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Policy Lab: The Quality of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean

Image: Barriopixel/GDN

On 15-16 March 2016, the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) hosted GDN's Policy Lab on "Public Policies on Quality of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Evidence to Policy Effectiveness" on the sidelines on GDN's Annual Global Development Conference in Lima, Peru.

Nine research teams from Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic gathered to  discuss research priorities in reference to public expenditure on quality of education in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The Policy Lab, an initiative of the GDN team as part of an on-going program funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and in-kind support from GRADE, gathered policy-oriented research institutions, policymakers from the region and international experts to examine the quality of education policies embraced by governments in the region. It brought to light the increasingly strategic role of teacher training programs, early childhood education efforts and the importance of combining standardized test data (PISA, SERCE, etc.) to inform education policy. The event was part of a GDN program that strengthens the capacity of research institutions in the region to conduct public expenditure analysis, taking into account both financial and non-financial dimensions of policy design and implementation.

The Policy Lab was part of an on-going GDN program funded by the IDB on 'Strengthening Research Capacity of Small Countries in Latin America and Caribbean to Promote Better Informed Policymaking.' Read more about the program here. Watch a film capturing this policy lab, held in Lima in 2016.