Sierra Leone Telegraph: 16 December 2024:
The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), which is hosted by UNICEF, last Friday announced that its first large-scale project developing new ways to fund and deliver improvements in education in Africa and beyond, has delivered strong results for children after two years of operation in Sierra Leone.
The results suggest that outcomes-based financing and delivery could succeed in low- and middle-income countries where many other initiatives aimed at improving education have struggled to deliver significant learning improvements.
They come at a time when there is growing recognition of a crisis in global education, and the need for solutions to tackle it. Just last month, the World Bank published a new report, Confronting the Learning Crisis1, highlighting the gravity of the situation and the challenges involved in addressing it.
The Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) is a three-year programme established in September 2022 in partnership with the government of Sierra Leone, aiming to improve education for 134,000 pupils across 325 primary schools over three years.
Unlike conventional education initiatives funded through grants, the SLEIC incentivises implementing partners to focus on delivering learning outcomes and adapting delivery in real time, with payment based on improved performance in literacy and numeracy.
To reflect gender barriers to educational equity in the country, larger payments are made for improvements in girls’ results and this is seen in a stronger treatment effect for girls relative to boys.
In Year 2, girls have made significant progress in closing the gender learning gap.
Performance is rigorously evaluated by testing groups of children at the outset and subsequently, alongside a control group of pupils in schools that are outside of the project. This randomised control trial is run independently by Oxford Policy Management (OPM), a development consulting firm.
In addition, the What Works Hub for Global Education, an international partnership hosted by the University of Oxford focused on studying the scale-up and implementation of effective education reforms, is assessing the project as part of a broader research and lesson-learning programme funded by UK International Development.
Performance is measured in terms of the difference in results between schools in the programme and the control group, expressed in standard deviations (SDs).
In its second year, the SLEIC overall delivered a 0.292 SDs improvement in Maths and a 0.175 SDs improvement in English, exceeding a target of 0.164 for both subjects. This is already far ahead of the median of 0.10 SDs for improvements in learning found in a recent study of numerous education interventions in low- and middle-income countries by David K. Evans and Fei Yuan published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis2.
To put the improvements in perspective, the What Works Hub for Global Education estimates that the increase in pupil achievement within schools in the second year of the SLEIC is equivalent to an extra year of schooling gained in the best-performing education systems in sub-Saharan Africa – a notable achievement given the broader contextual challenges that exist within Sierra Leone’s schooling system.
The implementing partners are EducAid Sierra Leone, National Youth Awareness Forum with Kizazi, Rising Academies, Save the Children and Street Child, with each operating in a different geographical area.
These organisations support government schools with services including teacher training, student support, child protection, safeguarding and community engagement. The outcomes-based approach means:
- implementing partners can incorporate real-time learning and evolve their approaches over time
- diverse implementing partners can compete for contracts, encouraging innovation
- taxpayer and other donor funding is only spent on initiatives with proven impact
One example of innovation within the SLEIC is the use of messaging apps to provide coaching to teachers. Every weekend Reuben Kpange, a coach with Rising Academies, records videos with teaching tips under the light of a solar lamp and shares them via a WhatsApp group. This has not only led to improvements in knowledge of teaching practices, but also helped create a sense of community and support among teachers, bringing wider benefits.
One of the teachers, Marie, who started teaching as a volunteer with no formal training, said: “The first time I stood in front of a class, my knees were shaking. But watching those videos, practising with my colleagues every weekend, and having mentors like Coach Reuben – it changed everything. Now my students’ eyes light up when I teach.”
The funders paying for the SLEIC’s results are the government of Sierra Leone, UK International Development, Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Bank of America and the Hempel Foundation, which will together pay up to USD 18m depending on the performance achieved.
The implementing partners benefited from upfront capital to cover initial costs, from social impact investment organisations including Bridges Outcomes Partnerships and the Rockdale Foundation.
Commenting on the results, Dr. Amel Karboul, CEO of the Education Outcomes Fund, said: “These are strong results that are a real achievement in their own right, and point to the broader potential of outcomes-based financing in education. They show what is possible when you work together to achieve ambitious education outcomes which really focus on quality.
“We are more convinced than ever that new, innovative approaches are needed to really focus on addressing the global crisis in children’s education. The Government of Sierra Leone has been a driver for this groundbreaking initiative, and there is so much potential to replicate this model across the continent and beyond. We are excited to be launching similar programmes in South Africa, Tunisia and Rwanda soon.”
Sir Ronald Cohen, Chair of the Education Outcomes Fund, who has pioneered outcomes-based investment since 2010, said: “Outcomes Partnerships unite all the parties involved in achieving ambitious educational outcomes. They motivate innovation and the development of more effective approaches. Our congratulations and thanks go to the government of Sierra Leone for its valuable engagement in this groundbreaking initiative.”
Conrad Sackey, Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Sierra Leone, said: “The challenge we have faced for a long time is that many well-intentioned education initiatives across the world do not deliver actual learning improvements for children, so we are very pleased to see the results being delivered by this innovative project. We hope the third year will be even more impressive and bring even greater benefits to our children and our schools, as the providers continue to hone their approaches and the project gains further momentum.”
Alicia Herbert, Director of Education, Gender and Equality at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, said: “We’re thrilled to see these results, demonstrating real and measurable improvements in children’s learning in Sierra Leone. It’s a powerful testament to how innovation and a focus on outcomes can deliver exceptional value for money.”
You can read more on this story here:
- The full World Bank report can be downloaded here: https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/evaluations/confronting-learning-crisis This in addition to the embedded link in the text above to this blog post: https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/back-basics-lessons-confronting-learning-crisis
- David K. Evans and Fei Yuan. “How Big Are Effect Sizes in International Education Studies?” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, vol. 44, Issue 3, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737221079646.
About the EOF
The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) is an ambitious effort to significantly improve learning and employment outcomes by tying funding to measurable results. Through a partnership model, we bring together governments, donors, implementing partners, and investors to achieve concrete targets for learning, skills development, and employment. Using our global platform, we are scaling up results-based financing in education, with the aim of improving the effectiveness of spending and transforming the lives of 10 million children and youth.
The EOF is an independent trust fund hosted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The Fund works to help achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of inclusive and equitable quality education for all. EOF was founded in 2018 by The Education Commission and GSG Impact.
For more information about EOF see:
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