Assessing the Effectiveness of a Public Teacher Training Program in Economic and Financial Education in Uruguay - Measurement of Learning in PROCAD in Its Pilot Phase

Abstract

It is a main objective of this paper to share, with academic faculty and researchers in economics and related fields, the path taken in assessing the latest product of the Economic and Financial Education Program (BCUEduca) of the Communications Department from the Central Bank of Uruguay (CBU), imparted to educators within the “Teacher training program in economic and financial education” called PROCAD (Programa de Capacitacion Docente). One of the most important evaluations made of the PROCAD in its pilot phase in 2017 had to do with how the impact of a one day compact “expert workshop” of six hours imparted to teachers summoned from all around the country, could be measured in terms of the knowledge of economics and finance apprehended and learned by them during its course. For assessing the effectiveness of the public teacher training program in economic and financial education in Uruguay I estimated a counterfactual “before” the expert workshop was given and compared it to the estimation of the immediately “after” (the same questionnaire with the same questions on economy and finance concepts) were made to the “captive” audience of participants prior the workshop and once it was over. The indicator α, the difference between “before” and “after”, resulted positive for each group that attended the workshop and allowed to conclude the short-run effectiveness of the PROCAD.