By the 2020s, Rwanda faced a learning crisis: while almost all children were in school, learning outcomes remained poor. Determined to improve education quality, the government had prioritised education in its national budget. Now, the Ministry of Education was under pressure to deliver. For the past year, Dr. Bernard Bahati had led a task force to reform teachers’ performance contracts and explore whether incentives could be linked directly to student learning. The team launched an adaptive trial of a promising pay-for-performance model, previously successful in a smaller pilot, to test its effectiveness at scale.
However, six months into the trial, a new minister was appointed. Although some early signs were encouraging, the results were still preliminary, with no statistically significant gains in learning – and implementation had proven difficult. Despite these concerns, the new minister, eager to address the crisis, pushed to roll out the performance contracts nationwide within the year. Caught between political pressure to act quickly and researchers urging caution, Bahati faced a critical decision: whether to scale an unproven program in hopes of immediate impact, or to delay and risk losing momentum and political support.
Coming soon – October 2025
- Evaluate a body of evidence and explore the trade-offs involved in designing and implementing evidence-based policy;
- Identify key stakeholders and consider how they may view these trade-offs differently;
- Understand the concept of the ‘voltage drop’ in moving from a seemingly successful ‘proof of concept’ to an effective policy implemented at scale using government systems and consider ways to mitigate this through A/B testing;
- Exercise the use of judgement in balancing the ‘politics, logistics, and statistics’ involved in evidence-based policy-making;
- Understand the concept of the learning crisis, explore reasons for this crisis; and consider evidence-based options for addressing this crisis.