Primary and Secondary Education Evidence Gap Map

The purpose of this evidence gap map (EGM) is to provide easy access to the best available evidence on what works to improve education outcomes for primary and secondary school children in in low- and middle-income countries.

The EGM highlights that there are a number of systematic reviews available on school feeding and cash transfers, but few reviews examine the effects of interventions on household expenditure, child labour, teacher performance and attendance. Several reviews report on learning outcomes, but the literature is not comprehensively covered.

The EGM is based on a comprehensive search for impact evaluations and systematic reviews assessing the effects of a broad range of interventions on access and quality of education. It allows users to explore the findings of 19 systematic reviews through links to user friendly summaries on the 3ie systematic reviews database. It also demonstrates that 2 additional reviews are ongoing. We also provide a summary of our critical appraisal of all reviews included in the map. The colour of the bubbles indicates our confidence in findings about effects based on this appraisal, giving reviews an overall rating of high, medium or low confidence in findings about effects.

The EGM is structured using a framework of interventions grouped by the main setting in which they are taking the: child level interventions, household level interventions, school level interventions, teacher level interventions and system level interventions.

The EGM was developed and funded by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie).