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The World Bank's focus on foundational skills requires that issues of language and Language of Instruction be brought to the forefront of education policy discussions. Poor Language of Instruction policies harm learning, access, equity, cost-effectiveness, and inclusion. Yet nearly 37% of students in low- and middle-income countries are taught in a language they do not understand. Massive learning improvements are feasible by teaching in a small number of additional languages. The World Bank's first Policy Approach Paper on Language of Instruction offers an indication of the work that will be undertaken to support countries in introducing reforms that will result in more resilient, equitable, and effective systems by promoting teaching in the languages that students and teachers speak and understand best. [The report was edited by John Steinhardt.]

This paper evaluates the academic impact of a growth-mindset intervention on students starting the secondary level in public schools in urban Peru. ¡Expande tu Mente! is a 90-minute school session aimed at instilling the notion that a person's own intelligence is malleable. Students in schools randomly assigned to treatment showed a small improvement in math test scores and educational expectations, with a large and sustained impact in test scores among students outside the capital city. At a cost of $0.20 per pupil, ¡Expande tu Mente! was highly cost-effective. The results show the potential that brief growth-mindset interventions have for developing countries. [This paper is a product of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice.]

Public spending on education has increased significantly in Latin America over the last several decades. Yet, the question remains as to whether greater spending translates into a more equitable distribution of resources. We address this issue by measuring inequality in per-pupil spending between regions of varying socioeconomic status (SES) within five different countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The results show that while Brazil's funding gap has narrowed over time, this federal nation has the widest socioeconomic spending divide, due to large inequalities in local revenues between high and low SES regions. School funding in Colombia has become more regressive over time, though its gap is half the size of Brazil's. Meanwhile, the distribution of school funding in Peru has changed, shifting from regressive (benefiting the richest regions) to progressive (benefiting the poorest regions). Education spending in Chile and in Ecuador have instead been consistently progressive. However, while the progressiveness of funding in Ecuador is driven by transfers targeting disadvantaged rural areas, the funding formulas in Chile address socioeconomic inequalities beyond the rural-urban gap.

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.]

As a result of its direct link to the labour market, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) plays an important role in equipping the modern workforce with in-demand skills. This discussion paper aims to inspire the introduction of entrepreneurial learning in TVET towards a fully mainstreamed approach, whereby entrepreneurial learning is integrated into the role, function and delivery of TVET systems for the benefit of all learners. The paper provides insight into the different approaches to mainstreaming entrepreneurial learning and illustrates the contribution of the key pillars that make up the entrepreneurial learning ecosystem. This is supported by a series of practical examples from TVET systems around the world, illustrating how entrepreneurial learning is being transformed into reality by governments, TVET systems, communities, networks, institutions, teachers, trainers and TVET learners. This paper explores five elements of the entrepreneurial learning ecosystem: (1) Developing policy for entrepreneurial learning; (2) Curricula and pedagogies; (3) Supporting teachers and trainers; (4) Learning modes other than formal curricula; and (5) Career paths and start-ups.

In a multicultural country like Peru, specific and disaggregated data on ethnic and racial minorities are a key resource to inform public policies about neglected populations. For decades, data on Afro-Peruvians has been both limited and inaccurate. Although there are 106 Afro-Peruvian communities, the most recent national census in October 2017 revealed that the Afro-Peruvian population consists of only 828,841 inhabitants, or 3.57 percent of the country's total. For decades, indigenous populations were considered the poorest and most vulnerable minority ethnic group in Peru. That is not always the case. Afro-Peruvian girls are either equally or more disadvantaged than their indigenous counterparts. Peru could benefit from its demographics, because 34.6 percent of its population is aged 0 to 19. However, competitiveness would require a dramatic improvement in the quality of the country's public education. Despite Peru's commitments to the Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 and 5, the poorest Afro-Peruvian women still have fewer years of schooling than men, which makes them less competitive in the labor market and forces them to take unskilled jobs with lower salaries and few or no benefits. This policy paper relies on a desk review and fieldwork conducted in May 2018 in the community of Yapatera, in the Piura region along the northern coast. Yapatera is a poor community with a high concentration of the Afro-descendant population, located 846 kilometers from the capital city of Lima. The fieldwork included individual interviews and small group conversations. Interview subjects were administrators, teachers, and students (girls and boys in the 4th and 5th grades) at the local public secondary school, as well as community leaders, staff at the Health Center, the Women's Emergency Center, and the police station.

