Getting live on cspan two. We have a Simple Program and after a few introductory remarks will going to have a brief video. A picture is worth a thousand words that will give you a couple of those. Through todays conversation about schools in liberia and then will turn it over to minister warner and hell get his keynote address. Following that we have a fantastic panel today with seth andrew from democracy builders, amy black from cultural and development and. [inaudible] from International Finance corporation. Ill introduce them in detail when the panel joins me up here. We will have about 45 minutes of q and a time with some opportunity for the audience to join as well. For those following on social media we have a for our event and its developing world charters. You can comment and send questions which ill be checking on during the q a time. The event, is being live streamed into the full video will be posted online after we conclude today event. Of course, we are here today to hear from minister warner about liberias bold approach for school of reform. First, i want to give a little bit of context for those who dont already have it. Liberia is a west african nation, founded by freed slaves from the United States primarily in the 1800s and over the past decade, liberia has seen no small its fault. The 19 80s saw multiple could eat as and a cycle of violence and unrest that culminated in 1989 and the first of two civil wars that lasted for 14 years. Hundreds of thousands of casualties and more than 1. 3 million liberians displaced. The country stabilized in 2003, in some degree, and further in 2006 with the election of president. [inaudible] former World Bank Economist and eventual Nobel Peace Prize recipient under the President Library continue to stabilize and to build Democratic Institutions, difficult work after years of war and political instability. In 2014, the Ebola Outbreak head killing thousands of liberians and a difficult emergency and destabilizing events as the country which has come out trying to build Economic Growth and Democratic Institutions since then committing poverty and strength and an Education System that was shuttered for better part of the year. On many educational mentors liberia lacks behind with low levels of Primary School attendance and completion and low literacy and illustrative in 2013 nearly 25000 students took the university of iberian Entrance Exam and no one passed. This led the president to call the educated system en masse and she charged Education Minister george warner, who is here today with us, to chart and your course for liberian education. Mr. Warner has taken up the challenge and 2016 he announced a bold plan to partner schools with iberian program in which Independent School operators would run 93 Primary Schools that were partially funded by the governments. The program, is most ambitious forms do, has drawn criticism and praise alike. The consequences of Public School privatization and supporters cite the need for innovative change in a Failing School system. In 2016, 17, 28 iberian attendant 93 psl schools, those are partnership for liberian schools, run by International Energy providers. These educational reforms come at a time of Major Political change. In october, liberia will elect a new legislator and president and in the first democratic transfer of power since 1944. This will be a test of liberias Young Democratic institution and with the new administration on the horizon and bold reforms underway, liberia and its School Reform face great change and a great opportunity. Now, a picture is as good as a thousand words of we bring up the minister, we have a brief video to give you the context for the psl form. I hope that short video gives you some view on liberian schools and now id like to invite Education Minister, george warner, to come up and get his keynote for his release he taught at the high school and College Levels and the director general and liberian Civil Services in 2013 and 2015. He currently cochairs the moment task force and minister of education. During me in welcoming minister warner. [applause] thank you for the kind introduction. Thank you for welcoming us here. Im here today to discuss liberias experience with public, private partnerships in education. First, let me say that im honored to be here in behalf of the liberian government and are hesitant. As most of you know the president became the first democratic female president in them. In 2005 in that election was also another first for liberia was the first president ial election sense the rule and the devastating conflict that crippled our countries and took more than 200,000 lives. President will be leaving office in january of next year having served two terms. All departure from office respecting chris democratic limits marks another important that should not be overlooked. It will be the first peaceful transfer of power in my country since 1944. It will consolidate our postwar democracy. As the president ial campaigns gathers pace, and the events of the elections in just a few months time, i am struck by just how far we have come. When you pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio in liberia you will see and hear evidence of political debate. Its a vibrant and an engaged society. This is an achievement we should not take for granted. Though, i must say, occasionally, i remind myself that i am one in the line of fire of criticism. Beyond our democratic achievements of the past decade liberia has emerged as a post conflict success story. Innovation in the public, private partnerships have been introduced and are created collaboration in healthcare, human, philanthropy, infrastructure and education. We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States for serving as a partner along the journey. Through both democratic and republican administrations, war and return of peace and most recently, to the fight against ebola, the United States has been an essential partner. I want to think the American People for your steadfast support. I want to thank all who contributed to ending a bullet in my country and i know i speak on behalf of of not only the liberian government but also the liberian people when i say that we look forward to continuing our Partnership Long into the future. When you look at the democratic trend, not just in liberia but across the continent of africa, it becomes clear why International Partnerships and collaboration are more important than ever before. Today, there are 420 million africans between the ages of 50 and 35 and that number is expected to nearly double to over 830 million by 2050. This can be a democratic dividend with the potential to transform our economy or it can be a ticking time bomb which depends on one thingeducation. Ten to 20 million african youths enter the workforce every year and many without the liberty with the skills they need to succeed in finding gainful employment. Our Education System is failing to prepare our children for the jobs of yesterday, let alone the jobs of tomorrow. Too many of our young people sit with a hopeless future at home and clean the continent and risking their lives to find opportunity abroad. At the same time, countries across the continent has seen an increase in demand and pressures not only on our Education System but also healthcare and social services. In this context, African Leaders need to think outside the box and find innovative solutions. In liberia, this is exactly what we have done. We are educating the first generation of liberian children who have not no more or conflict. They are too young to have experienced the days when children, rather than going to school, were recruited as soldiers in the body