Education

Traditionally, policy has focused on structural changes that are designed to achieve education goals, yet behavioural science shows that the small details of what teachers, parents or learners say and do can have a significant influence, too. 

Since many traditional policies do not work in education (one can’t legislate to make learners pay attention in class, for example), behavioural insights can be particularly valuable because they can shed light on low-cost but high-impact ways that encourage positive behaviours among learners, teachers and parents.

At BIT, we partner with educational institutions worldwide, successfully completing more than 60 projects in education, testing strategies in more than 500 schools with 180,000 students. Our team includes former teachers, student presidents and youth workers, all of whom bring first-hand expertise to their work.

Our work has included reducing primary school pupil absenteeism, encouraging teenagers to attend top universities and improving attendance at tutoring sessions through a behaviourally-informed activity that targeted the quality of the tutor-pupil relationship.