The study titled "Evaluation of Achievement Change in Egypt using PIRLS Data" by Harry Patrinos, Maciej Jakubowski, and Tomasz Gajderowicz, published in April 2024, highlights Egypt's remarkable improvement in reading scores despite the global challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers used the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) data to evaluate educational outcomes in Egypt.
Key findings include:
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Significant Improvement: Reading scores in Egypt showed a remarkable increase of 48 points from 2016 to 2021, which is equivalent to two years of academic growth. This improvement contrasts with the global trend of declining student outcomes during the pandemic.
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Gender Disparities Narrowed: Boys enhanced their reading scores significantly, narrowing the gap with girls who continued to outperform them. The performance of the lowest-achieving boys improved by approximately 80 points, roughly 2/3 of a standard deviation.
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Decomposition Analysis: Using the Oaxaca-Blinder technique, the researchers assessed the reasons behind the improvement. They found that only one-third of the progress is attributed to observable changes in variables like socioeconomic status. Improved school characteristics and access to digital textbooks contributed positively but with smaller impacts.
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Policy Implications: Most of the improvement in reading scores cannot be directly attributed to changes in student characteristics, suggesting that policy or system changes might have played a crucial role. The study suggests that factors such as increased collaboration among teachers and higher parental involvement could have contributed to the improvement.
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Empirical Strategy: The researchers employed a linear regression model to predict the deviation of the 2021 results from an estimated linear trend in reading achievement using data from all PIRLS rounds. They also analyzed changes in student achievement for different social background groups, ages, genders, and achievement levels.
These findings underscore Egypt's successful educational response during the pandemic, particularly in reading literacy, and suggest potential areas for further investigation into the policies and practices that facilitated this improvement.
