What do international education charities do?

Charities run a large variety of education programs in the developing world. We feel that all these programs have potential to be helpful when carried out appropriately, but none have extremely strong track records of reliably improving student performance (or life outcomes).1

• School building (more): Charities build classrooms or buildings for government-run schools, and build and run schools themselves.
• Scholarships (more): Charities sponsor individual students and fund schools so that students do not have to pay the school fees that are common in the developing world.
• Teacher training: Charities train new teachers and upgrade the skills of established teachers.
• Pre-primary schools: Charities run schools for children ages 3-6 to prepare them for primary school.
• Textbooks and supplies (more): Charities provide everything from pencils to chalkboards to uniforms and shoes.
• Computers (more): Charities fund computers in classrooms in schools and provide out-of-school computer training classes.
• Libraries: Charities build school- and community-based libraries.

What are the challenges to finding a great education charity in the developing world?

• Relatively Little is known about what programs work, in terms of improving attendance and performance.2
• The value of raising school attendance is questionable given evidence about the poor quality of school systems in the developing world. Teachers may be overworked, frequently absent, or abusive, and schools may be geared towards elite students.3

• Well-intentioned, logical interventions (such as providing textbooks/supplies) can fail to produce results. .4

• Education outcomes are hard to assess. It can be difficult and expensive to assess the impact of a program (i.e., how program participants performed compared to how they would have performed without the program). In addition, test scores may not fully capture the results of a program and many of the relevant outcomes may not be apparent until years later.
• There are also questions about whether (and when) children in the developing world benefit from the skills and credentials that come with more/better schooling; we would guess that education is often highly beneficial, but that it also depends on the specifics of the education and the labor market context. 5

Where should you donate to improve developing world education?

Our top recommendation in this cause is Pratham, an India-based education charity that has shown an unusual commitment to rigorously evaluating its programming and generating better knowledge about what works. (See our brief review of Pratham.)

We have not identified any other charities in this area with compelling evidence of impact or answers to the other key questions above. For more information, see the full list of international education charities that we have considered.

1. 1. See our discussion of the evidence for developing-world education programs.

2. 2.

   See our detailed discussion of developing-world education.

3. 3.

   See our discussion of improving school attendance.

   Also see our discussion of school quality in the developing world on our blog.

4. 4.

   See our detailed discussion of developing-world education.

5. 5.

   See our discussion of education and life outcomes.