A controversial American school chain and the battle to teach Africa’s children

In principle, it sounds like a great idea to get solid experimental evidence before implementing a large-scale reform in education. But in practice, nothing is quite so simple.

Take the example of a large-scale experiment in Kenya in 2011, which involved some of the same economists who are now playing a role in the Bridge experiment in Liberia. The Kenyan experiment tested the effects of cutting teachers’ salaries and hiring them on short-term contracts. The program was run by the Kenyan Government and World Vision Kenya, an evangelical Christian NGO based in the United States. The evaluation was funded by the UK’s Department for International Development and conducted by economists from Oxford, Stockholm and Nairobi.

The experimenters theorized that contract teachers would cut costs while improving learning outcomes out of fear of dismissal. But the government was forced to shut down the program after teacher unions and parents’ associations engaged in year-long protests and successfully took the government to court. The court ruled that employing a subset of teachers on contract and at much lower wages was discriminatory and violated constitutional provisions for equal and fair employment. Worryingly, when the experimenters wrote of the failed experiment, they described democratic opposition from teachers and parents as a form of political meddling that “undermines” the reform.

Apparently, there are two moral standards: one for African children and teachers, and another for the people who experiment on them. What is remarkable is that many of the actors who designed and implemented this experiment did not live in Kenya, did not receive the low wages they set for teachers, and therefore did not need to send their children to the schools they were experimenting on. So they were free to implement reforms without experiencing any of the consequences. Apparently, there are two moral standards: one for African children and teachers, and another for the people who experiment on them. In fact, as a columnist in the New York Times made clear this year, experiments on children are only palatable in African contexts, because “if experimentation is justified anywhere, it’s there.”

In a recent paper, Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright warn against the paternalism of experiments, writing that “RCTs should not become yet another technical fix that is imposed on people by bureaucrats or foreigners … most RCTs in economics have been carried out by rich people on poor people, and the fact should make us especially sensitive to avoid charges of paternalism.”

But the problem of experimentation in Africa is manifestly not simply a problem of paternalism. It is a problem of powerful actors who resist, and in some cases,undermine the principles of equality, democracy and the rule of law. And they often seem to do so without consequence.

Such cases invoke a painful history of experimentation in Africa. In the 1930s, colonial scientists conducted wide-ranging experiments in British colonies that provided the underpinning for contemporary tropical medicine, agriculture and ecology. These experiments were extensive and influential enough for historians to call Africa a “living laboratory”.

This time round, African children are at the centre of experiments. There are serious questions to be asked about whether private companies and development agencies should be allowed to experiment on African children.