Remote tutoring with low-tech means to accelerate learning: Evidence for El Salvador

This paper presents the results of an impact evaluation with an experimental design, that estimates the effect of a low-tech low-cost remote tutoring intervention applied during the pandemic for remedial education purposes on girls and boys aged 9-14 years in three departments of El Salvador. Our main contributions are a) the provision of strong experimental evidence that the intervention can improve student math learning in developing countries for closing education gaps; and b) the measurement of student anxiety levels before and after the treatment, which allows verifying whether student-tutor interactions mitigated some of the negative socioemotional effects of student confinement. The program is found to have had a positive and significant effect of 0.24 standard deviations on math learning, which is equivalent to a 33.8 percent acceleration as compared to the control group. However, no significant effects were observed on student anxiety levels, which suggests that the academic gains were not mediated by these types of socioemotional factors. The results provide valuable information for the design of tutor training and for the development of tutoring protocols, among other aspects, for future similar programs.