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This article provides insights into a decade long process of evidence production and use in support of the Government of Ghana’s adoption of the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme for out-of-school children. A review of existing evidence on the programme and our semi- structured interviews with key stakeholders revealed the centrality of the government’s culture of evidence-informed policy making. Our findings also highlight the importance of both formal and informal relationships between key stakeholders and the often-neglected significance of civil society in evidence production and uptake, leading to a modification of Hinton et al’s policy impact framework.

Learning loss is expected for millions of children who have been out of school as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, it is uncertain how much learning will be lost and how wide the gaps may be for disadvantaged children. This paper uses a unique longitudinal dataset to estimate learning loss during a three-month transition from Complementary Basic Education to government schools in Ghana. Our results show an average learning loss of 66 % of previous learning gains in foundational numeracy during this transition period. More importantly, we estimate widening gaps in learning loss according to lack of home learning support, as well as lack of home learning resources. Our results have implications for the provision of learning activities and support at home, not just during current school closures due to COVID-19, but also during transitions between academic years.