How to Improve Schooling Outcomes in Low-Income Countries? The Challenges and Hopes of Cognitive Neuroscience

Abstract

The international Education for All initiative to bring about universal primary education has resulted in large enrollment increases in lower income countries but with limited outcomes. Due to scarcity in material and human resources, all but the better off often fail to learn basic skills. To improve performance within the very limited capacities of low-income educational systems, instructional interventions ought to be designed according to the ways people retain and recall information most efficiently. Without this research-based line of reasoning, donor and government staff may overestimate students’ ability to learn from complex methods and scant practice. Applicable concepts include perceptual learning for scripts, automaticity for basic skills, the limitations of working memory, and formation of cognitive networks in long-term memory. However, education faculties rarely teach these topics. A systematic effort is necessary to popularize cognitive science concepts pertinent to basic skills for staff working in the education sector of lower income countries. Therefore, better understanding and application of learning research is urgently needed if universal primary education is to succeed.

Acknowledgments

The ideas and opinions expressed in this work are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank.

Notes

For example, the background information for the master's degree in international and comparative education of Stanford University stated in 2011: “Students in the program examine educational policy issues in an international context. Working closely with professors from a variety of disciplines, they study such problems as educational planning in comparative perspective, the dynamic relationship between school and community, equity and education, and the political economy of underdevelopment” (http://ed.stanford.edu/academics/masters).

Cognitive psychology is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems. Psychologists have been conducting experiments on these topics since the 19th century. The term “cognitive science” often refers to interdisciplinary research on the mind and mental processes. The term “cognitive neuroscience” refers to research on brain states which directly correlate with mental states (Sun, 2008); for such research, neuroimaging methods are used.

Connectionist networks could be used to simulate instructional conditions in low-income classrooms and estimate educational outcomes, but this topic is beyond the scope of this article.