1. It’s Like That and That’s the Way It Is? Evaluating Education Policy
- Author:
- Susannah Hares
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- It’s tricky to evaluate government education policies. They’re not implemented in NGO-like laboratory conditions, and political motivation and public sector capacity constraints play as much of a role in their success or failure as policy design. Using the examples of three rigorous studies of three different education policies, this note aims to shed some light from the perspective of someone on the policy side on how, why, and when to evaluate government-led reforms. A government education policy is not an abstract theory that can easily be replicated in a different place. In each new context, it is effectively a brand-new programme and needs to be evaluated as that. None of the three examples presented was “new” as a policy: school inspections, school vouchers, and charter schools have all been tried and evaluated elsewhere. But the evaluations of these policies—when implemented in new contexts—illuminated a new set of challenges and lessons and generated a different set of results.
- Topic:
- Education and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus