J-PAL offers open online training courses

THE Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global network of researchers based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and part of the Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI)’s Global Poverty Alleviation initiatives, is celebrating the success of its widened educational offering through open online training courses, continuing to expand its capacity-building activities to research poverty alleviation. “We are very happy with the success and global reach of these open online training courses.

Professionals and people from all over the pan Arab region have participated and benefited from this innovative training model and we invite everyone to join the current online course on evaluation social programs. We are honored to continue to support initiatives that give others the tools they need to effectively design and measure the impact of social programming.” Dr. Sarah Mohammed Ghaleb, General Manager for Education and Poverty Alleviation Initiatives at ALJCI, said.

J-PAL’s 101x: Evaluating Social Programs, launched for the first time in April this year as a massive open online course (MOOC), received an overwhelming response with 12,000 people enrolling and 1,000 receiving certificates of completion. Offered as an MITx MOOC on the edX platform, a non-profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT, the course has been modeled after J-PAL’s 5-day Executive Education course and is now offered for a second time (registration still open).

In addition, J-PAL has worked with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to tailor the MITx course, 14.73x: Challenges of Global Poverty, creating specific case studies and training 180 IAS officers in Mussoorie, India.

The online course was taught by J-PAL’s directors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo and was complemented by in-person case discussions facilitated by IAS instructors. The course reviews evidence-based practices in development economics in a variety of sectors, from health to microfinance, and discusses how to incorporate that evidence into development policies and programs.

“The J-PAL online course gave officers access to the same flagship course in development economics that is offered at MIT,” Ghaleb said. J-PAL is supported by a grant from ALJCI’s President, Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, a former graduate of MIT. — SG