Education International Research
More generally, and beyond Uganda, Ark’s interest in strengthening the evidence base for its advocacy and advisory roles included the commissioning, in 2017, of the already mentioned Rigorous Review of the Evidence on PPPs in Education with a focus on developing countries (Aslam et al., 2017). Given the econometric methodological techniques used for the PEAS external evaluation, this was one of the studies included for review. Aslam and colleagues concluded that: It is worth noting this study provides a comparison of PEAS schools to other schooling types and, while it concludes that these schools perform better in terms of student outcomes, this is not necessarily evidence that PPPs in general perform better, but rather the PEAS model itself may be more effective. This may be due to the fact that their internal accountability systems are focused on high performance, whereas Ugandan policy doesn’t have any in-built accountability mechanisms to incentivise strong performance (Aslam et al. 2017, pp. 28-30). This conclusion illustrates the assumption underpinning Ark’s theoretical framework of a direct and causal relationship between accountability systems and school improvement. In addition to all this, and as part of the evidence-making activities, Ark research team116 claims to have: 1. Commissioned J-PAL (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) to conduct the external evaluation of the Madhya Pradesh School Quality Assurance programme (described above). 2. Commissioned the randomised evaluation by Innovations for Policy Action (IPA) of Liberia’s Partnership Schools for Liberia programme (also described above). 3. Led a five-year randomised trial of a school voucher programme in Delhi. The ENABLE programme in India was a private school voucher lottery programme in north-eastern Delhi that involved 800 underprivileged primary students being given vouchers to attend private schools covering the 5 years of private primary school tuition fees. This, according to Ark, was meant to serve as a means to assess the quality of provision at private schools compared to public schools. Ark’s ENABLE voucher programme illustrates Ark’s attempt to contribute to the realization of Clause 12 of India’s Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009. This clause has made it compulsory for private schools to set aside 25% of its school places to low-income families, for which the government reimburses them. Yet in the practical implementation of this section of the Act, many of these places, it is claimed, currently remain unfilled. The programme, piloted in some of the poorest areas of Delhi, attempted to encourage poor families to claim this entitlement. As Susannah Hares, Ark International Director at the time, indicated: 116 Source: Ark EPG (2017, May). Associate Director, Research and Evaluation [Job Specification]
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