By Gopal Naik, Chetan Chitre, Manaswini Bhalla, Jothsna Rajan
Improvement in quality of school education in developing countries requires solutions that are easy to implement and scale-up. Research on the use of technologies targeted to improve learning outcomes has so far not addressed issues of implementation and scalability. Most of these technologies require low student-to-computer ratio and large-scale retraining of teachers. This paper by Professor Gopal Naik and Professor Manaswini Bhalla from the Economics and Social Sciences area at IIMB is the first to evaluate an intervention design aimed at dealing with these concerns.
Enrolment rates across the world have increased exponentially in the recent past. However, this trend has been marred by insignificant improvement in learning outcomes. The fourth Sustainable Development Goal adopted by the United Nations, is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. Technology that is implementable and scalable can go a long way in achieving this goal. Research conducted by Professors Manaswini Bhalla and Gopal Naik, faculty members at IIM Bangalore, analyzes one of the first large-scale intervention designs to deal with concerns of implementation and scalability of technology to improve quality education; and making it more equitable and inclusive.
The study conducted a large-scale randomized controlled experiment in 1823 (1000 Treatment and 823 Control schools) across 18 districts in the state of Karnataka, India. As part of the intervention, trained teachers conducted lectures using multimedia in a studio at Bangalore. These lectures were transmitted live to schools via satellite as per a pre-decided schedule and replaced one-third of in-school instructional time. The lectures were transmitted for three subjects( English grammar, Mathematics, and Science), for students from grades 5 to 10 in rural public schools.
The impact of the intervention was evaluated using scores from Pre-test and Post-test conducted at the beginning and end of the academic year 2015-16. At the end of the year, test scores showed an improvement of between 0.1 and 0.18 standard deviation across different grade-subject combinations. The impact was highest in Science, followed by English and Mathematics.
Most technology interventions that intend to improve learning outcomes face issues of implementation and scaling up. They require a student-to-computer ratio much lower than those currently available in many developing countries. The intervention in this study required one computer per school, which for schools in the state, translates to a student-to-computer ratio of 135:1 which is similar to the actual student to computer ratio in most developing countries. Unlike previous interventions which require a change in pedagogy, classroom practices and need large scale retraining of teachers, the pedagogical adjustments and prior training requirements for this experiment were kept at a minimum. This made the intervention extremely cost effective. An average increase of 0.12 standard deviation in test scores in the Treatment schools was achieved at an additional cost of USD 16.7 per student per year.
Outcome & Impact
Randomized Control Trial (RCT) designs have been criticized for lack of their external
validity and huge cost of execution. The relevance of the randomized trial designs to policy can be improved by increasing the size of experiments and reducing the cost of implementation. The unique large-scale intervention conducted in this research overcomes these barriers and offers a way to get substantially higher returns in terms of learning outcomes by making minimal additional expenditure per student per year.
By Gopal Naik, Chetan Chitre, Manaswini Bhalla, Jothsna Rajan
Improvement in quality of school education in developing countries requires solutions that are easy to implement and scale-up. Research on the use of technologies targeted to improve learning outcomes has so far not addressed issues of implementation and scalability. Most of these technologies require low student-to-computer ratio and large-scale retraining of teachers. This paper by Professor Gopal Naik and Professor Manaswini Bhalla from the Economics and Social Sciences area at IIMB is the first to evaluate an intervention design aimed at dealing with these concerns.
Enrolment rates across the world have increased exponentially in the recent past. However, this trend has been marred by insignificant improvement in learning outcomes. The fourth Sustainable Development Goal adopted by the United Nations, is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. Technology that is implementable and scalable can go a long way in achieving this goal. Research conducted by Professors Manaswini Bhalla and Gopal Naik, faculty members at IIM Bangalore, analyzes one of the first large-scale intervention designs to deal with concerns of implementation and scalability of technology to improve quality education; and making it more equitable and inclusive.
The study conducted a large-scale randomized controlled experiment in 1823 (1000 Treatment and 823 Control schools) across 18 districts in the state of Karnataka, India. As part of the intervention, trained teachers conducted lectures using multimedia in a studio at Bangalore. These lectures were transmitted live to schools via satellite as per a pre-decided schedule and replaced one-third of in-school instructional time. The lectures were transmitted for three subjects( English grammar, Mathematics, and Science), for students from grades 5 to 10 in rural public schools.
The impact of the intervention was evaluated using scores from Pre-test and Post-test conducted at the beginning and end of the academic year 2015-16. At the end of the year, test scores showed an improvement of between 0.1 and 0.18 standard deviation across different grade-subject combinations. The impact was highest in Science, followed by English and Mathematics.
Most technology interventions that intend to improve learning outcomes face issues of implementation and scaling up. They require a student-to-computer ratio much lower than those currently available in many developing countries. The intervention in this study required one computer per school, which for schools in the state, translates to a student-to-computer ratio of 135:1 which is similar to the actual student to computer ratio in most developing countries. Unlike previous interventions which require a change in pedagogy, classroom practices and need large scale retraining of teachers, the pedagogical adjustments and prior training requirements for this experiment were kept at a minimum. This made the intervention extremely cost effective. An average increase of 0.12 standard deviation in test scores in the Treatment schools was achieved at an additional cost of USD 16.7 per student per year.
Outcome & Impact
Randomized Control Trial (RCT) designs have been criticized for lack of their external
validity and huge cost of execution. The relevance of the randomized trial designs to policy can be improved by increasing the size of experiments and reducing the cost of implementation. The unique large-scale intervention conducted in this research overcomes these barriers and offers a way to get substantially higher returns in terms of learning outcomes by making minimal additional expenditure per student per year.