new education policy 2022 research paper

What education policy experts are watching for in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok stephanie riegg cellini , stephanie riegg cellini nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy michael hansen , michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen douglas n. harris , douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99 jon valant , and jon valant director - brown center on education policy , senior fellow - governance studies @jonvalant kenneth k. wong kenneth k. wong nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy.

January 7, 2022

Entering 2022, the world of education policy and practice is at a turning point. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the day-to-day learning for children across the nation, bringing anxiety and uncertainty to yet another year. Contentious school-board meetings attract headlines as controversy swirls around critical race theory and transgender students’ rights. The looming midterm elections threaten to upend the balance of power in Washington, with serious implications for the federal education landscape. All of these issues—and many more—will have a tremendous impact on students, teachers, families, and American society as a whole; whether that impact is positive or negative remains to be seen.

Below, experts from the Brown Center on Education Policy identify the education stories that they’ll be following in 2022, providing analysis on how these issues could shape the learning landscape for the next 12 months—and possibly well into the future.

I will also be watching the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions and following any subsequent regulatory changes to federal student-aid programs. I expect to see changes to income-driven repayment plans and will be monitoring debates over regulations governing institutional and programmatic eligibility for federal student-loan programs. Notably, the Department of Education will be re-evaluating Gainful Employment regulations—put in place by the Obama administration and rescinded by the Trump administration—which tied eligibility for federal funding to graduates’ earnings and debt.

But the biggest and most concerning hole has been in the  substitute teacher force —and the ripple effects on school communities have been broad and deep. Based on personal communications with Nicola Soares, president of  Kelly Education , the largest education staffing provider in the country, the pandemic is exacerbating several problematic trends that have been quietly simmering for years. These are: (1) a growing reliance on long-term substitutes to fill permanent teacher positions; (2) a shrinking supply of qualified individuals willing to fill short-term substitute vacancies; and, (3) steadily declining fill rates for schools’ substitute requests. Many schools in high-need settings have long faced challenges with adequate, reliable substitutes, and the pandemic has turned these localized trouble spots into a widespread catastrophe. Though federal pandemic-relief funds could be used to meet the short-term weakness in the substitute labor market (and mainline teacher compensation, too ), this is an area where we sorely need more research and policy solutions for a permanent fix.

First, what’s to come of the vaccine for ages 0-4? This is now the main impediment to resuming in-person activity. This is the only large group that currently cannot be vaccinated. Also, outbreaks are triggering day-care closures, which has a significant impact on parents (especially mothers), including teachers and other school staff.

Second, will schools (and day cares) require the vaccine for the fall of 2022? Kudos to my hometown of New Orleans, which still appears to be the nation’s only district to require vaccination. Schools normally require a wide variety of other vaccines, and the COVID-19 vaccines are very effective. However, this issue is unfortunately going to trigger a new round of intense political conflict and opposition that will likely delay the end of the pandemic.

Third, will we start to see signs of permanent changes in schooling a result of COVID-19? In a previous post on this blog, I proposed some possibilities. There are some real opportunities before us, but whether we can take advantage of them depends on the first two questions. We can’t know about these long-term effects on schooling until we address the COVID-19 crisis so that people get beyond survival mode and start planning and looking ahead again. I’m hopeful, though not especially optimistic, that we’ll start to see this during 2022.

The CTC and universal pre-K top my list for 2022, but it’s a long list. I’ll also be watching the Supreme Court’s ruling on vouchers in Carson v. Makin , how issues like critical race theory and detracking play into the 2022 elections, and whether we start to see more signs of school/district innovation in response to COVID-19 and the recovery funds that followed.

Electoral dynamics will affect several important issues: the selection of state superintendents; the use of American Rescue Plan funds; the management of safe return to in-person learning for students; the integration of racial justice and diversity into curriculum; the growth of charter schools; and, above all, the extent to which education issues are leveraged to polarize rather than heal the growing divisions among the American public.

Early Childhood Education Education Policy Higher Education

Governance Studies

Brown Center on Education Policy

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Rebecca Winthrop, Sweta Shah

May 2, 2024

Jing Liu, Cameron Conrad, David Blazar

May 1, 2024

Online only

7:00 am - 8:00 am EDT

• Our Mission

The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2022

In our annual ritual, we pored over hundreds of educational studies and pulled out the most impactful—from a new study on the sneaky power of sketchnotes to research that linked relationships and rigor.

This past year didn’t feel normal, exactly, but compared with the last few trips around the sun, well—it sufficed. In 2021, when we sat down to write our annual edition of the research highlights, we were in the throes of postpandemic recovery and wrote about the impact of a grueling year in which burnout and issues of mental and physical health affected educators everywhere.

This year, we crossed our fingers and turned to best practices once again, reviewing hundreds of studies to identify the most impactful and insightful educational strategies we could find.

What turned up?

We found evidence that sheds new light on the misunderstood power of brain breaks, took a close look at research that finds a surprising—even counterintuitive—rationale for teachers to focus on relationships, and located both the humor and the merit in asking kids to slither like a snake as they learn about the “sss” sound of the letter S .

All that, and a lot more too, in our once-a-year roundup that follows.

1. There’s No Conflict Between Relationships and Rigor

Observers sometimes assume that teachers who radiate empathy, kindness, and openness are “soft” and can be taken advantage of by students. But new research shows that when you signal that you care about kids, they’re willing to go the extra mile, giving you the flexibility to assign more challenging school work.

That’s the main takeaway from a 2022 study that examined teaching practices in 285 districts, comparing relationship-building strategies with the flexibility that teachers had in assigning challenging and complex work. The researchers found that the most effective teachers build their classrooms by getting to know their students, being approachable, and showing that they enjoy the work—and then deftly translate emotional capital into academic capital.

