We study a large scale early childhood program taking place in two regions of the Gambia, targeting children between 0 and 3 years of age. Two versions of the program, which are experimentally assigned to different villages, are analysed along with an experimental control group. The basic version of the program provides child health and nutrition information to parents of young children, through home visits, and sporadic community meetings. The intensive version of the program enriched the home visits with added information about child stimulation, and provided more frequent and structured community meetings than the basic version. Furthermore, the group meetings in the intensive version were attended by parents and children, and include direct stimulation to children. There were moderate impacts of the intensive program on parental investments and child language development, occurring primarily in one of the regions in our study, which was more advantaged to start with. There were no detectable impacts of the basic version of the program. 1 We thank the World Bank and the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) for financial support. Carneiro also thanks the support of the ESRC through a grant (RES-589-28-0001) to the Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice. We thank the Gambian Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) for their active support and engagement; the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) for the Implementation of the intervention; The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBOS) for organizing the data collection. Finally, we thank Yi-Kyoung Lee, Elizabeth Joof, Hervé Akinocho, for their guidance and support for our research. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

The effect of increasing school resources on educational outcomes is a central issue in the debate on improving school quality. In this paper we use a randomized experiment to analyse the impact of a school grants programme in Senegal, which allowed schools to apply for funding for pedagogic improvements of their choice. We find positive effects on test scores at lower grades that persist for at least two years. These effects are concentrated among schools that focused funds on human resources improvements rather than school materials, reinforcing that teachers and principals are a central determinant of school quality.

The past thirty years of conflict and political unrest in Afghanistan has decimated the country’s education system in terms of staffing, premises, curricula, and student attendance, for both male and female students. The education sector has been at the forefront of the political battles and conflicts between competing interest groups during the wars of resistance and ideological and ethnic conflicts that have plagued the country over the past few decades (Changing Profile of Education in Afghanistan, 2013). The changing political ideologies have taken a toll on the quality of education services and weakened governance. The current Government is committed to tackling issues of security, poverty reduction, governance and shared and inclusive growth. It sees service delivery as playing a dual role in Afghanistan: promoting social cohesion and trust in public institutions, while laying the foundation for job creation and growth. Within the context of increased fragility that Afghanistan has been experiencing, the current report aims to provide an up-to-date analysis of the country’s education sector, including the use of public expenditures spanning over the past six years. Supported by recent administrative and household data and using the information from a primary survey of off-budget funding, the report provides more insights on key aspects of the education system performance and provides recommendations for reforms along the themes of outcomes and expenditures.

The development objectives of Non-Formal Approach to Training Education and Jobs in Afghanistan Project is to increase the potential for employment and higher earnings of targeted young Afghan women and men in rural and semi-urban areas through non-formal skills training. This restructuring requires an early closure of the project from December 31, 2018 to October 31, 2018, given that the activities under component 3.2 would have been completed by end of October 2018, including the associated impact evaluation of business grants.

The effect of increasing school resources on educational outcomes is a central issue in the debate on improving school quality. This paper uses a randomized experiment to analyze the impact of a school grants program in Senegal, which allowed schools to apply for funding for improvements of their own choice. The analysis finds positive effects on test scores at lower grades that persist at least two years. These effects are concentrated among schools that focused funds on human resource improvements rather than school materials, suggesting that teachers and principals may be a central determinant of school quality.

The impact of school resources on the quality of education in developing countries may depend crucially on whether resources are targeted efficiently. In this paper we use a randomized experiment to analyze the impact of a school grants program in Senegal, which decentralized a portion of the country’s education budget. We find large positive effects on test scores at younger grades that persist at least two years. We show that these effects are concentrated among schools that focused funds on human resources improvements rather than school materials, suggesting that teachers and principals may be a central determinant of school quality.

The World Bank’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Guinea in FY 2014-17 confirmed the Government’s priority to build 21st century skills for improved employability and to implement systemic reforms. Guinea is emerging from years of political and economic isolation and instability. The democratic election of President Alpha Conde has opened the door for the international donor community, including the World Bank, to come forward and support the new government. Its important reform agenda, PREMA, has helped restore the confidence of the international community. The World Bank will partner with the Government of Guinea to develop systems that will ‘improve lagging human development indicators for absolute poverty reduction, through more efficient and transparent allocation of resources, and to build shared prosperity by aligning the business environment and education system with Guinea’s economy’ (World Bank, 2013, pp. 1). This is in line with the government’s priorities, as per the Third National Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP3) approved in 2013. The PRSP3 aims to reduce poverty and to create and sustain a vibrant private economy by maximizing rents from Guinea’s substantial mining sector. The Bank supports the Government’s agenda on improving human capital by: (a) promoting both the quantity and quality of education and (b) upgrading skills for the needs of emerging and export-oriented sectors such as agriculture, tourism, mining, and telecommunications and Information and Communications Technology (ICT). In 2012, the Government requested special support from the Bank in the form of technical assistance to conduct an analysis of the higher education system. This analysis will be used to prepare a comprehensive higher education strategy to meet the needs of both the economy and the labor market. Since the early 2000s, the Bank had limited involvement in this critical sub-sector. Per the Government’s request, the Bank mobilized resources to engage in policy and analytical work in the areas of governance, financing, and diagnostic of skills demand and supply from a new employer survey prepared specifically under this technical assistance project.

