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In the past decade, hundreds of impact evaluation studies have measured the learning outcomes of education interventions in developing countries. The impact magnitudes are often reported in terms of "standard deviations," making them difficult to communicate to policy makers beyond education specialists. This paper proposes two approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of learning interventions, one in "equivalent years of schooling" and another in the net present value of potential increased lifetime earnings. The results show that in a sample of low- and middle-income countries, one standard deviation gain in literacy skill is associated with between 4.7 and 6.8 additional years of schooling, depending on the estimation method. In other words, over the course of a business-as-usual school year, students learn between 0.15 and 0.21 standard deviation of literacy ability. Using that metric to translate the impact of interventions, a median structured pedagogy intervention increases learning by the equivalent of between 0.6 and 0.9 year of business-as-usual schooling. The results further show that even modest gains in standard deviations of learning--if sustained over time--may have sizeable impacts on individual earnings and poverty reduction, and that conversion into a non-education metric should help policy makers and non-specialists better understand the potential benefits of increased learning. [This paper is a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region and the World Development Report 2018 Team.]

A multinational, multidisciplinary team examined the impact of globalization on education, training, and small and medium sized enterprise development in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. The study focused on the following issues: developing a learner-led competitiveness approach; building learning enterprises; education for microenterprises and macroeconomic growth; and training for self-employment and competitiveness. The study documented the importance of learning-led competitiveness and identified obstacles to development of learning enterprises in all three countries. The following are among the 12 recommendations offered to national governments and international agencies with development concerns: (1) insert learning-led competitiveness into development debates; (2) understand the implications of globalization better; (3) address the range of barriers to development of learning enterprises; (4) consider interenterprise linkages and the role of learning therein; (5) place learning-led competitiveness at the heart of small enterprise development policy; (6) broaden the universal primary education vision; (7) construct a curriculum for competitiveness; (8) improve public training's ability to support competitive self-employment; (9) empower training providers to be more market responsive; and (10) emphasize skills transfer from large to small firms. (The bibliography lists 139 references. Brief profiles and addresses of the research team members and a list of project papers are appended.) (MN)

This publication is a companion volume to a research report that examined local, national, and international interventions and initiatives aimed at promoting education and training for the informal sector. It provides four case studies on types of initiatives being taken by a wide range of actors in the area of education and training. "Ghana" (Osei Boeh-Ocansey) addresses how the government realizes that employment opportunities in the formal sector of the economy will continue to be limited; therefore, educational reforms are now emphasizing the acquisition of skills that promote self-employment and entrepreneurship. "Kenya" (Henry Oketch) reviews strategies that individuals, the government, and nonprofit organizations are using to improve skills in the informal sector. It identifies nine different types of agencies or processes providing skills for self-employment. "India" (Keith D'Souza, Liza Thomas) focuses on the activities of four nongovernmental organizations working in the field of nonformal education in the state of Gujarat. Their emphasis is on capacity building rather than on employment generation or job skill development. "Chile" (Graciela Messina) compares two training programs for unemployed youth to develop a series of reflections on the role that training for the informal sector ought to play. It concludes that the government is more concerned with employment policies than with training policies. (YLB)

Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in a variety of different cases, but their role in understanding the multilingual requirements of users of learning portals is of an outstanding significance. As the adaptation of existing portals in multilingual environments is a cost- and time-consuming aspect of the development of a portal, the outcomes of learning analytics may provide the requirements on which further multilingual services of a portal will be built, ensuring their efficiency. This paper aims to identify and interpret the behavior of users from developing countries in a multilingual learning portal using the log files of the portal by applying the methodology defined in a previous work by Stoitsis et al. [2] The paper also aims to identify the aspects that should be studied by future related works by focusing on specific regions and countries that exhibit special interest for further adaptation of the portal to additional multilingual environments.

