USAID praises Ghana for its advancement in primary education enrollment and highlights the work of the recent Evidence-Based Education conference. An excerpt:

The conference dubbed "Evidence Based Education: Policy-Making and Reform in Africa", is being co-hosted by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the Ghana Education Service (GES), The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and USAID.

Through the evaluation of the Teacher Community Assistant Initiative and other efforts, the government of Ghana has demonstrated its willingness to make further improvements in social programmes based on scientific evidence. This openness to new ideas and enthusiasm for change is what has brought about the conference.

The conference brings together leading development researchers, senior policy makers from African countries, representatives from international development organisations, foundations and NGOs, to discuss the importance of using scientific evidence from field evaluations to guide policy.

It is also to share randomised evaluations of innovative programmes that have proven to be highly effective, and to give organisations an opportunity to provide input on the future research agenda.

Click here to read the full article. For more information on the Evidence-Based Education conference, view the presentations, browse the brochure, or follow #AfricaEdu on Twitter.