conflict that tore our country apart. We hold the dreams and aspirations of this new generation in our hands. It is our responsibility to ensure that they have opportunity to succeed. That responsibility was front and center, in my mind, when i was appointed Education Minister by resident sirleaf in june of 2015. It is still what drives me every day. When i spoke to him at the ministry of education i already understood some of the challenges that i would face. I knew that our Education System was failing to educate the 35 of our young women and 21 of our young men who could not read a single sentence. I knew about the gender gap and that only 39 of women across liberia completed Primary School. I knew about the inequality in Education Access in our rural areas where only 26 of women and 58 of men were illiterate. I have read all the studies and knew all the stats and, as a former teacher myself, i had seen it firsthand. When i began traveling across the country, visiting schools, speaking to teachers, parents and children, it became clearer that both reform was urgently needed. Maintaining the status quo was not an option, we absolutely could not risk failing this or any future generation of liberian children so, we embrace the opportunity to implement old reforms and truly transform our Education System. We launched a threeyear plan that includes increasing professionalization of teachers and evaluation to ensure we stay on track to reach our goals. We have undertaken an aggressive project to identify and remove workers from the. [inaudible] to date, we have removed nearly 2000 workers which have led to 2. 5 million us dollars in annual savings that can be reinvested in education. We also launched an innovative, Publicprivate Partnership that is testing new models for improving liberian Public Schools. That program or psl for short is what im here to discuss today. As i mentioned earlier, psl has an important distinction from Charter School model that you have here in the United States. All the schools in the program remain within the Public School system and employ teachers on the government payroll. They also do not. [inaudible] not based on socioeconomic status or academic performance. Through the psl program we partnered with education providers, some local, some international, some nonprofit, some forprofit. Each has a different model but all with proven experience in delivering quality education and improving liberty in the outcomes. Those eight providers within the program are Bridge International academy, which was speak more of in the discussion. I have seen the operations in kenya firsthand and in uganda and was impressed by the learning outcomes they were able to achieve and i invited them to library a to partner with the government of liberia. A nonprofit which was already running an academy in monrovia, the capital of liberia, providing both education and Services Like healthcare, Psychosocial Support and a program for. [inaudible] another provider which also operates in sierra leone and has the focus, not only on providing education but also turning and supporting communities to manage and hold them to account. Brighton academy which also operates a network of schools in sierra leone and has a hold time approach of education. And ngo founded in on the that has experience working across africa. [inaudible] which runs a network of schools in nearby ghana and last but not least, the Liberian Youth Network and. [inaudible] both local and liberian providers. In the first year of psl, wheat which just concluded, these eight providers operated at 93 schools in 13 counties across liberia providing free quality education to around 27000 children. Following the first year we have seen some encouraging initial results. According to the line data with an increase in beneficial impact on future behavior including reviews absenteeism and greater time teaching. Teacher attendance rates are about 90 , on average, across all psl schools. They are a tie at 90 in the case of one provider. [inaudible] these should not be taken for granted but they are note minor achievement in the context such as liberia. To date, the program has also delivered much needed resources including desks, chairs, infrastructure, material, a teacher for every classroom and expanded teacher training opportunities. It has also generated a new appreciation for a longer school day all without charging any fees. Just this week, four of the eight providers in our psl Program Released their own midline reports assessing their efforts during the first year of the program and highlighting key successes in improving learning outcomes. It is deeply encouraging to see their commitment to evaluation and also their positive impact on crucial areas including literacy and numbers. Teacher training and engagement of parents, community and teachers learning, rigorous independent measurement and evaluation has been built into the program,. [inaudible] we are currently awaiting results of an independent assessment being carried out by the Global Development in partnership with innovations from public action. While we await the results, we move into the modest increase in the number of psl schools from 93 to 200 about 7 of liberian Public Schools. In the coming year, we will prioritize the most regions in the southeast liberia which have socioeconomic conditions that make it particularly acute. Psl is an innovation that has the potential to accelerate the provision of quality education and ultimately make it accessible to all of your and students in a way it has never been before. This program is strictly evidencebased. So, we will not move forward with any expansion until we have received the completed independent assessment and can judge the impact of psl on the students in the school system. As we assess what the future of psl will look like, what remains clear is that both action is needed if we are going to properly educate and prepare our children for the future. Study contributed by the institution where i was before i came here, they estimate that there is a 100 year gap between the developing world in the developed world when it comes to academic achievement. One hundred years. Were going to leap from that divide, innovation is an option, its a necessity. If the results are as compelling as we think they will be psl could serve as the model for highquality, lowcost education that can be scaled not only in liberia or even only in africa but around countries around the world that are recovering from conflict and crisis. We look forward to harnessing opportunities like today to share our story with partners across the globe and i look forward to hearing your questions about our experience and to a productive discussion. [applause] thank you minister warner. We also think the panel that you see before you with me time to join us today on this conversation. Next to minister warner is Alejandro Javier o is a Senior Education specialist on the health and Education Team in the finance corporation which the private sector arm of the world bank. There, he evaluates investments in private Education Companies and before joining isc, alejandro was a senior specialist at the World Bank Working with governments in higher education, Science Technology and innovation in the latin american and caribbean region before joining the world bank in 2006, mr. Alejandro was with Deutsche Bank in east asia. Thanks for coming, alejandra. Amy black, were lucky to have her. She is the executive Vice President of Global Education at results for development. Previously, ms. Black served as the Vice President of Growth Strategy and development for teachers for all which is a Global Network of more than 40 National