“When students feel teachers care about them, they work harder, engage in more challenging academic activities, behave more appropriately for the school environment, are genuinely happy to see their teacher, and meet or exceed their teacher’s expectations,” the researchers conclude.

2. Highlighting Isn’t Very Effective Until Teachers Step In

Students often highlight the wrong information and may rely on their deficient highlighting skills as a primary study strategy, leading to poor learning outcomes, a new analysis of 36 studies suggests. As little as two hours of tutoring, however, can dramatically improve their capabilities.

The researchers determined that “learner-generated highlighting” tended to improve retention of material, but not comprehension. When students were taught proper highlighting techniques by teachers, however—for example, how to distinguish main ideas from supporting ideas—they dramatically improved their academic performance. Crucially, “when highlighting is used in conjunction with another learning strategy” like “graphic organizers or post-questions,” its effectiveness soars, the researchers said.

The need for explicit teaching may be linked to changing reading habits as students graduate from stories and fables to expository texts, which require them to navigate unfamiliar text formats, the researchers note. To bring kids up to speed, show them “examples of appropriate and inappropriate highlighting,” teach them to “highlight content relatively sparingly,” and provide examples of follow-on tactics like summarizing their insights to drive deeper comprehension.

3. A Landmark Study Strikes a Resounding Note for Inclusion

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act called for greater inclusion—mandating that students with disabilities receive support in the “least restrictive environment”—one goal was to ensure that educational accommodations didn’t interfere with the students’ social and emotional development in classrooms full of their peers. The law also confronted age-old prejudices and established a binding legal obligation in favor of inclusion.

But thus far, rigorous evidence of the academic benefits has been thin.

Now a new large-scale study appears to put the matter beyond dispute. When researchers tracked nearly 24,000 adolescents who qualified for special education, they discovered that spending a majority of the day—at least 80 percent—in general education classes improved reading scores by a whopping 24 points and math scores by 18 points, compared with scores of their more isolated peers with similar disabilities.

“Treat the general education classroom as the default classroom,” the researchers firmly state, and push for separate accommodations only when all other options have been exhausted.

4. Sketchnotes and Concept Maps Work—Even Better Than You Might Think

Simple concept maps, sketchnotes, and other annotated jottings—akin to doodling with a purpose—can facilitate deeper comprehension of materials than more polished drawings, a new study finds.

Representational drawings, such as a simple diagram of a cell, may help students remember factual information, the researchers explain, but they “lack features to make generalizations or inferences based on that information.” Organizational drawings that link concepts with arrows, annotations, and other relational markings give students a clearer sense of the big picture, allow them to visualize how ideas are connected, and provide a method for spotting obvious gaps in their understanding. On tests of higher-order thinking, fifth graders who made organizational drawings outperformed their peers who tried representational drawings by 300 percent.

To reap the benefits in class, have students start with simple diagrams to help remember the material, and then move them up to sketchnotes and concept maps as they tease out connections to prior knowledge.

5. Brain Breaks Are Misunderstood (and Underutilized)

Conventional wisdom holds that the development of a skill comes from active, repeated practice: It’s the act of dribbling a basketball that ultimately teaches the basketball star.

But recent studies reveal that the intervals between practice sessions are at least as crucial. In 2021, researchers used brain scans to observe neural networks as young adults learned how to type. During breaks, the brains of the participants appeared to head back to the keyboards, unconsciously replaying the typing sequences over and over again at high rates of speed as they flipped the material between processing and memory centers dozens of times in the span of 10 seconds. The researchers concluded that brain breaks play “just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill.”

In 2022, we learned that the kinds of breaks make a difference, too. One study compared in-classroom breaks like drawing or building puzzles with outdoor breaks like running or playing in sandboxes. In a nod to the power of movement—and free time—it was the kids playing outside who returned to class ready to learn, probably because indoor games, like indoor voices, required children to engage in more self-regulation, the researchers speculated. Meanwhile, an analysis examining “green breaks” —brief strolls in a park or visits to a school garden—concluded that students who partook in the activities performed better on tests of attention and working memory.

Depriving kids of regular breaks, it turns out, is a threat to the whole proposition of learning. To commit lessons to memory, the brain demands its own time—which it sets aside to clean up and consolidate new material.

6. On Classroom Design, an Argument for Caution—and Common Sense

When it comes time to decorate their classrooms, teachers often find themselves on the horns of a dilemma: Should they aim for Pinterest-worthy interior design or opt for blank walls on the strength of research that emphasizes the risks of distracting students?

A study published in February this year argues for minimalism. Researchers tracked the on-task behavior of K–2 students and concluded that visually ”streamlined” classrooms produced more focused students than “decorated” ones. During short read-alouds about topics like rainbows and plate tectonics, for example, young kids in classrooms free of “charts, posters, and manipulatives” were paying attention at significantly higher rates.

But it might not be a simple question of more or less. A 2014 study confirmed that posters of women scientists or diverse historical figures, for example, can improve students’ sense of belonging. And a recent study that observed 3,766 children in 153 schools concluded that classrooms that occupied a visual middle ground—neither too cluttered nor too austere—produced the best academic outcomes. A 2022 study reached similar conclusions.

Classroom decoration can alter academic trajectories, the research suggests, but the task shouldn’t stress teachers out. The rules appear to be relatively straightforward: Hang academically relevant, supportive work on the walls, and avoid the extremes—working within the broad constraints suggested by common sense and moderation.

7. For Young Children, the Power of Play-Based Learning

Children aren’t miniature adults, but a bias toward adult perspectives of childhood, with its attendant schedules and routines, has gradually exerted a stranglehold on our educational system nonetheless, suggests the author and early childhood educator Erika Christakis.

