Education

Note to reader: This information is from a previous round of research. While some of it may need to be updated, the majority of it is still accurate

As education interventions, we include primary, secondary, tertiary and vocational education, but not highly specific medical education, such as education about how to reduce the transmission of HIV.

Education is notoriously difficult to assess in terms of cost-effectiveness. It is clearly very important, but its effects are so subtle and wide-ranging that it is very difficult to measure the impact that a certain education program has. It is hard enough to compare education programs to each other; but even harder to compare them to other intervention types, such as disease treatment.

Though ultimately we would like to provide some assessment of education charities, we currently do not have enough information to do so. One thing that we have discovered, however, is that treating children for parasitic worm infections (also known as neglected tropical diseases) is the most cost-effective way of improving school attendance rates. Children are so often ill because of their infection with parasitic worms that treating this dramatically improves school attendance. Treatment costs only $0.02 per school day per person, or $3.27 per aggregate school year per person and in addition, it is one of the most cost-effective health interventions. 1 We therefore suggest that those donors who are particularly concerned with improving education in the developing world consider donating to Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, which treats children for parasitic worm infections and other neglected tropical diseases.

For a more detailed analysis of an intervention-type, see our pages on health.