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News, ideas, and analysis from J-PAL staff and affiliated professors. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly email updates.

Students sitting at desks for first day of high school exams at Vittorio Alfieri state high school in Turin

J-PAL at 20: Promoting more inclusive education in Italy

This blog post, part of J-PAL Europe's series on research and activities across Europe, looks at a series of randomised evaluations in Italy that explore this question with a particular focus on students from immigrant families. As school systems across Europe welcome increasingly diverse...
Young girls in elementary school, Harar, Ethiopia, Africa

Advancing the Agenda in Girls' Education Research

By
Girls’ education remains a global priority for donors and governments. Many researchers suggest that the research community should coalesce around a set of coherent research priorities to help close gender gaps in education. This article outlines some crucial next steps to advance the research...
J-PAL affiliate Marc Gurgand speaks at a lectern and looks at a row of panelists.

J-PAL Europe launches IDEE to advance evidence generation and use in the French education system

This blog discusses the conference hosted by J-PAL Europe and IDEE in November 2022, which aimed to bring together stakeholders—primarily policymakers, practitioners, and researchers—and increase understanding about how impact evaluations can be used in education settings.
Teacher with children in a classroom.

The next generation of rigorous education research: J-PAL launches the Learning for All Initiative

In response to the current crisis in education and the increasing demand for actionable evidence, and with the generous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Douglas B. Marshall Jr. Family Foundation, and Echidna Giving, J-PAL is launching the Learning For All Initiative to identify...
A child plays in a yard in Botswana

A state-of-the-art, cheap, scalable method to measure child and adult (multilingual) speech in early childhood interventions

By
  • Alessandra Cassar
  • Diana Contreras Suárez
  • Alejandrina Cristia
  • Pauline Grosjean
  • Sarah Walker
We describe a state-of-the-art, cheap, easily scalable method, relying on inexpensive hardware together with open-source technology to measure speech. We describe how the hardware is better suited than alternatives to field settings and large-scale interventions, and how the software is more precise...
Young boy learning through laptop

Online Tutoring: a Promising Solution for Accelerating Learning

During the Covid-19 pandemic, online tutoring emerged as a potential solution to education challenges resulting from school closures on a massive scale. We are just having a first glimpse of the consequences of the pandemic on students’ outcomes—and it does not look good.
Screenshot from Learning Path video with thumbnail video of speaker Laina Sonterblum and slide with text " Learning Objectives. 1) The elements of highly impactful tutoring programs. 2) How to implement these elements into your own tutoring program. 3) How to assess the implementation and impact of your program

New tutoring resource: A learning path for evidence-based tutoring implementation

J-PAL North America and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) created the Implementing Evidence-Based Tutoring for High Impact learning path to give local education agencies and tutoring providers easily accessible information about effective program components and how to...
A woman wearing a red dress sits outdoors holding a laptop on her lap.

The future of the DEDP MicroMasters program

As we reflect on the five-year anniversary of the DEDP MicroMasters, we also look to the future. In the next five years, we will focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in expanding our body of learners, supporting our existing learners so they have the right resources to have a successful journey...