New Boost to J-PAL Enhances Education and AI Work to Reach 100 Million People in Five Years

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS – The Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), co-founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Community Jameel in 2017 to spark a global renaissance in education, has spun out of MIT’s Open Learning department to join MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global research centre working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence, Community Jameel and J-PAL announced today.

With the mission to transform education at every level—from early childhood to college—to break the cycle of poverty, J-WEL will be the primary vehicle for J-PAL’s educational initiatives and aims to improve the lives of 100 million people around the world within five years.

The move opens a new chapter for J-WEL and re-affirms MIT and Community Jameel’s commitment to improving access to quality education for all, especially the world’s most vulnerable.

Building on J-PAL’s impact on education worldwide

With a long track-record of impact in the field of education, J-PAL’s research spans the entire spectrum of education, from early childhood development to primary, post-primary, secondary and tertiary education.

For example, J-PAL affiliated researchers previously evaluated Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), an innovative education methodology that matches children to maths and literacy instruction according to their actual learning level—rather than their age or grade. Based on these evaluations and in partnership with J-PAL, Pratham Education Foundation, the Indian organisation that developed the approach, has scaled up TaRL around the world to reach tens of millions of children.

With its focus on innovations in education, J-WEL will additionally be a core component of Project AI Evidence (PAIE), J-PAL’s global initiative to apply rigorous evaluations of AI in the social sector to ensure it promotes social welfare.

Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel KBE, founder of Community Jameel, said: “Since its launch, J-WEL has worked to build a global network, catalyse research and translate ideas into impact on the ground. As J-WEL joins J-PAL, we are excited to see this work enter its next chapter, strengthening the role of evidence, innovation and now AI in shaping education systems that can improve the lives of millions across the world.”

Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel professor of poverty alleviation and development economics, co-founder and co-director of J-PAL and 2019 Nobel laureate in economics, said: “J-WEL’s move to J-PAL significantly expands our shared ability to generate and use evidence to transform education systems at scale. Together, we are building the knowledge and partnerships needed to improve learning and opportunity for the next hundred million people.”

Supporting J-PAL as a learning platform for advancing evidence-based policymaking

Through J-WEL, J-PAL will also expand its learning programmes to build capacity among researchers and policymakers with the aim of advancing evidence-based programmes and policies to improve people’s lives.

J-PAL has reached over 350,000 learners through the MITx Micromasters courses in development economics and will continue to build on this legacy with J-WEL at J-PAL.

J-WEL will drive forward J-PAL’s MENA fellowship programme, which will continue to recruit scholars annually, providing mentorship and training for PhD researchers. In addition, J-WEL will support the Alliance for Data, Evaluation and Policy Training (ADEPT), a J-PAL initiative launched in 2023 with Community Jameel, providing capacity building to policymakers with the aim of cultivating a network of evidence-informed policy professionals who innovate, test and scale effective social policies and programmes.

A new chapter for J-WEL

Since 2017, J-WEL has built a global consortium of partner educational institutions, with a combined student body of over 2 million learners, and catalysed research at MIT at the cutting edge of education and learning.

Through J-WEL, its consortium members accessed innovations that could help them enhance their institutions and ultimately grant their learners better opportunities for success.

Between 2019 and 2024, J-WEL co-led the Ejada programme in Jordan, working with Save the Children and the Ministry of Education to enhance teacher capacity in Jordan’s strained public school system and provide improved education to marginalised children across the country, including Syrian refugees.

In five years and across 166 schools (86% including refugees), Ejada significantly improved the academic performance of tens of thousands of children and supported teachers' mental health and wellbeing, according to two impact studies.

Reaching over 283,000 people in the first phase, Ejada is set to be scaled up by Jordan’s Ministry of Education to benefit more than 1.4 million pupils, their families, teachers and school administrators.

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