Sector Results and Learning:
Education

This Education Sector Results and Learning page is a repository of evidence generated by all MCC-funded education interventions. To promote learning and inform future program design, this page captures monitoring data from key common indicators, showcases recent and relevant evaluations, includes all agency lessons from completed education evaluations to-date, and links to learning that has been aggregated across completed evaluations in the sector.

What Do We Invest In?

MCC has funded $812.4 million in education interventions as of August 2023. These interventions target the following levels of education: general education specific; technical and vocational education training/workforce development; and higher education; and fall into the following categories of investment: teacher/school administrator training; infrastructure and equipment; governance and management; and workforce training.

General Education Specific

Education that is designed to develop learners’ general knowledge, skills and competencies and literacy and numeracy skills, often to prepare students for more advanced educational programs and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning.

Technical and Vocational Education Training/Workforce Development

Education and training which provides knowledge and skills for employment. TVET uses formal, non-formal, or informal learning to provide practical and occupational skills at the secondary and post-secondary level, often as an alternative to university training.

Higher Education

Post-Secondary education leading toward an academic degree.

Teachers/School Administrator Training

Interventions that involve professional preparation for teachers (pedagogical and subject matter training), as well as training for school management and teacher mentors.

Infrastructure and Equipment

Includes new construction or rehabilitation of school facilities as well as the supplying of equipment for labs, gymnasiums, and other instructional facilities.

Governance and Management

Interventions related to accountability measures and incentives, including data management and assessments, education policy, and alignment of measures to more coherence in the system.

Workforce Training

Workplace based training, job placement programs, occupational training.

What Have We Completed So Far?

MCC and its country partners develop and tailor Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for each particular program and country context. Within these country-specific plans, MCC uses common indicators where appropriate to standardize measurement and reporting within certain sectors. See below for a subset of common indicators that summarize implementation achievements across all MCC Education investments as of June 2023. Note that these indicators are tracked and reported during program implementation, so do not reflect the continued attendance and graduation of students after MCC-funded programs end. However, such post-program results are included in our independent evaluation reports.

906

educational facilities constructed or rehabilitated

10,621

instructors trained

483,291

students participating in MCC-supported education activities

80,322

graduates from MCC-supported education activities

What Have We Achieved?

MCC commissions independent evaluations, conducted by third-party evaluators, for every project it funds. These evaluations hold MCC and country partners accountable for the achievement of intended results and also produce evidence and learning to inform future program decision-making. They investigate the quality of project implementation, the achievement of the project and other targeted outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of the project. The graphs below summarize the composition and status of MCC’s independent evaluations in the Education sector as of August 2023. Read on to see highlights of newly published interim and final evaluations. Follow the evaluation links to see the status of all planned, ongoing, and completed evaluations in the sector and to access the reports, summaries, surveys, and data sets.

Go to our List of Evaluations to see the status of MCC’s education sector evaluations

Highlighted Evaluations

February 22, 2023 | Georgia Compact II

Supplying STEM trainees to meet market needs in Georgia

Trainees in new STEM courses outperform benchmarks but employment barriers remain

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $138.6 million Georgia II Compact (2014-2019) funded the $15.7 million Industry-Led Skills and Workforce Development Project, which aimed to improve the alignment between the skills of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) graduates and the skills demanded by the labor market. It provided larger grants to 10 TVET providers to establish 51 new or improved courses with industry support; awarded 27 smaller grants to document and disseminate best practices in the TVET sector; provided technical assistance to the government related to sector policy; and held three annual TVET conferences.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

A yellow concrete school building with a red shingled roof amidst a background of storm clouds

October 1, 2022 | Guatemala Threshold Program

Strengthening the Education System in Guatemala

Ministry support for teacher selection and recruitment reform facilitated change 

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Interim

MCC’s $28 million Guatemala Threshold Program (2016-2021) aimed to provide quality educational opportunities for Guatemala’s youth that have relevance to the labor market, and mobilize additional government resources that are needed to address binding constraints to economic growth. The Education Project consisted of three activities: (1) Quality of Education in Support of Student Success; (2) Improving Technical and Vocational Education and Training; and (3) Strengthening of Institutional and Planning Capacity. This interim evaluation brief focuses on Activity 3.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