Partner organizations that work to improve Educational Opportunities for marginalized youth. Before helping establish teach for all, amy was the executive director of the washington dc region for teach for america. Before that, she oversaw international to medications for the president s emergency plan for aids relief and spent two years as a president ial management fellow rotating for the state Department Offices including a six month stint in south africa. Thank you, amy for joining us. Last, but not least, seth andrew, if you know seth, that is seth and a blue hat down there at the end. If you dont know him, seth is the founder of democracy builders and usually wears a yellow hat. Hes currently working with British International academy to help governments launch more than 300 charter like schools in liberia, kenya, uganda, nigeria, and india. Mr. Andrew served as the Senior Advisor in the executive office of the president and let the education and Civic Technology portfolios and also served as a Senior Advisor to former us secretary of education, arnie duncan. He founded and served a superintendent of democracy prep a network of more than 20 public Charter Schools from harlem to here in washington dc. Thank you, panel, for joining us. Im going to give each of you just a few minutes to give a reaction to minister warners keynote and your thoughts on the psl program. Seth, lets start with you. [crowd boos] thank you for joining us today. This is something that i have so passionate about the past four months and i didnt know how passionate i could be about something until i met mr. Warner. We met at the end of january and he had a conversation with me where he said theres a dc model with 50 saturation in the north orleans model was a hundred saturation in denver was only does mike or the minister of education of iberia and you understand the charter sector in this way that is compelling and interested and deeply researched. Inspired me sincerely i want to thank you public or, mr. Warner for being in this space. In the us, weve been thinking this through for about 20 years in a relatively slow and steady curve. In the us, about 3 million American Students attend public Charter Schools and this is Public Schools funded by the public but attended open enrollment by any student in the Geographic Area but managed independently by organizations that are not necessarily the government itself. When minister warner i bought in immediately. I saw the potential for leveraging some of the best practices of what we learned in the us and some of the liberian specific context that mr. Warner knew all about and i knew nothing about. Having those moments has been something that has inspired me to dig into this work and realize that we can rethink what Public Education is. For me, it was the urgency of the liberian case that you about africa as a hold inspired me to dig in as ms. Warner said, we have 800 million kids on this continent waiting to be educated. 263 million around the world are not in school at all and another 330 million kids were in school but learning nothing, including many in liberia having no outcomes whatsoever. If we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results that is our definition of insanity but in the case of liberia where there are hundreds of years behind we cant just keep doing it. The key word for me that i want to come back to as we go deeper is if liberia takes an incremental approach and increases their budget by 5 or trained their teachers a little better or changes the secretary curriculum a little bit, theyre not going to catch up and theyre not going to leapfrog and are not going to change what is possible for liberian kids for more than a million children. For me the exciting part is seen the bold, big and visionary and thats why im excited for psl. We can quibble over whether supporters of school are chartered school or the definition for the idea here is rethinking what the definition of Public Schools is and who manages the Public Schools. Is that the government or Partner Organizations that might have different expertise giving students and families the choice and where the attend and the kinds of education . Thats whats exciting about this work and im looking forward to digging in more. Amy. Im also very excited to be here. Im relatively new leader of Education Team and results for the velvet. We focus on healthy and educated people and try to focus in the most systemic way possible through the partnerships we pursue. We operate at the intersection between research, Global Research that is available and trying to get that into the hands of people on the ground so they can use it and we position ourselves behind and beside local stakeholders to make sure theres effective as they possibly can be with as little effort on their part to get that Global Information as possible. In that role, we work very hard with leaders across all parts of society particularly Public Sector leaders which as we know are responsible for the vast majority of marginalized people in the world and we value our relationship with Public Sector partners. We also steward a 750 Organization Network and Civil Society across the world in attack and Girls Education and Early Childhood that we are working with to help answer research questions, get what theyre teaching us back out to the broader landscape. What im really excited about as obtains this conversation is our work in the low possible space working with private school are particular our work that we call adaptive learning. We spent a lot of time with the team that does research and uses Traditional Research methods but close to the ground, grassroots operators and gets to level the school or group of schools and says what are your Biggest Challenges that you are facing and what is your theory about what it will take to overcome that and lets test it out and be much more successful by this time next year. We think that kind of research combined with the more rigorous longterm and more costly research that is absolutely needed is also a key part of the efforts like this more successful. We are excited to have done that in partnership the foundation in ghana where we looked at what the barriers of financing for operators like this in sierra leone and liberia and were actually looking at academic outcomes and how are we helping local stakeholders into their specific questions like what it will take to get our secondary school kids were literate in the next six months. That is the work weve been doing and were excited to engage in a few things that we come to that we come to the point have a shared group of goals that everyone is oriented to toward goals that it becomes more about are we getting there together. We think public with private rather than public versus private is a good way of framing things. Private operators are not a lot of the questions we support Public Partners is how do we leverage that in the most productive way and we believe government is in a stewardship role that at the end of the day the government is responsible for outcomes for specially low income kids and that has to be taken into account when we consider the dynamics that are at play. We absolutely believe theres a need for data at all levels of the system for the minister talk about that here and to be a participant in the data at the grassroots level. Of course, we heard the minister talk about context matters so much and theres a unique history here any unique history in every country in history matters. A lot of time conversations only assume a year or two year horizon when we know these challenges need to take that horizon into account and also five20 years and how did the players respond when