Background
Education is considered essential for sustainable development and is a fundamental human right, as stated by article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Substantial efforts have been made in recent years to improve access to education in Low and-Middle-Income-Countries (LMICs), and while there has been significant progress, this has been uneven and challenges remain. As a response to the importance of education to international development, the proposed systematic review will identify, appraise and analyse the findings of all impact evaluations on educational interventions in LMICs over the past two decades that aimed to improve access to, and quality of, schooling.
Research objectives
As stated by authors in the protocol: ’The primary objective of this review is to identify, assess and synthesise evidence on the effects of education interventions on children’s access to education and learning in low and middle income countries. We will also aim to assess how education interventions affect different sub-groups of participants by incorporating sub-group analyses, and will also include a broader range of evidence to address questions relating to process, implementation and cost-effectiveness.’
Methodology
Studies will be included that measure the effects of interventions using experimental and quasi-experimental study designs. To address the review questions related to process, implementation and cost, included studies will then be used as the basis for a second phase to identify and include qualitative studies, project documents, process evaluations and other supplementary data on the programmes examined by the impact evaluations included.
Broadly defined, interventions will be included if they aim to improve the access and/ or quality of primary and secondary education and are targeted at primary school and secondary school age children in low–and middle–income countries (LMICs), as defined by the World Bank. Intervention categories include school based health programmes, school feeding programmes, providing information to children and households on the returns to schoooling, scholarships, fee reduction or elimination, cash transfers, teacher training, teacher incentives and accountability, school based management, school choice, community based monitoring and accountability, provision of materials, pedagogy, and new schools and infrastructure. Included studies must assess one of the following primary outcomes of interest: enrolment, attendance, drop-out, learning, completion, teacher attendance, teacher attendance, or teacher performance.