How can we let little kids be little while meeting the academic expectations of typical schools? A new analysis of 39 studies spanning several decades plots a middle path for educators, highlighting the way that play gently guided by adults, often called play-based learning, can satisfy both objectives.

Teachers of young students can have a “learning goal” in mind, but true play-based learning should incorporate wonder and exploration, be child-led when possible, and give students “freedom and choice over their actions and play behavior,” the researchers assert. Interrupt the flow of learning only when necessary: gently nudge students who might find activities too hard or too easy, for example. The playful approach improved early math and task-switching skills, compared with more traditional tactics that emphasize the explicit acquisition of skills, researchers concluded.

To get the pedagogy right, focus on relationships and ask questions that prompt wonder. “Rich, open-ended conversation is critical,” Christakis told Edutopia in a 2019 interview —children need time "to converse with each other playfully, to tell a rambling story to an adult, to listen to high-quality literature and ask meaningful questions.”

8. A Better Way to Learn Your ABCs

Getting young kids to match a letter to its corresponding sound is a first-order reading skill. To help students grasp that the letter c makes the plosive “cuh” sound in car , teachers often use pictures as scaffolds or have children write the letter repeatedly while making its sound.

A new study suggests that sound-letter pairs are learned much more effectively when whole-body movements are integrated into lessons. Five- and 6-year-olds in the study spent eight weeks practicing movements for each letter of the alphabet, slithering like a snake as they hissed the sibilant “sss” sound, for example. The researchers found that whole-body movement improved students’ ability to recall letter-sound pairings and doubled their ability to recognize hard-to-learn sounds—such as the difference between the sounds that c makes in cat and sauce —when compared with students who simply wrote and spoke letter-sound pairings at their desks.

The approach can make a big difference in the acquisition of a life-changing skill. Educators should “incorporate movement-based teaching” into their curricula, giving special consideration to “whole-body movement,” the researchers conclude.

9. Why Learners Push the Pause Button

Some of the benefits of videotaped lessons are so self-evident that they hide in plain sight.

When teaching students foundational concepts, a video lesson equipped with a simple pause button, for example, may allow students to reset cognitively as they reach their attentional limits, a 2022 study concluded. Pause buttons, like rewind buttons, are also crucial for learners who encounter “complex learning materials,” have “low prior knowledge,” or exhibit “low working memory capacities.”

Increasingly, the intrinsic value of targeted video lessons is borne out in research. In a feature on Edutopia , we looked at research suggesting that video learning supported self-pacing and flexible, 24/7 access to lessons; that questions embedded in videos improved academic performance, increased note-taking, and reduced stress (see these 2015 and 2020 studies); and that video versions of lectures tended to “make content more coherent ” to students.

To modernize their classrooms, teachers might record their most important lessons and make them available to students as study aids so they can pause, rewind, and review to their hearts’ content.

10. An Authoritative Study of Two High-Impact Learning Strategies

Spacing and retrieval practices are two of the most effective ways to drive long-term retention, confirms an authoritative 2022 review spanning hundreds of studies on the topic—and students should know how and why the strategies are effective.

In the review, researchers explain that students who prefer techniques like reading and rereading material in intense cram sessions are bound to fail. Instead, students should think of learning as a kind of “fitness routine” during which they practice recalling the material from memory and space out their learning sessions over time. Teaching kids to self-quiz or summarize from memory—and then try it again—is the crucial first step in disabusing students of their “false beliefs about learning.”

The effect sizes are hard to ignore. In a 2015 study , for example, third-grade students who studied a lesson about the sun and then reread the same material scored 53 percent on a follow-up test, the equivalent of a failing grade, while their peers who studied it once and then answered practice questions breezed by with an 87 percent score. And in a 2021 study , middle school students who solved a dozen math problems spread out across three weeks scored 21 percentage points higher on a follow-up math test than students who solved all 12 problems on the same day.

• Utility Menu

• Get Involved
• News & Events

qualtrics survey

Center for education policy research at harvard university .

We seek to transform education through  the power of quality research and evidence.

CEPR Announces New Executive Director

Read the full press release.

Meet dr. grant., *new* data from cepr and stanford educational opportunity project, after reporting on pandemic achievement losses last year, the  education recovery scorecard  (a collaboration between the center for education policy research at harvard university and the educational opportunity project at stanford university) has issued a  report  on the first year of academic recovery for school districts in 30 states.      .

Education Agencies

Instructional Leaders

Data Strategists

The Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) is uniquely focused on seeing that research findings are put to practical use. We consult with education leaders and our broad network of partners to ensure we’re studying the most pressing issues. We offer trainings for teachers , coaches , and the next generation of data leaders . And we present our findings as briefs, toolkits, and step-by-step guides. Learn more about our impact .

Looking back on a year of impact: see cepr's 2023 in review.

Accessible Research

Answering critical questions for educators and policymakers

Data Strategist Spotlight

Anthony Sims

The task of advancing the power of data analytics to address issues of educational equity and systemic improvement is often marginalized within district leadership. The Strategic Data Project provided me with a breadth of technical and adaptive skills to meet this critical need and support my role as a change agent in my district.”

Learn More About Our Data Strategists

Advisory Board Spotlight

Christopher Ruszkowski

By supporting a community of school and systems leaders, CEPR is helping end the days of anecdote-based decision-making in public education. Over the last decade, the work of CEPR’s Strategic Data Project has sparked conversations and decisions that were long overdue and created a generation of leaders better equipped to guide policy and practice.”

Learn more About Our Advisory Board

Doctoral Student Spotlight

Through the PIER Fellowship, CEPR has connected me with partners in its network who have similar research interests. It has supported the resulting partnerships by providing resources to conduct the research, as well as opportunities for feedback from affiliated faculty.”

