Improvements in enrollment and progression drove improved levels of learning, but without efforts to address weak overall performance of schools, the rate of learning may not improve. As education access (availability, distance) and girls’ participation were constrained in rural Burkina Faso, the project’s approach of bundled interventions to address these two constraints seem to have driven improvements on these dimensions. Teacher housing and performance awards seems to have helped BRIGHT schools attract more female teachers and allow schools to reduce teacher/student ratio. However, despite improving girls’ engagement and smaller classroom sizes, BRIGHT schools did not seem to have a steeper learning profile than non-BRIGHT schools (i.e. how long it takes a given student to arrive at a skill/competency such as recognizing letters or reading a sentence). In contexts where education quality lags act as a more binding constraint than enrollment, improvements to the academic environment – including quality instruction, better educational management and leadership, and academic support for struggling students – might help steepen learning profiles.
Lesson Learned