This paper examines common instructional strategies in early grade mathematics interventions through a review of studies in classrooms in low- and middle-income countries. Twenty-four studies met the criteria for inclusion, and analyses reveal four sets of instructional strategies for which there is evidence from multiple contexts. Of the 24 studies, 16 involved the use of multiple representations, 10 involved the use of developmental progressions, 6 included supporting student use of explanation and justification, and 5 included integration of informal mathematics. Based on the review, we provide conclusions and recommendations for future research and policy.

Part of the "Studies in Early Transitions" series, this Working Paper draws on interviews and observations carried out as part of "Young Lives", a 15-year longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam based at the University of Oxford's Department of International Development. This paper focuses on the challenges of translating into practice the potential of quality early childhood care and education to transform young lives. These include building a positive equity agenda, setting clear policy objectives, raising quality standards, building the skills and motivation of teachers, and recognising where equity goals can be incompatible with a market-led private system. The paper asks which children do and do not have access to an early childhood programme, and explores children's and parents' views about the quality of what is on offer. A brief summary of data collection methods is appended. (Contains 2 boxes, 21 figures and 9 footnotes.)

This paper reports that the basic opportunity to learn does not exist in many countries, and that a concerted management focus to assure that schools provide basic elements of an opportunity to learn (OTL) could potentially yield big improvements in learning. The paper assesses: (1) what basic factors create the opportunity to learn; and (2) to what extent is the lack of these basic elements a problem in developing countries? Elements of a foundational opportunity to learn are identified as: (1) The school is open and located near the student; (2) Minimum instructional time of 850-1000 hours annually; (3) Teacher absenteeism and tardiness; (4) Student absenteeism and tardiness; (5) Appropriate class size and student-teacher ratios; (6) Learning materials are available to every student and regularly used; (7) Time-on-Task; and (8) Learning to read. General strategies suggested for addressing OTL include incorporating OTL issues and awareness in activities and assistance programs such as teacher and principal training; incorporating OTL measures in management and information systems at the school level; and raising awareness by tracking an OTL Index). (Contains 6 figures and 5 tables.) [This paper was written for EQUIP2: Educational Policy, Systems Development, and Management, one of three USAID-funded Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreements under the umbrella heading Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP).]

This working paper is part of a series on early transitions from "Young Lives," a 15-year longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. It explores the diverse experiences of 28 children from four contrasting communities in Peru as they start school. These detailed case studies highlight common problems: exclusion of certain parts of the population from pre-school services, lack of coordination between pre-schools and primary schools, issues with physical punishment and cultural diversity. It proposes four ways in which children's early educational transitions can be enhanced, looking at such factors as educational structures, curriculum planning and teacher training. (Contains 4 figures, 3 tables and 23 footnotes.)

The countries of Central America have made great educational strides in recent years. More children are now attending school and more finish primary school; however, there is still a long way to go. We still need to ensure that the children who go to school learn effectively and can use their education to develop useful life and work skills. This document sets out to recognize and commend the many ways in which teachers innovate inside and outside the classroom, as well as to identify the ways in which institutions, programs and projects can more effectively foster innovation. While this paper focuses on experiences in Central America, the findings have worldwide applicability and it is the authors' hope that the information will be shared across regions, countries, and communities to support and improve teacher innovation. The case studies used in this publication are based on Academy for Educational Development (AED) projects in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru and the Dominican Republic. In particular, the authors have relied on the help of many colleagues and leaders in these countries who are committed to improving educational quality, who have referred them to examples of teacher innovation and in many cases have written down the stories. This paper is divided into four sections. The first section explores the importance of teachers as the linchpin to effective learning in the classroom, the significance of innovation in that role and some of the assumptions that get in the way of seeing the teacher as an innovator. The second section illustrates, by using examples from teaching practice in the different countries, the wealth of innovative practices that teachers have discovered. The third section proposes a model for nurturing innovation based on teacher empowerment, teacher formation and institutional development. Examples of interventions that have been effective in strengthening teacher innovation are used to illustrate this model. Finally, the authors present a working framework of principles and components for a strategy to foster teacher innovation, taking into account the capacities and responsibilities of different actors in the education sector. Appended are: (1) Description of Projects and Initiatives; (2) Additional Resources; and (3) Bibliography. (Contains 1 footnote.) [This paper was written with Diane La Voy.]

