The ‘School for All’ JICA Project in Madagascar Featured in the Financial Times: Senior Research Fellow Maruyama Takao Contributes to the Project Through His Research

In the September 19, 2022 edition of the Financial Times, “School for All: An Educational Development Project with Community Participation,” which is a JICA project in Madagascar, was featured as a good example of development cooperation in education. The background for the article is an impact evaluation conducted by JICA and Madagascar’s Ministry of Education, which demonstrated that the project improved children’s learning in reading and math.

In collaboration with Igei Kengo of Keio University, Maruyama Takao, who is currently a senior research fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development (the JICA Ogata Research Institute), scientifically measured the impact of the JICA project on children's learning outcomes through a randomized controlled trial, and they reported the results in an academic paper.

JICA Ogata Research Institute will continue to promote research related to JICA projects in developing countries, publish those results, and disseminate evidence to the international community.

The article in the Financial Times and the paper on the impact evaluation in Madagascar can be found at the following links.

• Numeracy levels deserve same focus as literacy in low-income nations (Financial Times Website)
• Community-Wide Support for Primary Students to Improve Basic Reading and Math Learning: Empirical Evidence from Madagascar by Takao Maruyama, Kengo Igei (SSRN Website)
• School for All Project in Africa: Data shows dramatic improvement in children’s education (JICA Website)