Linking foundational learning with long-term outcomes and policymaker preferences

Project overview

Many developing countries would benefit from foundational learning programmes but do not have them. The research team proposes that this may be due to a lack of evidence of long-term impacts of foundational learning improvements. Policymakers may need such evidence in order to give greater support to foundational learning programmes.

This study asks:

• What are the long-term labour market and non-labour market impacts of improvements in foundational learning?
• Does evidence in this area change policymaker preferences, possibly leading to improved take-up of foundational learning programmes?

In order to examine whether and how investments in foundational learning lead to improvements in labour market and non-labour market outcomes, the team will leverage data and experiments carried out between 2003 and 2011 as part of the Learning and Educational Achievements in Pakistan Schools (LEAPS) study, which followed schools and households in 112 villages in Punjab, Pakistan. Between 2017 and 2019, the team returned to these villages to track and survey the households and children and measure a wide range of later-life outcomes, including labour market participation and earnings, family formation, spousal quality, a variety of functional skills, and mental health.

The team proposes to use variation in test scores generated by the experiments and by the choice of school to assess the links between foundational learning and later-life outcomes including labour market outcomes, family formation, and holistic skills as measured through tests of socioemotional skills specifically designed for this population. Furthermore, the team will use a survey to measure whether exposure to new causal data on the long-term impacts of improvements in foundational learning change the thinking and funding preferences of donors, policymakers and other stakeholders.

Additional sub-research questions include the long-term impacts of interventions designed to increase test scores and the long-term impacts of going to a better school. There will also be an online ongoing survey where the team will gather information about users’ predictions about the returns to schooling and to test scores and about how their funding priorities change as they receive new information on long-term impacts.