The GEC's approach to evidence: learning about learning

The UKAid-funded Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) marks a strong shift towards increasing the rigour and level of evidence required for both a challenge fund, and for a programme of grants to NGOs in the education sector.... [ view full abstract ]

The UKAid-funded Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) marks a strong shift towards increasing the rigour and level of evidence required for both a challenge fund, and for a programme of grants to NGOs in the education sector. This takes the rigour of a randomised control trial-based approach out of the laboratory and into mainstream development practice. GEC projects across Africa and Asia are collectively assessing a cohort of around 70,000 girls (including in control groups) on their learning in literacy and numeracy at three points in time. But as well as aiming to measure statistically significant results for girls’ learning outcomes and attendance, the GEC strongly emphasises measuring intermediate outcomes and outputs with mixed methods to more deeply examine why interventions, and certain combinations of them, work more than others.

The rationale for the GEC approach was partly driven by the use of payment-by-results, but also with a goal of generating robust evidence about which interventions are able to improve learning and why, in the process testing innovative approaches to increase learning. Challenges have been faced, such as the reliability of learning indicators, problematic statistical assumptions, limited availability of reliable attendance records, and capacity limitations among evaluation firms and among NGOs in managing evaluation contracts. This paper will demonstrate that despite these challenges, such an approach provides a robust model to drive evidence-based programming in education in developing countries. This will particularly be the case if the market for rigorous evaluation becomes more mature, and costs can be reduced.