for better...

Scaling up early childhood development services has the potential to increase children's cognitive and socio-emotional development and promote school readiness in a large segment of the population. This study used a randomized controlled trial approach to evaluate three scaled-up programs...

Despite progress in recent decades, a substantial fraction of children in developing countries attain little schooling, and many adults lack skills that are valued in the labor market. We evaluate the medium-term effects of a program that provided scholarships for three years to poor children...