Basic education is commonly regarded as a state responsibility. However, in reality, non-state providers (NSPs) have always been involved in basic education service delivery, and there is often a blurring of boundaries between state and non-state roles with respect to financing, ownership, management, and regulation. In recent years, the focus on the role of non-state providers (NSPs) has intensified within the context of the move towards achieving Education for All (EFA). The paper considers this shift, with particular attention towards service delivery to "underserved groups", defined as those for whom access to affordable government services of appropriate quality is most problematic. In some cases, this refers to particular sub-groups of a population within a country. In other cases (notably fragile states), it can refer to large sections of the country's population. The paper indicates the wide range of NSPs that exist to serve different underserved groups. It notes that NSPs are commonly viewed as having a comparative advantage over state provision--in terms of quality, cost-effectiveness, choice, accountability to citizens etc. However, in reality there is very limited robust analysis to support some of these claims. The paper then considers the ways in which non-state providers engage with the state in education service delivery, including with respect to contracting, policy dialogue, and regulation--and the role that donors play in this relationship. The paper concludes that relations between NSPs and the state are not straightforward given the range of different providers involved in education service delivery, with those serving the better-off tending to dominate engagement with government. This can be at the expense of smaller-scale, informal providers aiming to support those otherwise under-served by government provision. As such, the paper argues that there is a need for greater, and more constructive, engagement between NSPs and the state to ensure collaboration benefits the underserved, and so assists in moving towards the achievement of Education for All. Selected education indicators are appended. (Contains 15 footnotes, 1 figure, 6 tables, and 6 boxes.) [Abstract modified to meet ERIC guidelines. This paper was commissioned by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Policy Division as part of a study on non-state providers in the water, sanitation, education and health sectors.]

This document contains seven papers from a study of the role of distance learning approaches in enhancing the contribution of nonformal education to socioeconomic development in Africa. "Introduction" (Richard Siaciwena) presents an overview of the research project and defines key terms related to nonformal education. "Ghana: The Use of Radio in the National Literacy and Functional Skills Project in the Volta and Northern Regions" (Kofi Siabi-Mensah) reports on a study examining the use of radio to support classroom teaching and learning in a literacy and functional skills project. "Kenya: The African Medical Research Foundation" (Anna P. Mwangi) discusses a study documenting the experience of a distance education project to provide continuing education to medical workers with little or no access to any other form of continuing education. "Tanzania: INADES- (African Institute for Economic and Social Development) Formation, Tanzania" (Amon Z. Mattee) reviews the history and activities of INADES-Formation, which provides provide training to farmers in rural communities. "Uganda: Distance Education Programmes of the Ministry of Health" (Juliana Bbuye) describes various nonformal health education activities in Uganda. "Zambia: Radio Farm Forum" (David Sibalwa) profiles a program providing technical assistance to farmers via radio. "Conclusion" (Richard Siaciwena) summarizes and synthesizes the findings of the individual case studies. (Some papers contain substantial bibliographies.) (MN)

The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) is an international framework through which countries of the Commonwealth offer university scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other member states, forging enduring bonds between nations and creating valuable opportunities for cultural and academic exchange. Established by Commonwealth education ministers at their first conference in 1959, Commonwealth Scholarships have become one of the world's most prestigious and best-known international scholarship schemes. More than 35,000 individuals have been funded to date, many of whom have gone on to transform their communities, societies, and nations. The CSFP is reviewed at the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) held every three years. This paper reports on activity from 2012 through 2015.

The article details the market outlook of the Business Monitor International (BMI) for the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) sovereign risk ratings (SRR) as of December 13, 2010. The upgrades in the SRR of Zambia and Ghana are attributed to investment inflows and revision of nominal gross domestic product (GDP), respectively. Countries highlighted in East Africa include Kenya, with a D rating, and Sudan, with a lowly E rating. It explains the reason behind the B- rating of Zambia.

Focusing on the role of the educational developer, the 19 essays in this collection provide a forum for educational developer practitioners: (1) to share their practices and insights; (2) to explore what it means to be an educational developer and instructional designer, and to give some philosophical reflection of the role; and (3) to clarify the professional role and explore the distinction between the educational developer and instructional designer. Individual papers discuss what it means in practice to be an instructional developer or designer, highlight the literature and theories underpinning their development activities, and give examples of research already undertaken and appropriate for the future. The intended audience is threefold: professional developers; those new to the field; and academic colleagues of instructional developers. (SD)