Designing and Implementing Experiments within Local Bureaucratic Systems: A Cautionary Tale from an Educator Incentive Program

Naureen Karachiwalla (), Katrina Kosec (), Saher Asad (), Masooma Habib (), Clare Leaver () and Attique ur Rehman ()
Additional contact information
Naureen Karachiwalla: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Washington, DC 20005
Katrina Kosec: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Washington, DC 20005
Saher Asad: World Bank Washington DC 20433
Masooma Habib: Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Clare Leaver: Blavatnik School of Government University of Oxford Oxford, United Kingdom
Attique ur Rehman: University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716

Education Finance and Policy, 2025, vol. 20, issue 3, 433-456

Abstract: Partnering with governments to co-design pilot interventions and embed them in local bureaucratic systems is increasingly seen as “best practice” on grounds of scalability and sustainability. This paper reports on a pilot program that was co-designed with, and embedded within, the Elementary and Secondary Education Department in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that offers a cautionary tale. The over-arching desire to work within existing bureaucratic systems, while laudable, constrained the design of the randomized controlled trial. This paper presents findings on some of the institutional factors which resulted in failed implementation of the randomized controlled trial and a lost opportunity to learn about the efficacy of key design features. The paper briefly outlines the design of the pilot—promotion-based incentives for educators—and summarizes the largely null results. It then turns to implementation, discussing what went wrong, how this was uncovered, and lessons learned for co-designing and embedding future pilot studies with(in) government.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00435
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

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:tpr:edfpol:v:20:y:2025:i:3:p:433-456

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1557-3060

Access Statistics for this article

Education Finance and Policy is currently edited by Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Randall Reback

More articles in Education Finance and Policy from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().