It is unclear whether teachers with a degree in education are more effective than those who are not trained in an education-related field. To further examine this issue, we analyze the rela- tionship between teachers college major and student achievement by using unique data from Ecuador, which, for a period of time, allowed any graduate, regardless of their major, to apply for a teaching position in the countrys centralized selection process.

Parenting programs can improve experiences during the early years and generate long-term outcomes in variables such as employment, health, education, and salary. The need to scale up parenting programs has driven the implementation of interventions based on communication technologies and behavioral economics. This paper compares two impact evaluations of the Positive Parenting program in 2018 and a fully remote adaptation of the program in 2020.

We study the welfare produced by a coordinated school assignment system that is based exclusively on minimizing distance to schools, comparing the matches it produces to a system that includes household preferences using a deferred acceptance algorithm. We leverage administrative data and a mechanism change implemented in the city of Manta, Ecuador in 2021 to estimate household preferences and show that considering applicant preferences produces large welfare gains. Our counterfactual exercises show that differences across alternative assignment mechanisms are small.

This paper evaluates how new information influences families applica- tions and assignment outcomes in elementary school choice settings. Specifi- cally, using a multi-country RCT based in Tacna, Peru and Manta, Ecuador, we examine the effect of providing personalized information on schooling alternatives and placement risk. We find that applicants who received feed- back on placement risk and a suggestion of new schools add more schools to their applications and were more likely to include recommended schools than other alternatives available.

This document analyzes the functioning of the Education Management and Information System (EMIS) of Jamaica, its strengths and challenges related to the key management processes and structural conditions.