**Learning Shelters.** In total, 1,345 learning shelters were constructed by schools in the eight disadvantaged districts. The Government estimates that this construction enabled 79,500 students to move from open-air classrooms to learning in a shelter (Ministry of Education, 2021). The majority of shelters (754) were constructed within the first year of the receipt of grants (World Bank, a). In addition, 542 change rooms were constructed for girls’ menstrual needs.

**Classroom construction.** In addition to learning shelters, MESIP constructed 500 classrooms in the eight disadvantaged districts. The construction was subject to significant delays, with fewer than half (224) constructed by October 2019 and the remainder constructed prior to project closing in July 2021. A total of 342 sanitation blocks were also constructed.

**Deployment of regular government teachers.** Prior to the implementation of MESIP, there had been severe delays in hiring of teachers into the regular government teaching workforce, with teachers typically waiting two years after graduation from the IPTE before being hired into schools. In 2017, the government deployed 4,900 new teachers. In response to the results-based financing provided under MESIP, this deployment was substantially targeted towards the disadvantaged districts, with 58 percent of these teachers deployed to these eight disadvantaged districts in a bid to reduce the historical understaffing. In 2018, to reduce the shortage of teachers and the waiting period for IPTE graduates, the government conducted a ‘double deployment’, hiring both IPTE10 and 11 teachers – more than 8,000 in total,<sup>19</sup> compared to the typical 4-5,000. Again, this ’double deployment’ was targeted to the eight disadvantaged districts, with around 4,000 teachers allocated to these districts in response to the results-based financing.

**Results-Based Financing.** The Government fully achieved all three of the staffing-related RBF targets.<sup>20</sup> A Primary Teacher Management Strategy was completed and approved by Government for use to improve teacher distribution as well as more generally supporting improved teacher hiring, promotion, transfer and management. The PqTR in Grades 1-2 in the eight disadvantaged districts was reduced from 166:1 to 107:1, a reduction of 36 percent. The female/male teacher ratio in Grades 5-8 in the eight disadvantaged districts was increased from 0.31 to 0.37, an increase of 19 percent (Ministry of Education, 2021).

# **Di** ff **erence-in-di** ff **erence analysis: Intermediate outcomes**

**Table 4** shows the impact of MESIP on PCR and PTR, drawn from EMIS data. The first row confirms that PCRs and PTRs improved in the comparison group of schools between 2016 and 2020; the second confirms that baseline PCRs and PTRs were higher in the MESIP districts. The third row

> 19 Both 2017 and 2018 deployments also included approximately 1,500 Open Distance Learning (ODL) graduates.

> 20 The Government also fully achieved targets relating to the passage of national strategies and plans to improve female/teacher ratio and reduce repetition rates, but only partially achieved the target relating to repetition (reducing the repetition rate from 23.7 percent to 21.4 percent). In total, the government successfully triggered the release of a total US$12.2 million out of a maximum US$13.5 million in results-based financing.

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