One of the world's poorest countries is betting big on schools

 

Children throng classrooms in Sierra Leone. But can it make them learn?

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Nearly half of its adults cannot read. Its schools, some of which have electricity, are among the worst in the world. On any given day, maybe the fifth teacher is not in the classroom as they should be.

In an effort to make things better, Sierra Leone is conducting a massive but little-known educational experiment. If it succeeds, the country could write a road map that benefits even more prosperous places. An incoming government in 2018 increased public spending on education, which is now double what it was five years ago. The number of children enrolled in its schools has more than halved. Faced with a greater shortfall on seats, it is now grappling with a problem that continues to puzzle the whole of Africa: how to increase the amount of bad children learn.

Over the past two decades, school-enrolment rates have increased in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet only one in ten children can read by the time they leave primary school (over 90% in the US and UK). Politicians often underestimate the scale of this crisis, or waste money on headline-grabbing projects like computers that don't move the grade.

To promote access and quality, Sierra Leone now allocates 21% of its budget on schools, one of the highest rates in the world. Much has been done to eliminate the fees for tuition, exams and textbooks that many state schools previously charged. Now about two-thirds of young people are entering senior-secondary school, up from one-third. Behind his massive desk, the president, Julius Maada Bio, says he has had to get money from every other ministry to pay for the reforms. But he says the need for better schooling is "existential".

The government has also tried to remove other problems keeping the youth away from the classroom. Education Minister David Moinina Senge admits that changes are not always popular. Religious groups have mocked a law that forced schools to expel pregnant schoolgirls. Teachers and parents criticize efforts to save sugarcane. But Mr. Sengeh, 35, a Harvard and MIT graduate who records rap music for fun, is well-liked by donors. One expert ventures that he is "the most exciting education reformer in Africa at the moment, and arguably around the world".

To improve the crummy lessons, the government has asked five organizations to compete to improve the marks of children. Each will work with around 70 primary schools for three years. The organisations, which include Save the Children and Aided, a British charity, will not directly manage the schools and cannot hire or fire teachers. But they can spend up to $36 per child on things like coaching for teachers or catch-up classes for children who fall behind. Successful ideas will then spread throughout the system.

For example, EducAid has set up classes in two small halls in a field near Port Loko, about a two-hour drive from the capital Freetown. There are no students attending. The 70 adults learning new ways to teach maths are among the 600 members of the schools it is working with. All of them will spend the night in this center sleeping on cots.

trial and error

The experiment has sparked interest not only in potential innovations in teaching, but also because it provides a great test of social-impact bonds – a trendy form of education finance. Donors, led by Britain, have set aside $18 million for the trial. Most of this will be paid only after the work is completed and the exact amount will depend on how successful the organizations are in improving the score. If results are weak, private investors who have been supplying some of these organizations with working capital could run into losses.

The hope is that this type of "outcomes-based" funding could make education aid more effective – and in doing so could make voters in richer countries more inclined to support it. The problem is that setting up these deals, and checking to see if the pay-out has been earned, can be slow and costly. Testing in Sierra Leone could build confidence for more, larger such ventures. By far the most notable education bond on the continent has been in South Africa. It gave investors a 14% annualized return but was only worth $2m (and didn't meet all of its goals for improving learning).