We feature a collaborative post by Tanay Balantrapu,  Research Manager at IFMR LEAD,  and Dahyeon Jeong, PhD candidate at the Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz

There is an increasing emphasis on improving learning outcomes in discussions on education policy in India. With encouraging improvement in enrollment rates in primary schools over the past decade, it seems only natural that the focus is shifting to school quality. The immensely popular ASER reports (2005) have shown using standardized tests that students who have completed primary schools do not have the reading and mathematical skills they are expected to. This finding is the primary piece of evidence on which the focus on learning outcomes is often justified. This in-turn has led to a series of Randomised Control Trial (RCT) studies that demonstrate the impact of different interventions on learning outcomes, and their cost-effectiveness[1]. The above evidence, when discussed in different policy platforms, is often consid…

For the past one year, GPS recordings have been important data points for all the phases of recent studies at IFMR-LEAD. This is because the relevance and application of GPS data has evolved enormously. Given its relevance in our work, I think it is really important for us to understand the significance of the “Global Positioning System” technology, particularly from a research perspective.
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Firstly let us briefly understand what GPS means. GPS is a space-based satellite navigation system made up of network of satellites placed by the U.S Dept. of Defence into orbit around Earth. It   provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to these GPS satellites. In more simple terms, the GPS receivers compare the transmission and receiving time of the signal from different satellites to calculate the position being mapped, and represent it geographically in terms of latitude and longitude.


How to …