the context shifts as well. These are things we are excited to be thinking a multitude of actors and players about and results for development and im very excited to be a part of the conversation. Alejandro. I represent isc the private sector of the world bank we are very excited to be here. Thanks, mr. Warner for this interesting presentation. We try to look for models at ife that can be replicated in countries around the world and we try to learn from experience about what has worked in one part of the world and other parts of the world with the main focus on developing countries. Obviously, this is mainly in the context of the learning crisis that we are seeing in particular the many countries in southern africa. Theres been significant progress achieved over the past decade or so in ensuring that children are in school and that there is close to universal an entry because as we saw it on in the context of the learning crisis its about what children learn and mr. Warner talk about which is very important. Starting with the basics in some of these contacts are teachers are in school and the teachers are delivering the lessons that the children need. Some studies by the world bank where we hydrolyze not thats definitely the issue and will see that some of the models that we talk about the Bridge International we try to address that issue of inter accountability and making sure that a teacher is sitting in front of the students in delivering a lesson at 45055 minutes or an hour lesson. In the context of these learning crisis is very important to have solutions and to do what minister warner said, bold reforms. Obviously, we cannot help but agree evidencebased approach that was mentioned and it was another important point that was race. In order for these experiences to be applicable for governments to be able to work alongside these lines we need to be able to create the evidence. Sure we can come back to this in the conversation but the evidence about what works in education and its still a nation and were delivering it and building it and the more we can go in this direction with impact studies that are looking into what works and what brings into the outcome and learning outcomes to the table i think the better we will be. Its exciting and im happy to go deeper into some of these issues. For us, promoting privatesector education is important and thats one of the reasons we support the international academies. We see the benefits and see it differently and education space and obviously in that context we are also happy to see the bridge model can be applied in a Public Education context and thats also part of our interest in this dialogue. Thanks, everyone. I want to start off the Charter School conversation. In large part, because its in the title of our event here today. Its also part of our which is developing world charters. Is a little problematic because the world charters is accessible to american audience and it helps an american audience understand what were talking about but we are not really talking about charters, were talking about partnerships. My question is just to get this flushed out at the start what are the key and fundamental differences for an american audience to understand between the Partnership Schools and american Charter Schools . What might be the best language to talk about . Anyone can jump on it and get their take. I know the minister has strong feelings on this. I come from the american Charter School sector and ill give you a couple of the things that i think this is. What is happening in psl is there public buildings, publicly funded, open access and romance and there are no fees for students whatsoever in the state standards i would have to be met in their accountable for results to their authorizer in this case, minister warner. That defined the public charter. As we hear do in the us. The difference is a subclass of Charter Schools, one is that in liberia Partnership Schools are actually public workers, they are on the public payroll not on the Nongovernmental Organization payroll, their Union Members by default and that payroll in the public worker status changes the dynamic of their places in the United States for Charter School teachers are members of the union as well. The districts are the authorizer in the district itself i understand the value of partnership and amys point is that is public with. [inaudible] this is a partnership. The operators in liberia are partnering with the government to deliver better results. That is the definition of charter. In the case of iberia theres an mou between operator and the government and that is in function the charter, the authorizing documents that stipulates what the operators will provide, how they will provide it, what theyre expected to deliver. I think at the end of the day they are charters. Theres some Great Research that weve been doing lately about the spectrum of charters between those in the liberian context of Public Employees to those are much further in spectrum where they are the equivalent of closer to vouchers where the government is basically doing a transfer of funds to attend a private school or another type of school. Visible spectrum that are met here and the definition of charter are the open school, publicly funded and publicly accountable and to me, this program meets that which is part of why its so exciting. I will say quickly about bridge, the bulk of their school, nearly 500 across the world, are the lowkey private schools for about 7 a month to getting a worldclass education. That means that 7 a month and whats so profound about minister warners work is that these are 0b schools. No textbook please, no pta fees, no tech and if youre new to the state you have to understand traditional Public Schools charge these fees. Traditional Public Schools are not free and much of the developing world and yet mr. Warner has made a system of schools is run by private or Nongovernmental Organizations that are free. Our notion that free equals public is not the right notion for africa. That is not actually generally true and in fact, in the psl program, ownership schools are in fact free for families. The paradigm shift a little bit but charter is still the writer. Thank you. Let me just Say Something to add to what seth just said. With the exception of maybe singapore and vietnam, i dont know any country that educates poor children. [inaudible] not the United States and the uk. If the Us Government would you would have no need for Charter Schools. If the uk government could do similarly there would be no need for the academies in the uk. What that tells me is that the government are failing to educate our children and there is a need for partnership with the private sector. The first reason we are not educating our children for Public Sector jobs only. A few of them get to the Public Sector and depending on which president is in power, you can have that workforce reduced. So, we are educating the majority of our kids for the private sector, for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. All the more reason why the private sector needs to be called to get involved in how we educate our children. So, this is why in liberia we chose to work partnerships. There are things government does very well, policy platform, regulations, education as the public good and if those things government can do well but daytoday management, assessments, planning outcomes, systems of accountability, government doesnt do as well is the private sector does. So, weve partnered with private providers to strengthen government where it is weakest, if you like. That is the essence of the partnership with us. Im interested i want to follow up with that and anyone