December 15, 2020 | Georgia Compact II

Upgrading STEM Education at Universities in Georgia

Partners collaborated to offer American degrees and prepare for accreditation

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Interim

MCC’s Georgia II Compact (2013–2019), which disbursed $136 million, funded the $30 million STEM Higher Education Project, which aimed to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) university education to give graduates better employment opportunities with higher incomes, leading to an increase in economic growth. Three public Georgian universities and one university from the United States worked to give Georgian students an opportunity to earn a high-quality STEM bachelor’s degree, improve the Georgian partners’ STEM-related infrastructure, and prepare the partners for international program accreditation.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

Exterior of the Oshana regional library

August 11, 2020 | Namibia Compact

Namibian Communities Value Library Resources

Libraries supported learning and professional goals despite sustainability challenges

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $304.5 million Namibia Compact (2009–2014) funded the $145 million Education Project, including the $20.8 million Regional Study and Resource Center (RSRC) Activity. The RSRC Activity built three regional libraries and provided technical assistance and training based on the theory that expanded community access to information, training resources, and study facilities would improve educational and professional outcomes.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

Go to our Evaluation Brief page to see all completed education sector evaluations

What Have We Learned from Our Results?

To link the evidence produced by the independent evaluations with MCC practice, project staff produce an MCC Learning document at the close of each interim and final evaluation to capture practical lessons for programming and evaluation. Use the filters below to find lessons relevant to your evidence needs.

  • Program Improvement Competitive Grant (PICG)-supported Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) courses succeeded in strengthening linkages between TVET providers and large employers’ skills needs, thereby driving this project’s improved performance relative to past TVET programs.

    Program Improvement Competitive Grant (PICG)-supported Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) courses succeeded in strengthening linkages between TVET providers and large employers’ skills needs, thereby driving this project’s improved performance relative to past TVET programs. In particular, internships, dual employment and training programs, and direct relationships between training providers and employers all contributed to improved employment outcomes. MCC is addressing this lesson by investing in TVET provider governance models that are more responsive to employer needs in Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire, and Kosovo. While employers lauded certain PICG-supported courses which introduced students to the latest technology, other courses did not offer practical, hands-on experience with machinery, equipment and technology, and safety protocols. The lack of hands-on training can be remedied through employer mentorship arrangements and workplace-based training. Substantial hands-on experience during training and/or expanding the number of internships or amount of workplace-based training offered may provide valuable experience where trainees may not have prior experience and would further boost employment outcomes. In the future, MCC should ensure that TVET programs include practical/hands-on training both in the classroom and through internships/workplace-based training.

  • Targeted support is needed to recruit and retain women in non-traditional Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programs.

    Targeted support is needed to recruit and retain women in non-traditional Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programs. Closing gender gaps in labor market outcomes will require interventions specifically designed to improve the country’s work environment for women. The low participation of women in courses supported by Program Improvement Competitive Grants and continued wage inequality of women after completion was disappointing to MCC. Female participation in TVET courses was particularly low in sectors such as aviation, electrical systems, and engineering. As noted in the TVET Principles into Practice paper, changing social norms to empower women to enter traditionally male-dominated fields and ending gender-based wage discrimination in the labor market can be difficult. MCC is addressing this lesson by working with governments and donors to conduct detailed analyses to understand the constraints facing women’s workforce participation, which in turn inform the design of context-specific, complimentary interventions to address those challenges. An innovative approach was piloted in this Compact, one which merits study in order to be taken to scale. Millennium Challenge Acccount (MCA) Georgia, in partnership with the United Nations Women, established an annual competition, the “Business for Gender Equality Awards.” This competition recognizes three Georgian businesses each year that are investing in workplace policies and programs that open avenues for the advancement of women at all levels and across all business areas as well as encouraging women to enter non-traditional careers. In the four years MCA Georgia organized this competition and awards event, more than 150 companies have participated. Recognition is an important incentive for private sector cultural change and activities such as this are a potentially impactful means to complement the more supply-side focus on increasing female participation in TVET programs. Changing gender norms is a needed precursor to increasing women’s employment in non-traditional sectors, one that requires time, resources, and intentional efforts.

