On February 27, IPA Ghana signed an MOU with the Ghana Education Service (GES), the government division responsible for Ghana’s pre-tertiary education (pre-primary, primary, and secondary schooling).

Through this MOU, GES and IPA aim to:

• Be thought partners in developing rigorous evaluations of proposed education programs within the next five years;
• Provide credible empirical evidence from research programs to inform policy decisions;
• Integrate evidence from targeted instruction into literacy and numeracy instruction at the early grade levels; and
• Collaborate on capacity building of GES staff in research and evaluation processes.

GES and IPA have already collaborated with researchers on several studies in Ghanaian education. For example, researchers in this study are assessing the impact of an affordable, in-service kindergarten teacher training, and in this study, researchers are investigating how to make teacher training most effective by evaluating a mentoring and pre-service training program for student teachers.

In addition to these—and future—impact evaluations, IPA agrees to share existing rigorous evidence, participate in GES’ evaluation boards and research groups, and conduct training activities for GES staff, in order to promote a culture of evidence-based decision making at the GES.