The Best Buy? From Global Evidence to Government Practice

Hosam Ibrahim, Andreas de Barros, Sarah Deschênes and Paul Glewwe

No 12866, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Can governments translate evidence on "what works" into learning gains in public schools? Morocco combined targeted remediation and structured pedagogy (two approaches ranked as "great buys" by a global evidence panel) and delivered them through the existing public-school workforce in 626 schools. Using a pre-registered matched difference-in-differences design across 276 schools and 22,846 students, we estimate that the program increased scores on an independent assessment after one year by 0.90 standard deviations: 0.52 in Arabic, 1.30 in French, and 0.93 in mathematics. Administrative records also show higher grade promotion (1.7 percentage points), while enrollment, which is nearly universal, remained unchanged.

Keywords: education; human capital; Morocco (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I28 O15 O22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12866

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