Latin America and the Caribbean is in the midst of an educational crisis. Though enrollment in primary school has grown and today is nearly universal, average completion rates for secondary school stand at 64 percent compared to an average of 79 percent for OECD countries. Moreover, only 35 percent of 15-year-old students in Latin America […]

The post Leveraging Technology to Reduce Student Dropout and Improve Learning appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Over the last decade, Latin America and the Caribbean has become increasingly digitalized, with the spread of internet use to roughly three-quarters of the population, a rapid proliferation of smartphones, and the emergence of numerous new digital companies worth over a billion dollars in areas such as commerce and finance. This digital revolution has had […]

The post Digitalizing Public Services to Improve Lives in Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Nearly a million people have died of COVID-19 in Latin America so far, and the region is still struggling to get enough vaccine supply to protect the lives of its citizens. While Chile has fully vaccinated around 40% of its population, roughly comparable to the United States, only between 9% and 18% have received their […]

The post Ensuring Demand for COVID-19 Vaccinations appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Like millions of mothers around Latin America, Liliana Domador was forced to juggle a job, with the raising of and even teaching of her child as the Covid-19 pandemic closed down schools and afflicted the greatest interruption of in-class education in the region’s history.      So Domador, a 34-year-old Peruvian mother, was delighted when a group of research, development and government institutions came together to implement a learning platform known as Conecta Ideas that uses computer-assisted instruction to teach math […]

The post Vaccinating Kids Against the Learning Loss of School Closures appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Education in Latin America and the Caribbean is facing an unprecedented crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced governments to close schools in the vast majority of countries, forcing study to take place at home partly through computers and other devices. But many teachers are still unprepared to use technology effectively in the learning process. And […]

The post Boosting Math Education with Technology during the Pandemic and After appeared first on Ideas Matter.

When and where will infection rates from the coronavirus surge? How are people responding to quarantine measures? And how is the pandemic affecting people’s economic and social activity? The answers to these questions and the policy measures taken in response are critical to improving well-being and saving lives. The problem is that amidst the immensely […]

The post Big Data in the Age of the Coronavirus appeared first on Ideas Matter.

In recent weeks, the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have implemented a battery of measures to encourage social distancing and reduce the infection rate of the coronavirus. Although it is clear that human mobility has indeed dropped significantly, important questions persist. How much has mobility declined in the region? In what countries has […]

The post Human Mobility Map Shows that People Are Observing Social Distancing appeared first on Ideas Matter.

The coronavirus threatens to cast a shadow of death and illness wherever it goes. To fight it, experts recommend “social distancing”—that is, that people avoid interacting with each other and stay in their homes. The governments of Latin America are promoting social distancing using a variety of measures. But have they been successful? We looked […]

The post A Jump in Social Distancing in Latin America, According to Google Search Data appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Aaron Pinto, age 11, always loved math. He just wasn’t very good at it. He stumbled with multiplication, fractions and decimals, refused to use pencil and paper, and made mistake after mistake as he tried to work things out on his fingers or in his head. Frustrated, at times even depressed, he couldn’t seem to […]

The post Can Games Boost Math Learning For Poor Kids? appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Ask anyone in a Western society what makes the world go round, and they are likely to say selfishness, or at least self-interest. It is an idea drilled into us by Thomas Hobbes more than three hundred years ago and by Adam Smith, who argued for the benefits of self-interest in economic progress. It seems […]

The post Some Economists Say We’re Less Selfish Than We Think. Why? appeared first on Ideas Matter.

When tennis great Andre Agassi flamed out at age 26 dropping from No. 1 in the world to a humiliating No. 141 two years later, commentators attacked his vanity, emotional instability and erratic behavior. Agassi had triumphed in three of tennis’s four great tournaments. How could he descend to such lows, where he would deliberately […]

The post What Can Andre Agassi Teach Us About Socio-Emotional Skills? appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Can internet access at home stimulate learning among children? It is an especially urgent question in developing countries where digital access and educational achievement lag considerably behind those in developed ones. Ofer Malamud, Santiago Cueto, Diether Beuermann and I decided to address the issue in an experiment where we provided both laptops and internet access to […]

The post Can the Internet Boost Learning in Latin America? appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Villa Esperanza, is a shantytown of unpaved streets and low-slung tin-roofed house, a place where the prospects for children would seem grim. Most adults in the town outside Lima work selling goods on the street or in other low-paying jobs. Many are illiterate, and the social problems, ranging from gangs to high levels of alcoholism, […]

The post When Poverty Is No Obstacle to Educational Success appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Over the last 25 years, Latin America and the Caribbean has boosted efforts in primary education to the point that it is nearly universal, with three out of four students finishing primary school on time. But educational quality for very young children in the region still lags far behind that of developed countries. It even […]

The post It’s Time to Improve Primary Education: This Is How appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Latin America’s educational systems are failing their students. Despite steady advances in enrollment, students in the region perform considerably worse on standardized tests than their counterparts in advanced economies. They even trail students from developing economies with similar levels of development. The problem is not lack of spending. The average country in the region spends […]

The post Curing Education’s Ills With Lessons From Medicine appeared first on Ideas Matter.

Ask any parent in Latin America or the Caribbean what they most want for their kids, and you’re very likely to hear it summed up in one word: education. Parents know that learning can bring their children satisfaction, success and prosperity, and they’ve opened their wallets, spending a higher share of their household budget on […]

The post When the Scientific Method Goes to School appeared first on Ideas Matter.

On Aug. 30, the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank launched its 2017 flagship report, examining the challenges of skills development throughout people’s lives. Based on a deep review of studies from around the world, the report, Learning Better: Public Policy for Skills Development, uses rigorous evidence to determine which interventions work and which […]

The post SkillsBank: The Sweeping New Website on Skills Development appeared first on Ideas Matter.

They labor in loud and unruly environments, with demanding and emotional people. They impose discipline constantly, and their wages are notoriously poor. Yet, according to data from a survey of 15 Latin American countries, an average of 98% of primary school teachers say they like their jobs. If this seems surprising, it shouldn’t. Careers that […]

The post Capitalizing on Teacher Satisfaction: Using Tutors to Energize Education appeared first on Ideas Matter.

For decades now, researchers have suspected that investments in early childhood development pay off richly. That is because providing the right intellectual and emotional stimulation to children in their first years could open a new future. It may not only lead to smarter, more prosperous and more socially-adapted adults. It could generate more equality and […]

The post The Miracle of Parenting Programs? appeared first on Ideas Matter.

The history of health and education over the last half century is a tale of two sectors, one vastly more dynamic and successful than the other. On the bright side, Latin America — and much of the world — has made immense progress in eradicating diseases that caused death, deformities and suffering, like smallpox and […]

The post Health vs. Education: A Tale of Two Sectors appeared first on Ideas Matter.

By: Matias Busso and Julian Cristia  Take a moment to recall the last time you forgot someone’s birthday. When was the last time you were at the grocery store and forgot that one crucial ingredient for dinner? How many times have you been locked out in the past year? A good memory is undoubtedly important for […]

The post Did You Get Your Shots? In Rural Communities in Guatemala a Simple Reminder Improved Health appeared first on Ideas Matter.