can answer. Seth, you talk about bridge. Across the psl a different provider and what do what are the specific things aspects of the model that they bring that the Public Schools would not be able to develop on their own . Where is the secret sauce or the promise that they bring that can be achieved to the psl program . Seth, can you describe bridge. Less about bridge and more about the psl program. Its curriculum. This is a relatively small thing and there should be a fundamental schools curriculum and what we teach but when you walk into a Government School and library of you dont find curriculum. You walk in and you see on the chalkboard is as 2016 at the top because they havent had talk or anyone right in the chalkboard since 2015. So you have these moments, the stark realization that learning isnt happening in these places so the operators, the eight operators that mr. Warner brought in are bringing curriculum. More than meat which is operating in liberia is an bridge is a specific curriculum in each one of these operators brings their curriculum that has very concrete goals and that is aligned to the Library National standards. In the case of bridge, was for schools in kenya we had a great team working in liberia to align the curriculum we designed for other parts we have to make sure that its local contacts. Curriculum is one of the biggest elements. The second and georgia listed this but its important to think about the government is not usually thought of as the leader of technology and i just left the obama ministration where we spent a lot of time picky about technology in government. I can still tell you we were way behind where the private sector was in thinking about technology. Most of us use dont use government tech in our lifes previous privatesector tech in our lives. Bridge has taken a curriculum from the best practices in the developed world and american Charter Schools and delivered it for a very lowtech solution, a really cheap the reader, blackandwhite tablet that cost about 50 to manufacture in china and you get a content that is the same content of kids getting in washington dc or boston or cambridge, massachusetts and theyre getting it on a 2g signal in black and white in a rural, library and classroom. That is the thing that government of labor havent figured out to do yet. The private sector has figured out how to do it and the ngos have been more aggressive in adopting curriculum and technology into their practice. This is one of the reasons why i think this has potential, not just for an incremental change but for a leapfrog change. And other important element this might want to bring the private sector in very quickly there will be questions. Its better than what we have. It brings incentive and to measure things to developing what is currently underway where eventually. [inaudible] it might seem very obvious but it does bring very quickly the measurement of something that helps bring the discussion to a new level because its evidenced been created and thats whats happening and starting to happen in the library in case. You bring up evidence and i have two questions. The first is across the developing world what evidence have we seen for these Publicprivate Partnerships and education for low income students and also in terms of the psl what specifically has minister warner done to take into the program a way to measure its outcome that is rigorous and can provide evidence and other evidence of liberia. I can talk about. Obviously typically to access who operates global finances public or private and different combinations that can take place. In most cases. Vouchers have been invested if in chile for instance there was about reported most efforts to assess the Voucher Program and what happened by most of the measurements the evidence is not conclusive to be clear. Typically it comes down to the question in are we measuring things all equal. Are we taking into account and a serviceable variable that can affect the Student Learning outcomes and that was part of the discussion that we had. In the case of Charter Schools, im sure seth and amy would have specific evidence of other us and thats more robust. In some cases its very clear evidence that this has worked in the context of developing countries we have examples like columbia with concessions and schools which are quite relevant and with interesting findings. Its a part of a potential good performance by private schools but the question is the fact that private schools are performing well compared to the Public Schools. This other elements and discussion is one of them has to do with are we talking about the same things . In the african context i have conversation with a number of ministers of education and the question is, i mean, are we talking about Public Finance kicking in and in some cases we are in some cases we might not be looking at the same type of models. Setting up the definition of what were talking about is quite important. The second element of whether the moment you have Public Finance kicking in and working together with the private sector what are you able to build up systems that would work from government and evaluation perspective. This is what mr. Warner is dealing with. Obviously, in the context of developing countries, to be frank. We need to create this evidence and we dont have that many experiences. The ones we have, in the case of vouchers, bring inconclusive answers sometimes but theres eagerness and willingness to go down that route by many governments in developing countries and creating that evidence the specific examples, its really what i think will help build a little knowledge about the space. What, in liberia, immediately thought of and did the support the International Community was and now led by the center for Global Development and innovation is that we needed a rigorous evaluation of the program to generate the evidence foreignpolicy whether we should start or continue and at what scale and what the gaps would be in terms of what we are looking at. With commission reflected a trial and the best line is completed. The midline reports should be made available to inform the world about many of the things that we are looking for in terms of evidence. I must admit that the. [inaudible] commission for years and we still have some way to go yet to know whether or not this program is giving us what we want to do. Let me remind you that its only in the second year that we are trying to reach the remotest parts of liberia. We also have to examine whether or not psl works in the context. We have too many rivers that children have to canoe up the river or, as you saw, walk across states to get to schools and what the implications are the country with seven months of heavy rainfall during which time children dont have access at all to some of the school infrastructure. I dont have much to add except to say it is true, we need more evidence. We need more time and needed resources to go into evaluation and there is a lot of time in the Global Community and that is on its way. I reiterate that we are excited and the results are not by any means the only organization doing this work but in the meantime there are kids that are in School Every Day and those practitioners need to know roughly where they are. We are excited about the less rigorous but more immediate research that can be done to create trajectories for operators know that they are on the right path. And they know theres a bottoms up, topdown approach and it will be important to see in the coming years, months and years, if these sorts of engagements are getting the results theres an opportunity to see both. To look back and see what has happened at the simultaneously be