  • Flexible contracting structures like the one used for the policy technical assistance component can lead to support being nimble and responsive to government needs.

    Flexible contracting structures like the one used for the policy technical assistance component can lead to support being nimble and responsive to government needs. The contract structure for technical assistance set an overall theme of private-sector orientation for assistance to be provided, but then allowed specific tasks to be set within that theme on an annual basis. As the government’s needs changed over time this mechanism allowed MCC to react to those changing programmatic needs flexibly. The grant manager contract was also structured to retain a pool of experts that the manager could draw on as needed, thereby expanding the range of available expertise, and reducing costs compared to a more rigid model of hiring fixed key personnel. MCC is already leveraging this lesson by building flexible contracting into Human and Community Development projects through the use of flexible technical assistance mechanisms such as “unpriced option year” contracts. Such flexible contracts can lead to increased engagement with government over time, by providing decision points for course correction during the program. This engagement led to increased buy-in at the policy dialogue level and ultimately strengthened government relationships with the private sector.

  • Small grants awarded through a competitive process led to outsized results, which more than compensated for the increased complexity of administering many small grants.

    Small grants awarded through a competitive process led to outsized results, which more than compensated for the increased complexity of administering many small grants. There was a good degree of opposition to the use of small grants for the Strengthening Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Provider Practice component during design. However, the pool of small grant applications resulted in so many high-quality proposals that the project (1) increased the maximum grant amount in the second round from $10,000 to $25,000 and (2) added a third round to accommodate grants. According to some stakeholders, an even larger maximum grant amount would have been justified. As these grants were strategically chosen to align with planned TVET reforms that were not covered through the existing state budgets and that could be sustained beyond the Compact, they complemented existing policy while filling programmatic gaps that ultimately contributed to a broader TVET reform agenda. While these grants fell short of achieving more ambitious program goals – such as the system-wide adoption of certain practices – there is evidence that the small grants led to key contributions both by specific providers as well as a more robust government discourse of private-sector driven TVET. In the future, MCC should consider using this type of approach to compliment other investments when implementation complexity can be managed (such as by bundling it with other tasks in an already planned contract – as was the case in Georgia).

  • Trainees who had prior experience and were using Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programs to gain further skills enjoyed the largest improvement in labor market outcomes.

    Trainees who had prior experience and were using Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programs to gain further skills enjoyed the largest improvement in labor market outcomes. In designing training programs MCC should consider investments in both pre-service and in-service training. Compared to pre-training earnings, trainees who were employed at baseline increased their monthly earnings by about 10 percent, while the subset of trainees who returned to the same job they held before training increased their monthly earnings by 21 percent. Trainees who had more than two years of prior work experience obtained full-time, course-relevant jobs at about double the rate of those with less experience. This suggests that employers in course-relevant fields may have had substantially less demand for Program Improvement Competitive Grants course graduates who did not also have meaningful prior work experience. This demonstrates that in the Georgia context, employers regard TVET programs as a valuable way to upskill existing workers. Not only can in-service training for existing employees have potentially greater initial impact – employers are more likely to contribute to or entirely finance this kind of training. This can be an important revenue source for TVET providers contributing to overall financial sustainability of programs. MCC is addressing this lesson by considering both in-service and pre-service training in Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, and Kosovo.

How Have We Aggregated Learning Across the Sector?

In January 2023, MCC published Insights from General Education Evaluations, a paper that synthesizes evidence from completed evaluations of general education investments. MCC previously developed a Principles into Practice paper using evidence from other completed independent evaluations in the education sector – Principles into Practice: Training Service Delivery for Jobs and Productivity.

The Principles into Practice series offers a frank look at what it takes to make the principles MCC considers essential for development operational in the projects in which MCC invests. The learning captured in this paper informs MCC’s ongoing efforts to refine and strengthen its own model and development practice in the education sector. MCC hopes this paper will also allow others to benefit from, and build upon, MCC’s lessons.