Improving teaching and learning in low-income schools

The Escuela Nueva program (EN) that started in Colombia in the mid 1970s, is widely recognized as a successful model of educational delivery where the objective is to improve the quality of schooling1. It is one of the longest bottom-up innovations of the developing world that has been sustained. In this paper, we present a description of the program and review its progress to date to inform policy makers in the Asia and Pacific Region where the model may have a great potential to increase both enrolment and quality of education in rural schools, boarding schools, or schools using the traditional teaching frontal model. As the quality of education of this region focuses on innovative approach to improve learning, teacher development, school efficacy, and targeting for unreached and marginalized children (UNESCO and UNICEF, 2012), we argue that the model is worth trying to better education in poor rural schools of the Region. However, although many studies today show the program to be successful, impact evaluation studies should be conducted to reach a more conclusive recommendation regarding the program’s success.