preparing operators for hopefully a positive outcome by making sure that they have the tools and resources inhouse like at the level of the schools to be thinking the way researchers think to be answering their own questions. So, there is a growing need for that as well. I think both of these pieces can come together to hopefully get results and not just in private settings but also in public settings. This is the kind of work that we as educators need to be doing everywhere here in the us and in liberia and everywhere else. I think theres another body of work that is also burgeoning that can complement these larger studies as well. I have two somewhat contradictory thoughts and i admit. We have already seen results and your point and the difference is formative and summative. Some of that Research Needs to be formative and we need to be making decisions tomorrow about the lesson we tried yesterday that didnt work and fix it tomorrow. Thats research, not a full itc. Mr. Warner mentioned that four of the providers are usually stimuli results. The bridge had his four times as many students in the treatment schools than in the control schools and meeting benchmarks and that was after four months of instruction. Using outcomes that are there on the shortterm for bridge in kenya using an 83 and the counties operate across the country, the outcomes on the and school exam for Elementary Schools the students at bridge are outperforming the counties. Nothing every single day. Kids were opting out of school in many cases completely and it then to say we will wait for them to scale before we skillet is mistake. I think his instinct is that we need good rigorous evidence is right by the dozen we should stop moving. My thoughts come one of the funny things used department of education is our highest standard for evidence was investing in innovation fund. But we gave away billions of dollars for the funds that were not about innovation. But in innovation its one thing we should expect no evidence because it should be innovative. It should be the thing we havent tried before. Should be the thing that is old and new and different. Although we should be informed by evidence and best practices and other countries and different context doesnt mean we should be paralyzed by waiting for the result of longterm studies before we say these kids did a great kindergarten next year or tomorrow. Schooling can benefit from innovation also benefits from funding and for western audience i just want to try and talk for a moment about the cost differential. American Public Schools we spent about 12 grand a year per kid. Liberian Public Schools they spend 50 per pupil per year, which is 240x multiple, right . 240 times less. So first of all how do you do that . I just cant even get my head around it. I have a couple of the questions that maybe we can follow up on that around how can western companies, certainly for profit or notforprofit just survive in such a lowcost environment . [laughing] so let me start so the others will follow maybe. Let me give you the context for liberia. Last year our education budget was around 41 million u. S. Dollars. Of that 41 million, 35 million for payroll. So you see where im going with that, right . So much of the 50 that matt spoke about is dedicated to payroll. You actually have nothing for what in essence contributes to quality, teacher training, textbooks and all of these things. So that is the backdrop to the 50. So when we initiated psl, we blended fun to come went to private foundations, and then we said look, what if you were to give an extra 50 to these operators, making it 100, right . The fiji dont you give them will be for innovations to meet what we set out together that we wanted to achieve. And yet, too, because were consolidating to areas that are more difficult than year one, were seeing 60. What you still see that that is not responsive enough to cover the costs. What this tells me is all the noise about for profit, i dont know who is making profit in this environment. So i just wanted to lay that context for you to get a sense of the struggle we are in with the operators to make sure that children have access to equal quality education. I can say for bridge theyre not making a profit in liberia, which is the reality of working in this context but partially because the scale is a big enough. So right now ridges educating about 9000 students in liberia in year one of the pilot. Part of the reason this is so exciting to me is it took democracy press, my Charter School network in the us about 13 years to get to that number students. Bridge Prime Minister warner have served nearly 40,000 students in just year one. So the scale is still big but it needs be bigger to get those cost function stander so for bridge one of those cost function is developing to send the curriculum of the second and hardware of the software that is used in classrooms at once that is built the marginal cost for t each interval justin is almost zero. There is a montague to break even in a place like library that would require hundreds of thousands of students educated in this method. You really have to get to a big scale for the cost to get down to that number that is closer to 40 or 50 per student. It still a a long way off. Right now bridge and psl are relying on philanthropy and incredibly generous and thoughtful donors are recognizing that for an investment of close to 50 a student you can educate and attire student for a year, to get a much better better education than they were getting before. Just for western audience, one contextual thing that a cell phone is that for bridge and all the operators of their using government teachers. These are the same teachers there last year. They had been retrained, evaluative early, been given different curriculum at the payroll cost ha tested about the same additional cost of things like curriculum material, additional training and added context. If you think about 50 per student a a year, thats about 2000 for a classroom of four tickets per classroom per year. 150 a month, lets call that 150 1500 a year leaving only 0 total per classroom for materials, textbooks, technology anything else. That sounds like a small number any western context. The tablet the teacher gets is 50. This is doable. I want people to walk away understanding this is absolutely possible. We showed it in kenya. Western together in liberia but requires a lot more students to be in systems like this rather than being an incredibly intensive commitment of resources upfront before you get to the skill point where it is actually sustainable. I think thats a very interesting feature of the bridge model. It was designed from inception to really operate at a scale, i think that skill is required for the model to work, but definitely every single element of that from the top to the way that the materials, textbooks, et cetera, i mean, this thought of with a view bringing costs down to a really minimum. And i think thats what made apollo quite attractive to us when we look into it. Me give you one more example because its helpful. In the u. S. Context we think about technology and the way it is transfer american schools. In liberia they dont have the resources or the infrastructure for example, science labs. The School Building you saw in the video are barebones. Most dont have power. Youre lucky if you have 2g. 2g. But there are tools in the developed world like Virtual Reality, tools a Cost Accountant order of 50 is a headset you can now see a Virtual Reality science lab. In the developed world we can imagine 50 per student do a science lab in virtual rally. In the developed world we cant because the math doesnt add up but you can get a cardboard