Children face many important changes in the first eight years of life, including different learning centres, social groups, roles and expectations. Their ability to adapt to such a dynamic and evolving environment directly affects their sense of identity and status within their community over the short and long term. In particular, the key turning points in children's lives--such as "graduating" from kindergarten to primary school or going through a culturally specific rite of passage--provide challenges and opportunities for learning and growth on multiple levels. This paper provides a review of the major perspectives in research on early childhood transitions and reveals the predominant areas of focus in both academic and professional studies, as well as important neglected viewpoints and study populations. Beginning with a broad and inclusive definition of the topic, the authors provide an overview of early childhood transitions research, highlighting the underlying assumptions that informed the studies. They assess concepts in the developmental theory that preceded transitions research as well as in the logic that determines how transitions are structured. More recent approaches are examined, including systems theories and the role of children as active participants in transitions. Several examples in this review show how multidisciplinary collaboration and culturally sensitive interventions can result in better participation of both parents and children in crucial early childhood transitions. Citing the need to harmonise early childhood education and care programmes with local education practices, the authors stress the value of greater transparency in the creation of policy and programming for children, in order to identify potentially limiting assumptions. Broadening and diversifying perspectives on transitions can lead to more integrated and culturally relevant rights-based early childhood programmes worldwide. A glossary and a bibliography are included. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

A study investigated the impact of training on women's micro-enterprise development in four programs in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Sudan. Research design was a series of case studies of projects and programs providing training in technical or business skills. Impact of training was measured against these four indicators: income, access to and control of resources, status, and quality of life. The study examined the training process to find out in what specific ways training helped women to improve and expand their micro-enterprises. The sample in each country consisted of two groups: women about to undergo training (focus of the study) and women who had already received training; 74 women participated. The study showed poor women needed training to develop skills and self-confidence to allow them to operate and survive in the informal sector; access to credit is important but not sufficient for the poorest women; the impact of training and increased income varied in strength but could be negative as well as positive; well-designed and well-delivered training could lead to increased income that could lead to improved self-esteem and status in the household and community; effectively delivered training developed enhanced survival strategies in women; training provided to groups in a participatory model was an empowering and liberating experience for women; and training in generic business skills was more effective than training in technical skills. (Appendixes include 61 references.) (YLB)

This report examines ways of improving women's productivity and education and the consequences for development in Peru. The research finds that women account for about 39 percent of family income in Peru. They carry the main responsibility for child care and heavily influence family decisions on children's education and family size. Improving opportunities for women thus can be a means to foster economic and social development as well as an end in itself. The main way to expand women's opportunities is through human capital investments, notably education beyond the primary level. This will increase women's earning capacity, broaden their labor force participation, and thereby promote economic growth, family welfare, and slower population growth. This report is comprised of seven articles: (1) "The Extent and Impact of Women's Contribution in Peru: A Descriptive Analysis" (M. Schafgans); (2) "Labor Market Participation, Returns to Education, and Male-Female Wage Differences in Peru" (S. Khandker); (3) "Modeling Economic Behavior in the Informal Urban Retail Sector in Peru" (J. Barry Smith; M. Stelcner); (4) "Household Production, Time Allocation, and Welfare in Peru" (J. Dagsvik; R. Aaberge); "Fertility Determinants in Peru: A Quantity-Quality Analysis" (M. Schafgans); (6) "Gains in the Education of Peruvian Women, 1940 to 1980" (E. King; R. Bellew); and (7) "Does the Structure of Production Affect Demand for Schooling in Peru?" (I. Gill). Numerous tables of data, figures, and diagrams appear throughout the report. A lengthy bibliography is included. (Author/DB)

Data from the 1985 Living Standards Survey in Peru were studied in this analysis of non-farm family businesses from the informal sector in order to categorize 2,735 family enterprises and to explain the earnings per hour of family labor. Most of the existing research on the self-employed uses the individual as the unit of analysis; however, this study uses the enterprise as the unit of analysis and asks whether schooling makes a difference in family income. Generally these businesses are loosely organized, pay no taxes, and employ a large segment of the Peruvian working sector. Regression analyses show significant effects of schooling on earnings. Returns differed markedly among four sub-sectors and by gender and by location (Lima, other cities, rural). The results were consistent with education being valueless in traditional activities but having a positive effect in jobs requiring literacy, numeracy, and adjustment to change. Post secondary education had a fairly high and significant pay off in urban areas for both women and men. A 20-item bibliography and 11 tables of statistical data are included. (NL)

This study examined how education and postschool vocational training affect the type and extent of labor market participation of women in Peru. It also estimated monetary returns to different levels of schooling, to formal general and technical schooling, and to training. The sample, which comprised more than 5,600 women in urban and rural Peru, was drawn from the Peruvian Living Standard Survey. More than 70 percent of these women were in the labor force at the time of the survey, about 35 percent working in paid jobs. The overall level of female labor force participation in Peru is 72 percent, and this percentage is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The majority (60 percent) of paid female workers are self-employed, but these jobs tend to be very low paying. Women holding jobs in the public sector are the best paid. In general, the study found that education and training enhance the contribution of women in the labor market. Although education does not increase the participation of Peruvian women in the labor force (and may in fact decrease it), it alters the occupational distribution of female workers by increasing the proportion of women in paid employment. Among paid employees, education is positively related to hourly earnings; the relationship is nonlinear, with primary education showing higher returns than secondary education. The return to postsecondary education appears low and negative, except for the small fraction of women who have earned a diploma. The poor performance of the Peruvian economy since the early 1970s has influenced this result. (26 references.) (Author/KC)

Schools in developing nations tend to be concentrated in urban areas, making it necessary for children living in rural areas to travel long distances to attend school. Government resources are limited and many countries have limited education expenditures due to faltering economic growth. Since government is the principal provider of education and the demand far exceeds the supply, some economists are now advocating increasing school fees to fund education improvements. Using a theoretical model of the demand for schooling and the principle of compensating variations, this study calculated parental willingness to pay for new secondary schools in rural areas of Peru. The results showed that even those in the poorest quarter of the Peruvian income distribution sector were willing to pay fees high enough to cover operating costs of opening new secondary schools in rural villages. An extensive list of statistical tables and a 25-item bibliography are included in the report. (NL)

This paper presents a new estimate that pre-primary school closures in 2020 may cost today's young children US$ 1.6 trillion in lost earnings over their lifetimes. However, most low-and-middle income countries are leaving pre-primary education out of their responses to COVID-19. This paper also draws lessons from accelerated, bridging, and remedial programmes on how introducing or expanding these transition programmes in the early years can mitigate the long-term impact on learning from pre-primary school closures.

In 1996, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) began the Girls' Education Activity (GEA). GEA's goal has been to assist host country governments and private sector and nongovernmental entities in formulating, institutionalizing, and implementing country initiatives for girls' education. These initiatives have been designed to ensure substantially increased educational opportunities for girls at the primary school level. This paper provides an overview of the GEA, presenting the general background of the contracts with the host countries and describing the multi-sectoral approach of the GEA. The paper presents information from a study based on five years of accumulated knowledge about girls' education in GEA countries, previously presented in monthly, quarterly, and annual reports to USAID; project designs and descriptions; and a "Start-Up Handbook for Girls' Education Activities." It states that the analytic study was based on these documents, supplemented by in-country interviews conducted over several trips by U.S.-based project staff between January and July 2001. It notes that between 50 and 75 respondents were interviewed in each country. The paper provides a conceptual framework for analyzing change (CFAC) and addresses systemic change for girls' education in GEA countries. It discusses systemic change for girls' education in Guatemala and in Peru and considers factors that effected systemic change in GEA countries. It also discusses some political contexts, linkages, and in-country control. (BT)

