Education in developing countries – what policies and programmes affect learning and time in school?

The findings in the report are structured into ’what works’, ‘what often works’, ‘what seems to be promising interventions but need more evidence’ and ‘what does not seem to work’ in terms of achieving two broad educational goals: increasing time in school and improving learning outcomes. One of the key findings with respect to get children to increase their time in school is that the provision of conditional cash transfers and merit-based scholarships seem to stimulate improved learning outcomes. Professor Glewwe and his team point to the challenge of choosing the right measure to tackle an identified problem. In a given context, providing all children with deworming medicine may be more effective than supplying more pedagogical material to the school.