version of the same thing for three dollars. For now if im thinking about taking the same thing, bringing the quality down a little bit but the content that is been delivered to my students in washington, d. C. , is going to be the same exact content as can be delivered to get in liberia with a three dollars piece of cardboard and the phone the principal is getting to download those lesson plans. Its about thinking differently about how we spend money and what we spend money on and not letting this incredibly impossible challenge which is a 50 per student per year, how is it possible stop us from being innovative. Thats what the new thinking thats not just doing it the same way we done and expecting different results is going to hopefully get us a different set of results. I want to ask questions about lowcost private schools because weve been talking about vso schools which are Public Schools, they are paid for but in the developing world lowcost private schools are a big thing, right . In america we think of Public Schools as vomiting the scene. First of all can be sort of partnerships work with lowcost private schools, and can you give me a sense of how big lowcost private schools cover the market in developing countries . By one estimate in africa less than 50 of students are attending Government Schools already. Where are the students quick theyre either a good chunk at a school as he talked about but also in these affordable private schools. When we think of private school in u. S. And the developed world is a different context. And the idea of spending seven dollars a month in getting a good education as it happened in kenya fro for 100,000 students across the Bridge Network that is a very different way to think about what education is and it is a way family for my politico two dollars a day so this is not come talk about wealthy families complained that families living into was a day per capita and being able to spin what ends up being about 10 of their income on the childs education. Thats a choice are making and one that we should admire and really talk about as an aspirational opportunity for those families that they havent had. They are making rational choice of the wonder the things that frustrates me the most is often when critics of affordable private schools are basically saying families dont know what they are doing. Im arguing the family still better than any of us were often in this room and in washington, d. C. , in monrovia or liberia or nairobi what is best for the family and they are choosing across africa almost 50 of them did not go to the government run schools and instead go to the other schools. We more respectful and thoughtful about what that really is saying about the choices they have asked famili families. Lowcost private schools are a reality in many developing countries. Thats really the case in Subsaharan Africa but also in other parts of the world as well. In the case of kenya, you might have the latest statistics but i think i read sometime ago ago that will talking between 500,0001 Million Students enrolled in lowcost private schools across the country and about half of that only in nairobi. So its really a big thing, and its a reality. Why do parents decide to send children to lowcost private schools . We talked about the hidden cost of in some cases we find in Public Education come in some environments. Maybe the proximity shields ability to walk under pete at the end of day in terms of decisions may be lack of capacity in the Public Schools as well. But this is a reality and it cannot go unnoticed. I think if theres any for government, also realize that this is a sector that deserve attention and that ultimately you have to regulate it broadly in a different way as how to regulate it, traditional mainstream Education Sector. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for some of the schools just to operate. And again theres many, many children that are already enrolled in these schools. Just to bring more nuance to the context. Most of these are not in chain schools. Most of them are run by big operators, but mom and pop schools what you think there are different policy implications for the thousands and thousands of Community Schools that are run by a Single Family for any number of reasons, right . I think as governments wrestle with the complexity of what theyre responsible for stewarding international context, a lot of this conversation is about operators either local or international that are coming in. But in this case in Real Partnership with the government, many governments are facing as many of us know, thousands of individual operators and not with a lot of visibility into whats actually happening there even though their ultimate responsibility education. There are lots of different angles when, it is why gating precise about the definition of what kinds of operators you were talking about can have different implications for the policy outcomes that a government might choose. So minister werner, im going to turn over to the audience for some questions but my question is with the election coming up, what are your concerns for the sustainability of the program . You know, what is your hope for the program in 2025 . So let me tell you what we are excited about first. We are excited that president s early president certainly is sending her to your term and constitutional term limits. We are excited that for the First Time Since 1944, a living president handed over to another president in liberia. So these other things that excite us in liberia as we begin a political feeling that ends on ten october when it all go to the polls to choose our next president. But the transition of which you spoke is something that we are looking at as a government for all of these reasons provided. We dont want a reversal on the gains weve made together with the support of the u. S. Government and u. S. Taxpayer money. So in education we are very carefully designing transition process that will allow the next education secretary or minister in our own case to be able to pick the reforms we have put together and carried them forward. So with the support of the Global Partnership of education, we have developed a comprehensive Education Sector plan. Thats five years in terms of what we want to prioritize to reform. Out of that we have drawn a three year plan simply saying to ourselves, by 2021 we want to see a trained, qualified, wellpaid teacher in every classroom and every Public School. It a child but to do that we need a team build to make sure that those reforms are implemented now and through the next government. So we put in place what we call an education delivery unit, and it will be a team of experts, civil servants, dedicated to helping the next administration shepherd the reforms forward. And they will be contracted for two years. The money we are raising is through grant, through borrowing. We are planning attempts resultbased achievements. So you get some money up front to work on the priorities listed in the Education Sector plan, but to access the balance of the money, you must have met some targets. So these are the strategies we are putting in place to make sure that these reforms dont die with the next administration, and that they are carried forward. But most importantly, we learn from ebola that to really deal with a crisis, you need to invest in the communities, right . So one of the things that we havent spoken about is that we encourage the operators to go in the communities, and gauge the committees, had a with the pta, the Community Leadership and make sure that theyre involved in the daytoday administration of this school. As a result of that some of the schools are