Under the Hood: Randomised Control Trials on Distance Education During Covid-19 in Botswana

CSAE Research Podcasts

A discussion about some of the first experimental evidence on distance education during the covid-19 pandemic in Botswana. The conversation goes under the hood of the randomised control trials to discuss some critical implementation lessons and research insights that don’t always make it into the final academic paper, and what is next on the horizon. The Botswana paper is available here (School’s Out: Experimental Evidence on Limiting Learning Loss Using “Low-Tech” in a Pandemic) and was co-authored by Noam Angrist, Peter Bergman, and Moitshepi Matsheng. The intervention and trial were the product of a collaboration between the Botswana Ministry of Basic Education and Young 1ove, in partnership with CSAE and J-PAL. A series of flexible funders and partners enabled the rapid COVID-19 response and trial in Botswana, including the Mulago Foundation, the Douglas B. Marshall Foundation, J-PAL Post-Primary Education (PPE) Initiative, TaRL Africa, the Global Challenges Research Fund, and Northwestern University’s “economics of nonprofits” class. Speakers featured: Noam Angrist (Fellow at the CSAE, University of Oxford, and Co-founder of Young 1ove) Claire Cullen (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Young 1ove and University of Oxford) Thato Letsomo (Senior Manager for Content and Training, Young 1ove) Moitshepi Matsheng (Co-founder and country coordinator Young 1ove, Chairperson Botswana National Youth Council)