Learn More About Our Doctoral Students

Training & Support

Supporting schools and systems dedicated to using evidence for progress

Madison Area Technical College to receive 2024 Strategic Data Excellence Award from Harvard’s Strategic Data Project   

This year’s award recognizes the college’s data-driven approach to identifying and addressing barriers faced by student-parents.   ... Read more about Madison Area Technical College to receive 2024 Strategic Data Excellence Award from Harvard’s Strategic Data Project   

Harvard’s READS Lab to scale the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE) program

New $7,992,519 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will allow MORE to reach 20,000 additional students in grades one through four.  

Spring 2024: CEPR Newsletter

It was a busy winter at CEPR, as we released the latest edition of the  Education Recovery Scorecard  and  welcomed onboard our new executive director, Dr. Christina Grant .... Read more about Spring 2024: CEPR Newsletter

Improvement Networks

Equipping education agencies with the skills to uncover and use evidence

• Login To RMS System
• About JETIR URP
• About All Approval and Licence
• Conference/Special Issue Proposal
• Book and Dissertation/Thesis Publication
• How start New Journal & Software
• Best Papers Award
• Mission and Vision
• Reviewer Board
• Join JETIR URP
• Call For Paper
• Research Areas
• Publication Guidelines
• Sample Paper Format
• Submit Paper Online
• Processing Charges
• Hard Copy and DOI Charges
• Check Your Paper Status
• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Special Issues
• Conference Proposal
• Recent Conference
• Published Thesis

Contact Us Click Here

Whatsapp contact click here, published in:.

Volume 9 Issue 2 February-2022 eISSN: 2349-5162

UGC and ISSN approved 7.95 impact factor UGC Approved Journal no 63975

Unique identifier.

Published Paper ID: JETIR2202332

Registration ID: 320394

Page Number

Post-publication.

• Downlaod eCertificate, Confirmation Letter
• editor board member
• JETIR front page
• Journal Back Page
• UGC Approval 14 June W.e.f of CARE List UGC Approved Journal no 63975

Share This Article

Important links:.

• Call for Paper
• Submit Manuscript online

• NUZHAT FATIMA
• Dr.MOHD NASEEM SIDDIQUI

Cite This Article

2349-5162 | Impact Factor 7.95 Calculate by Google Scholar An International Scholarly Open Access Journal, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed Journal Impact Factor 7.95 Calculate by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool, Multidisciplinary, Monthly, Multilanguage Journal Indexing in All Major Database & Metadata, Citation Generator

Publication Details

Download paper / preview article.

Download Paper

Preview this article, download pdf, print this page.

Impact Factor:

Impact factor calculation click here current call for paper, call for paper cilck here for more info important links:.

• Follow Us on

• Developed by JETIR

• Share with Facebook
• Share with LinkedIn
• Share with Twitter

Insight Note

India’s New National Education Policy: Evidence and Challenges

• The National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020 provides an important opportunity to move Indian education from “sorting and selection” to “human development,” enabling every student to develop to their maximum potential.
• Although the NEP focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy, and early childhood education is welcome, delivering on its promise will require sustained attention to implementation.
• Three principles will be very important for implementation: (1) a focus on independent and reliable measurement of outcomes; (2) rigorous evaluations of policy and programme effectiveness; (3) careful cost-effectiveness analyses of alternative policy proposals.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education severely. An increased focus on involving parents in education and in using technology effectively (while bridging the digital divide) will be important for recovery.

Karthik Muralidharan

University of California San Diego (UCSD)

Abhijeet Singh

Stockholm School of Economics

Introduction

The global expansion of schooling in the past three decades is unprecedented: Primary school enrollment is near-universal, expected years of schooling have risen rapidly, and the number of children out of school has fallen sharply. Yet the greatest challenge for the global education system, a “learning crisis” per the World Bank, is that these gains in schooling are not translating into commensurate gains in learning outcomes. This crisis is well exemplified by India, which has the largest education system in the world. Over 95 percent of children aged 6 to 14 years are in school, but nearly half of students in Grade 5 in rural areas cannot read at a Grade 2 level, and less than one-third can do basic division (Pratham, 2019). India’s new National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020 (the first major revision since 1986) recognises the centrality of achieving universal foundational literacy and numeracy. Whether India succeeds in this goal matters intrinsically through its impact on over 200 million children and will also have lessons for other low- and middle-income countries. We review the NEP’s discussion of school education in light of accumulated research evidence that may be relevant to successfully implementing this ambitious goal.

Governance and pedagogy

India has made tremendous progress on access to schooling since the 1990s. Yet multiple nationally representative datasets suggest that learning levels have remained largely flat over the past 15 years. A large body of evidence has shown that increasing “business as usual” expenditure on education is only weakly correlated with improvement in learning (Glewwe and Muralidharan, 2016). Two key constraints that limit the translation of spending (of time and money) into outcomes are weaknesses in governance and pedagogy.

Governance challenges are exemplified by high rates of teacher absence in public schools, with nearly one in four teachers absent at the time of surprise visits (Muralidharan et al., 2017). Even when teachers are present, instructional time is low for a variety of reasons, including large amounts of administrative paperwork.

Further, teacher recognition for performance and sanctions for nonperformance are low. Studies in India and elsewhere have shown that even modest amounts of performance-linked bonus pay for teachers can improve student learning in a cost-effective way (Muralidharan and Sundararaman, 2011). By contrast, unconditional increases in teacher pay (the largest component of education budgets) have no impact on student learning (Muralidharan and Sundararaman, 2011; de Ree at al., 2018). Overall, improving governance and management in public schools may be a much more cost-effective way of improving student learning than simply expanding education spending along default patterns.

An even greater challenge in translating school attendance into learning outcomes may be weaknesses in pedagogy. Even motivated teachers primarily focus on completing the textbook, without recognising the mismatch between the academic standards of the textbook and student learning levels. The rapid expansion of school enrollment has brought tens of millions of first-generation learners into the formal education system who lack instructional support at home and often fall behind grade-appropriate curricular standards. The mismatch is clearly illustrated in the figure, which presents the levels and dispersion of student achievement in mathematics in a sample of students from public middle schools in Delhi (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian, 2019). There are three points to note about this figure: (i) The vast majority of students are below curricular standards (represented by the blue line of equality), with the average Grade 6 student 2.5 years behind; (ii) the average rate of learning progress is much flatter than that envisaged by the curricular standards, resulting in widening learning gaps at higher grades; (iii) there is enormous variation in learning levels of students in the same grade, spanning five to six grade levels in all grades.

Figure 1: Achievement versus curricular standards

The estimated level of student achievement (determined by a computer-aided instruction program) in mathematics in public middle schools in Delhi is plotted against the enrollment grade of students (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian, 2019). Most students are below curricular standards (line of equality), average progress in learning is flatter than curricular standards, and achievement substantially varies. The graphic has been adapted from Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian (2019) by H. Bishop/Science; ©American Economic Association; reproduced with permission of the American Economic Review.

The figure captures many features that we think are central to understanding the Indian education system. It suggests a curriculum that targets the top of the achievement distribution and moves much faster than the actual achievement level of students. Coupled with social promotion—grade retention is forbidden by law until Grade 8—this leads to student achievement being widely dispersed within the same grade and most students receiving instruction that they are not academically prepared for. Similar patterns likely exist in many other developing countries (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian, 2019).

The figure may also help explain why increased expenditures on items such as teacher salaries and school infrastructure may have little impact on learning. Students, having fallen so far behind the curriculum, may not gain much from the default of textbook-linked instruction. By contrast, pedagogical interventions that target instruction at the level of students’ academic preparation can be highly effective (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian, 2019; Banerjee et al., 2007; Banerjee et al., 2017).

The figure also highlights the stark inequality in Indian education. The true inequality is likely even greater because the figure does not reflect the large number of students in private schools. A comparison of data from two Indian states to countries included in an international learning assessment found that learning inequality in India is second only to South Africa (Das and Zajonc, 2010). Thus, although the academically strongest Indian students are internationally competitive, with many ultimately achieving world-renowned success, most Indian children fail to acquire even basic skills at the end of their schooling.

To better understand the Indian education system, it is useful to recognise that education systems have historically served two very different purposes: (i) to impart knowledge and skills (a “human development” role) and (ii) to assess, classify, and select students for higher education and skill-intensive occupations (a “sorting and selection” role). The Indian education system primarily serves as a “sorting and selection” or a “filtration” system rather than a “human development” system. The system focuses primarily on setting high standards for competitive exams to identify those who are talented enough to meet those standards, but it ends up neglecting the vast majority of students who do not. Thus, a fundamental challenge for Indian education policy is to reorient the education system from one focused on sorting and identifying talented students to one that is focused on human development that can improve learning for all.

Research into policy

The NEP, released in 2020, does an excellent job of reflecting key insights from research. Three points are especially noteworthy.

First, and most important, is the centrality accorded to universal foundational literacy and numeracy, which the NEP calls an “urgent and necessary prerequisite for learning.” This represents a substantial shift in the definition of education “quality” from inputs and expenditure to actual learning outcomes. Relatedly, the NEP recognises the importance of early childhood care and education and brings preschool education into the scope of national education policy alongside school education. The NEP’s focus on stronger and universal preschool education is consistent with global recognition of the importance of “the early years” in developing cognitive and socioemotional skills.

Second, consistent with the evidence, the NEP aims to strengthen teacher effectiveness through a combination of improving their skills, reducing extraneous demands on their time, and rewarding performance. Notably, the NEP highlights the need for “a robust merit-based structure of tenure, promotion, and salary structure.” This is a meaningful departure from the status quo that does not reward good performance. If implemented well, improving teacher motivation and effort can be a force multiplier for the effectiveness of other input-based spending. School inputs on their own do not seem to translate into learning gains (Glewwe and Muralidharan, 2016), but inputs can be highly effective when teachers and principals are motivated to improve learning outcomes (Mbiti et al., 2019).

Third, the NEP recognises that improving school effectiveness may require changes to how schools are organised and managed. Large-scale school construction in the 1990s played an important role in promoting universal school access by providing a school in every habitation. However, as of 2016, over 417,000 government primary schools (~40 percent of schools) had fewer than 50 students across Grades 1 to 5 (Kingdon, 2020). Small and spread-out schools present challenges for governance (by making supervision difficult), pedagogy (by requiring teachers to simultaneously teach students in multiple grades), and infrastructure quality (by being too small for libraries and computer laboratories), as well as cost-effectiveness. The NEP, therefore, recommends investing in larger school complexes and also recognises the importance of school management, emphasising the need for customised school development plans to anchor a process of continuous school improvement. Given large improvements in rural road construction, it will be viable to provide buses or other transport to ensure universal school access for all children while also obtaining the benefits of larger-scale schools.

Implementation challenges

Although the NEP is an excellent document that reflects research and evidence, delivering on its promise will require sustained attention to implementation. The glaring gaps between the high quality of policy and programme design on one hand, and the low quality of implementation on the other, are widely recognised in India across many dimensions of public policy.

Preliminary findings from two of our recent projects illustrate this challenge in relation to policy recommendations in the NEP. First, in a large-scale randomised controlled trial covering over 5,000 schools in the state of Madhya Pradesh, we found no notable effects on school functioning or student achievement of an ambitious reform that aimed to improve school management, largely through the type of school development plans that are recommended in the NEP (Muralidharan and Singh, 2020). Yet, this model is perceived to be successful and has been scaled up to over 600,000 schools nationally (and aims to reach 1.6 million schools). Our work suggests that this perception is based primarily on completion of paperwork (such as school assessments and improvement plans), even though there was no change in management, pedagogy, or learning outcomes.

