Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp12-035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Negative Consequences of Overambitious Curricula in Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Pritchett, Lant

    (Center for Global Development, Washington, DC and Harvard University)

  • Beatty, Amanda

    (Innovations for Poverty Action)

Abstract
Learning profiles that track changes in student skills per year of schooling often find shockingly low learning gains. Using data from three recent studies in South Asia and Africa, we show that a majority of students spend years of instruction with no progress on basics. We argue shallow learning profiles are in part the result of curricular paces moving much faster than the pace of learning. To demonstrate the consequences of a gap between the curriculum and student mastery, we construct a simple, formal model, which portrays learning as the result of a match between student skill and instructional levels, rather than the standard (if implicit) assumption that all children learn the same from the same instruction. A simulation shows that two countries with exactly the same potential learning could have massively divergent learning outcomes, just because of a gap between curricular and actual pace--and the country which goes faster has much lower cumulative learning. We also show that our simple simulation model of curricular gaps can replicate existing experimental findings, many of which are otherwise puzzling. Paradoxically, learning could go faster if curricula and teachers were to slow down.

Suggested Citation

  • Pritchett, Lant & Beatty, Amanda, 2012. "The Negative Consequences of Overambitious Curricula in Developing Countries," Working Paper Series rwp12-035, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp12-035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?PubId=8510&type=WPN
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jones, Sam, 2016. "How does classroom composition affect learning outcomes in Ugandan primary schools?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 66-78.
    2. Spaull, Nicholas & Kotze, Janeli, 2015. "Starting behind and staying behind in South Africa," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 13-24.
    3. Lee, Melissa M. & Izama, Melina Platas, 2015. "Aid Externalities: Evidence from PEPFAR in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 281-294.
    4. Nadel, Sara & Pritchett, Lant, 2016. "Searching for the Devil in the Details: Learning about Development Program Design," Working Paper Series rwp16-041, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Atuhurra, Julius & Alinda, Violet, 2018. "Basic Education curriculum effectiveness in East Africa: A descriptive analysis of primary mathematics in Uganda using the ‘Surveys of Enacted Curriculum’," MPRA Paper 87583, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Leighton, Margaret & Souza, Priscila & Straub, Stéphane, 2016. "Social Promotion in Primary School: Immediate and Cumulated Effects on Attainment," TSE Working Papers 16-649, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    7. Bornali Bhandari, 2021. "Overview," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(1), pages 7-21, February.
    8. Atuhurra, Julius & Kaffenberger, Michelle, 2022. "Measuring education system coherence: Alignment of curriculum standards, examinations, and teacher instruction in Tanzania and Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. Renu Gupta, 2021. "The Role of Pedagogy in Developing Life Skills," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(1), pages 50-72, February.
    10. Stephen Taylor & Patricia Watson, 2015. "The impact of study guides on “matric” performance: Evidence from a randomised experiment," Working Papers 13/2015, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    11. Nakajima, Maki & Kijima, Yoko & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2018. "Is the learning crisis responsible for school dropout? A longitudinal study of Andhra Pradesh, India," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 245-253.
    12. Masooma Habib, 2013. "Education in Pakistan’s Punjab: Outcomes and Interventions," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 18(Special E), pages 21-48, September.
    13. Atuhurra, Julius & Alinda, Violet, 2017. "Basic Education curriculum effectiveness analysis in East Africa: Using the ‘Surveys of Enacted Curriculum’ framework to describe primary mathematics and English content in Uganda," MPRA Paper 79017, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 May 2017.
    14. Servaas van der Berg & Gabrielle Wills & Rebecca Selkirk & Charles Adams & Chris van Wyk, 2019. "The cost of repetition in South Africa," Working Papers 13/2019, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp12-035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.