International Literacy Day 2022
J-PAL South Asia
J-PAL South Asia at IFMR. J-PAL's mission is to reduce poverty by ensuring policy is informed by scientific evidence.
The spaces in which students learn are often crucial for making education programs more inclusive and effective in countries like India.
This #LiteracyDay , we explore evidence from #RCTs on how we can help strengthen two key spaces of learning, classrooms and community childcare centres, particularly in times of crisis.
The classroom:?
Pratham Education Foundation ’s Teaching at the Right Level approach—tailoring lessons to students' learning levels—makes judicious use of schools' existing resources to help make up for #COVID19 -induced learning losses. ?? Watch this webinar to explore how TaRL can be a solution to help children catch up in the face of ongoing school closures and worsening learning gaps.
As learning has shifted to virtual spaces due to the pandemic, #edtech offers a promising tool for delivering tailored lessons. These software tools, when implemented where hardware is already available, can help bridge learning gaps, writes Vaishvii Goel .
Community child care centres:
In India, anganwadis or rural community childcare centers are the primary vehicle for delivering preschool & nutrition services under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the world's largest #EarlyChildhood development scheme. However - they remain understaffed.
A study by Karthik Muralidharan and co-authors found that augmenting state capacity by hiring an extra worker at anganwadis allowed for placing greater emphasis on preschool education services. This improved both children's test scores & health outcomes .
Finally, ongoing research in India by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) -affiliated researchers is exploring how learning spaces can be made more inclusive by: