Expanding primary school completion through culturally responsive and sustaining education: Evidence from a historical project in Sierra Leone

Grace Pai

International Journal of Educational Development, 2025, vol. 112, issue C

Abstract: This article takes an unconventional approach of empirically evaluating a historical UNESCO-funded educational development project in Sierra Leone. Grounded in principles of culturally responsive and sustaining education (CRSE), the Bunumbu project represented one of the largest investments in the 1970–80s to universalize primary education into rural sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). By combining a historical analysis with a difference-in-differences model, this study uses national census data from thirty years after the project began to evaluate the effects of the Bunumbu project on primary school completion. Results show that there was a 3.8%-point higher increase in primary completion rates in the Bunumbu project area than neighboring comparison chiefdoms. Findings suggest that CRSE can complement recent pedagogical approaches like structured pedagogy programs that have gained popularity in SSA.

Keywords: Sub-Saharan Africa; Universal primary education; Culturally relevant and responsive education; Rural education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059324002189
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:injoed:v:112:y:2025:i:c:s0738059324002189

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.103191

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Educational Development is currently edited by Stephen P Heyneman

More articles in International Journal of Educational Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().