The second example illustrates how even measuring learning outcomes accurately is challenging. The state of Madhya Pradesh administers an annual state-level standardised assessment to all children in public schools from Grades 1 to 8. This has been declared a national “best practice” and the NEP recommends a similar assessment for students in all schools in Grades 3, 5, and 8. Yet, an independent audit that administered the same test questions to the same students a few weeks after the official tests showed that levels of student achievement are severely overstated in official data (Singh, 2020a). The audit found that a large fraction of students did not possess even basic skills even though most of these students were shown as having passed the test.

In light of such challenges, we highlight three key principles that may increase the likelihood of success. The first is measurement. India’s success in achieving universal enrollment shows that the system is capable of delivering on well-defined goals that are easily measured. A similar approach needs to be implemented for delivering universal foundational literacy and numeracy. Although the challenge of data integrity is real, one reason for optimism is that there is evidence that using technology-based independent testing sharply reduced the extent to which data on learning was inflated (Singh, 2020a). Thus, investing in independent ongoing measurement of learning outcomes in representative samples to set goals and monitor progress will be a foundational investment.

The second key principle is ongoing evaluations of policy and programme effectiveness. An important lesson from the past two decades of research on education is that many commonly advocated interventions for improving education (such as increasing teacher salaries, providing school grants, or giving out free textbooks) may have very little impact on learning outcomes, whereas other interventions (such as teaching at the right level) may be highly effective. Even in the same class of policies, different interventions may have widely varying effectiveness; for instance, in the case of education technology, the impact of providing hardware alone is zero or even negative, but personalised adaptive learning programmes have been found to be highly effective (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganinian, 2019; Banerjee et al., 2007). Yet, use of rigorous, experimental evidence in education policy-making remains more an exception than the rule. Disciplining interventions under the NEP with high-quality evaluations can accelerate the scaling up of effective programmes as well as course corrections of ineffective ones.

The third key principle is cost-effectiveness. Evidence has shown pronounced variation in the cost-effectiveness of education interventions, with many expensive policies having no impact and inexpensive ones being very effective. Given limited resources and competing demands on them, cost-effectiveness is not only an economic consideration but also a moral one. The World Bank and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office recently synthesised a large body of evidence on the most cost-effective education interventions (Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel, 2020). India would do well to heed these recommendations (suitably modified to its context) when allocating scarce public resources.

Confronting COVID-19

Education has been sharply disrupted around India and the world by the COVID-19 shock. Public schools in India have been mostly closed and are likely to remain so for the entire academic year. This presents one major threat and two opportunities.

The threat is that the learning crisis will worsen. Children who have missed a year of school—especially those without educated parents—are likely to have regressed in their learning and suffer long-term learning losses. Thus, the challenges (see Figure 1) are likely to have worsened, making it imperative to provide high-quality supplementary instruction when schools reopen, including perhaps through reducing holidays and vacation days.

Yet, there may also be two important longer-term opportunities. The first is the rapid acceleration in the use of education technology by both households and the government. Given evidence of strong positive effects of personalised instruction, the widespread adoption of education technology may help accelerate the NEP’s stated goal of reducing the digital divide and leveraging potential benefits of technology for education, such as opportunities to increase student engagement and personalise instruction to individual student needs.

The second is increasing engagement with parents and families. Households play a critical role in education. Yet, education policy has mostly focused on school-based interventions, reflecting a belief that it is more feasible to improve schools than to intervene in households at scale. The COVID-19 crisis and the resulting growth in the use of mobile phones for engaging children have sharply increased educators’ engagement with parents, with approaches ranging from text-message reminders to check their child’s homework to parent groups for peer coaching and motivation. Work is under way to evaluate the impacts of these promising approaches. The benefits of increased parental engagement may persist even after schools reopen.

Nothing inevitable

Effective reform will require a confluence of ideas, interests, institutions, and implementation. Our focus has been on the ideas of the NEP and the extent to which they are supported, or may be refined by, research evidence. The NEP also pays attention to institutional infrastructure needed to deliver on this vision and acknowledges the centrality of implementation. However, both the NEP and our discussion are silent on the interests, specifically on political and bureaucratic constraints. We remain optimistic that substantial improvements are possible. In particular, backing the intent of the NEP with a commitment to regular independent measurement and reporting of learning outcomes in a representative sample of all children—as envisaged by the NEP in setting up a quasi-independent national testing agency—may help to provide an institutionalised focus on learning to both political and bureaucratic leadership. The NEP’s proposal to provide such information to parents directly, if implemented in easily accessible formats, may catalyse improvements in both public and private schools.

Such reforms are particularly urgent given India’s demographic transition. In many states, especially in South India, total fertility rates are already below replacement levels, and cohort sizes in primary schooling are shrinking. Thus, much of the country has already passed the peak of potential demographic dividend without having solved the learning crisis. Some large populous states in Northern India, such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, still have a window for intervention, but this window is shrinking. The one silver lining is that declining cohort sizes may increase resources per student in coming years, thus freeing up fiscal space for cost-effective investments.

There is nothing inevitable about low learning levels in Indian schools. Other developing countries, such as Vietnam, have been able to achieve substantially superior learning outcomes at very similar levels of per capita incomes. Research suggests that a key explanation is the greater productivity of Vietnam’s schooling system, which focuses attention on ensuring that even the weakest students reach minimum standards of learning (Singh, 2020b). The NEP provides an important opportunity to move Indian education from “sorting and selection” to “human development,” enabling every student to develop to their maximum potential. India, and the world, will be better off if this vision is realised in practice.

