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secondary education

It takes a school: An extraordinary story of success in Somaliland

Jonathan Starr's picture
Students at Abarso School of Science and Technology.
Abaarso was founded in 2009 as a not-for-profit school in Somaliland. Today, there are over 80 Abaarso students studying abroad, including at such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Yale, and MIT. (Photo: Abaarso School) 


Editor's note: This is a guest blog by Jonathan Starr, founder of Abaarso School of Science and Technology, and the author of “It Takes A School.”

60 Minutes, The New York Times, MSNBC, BBC, and CNN are just some of the media outlets that have covered the story of Abaarso School in Somaliland. Abaarso is also the subject of a recently released book, It Takes A School, and an upcoming documentary, Somaliland, The Abaarso Story. All this attention is the result of Abaarso’s extraordinary success, despite conventional wisdom believing Abaarso’s results were impossible anywhere, never mind in the unrecognized breakaway country of Somaliland. Given Abaarso’s achievements and modest price tag, its approach is worth a deeper dive for lessons that can be applied elsewhere.

In the medium term, school rules!

Markus Goldstein's picture
The past decades have seen large increase in primary enrollment, and a closing (for most, but not all, countries) of the gender gap in enrolment.    The next step is to look at secondary school.   A nice new paper by Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas and Michael Kremer looks at what happens when you make it accessible to more young people.
 

Testing, testing: How Kosovo fared in its first international assessment of students

Flora Kelmendi's picture
Results of PISA 2015 reveal a wide performance gap between Kosovar students and their peers in the region.
Photo: Jutta Benzenberg / World Bank



A few weeks ago, education policy makers and data analysts around the world were glued to their laptops when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published the results of PISA 2015. More than half a million students – from 72 countries and economies representing 28 million 15 year-olds – had taken the test. PISA, an international assessment administered every three years, measures the skills of students in applying their knowledge of science, reading, and mathematics to real life problems.  PISA is one of the most influential international student assessments, which provides a rich set of information on the systems strengths and weaknesses, supports development of effective policies – and at the same time, benchmarks country's achievements vis a vis other participating countries.