Stephen Taylor is the Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation in the South African Department of Basic Education.  Since 2007 he has been doing research on education in South Africa and the surrounding region, with a focus on the links between education and economic development. He has been a Principal Investigator on several large scale evaluations, including the Early Grade Reading Study. His academic work focuses on impact evaluation of education interventions, measuring educational performance and equity in educational outcomes. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Stellenbosch.