Banerjee, A., Banerji, R., Berry, J., Duflo, E., Kannan, H., Mukerji, S., Shotland, M. and Walton, M. 2017. From Proof of Concept to Scalable Policies: Challenges and Solutions, with an Application. Journal of Economic Perspectives. vol. 31, pp. 73-102. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.4.73

Banerjee, A.V., Cole, S., Duflo, E. and Linden, L. 2007. Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. vol. 122, issue 3, pp. 1235-1264. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.122.3.1235

Das, J. and Zajonc, T. 2010. India Shining And Bharat Drowning: Comparing Two Indian States to the Worldwide Distribution in Mathematics Achievement. Journal of Development Economics. vol. 92, issue 2, pp. 175-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2009.03.004

de Ree, J. Muralidharan, K., Pradhan, M. and Rogers, H. 2018. Double for Nothing? Experimental Evidence on an Unconditional Teacher Salary Increase in Indonesia. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. vol. 133, issue 2, pp. 993-1039. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjx040

Glewwe, P. and Muralidharan, K. 2016. Improving Education Outcomes in Developing Countries: Evidence, Knowledge Gaps, and Policy Implications. Handbook of the Economics of Education. Elsevier. vol. 5, pp. 653–743. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63459-7.00010-5

Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel. 2020. Cost Effective Approaches to Improve Global Learning: What Does Recent Evidence Tell Us are “Smart Buys” for Improving Learning in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?” World Bank, Washington, DC. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/teachingandlearning/publication/cost-effective-approaches-to-improve-global-learning

Kingdon, G.G. 2020. The Private Schooling Phenomenon in India: A Review. The Journal of Development Studies. vol. 56, issue 10, pp. 1795-1817. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2020.1715943

Mbiti, I., Muralidharan, K., Romero, M., Schipper, Y., Manda, C. and Rajani, R. 2019. Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. vol. 134, pp. 1627-1673. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz010

Muralidharan, K., Das, J., Holla, A., and Mohpal, A. 2017. The Fiscal Cost of Weak Governance: Evidence from Teacher Absence in India. Journal of Public Economics. vol. 145, pp. 116-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.11.005

Muralidharan, K. and Singh, A. 2020. Improving Public Sector Management at Scale? Experimental Evidence on School Governance in India. RISE Working Paper Series. 20/056. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2020/056

Muralidharan, K., Singh, A. and Ganimian, A. 2019. Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India. American Economic Review. vol. 109, issue 4, pp. 1426-1460. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20171112

Muralidharan, K. and Sundararaman, V. 2011. Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India. Journal of Political Economy. vol. 119, pp. 39. https://doi.org/10.1086/659655

Pratham. 2019. Annual Status of Education Report 2018. New Delhi.

Singh, A. 2020a. Myths of Official Measurement: Auditing and Improving Administrative Data in Developing Countries. RISE Working Paper Series. 20/042. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2020/042

Singh, A. 2020b. Learning More with Every Year: School Year Productivity and International Learning Divergence. Journal of the European Economic Association. vol. 18, issue 4, pp. 1770-1813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz033

Acknowledgements

From Policy Forum by Muralidharan & Singh “India’s new National Education Policy: Evidence and challenges” Science 02 Apr 2021: Vol. 372, Issue 6537, pp. 36-38. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf6655

Republished with permission from AAAS.

Readers may view, browse, and/or download material for temporary copying purposes only, provided these uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. Except as provided by law, this material may not be further reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, adapted, performed, displayed, published, or sold in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Muralidharan & Singh “India’s new National Education Policy: Evidence and challenges” Science 02 Apr 2021: Vol. 372, Issue 6537, pp. 36-38.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf6655

Related content

Working Paper

Myths of Official Measurement: Auditing and Improving Administrative Data in Developing Countries

Augmenting state capacity for child development: experimental evidence from india, improving public sector management at scale experimental evidence on school governance in india.

• The learning crisis
• Foundational skills
• Teaching and teachers
• Five actions to accelerate progress in learning
• Political Economy - Adoption
• Political Economy - Implementation
• Insight notes
• Working papers
• Learning trajectories
• The RISE Education Systems Diagnostic
• Surveys of Enacted Curriculum
• Education Systems Course
• Community of Practice

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Take action

• Report an antitrust violation
• File adjudicative documents
• Find banned debt collectors
• View competition guidance
• Competition Matters Blog

New HSR thresholds and filing fees for 2024

View all Competition Matters Blog posts

We work to advance government policies that protect consumers and promote competition.

View Policy

Search or browse the Legal Library

Find legal resources and guidance to understand your business responsibilities and comply with the law.

Browse legal resources

• Find policy statements
• Submit a public comment

Vision and Priorities

Memo from Chair Lina M. Khan to commission staff and commissioners regarding the vision and priorities for the FTC.

Technology Blog

Consumer facing applications: a quote book from the tech summit on ai.

View all Technology Blog posts

Advice and Guidance

Learn more about your rights as a consumer and how to spot and avoid scams. Find the resources you need to understand how consumer protection law impacts your business.

• Report fraud
• Report identity theft
• Register for Do Not Call
• Sign up for consumer alerts
• Get Business Blog updates
• Get your free credit report
• Find refund cases
• Order bulk publications
• Consumer Advice
• Shopping and Donating
• Credit, Loans, and Debt
• Jobs and Making Money
• Unwanted Calls, Emails, and Texts
• Identity Theft and Online Security
• Business Guidance
• Advertising and Marketing
• Credit and Finance
• Privacy and Security
• By Industry
• For Small Businesses
• Browse Business Guidance Resources
• Business Blog

Servicemembers: Your tool for financial readiness

Visit militaryconsumer.gov

Get consumer protection basics, plain and simple

Visit consumer.gov

Learn how the FTC protects free enterprise and consumers

Visit Competition Counts

Looking for competition guidance?