In Guinea, the quality of human capital is as crucial for economic success as its vast mineral resources. Improving the quality of education, ensuring the creation of a productive labor with high returns, and, above all, encouraging the creation of private enterprises through a favorable business climate are all essential to boosting productivity and skills. Today, traditional civil service opportunities available are insufficient to absorb ever-growing numbers of Guinean graduates. University enrollments have increased tenfold over the past 10 years, reaching more than 95,000 students in 2012. Graduates between the ages of 25 and 35 face an unemployment rate close to 30 percent, posing a threat to social stability. Education remains disconnected from work, and students are not distributed among academic disciplines according to any economic logic. Technical and vocational training is underdeveloped relative to the needs of industry, namely mining, construction, and agriculture in particular. Companies hire mainly through personal connections, creating a system in which, for all sectors but agriculture, the majority of employee’s report obtaining their jobs through acquaintances. Even in the formal economy, firms recruit predominantly via informal networks. The lack of transport infrastructure and weak electrical power grid, coupled with a poorly developed financial system and challenging institutional environment hinder both the creation of new businesses and growth of existing businesses. Growth projections are encouraging, although not as high as expected due to the Ebola virus disease, and demand for skilled labor is now a national priority. Maximizing the outputs of these new jobs will require strengthening the linkages between higher education (including technical and vocational education and training (TVET)) and high-growth sectors. In this note, we review the current state of education and workforce skills in Guinea. With the support of the new employer-employee survey prepared under this technical assistance and household surveys covering years 2007 and 2012, the note will identify the key bottlenecks faced by firms in hiring qualified workers. The note will conclude by providing recommendations to improve workforce quality.

The impact of school resources on the quality of education in developing countries may depend crucially on whether resources are targeted efficiently. In this paper we use a randomized experiment to analyze the impact of a school grants program in Senegal, which decentralized a portion of the country’s education budget. We find large positive effects on test scores at younger grades that persist at least two years. We show that these effects are concentrated among schools that focused funds on human resources improvements rather than school materials, suggesting that teachers and principals may be a central determinant of school quality. Pedro Carneiro Department of Economics University College Gower Street London WC1E 6BT United Kingdom p.carneiro@ucl.ac.uk Oswald Koussihouèdé University Gaston Berger St. Louis, Senegal okoussihouede@gmail.com Nathalie Lahire World Bank Washington, DC nlahire@worldbank.org Costas Meghir Department of Economics Yale University 37 Hillhouse Avenue New Haven, CT 06511 and IZA and also NBER c.meghir@yale.edu Corina Mommaerts Department of Economics Yale University 37 Hillhouse Av New Haven, CT 06511 corina.mommaerts@yale.edu

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the local level may offset gains from local information. This paper reports the results of a four-year, large-scale experiment that provided a grant and comprehensive school management training to principals, teachers, and community representatives in a set of schools. To separate the effect of the training from the grant, a second set of schools received the grant only with no training. A third set of schools served as a control group and received neither intervention. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. The program was implemented through the government education system. Three to four years into the program, the full intervention led to a 21 percent reduction in student absenteeism and a 23 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism, but produced no impact on student test scores. The effect of the full program on learning outcomes is strongly mediated by baseline local capacity, as measured by adult literacy. This result suggests that, in villages with high literacy, the program may yield gains on students' learning outcomes. Receiving the grant alone had no impact on either test scores or student participation.

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the local level may offset gains from local information. This paper reports the results of a four-year, large-scale experiment that provided a grant and comprehensive school management training to principals, teachers, and community representatives in a set of schools. To separate the effect of the training from the grant, a second set of schools received the grant only with no training. A third set of schools served as a control group and received neither intervention. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. The program was implemented through the government education system. Three to four years into the program, the full intervention led to a 21 percent reduction in student absenteeism and a 23 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism, but produced no impact on student test scores. The effect of the full program on learning outcomes is strongly mediated by baseline local capacity, as measured by adult literacy. This result suggests that, in villages with high literacy, the program may yield gains on students’ learning outcomes. Receiving the grant alone had no impact on either test scores or student participation.