oversubscribed. Because the parents see the value. My sense is that if the parents in the communities value these schools, able live beyond the next administration and thats what we want. Welcome were going to move to some q a from the audience. We have a couple of rules for question and answers. First of all, when one of the gentleman comes around with a microphone, please give your name and your affiliation, and never do, please ask a question. If you go through with the statement we will move on to someone else who does have a question. Thank you, mr. Warner and to the rest of the panel. Your name . George. My question is, we seem governments in the countries in Subsaharan Africa invalid universal primary as well as secondary education which is supposed to be free. That is also actually increased student involvement maybe three or four, bifold. But however, the ppp in education is being resisted by some countries. Is there a particular reason why, worldcom inc. , severance, lowcost private schools . And how has library for instant combated that . Thank you. So look, good question. First, as best as i understand it, you know this very well, idq statistics of the population growth in africa. Fertility rates are very high, and so theres a growing demand on health and education. And there are constraints in terms of the physical space for government to meet this demand. So we have to think outside of the box to leverage other sources of funding to be able to meet that increase in demand. But more to your point in terms of why the resistance, i look back in terms of lessons i have learned and things i will do differently from initiating this, i would strengthen communications. You cant take it for granted that the field for education secretary reforms is still very in the sense that it is trouble to change even if people do want to see change their we agree on what type of change is needed so our language for change of the more progressive than the actual change itself. So people need to know, and in the beginning we didnt Prioritize Communications as we have. So the program got best characterized as privatization of Public Schools, and the Partnership Model was not pushed. The communication come as to how we circumvented the pushback, i think we have [inaudible] we tried very hard to convince the beneficiaries, and that was one. The second thing was i told you earlier that we went around the country. I went to 15 counties for times and i saw the reality. That was my passion. That was my vision, and nothing was going to stop me. Thats how i circumvented it. [laughing] thank you. My name is [inaudible] minister, i want to know if your partnership also include [inaudible] because realized in nigeria you can ask the best painter to paint your school, you know, to it. These children are hungry. They are trying to do it, provide a meal for every student. Secondly, you talk about your budget last year 31 million. How much was that in terms of percentage of the liberian government . Thank you. So the liberian governments budget, and the last three or four or five years, has pretty much been around ive hundred million, the national budget, 500 million. So of that, 12 is given to the consistently, to the Education Sector. And that includes not just secondary schools but the public tertiary institutions. Of the 12 , 6 is dedicated to Early Childhood primary and secondary education. So 6 of the budget goes to the International Benchmark is what, 20, 25 . At a time our economy was growing at around 7 annually, we thought we could reach that, then came the commodity crash on the international market. Library is make exporter iron ore and rubber, and the prices drop it after that came ebola and we lost our investors. There was a time the imf is predicting that library is growth would be at 0 . We are on our way back now, so that explains the percentage for that. On feeding, you touched upon an issue that concerns all of us, including the funders of the psl program. Before the program was initiated, we had around three hours. Because of the surge in enrollment after ebola, many of the Public Schools became instituted two, three ships schools, to accommodate the increase in enrollment. So a School Session will last for around three hours a day. And then another session will come in. To counteract that, we asked the providers to have an extended instruction at time supported by research six to seven hours per day. What we didnt factor in was School Feeding. The World Food Program meals have been very supportive of government efforts for Homegrown School feeding, which is what we do to support our farmers, to grow more so that we can feed our own people. What were finding from year one is as a result of the extended instruction in time, were finding that some children are hungry. And so in year number two where building into the program and amount, i think it is rather 1 million for School Feeding to build a cover for this. Ive had the opportunity to talk to some of my counterparts across the region from rwanda in order to ask how to deal with the problem of School Feeding. And essentially its by going to parents and saying look, if your child was at home, what we eat or she be eating . If you have that, bring it to school, and the government and add to it to make sure that the child has food for the extended instruction of time. So thats a drawback that we are hoping to fix in your number two. Question writer, front row. Thank you. My net is Annette Johnson and had to get some background because im here in my own capacity but i live i was born in library and i lived and worked there from 20102013 at the nation of justice setting up the first child justice program. And so i come with that context in mind, and a couple of questions concerns. We will have to make one question because were running out of time. Given the issue of accessibility in liberia, i heard mention of the fact that for such a program to work, there is a need for government involvement, but most of the Government Programs are funded by outside sources. The government has not shown a commitment to children in its budget, based on what weve heard here today. So im wondering how do you all envision such a program being scaled in library to were all children to have access, even leaving aside that theres a lot of controversy in the liberia, if they should be the way to go . How did you access to all children . You are only reaching 7 now. How are you going to get to 100 . Because now we are leaving one problem and we are creating inequality because we are not accessing everyone like you said. The roads, you cant get to most of the country, so im really interested now were going to great a balanced system that reaches all children. So the problem of scale. So, thank you and good to see you again. The government has the commitment to children. It has it is not where it should be but the government is investing in the children of liberia, as you well know. The question youve asked about skill is something that really i think about every night. So to achieve that at the same time you need to consider what has happened to me of all the feedback from the domestic audience in terms of this idea that you want to be cautious in terms of how you approach this. We are cautiously approaching this which is how i said earlier we have informed Decision Making the children in liberia dont have the luxury of time to wait. If we dont do anything radical so you make a valid point. I am afraid we are out of time. Please feel free to have that discussion go on line for those of you better here we will have a reception following immediately. [applause] [inaudible conversations]
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