Assessment of Learning Outcomes and Social Effects of Community-Based Education (ALSE):
A Randomized Field Experiment in Afghanistan
Funding from USAID
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/ihdsc/projects/alse
A Randomized Field Experiment in Afghanistan
Funding from USAID
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/ihdsc/projects/alse
Despite many obstacles, community-based schools have already proved effective in many parts of Afghanistan (see Burde and Linden 2013). Established and run by local communities with help from various NGOs, these schools have succeeded in attracting girls as well as boys and have eliminated the gender gap in enrollment in remote Afghan villages where they are present. Similarly, they have significantly closed the achievement gap between boys and girls. Now, as the United States and other western nations withdraw from the country, the Afghan Ministry of Education is gradually taking over the administration of these schools. In the interest of helping the MoE make a smooth transition and maintain the level of school performance achieved so far, Dana Burde, from NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, along with a team of researchers, has received a 4-year research grant from USAID to assess the effectiveness of these schools and to evaluate and suggest models for transitioning from NGO and local management to government administration. The project will include an assessment of special interventions aimed at increasing girls' access to and achievements in school, and assessments of teacher recruitment models so that suitably prepared and sensitive instructors will be available for an expanding system of nationwide education.
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Tracking Hope in Nairobi and Karachi (THINK):
Testing Educational Assumptions Funding from the Spencer Foundation 
Nairobi, Kenya and Karachi, Pakistan have large youth populations and are crucial to stability in their respective regions. Evidence shows large youth populations to be correlated with a risk of armed conflict and that a lack of education and economic opportunities for young people can lead to frustration, disillusionment, and violence. Although significant funding supports educational interventions that are intended to mitigate youth violence and policymakers often propose education as a solution to youth malaise, little research in developing countries empirically investigates the relationship between educational attainment and positive or negative attitudes and behaviors or intermediate variables such as hope, leadership, and civic engagement. Our work will build on our previous research to define and determine how to measure the key mechanisms that link these variables of interest. To do so, we propose a regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on test-score-based university admissions processes. The study will be further bolstered by qualitative work to better understand the nuances of these relationships., |
Youth Bulges, Aspirations, and Education:
Inspiring Youth to Peace or Conflict? Karachi, Pakistan and Nairobi, Kenya Funding from United States Institute of Peace (Foundation) Education always has the potential to increase one's knowledge, but could it also be a factor in establishing a more peaceful world? And if so, how? Our multi-year project examines these questions through the first step of an ongoing study of youth aspirations and education in Nairobi, Kenya and Karachi, Pakistan. We will interview youth experts from government and non-governmental organizations, but the crux of this phase of the project is a series of direct, in-depth interviews with young people who finishing high school or who have dropped out at various stages. We hope to discover why and how the young people's ways of thinking may lead to one or the other of two quite opposite outcomes: diminished aspirations, dropping out, unemployment, and increased violence (i.e., a more hostile and unstable world); or, enhanced aspirations, persistence in school, economic security, and positive social attitudes (i.e., a more peaceful, stable society).
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Capacity Building in Community-Based Education:
A Formative Study of Governance in Afghanistan
Funding from Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA)
A Formative Study of Governance in Afghanistan
Funding from Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA)
This study aims to understand the current transition from NGO to government administration of community-based education based on observation, surveys, and additional follow-up data collection with schools originally studied by Dana Burde and Leigh Linden in their randomized controlled trial of community-based education effectiveness (see studies from 2012 and 2013). We will collect data that traces what has happened in schools that have already been handed over from NGOs to national administration (e.g., What share is still running? Are there any indicators on the quality of services still being provided?). We will include schools previously managed by NGOs and supported by the USAID-funded Partnership for Advancing Community Education in Afghanistan (PACE-A), some of which have been assessed at length in Burde and Linden (2013). By understanding better the evolution of these schools to date, we intend to provide insights into the types of issues that may arise in achieving sustainable service delivery. Among other things, this research examines whether boosting community engagement developed in this program can help to maintain continuity in school performance through the transition from NGO to government administration. This will contribute to our understanding of the material, political, and institutional challenges to post-conflict state capacity for providing essential public services (Besley and Persson 2012), revealing avenues for improving such state capacity.
Capacity Building in Research Methods
In addition, the MoE in Afghanistan has an urgent need to develop its technical abilities in understanding research, monitoring, and evaluation in order to be able to conduct its regular national educational assessments as well as to be able to identify and oversee outside firms that it will hire in the future to assist it with its educational management and information system (EMIS). This DANIDA-funded project as well as the USAID-funded project described above support the research team to provide a series of intensive research capacity building seminars and workshops for MoE staff and national staff of NGOs beginning in fall 2013 and continuing throughout the life of the project.