• Competition Guidance

News and Events

Latest news, ftc order bans former pioneer ceo from exxon board seat in exxon-pioneer deal.

View News and Events

Upcoming Event

Older adults and fraud: what you need to know.

View more Events

Sign up for the latest news

Follow us on social media

-->   -->   -->   -->   -->  

Playing it Safe: Explore the FTC's Top Video Game Cases

Learn about the FTC's notable video game cases and what our agency is doing to keep the public safe.

Latest Data Visualization

FTC Refunds to Consumers

Explore refund statistics including where refunds were sent and the dollar amounts refunded with this visualization.

About the FTC

Our mission is protecting the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and from unfair methods of competition through law enforcement, advocacy, research, and education.

Learn more about the FTC

Meet the Chair

Lina M. Khan was sworn in as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission on June 15, 2021.

Chair Lina M. Khan

Looking for legal documents or records? Search the Legal Library instead.

• Cases and Proceedings
• Premerger Notification Program
• Merger Review
• Anticompetitive Practices
• Competition and Consumer Protection Guidance Documents
• Warning Letters
• Consumer Sentinel Network
• Criminal Liaison Unit
• FTC Refund Programs
• Notices of Penalty Offenses
• Advocacy and Research
• Advisory Opinions
• Cooperation Agreements
• Federal Register Notices
• Public Comments
• Policy Statements
• International
• Office of Technology Blog
• Military Consumer
• Consumer.gov
• Bulk Publications
• Data and Visualizations
• Stay Connected
• Commissioners and Staff
• Bureaus and Offices
• Budget and Strategy
• Office of Inspector General
• Careers at the FTC

FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes

• Competition
• Office of Policy Planning
• Bureau of Competition

Today, the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule to promote competition by banning noncompetes nationwide, protecting the fundamental freedom of workers to change jobs, increasing innovation, and fostering new business formation.

“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”

The FTC estimates that the final rule banning noncompetes will lead to new business formation growing by 2.7% per year, resulting in more than 8,500 additional new businesses created each year. The final rule is expected to result in higher earnings for workers, with estimated earnings increasing for the average worker by an additional $524 per year, and it is expected to lower health care costs by up to $194 billion over the next decade. In addition, the final rule is expected to help drive innovation, leading to an estimated average increase of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year for the next 10 years under the final rule.

Noncompetes are a widespread and often exploitative practice imposing contractual conditions that prevent workers from taking a new job or starting a new business. Noncompetes often force workers to either stay in a job they want to leave or bear other significant harms and costs, such as being forced to switch to a lower-paying field, being forced to relocate, being forced to leave the workforce altogether, or being forced to defend against expensive litigation. An estimated 30 million workers—nearly one in five Americans—are subject to a noncompete.

Under the FTC’s new rule, existing noncompetes for the vast majority of workers will no longer be enforceable after the rule’s effective date. Existing noncompetes for senior executives - who represent less than 0.75% of workers - can remain in force under the FTC’s final rule, but employers are banned from entering into or attempting to enforce any new noncompetes, even if they involve senior executives. Employers will be required to provide notice to workers other than senior executives who are bound by an existing noncompete that they will not be enforcing any noncompetes against them.

In January 2023, the FTC issued a  proposed rule which was subject to a 90-day public comment period. The FTC received more than 26,000 comments on the proposed rule, with over 25,000 comments in support of the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompetes. The comments informed the FTC’s final rulemaking process, with the FTC carefully reviewing each comment and making changes to the proposed rule in response to the public’s feedback.

In the final rule, the Commission has determined that it is an unfair method of competition, and therefore a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, for employers to enter into noncompetes with workers and to enforce certain noncompetes.

The Commission found that noncompetes tend to negatively affect competitive conditions in labor markets by inhibiting efficient matching between workers and employers. The Commission also found that noncompetes tend to negatively affect competitive conditions in product and service markets, inhibiting new business formation and innovation. There is also evidence that noncompetes lead to increased market concentration and higher prices for consumers.

Alternatives to Noncompetes

The Commission found that employers have several alternatives to noncompetes that still enable firms to protect their investments without having to enforce a noncompete.

Trade secret laws and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) both provide employers with well-established means to protect proprietary and other sensitive information. Researchers estimate that over 95% of workers with a noncompete already have an NDA.

The Commission also finds that instead of using noncompetes to lock in workers, employers that wish to retain employees can compete on the merits for the worker’s labor services by improving wages and working conditions.

Changes from the NPRM

Under the final rule, existing noncompetes for senior executives can remain in force. Employers, however, are prohibited from entering into or enforcing new noncompetes with senior executives. The final rule defines senior executives as workers earning more than $151,164 annually and who are in policy-making positions.

Additionally, the Commission has eliminated a provision in the proposed rule that would have required employers to legally modify existing noncompetes by formally rescinding them. That change will help to streamline compliance.

Instead, under the final rule, employers will simply have to provide notice to workers bound to an existing noncompete that the noncompete agreement will not be enforced against them in the future. To aid employers’ compliance with this requirement, the Commission has included model language in the final rule that employers can use to communicate to workers. 

The Commission vote to approve the issuance of the final rule was 3-2 with Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson voting no. Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter , Alvaro Bedoya , Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson each issued separate statements. Chair Lina M. Khan will issue a separate statement.

The final rule will become effective 120 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Once the rule is effective, market participants can report information about a suspected violation of the rule to the Bureau of Competition by emailing  [email protected] . 

The Federal Trade Commission develops policy initiatives on issues that affect competition, consumers, and the U.S. economy. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Follow the  FTC on social media , read  consumer alerts  and the  business blog , and  sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts .

Press Release Reference

Contact information, media contacts.

Victoria Graham  Office of Public Affairs