NewGlobe-supported school

Professor Michael Kremer

Learning gains comparison

Additional years of learning gained

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A Nobel Prize-winning economist has confirmed ‘learning gains among the largest ever measured’ in schools by any major study in emerging markets.

The study, led by Professor Michael Kremer, 2019 Nobel Prize winner, finds children living in underserved communities receive over 53% more learning in NewGlobe supported schools throughout their early childhood and primary education compared to students in other schools.

The findings were announced by Professor Kremer at the Education World Forum and suggest a potential solution to learning poverty.

Replicated across public education systems, the gains would put African children from underserved communities on track to outperform or match peers in countries with incomes four times higher.

The groundbreaking study finds children taught using New Globe’s methods are three times more likely to be able to read at age seven. The World Bank estimates 90% of 10 year olds in Africa can’t read.

The most disadvantaged students gain the most. Girls make the same learning leap as boys.

NewGlobe delivers a standard deviation increase of 1.35 in pre-primary learning and 0.81 in primary learning, easily in the top 1% of learning gains ever rigorously studied at scale in emerging markets.

The results are an affirmation of NewGlobe’s integrated learning system - used by governments across Africa and South Asia to support a million students today and growing year-on-year.

The two-year study is based on a large-scale randomized control trial of more than 10,000 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in Kenya.

• After two years, primary students taught using NewGlobe’s methods are nearly a whole additional year of learning ahead of students in other schools.
  
  

• For pre-primary students, two years’ teaching using NewGlobe’s methods puts them a year-and-a-half of additional learning ahead of other students.

• 82% of Grade 1 students - six/seven-years-old - in NewGlobe-supported schools can read a sentence, compared with 27% in other schools.
  
  

• Students starting from lowest learning levels gain the most. NewGlobe-supported students outperform their peers across all test scores, but with differences greatest for students with the lowest prior learning.
  

Professor Kremer said:

“The effects in this study are among the largest in the international education literature, particularly for a program that was already operating at scale… attending schools delivering highly standardized education has the potential to produce dramatic learning gains at scale, suggesting that policymakers may wish to explore incorporation of standardization, including standardized lesson plans and teacher feedback and monitoring, in their own systems.”