The continua model of bilteracy offers a framework in which to situate research,teaching, and language planning in linguistically diverse settings. Using this model, and citing examples of Cambodian and Puerto Rican students in Philadelphia's public schools as illustrative of the challenge facing American educators, this paper suggests that the more their learning contexts allow learners to draw on all points of the continua, the greater are the chances for their full biliterate development. The paper revisits the continua model from the perspective of several international cases of educational policy and practice in linguistically diverse settings--Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and from a critical perspective which seeks to make explicit the power relationships which define bi(multi)literacies in these contexts. Building from these perspectives and from continuing research in Philadelphia's Cambodian and Puerto Rican communities, the paper proposes an expanded continua model which takes into account not only biliterate contexts, media, and development, but also, crucially, the content of biliteracy. The paper concludes with comments on how the insights of the continua model of biliteracy can contribute to the understanding not only of diverse classrooms, but also of all classrooms. (Contains 55 references.) (Author/MSE)

Humans are born with the natural ability to gain skills through play. Children learn about social norms, roles and responsibilities, and language through curiosity-driven, playful interactions and activities. Learning through play harnesses the power of children's imagination and inspires active engagement with the material. The Center for Universal Education at Brookings, is studying innovations that strive to improve education. If the education sector stays on its current trajectory, half of all youth around the world entering the workforce in 2030 will lack basic secondary-level skills they need to thrive--from literacy and numeracy to critical thinking and problem solving. It is believed that leapfrogging, or rapid nonlinear progress, is needed to change this trajectory. Education that allows students to leap forward in learning should incorporate experimentation and iteration, helping students make meaning of what they are learning, and engage with others in doing so. These types of student-centered, playful learning experiences are an essential component to leapfrogging in education because without them young people will not be able to develop the full breadth of competencies and skills they need to thrive in a fast-changing world. This paper is the first in in a series of Leapfrogging in Education snapshots that provide analyses of a global catalog of education innovations. Of the nearly 3,000 innovations captured in the catalog, two-thirds involve playful learning, which represents the largest category of innovations that were recorded. [Support also provided by the BHP Foundation.]

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.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress in increasing primary school enrollment and completion among the very poor. However, challenges in improving reading persist. This study contributes to the evidence base on what works to improve early-grade reading skills by evaluating an early reading program implemented in two departments of the Amazon region of Peru: Ucayali and San Martín. "Amazonía Lee" has four main components. First, the capacity development component aimed to strengthen pedagogical skills and instructional capabilities of teachers, principals, and regional specialists. The following three components were originally envisioned to be implemented at the regional level in both departments. However, during the period of the study they were only implemented in the schools implementing "Amazonía Lee." First, the community engagement component aimed to promote the active engagement of the educational community in support of student learning. Second, a regional assessment system aimed to monitor student achievement and to develop local capacity related to these assessments. Last, a teacher non-monetary incentive system aimed to motivate teachers to improve student learning. The evaluation addressed the following central question: What was the impact of "Amazonía Lee" programs on early-grade reading and other intermediate outcomes relative to other prevailing practices and programs? When compared to prevailing practice, "Amazonía Lee" achieved substantive effects of magnitudes similar to those found in other rigorous evaluations. However, when compared to a program that provided services similar to those provided by "Amazonía Lee," students in both groups had similar reading outcomes. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.]

This paper formulates the means for an improved role for all citizens through a dynamic and interactive parliamentary library and information system. It illustrates the success of such a proposal to strengthen the legitimacy of parliaments by referring to the experience of the Congress of the Republic of Peru and explains what is being done to help Peruvian citizens who do not yet have personal access to electronic networks. Following an introduction, the first section discusses networks and the media, including the Internet as a social institution, differences between audiovisual information and the electronic medium, the role of parliaments and their information services, the importance of communication in policy making, and control of political information by the television, newspaper, and radio media. The Peruvian experience is described in the second section, including the Peruvian Virtual Parliament, a weekly radio program, and access through the World Wide Web to the Digital Archive Systems for Peruvian Legislation. The third section covers the Library of the Peruvian Congress, including objectives, services, collections, electronic catalog, and staff. Library services to encourage citizen participation are summarized in the last section. (MES)

This paper begins with a discussion of society and information, as well as the right to information. A 1996 UNESCO (United National Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) document entitled "UNESCO and an Information Society for All" is highlighted. Information and informatics policies are then considered. Efforts related to information policies in Mexico are summarized in the following areas: the right to information; the General Library Act; the Copyright Federal Act, the Book Act; and the Program for Informatic Development. Information policy experiences in other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, are also described. (Contains 11 endnotes.) (MES)