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The Colonial Legacy of Education: Evidence from of Tunisia

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Abstract

We study the effect of exposure to colonial public primary education on contemporary education outcomes in Tunisia. We assemble a new data set on the location of schools with the number of pupils by origin, along with population data during the French protectorate (1881-1956). We match those with contemporary data on education at both district and individual level. We find that the exposure of local population to colonial public primary education has a long-lasting effect on educational outcomes, even when controlling for colonial investments in education. A one per cent increase in Tunisian enrolment rate in 1931 is associated with a 1.69 percentage points increase in literacy rate in 2014. Our results are driven by older generations, namely individuals who attended primary schools before the 1989/91 education reform. We suggest that the efforts undertaken by the Tunisian government after independence to promote schooling finally paid off after 40 years and overturned the effects of history.

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  • Mhamed Ben Salah & Cedric Chambru & Maleke Fourati, 2022. "The Colonial Legacy of Education: Evidence from of Tunisia," IHEID Working Papers 13-2022, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp13-2022
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    1. Silvia Ferrari & Francisco Cribari-Neto, 2004. "Beta Regression for Modelling Rates and Proportions," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(7), pages 799-815.
    2. Morgan Kelly, 2019. "The Standard Errors of Persistence," Working Papers 201913, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
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    4. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
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    1. Touati-Tliba, Mohamed, 2024. "Comparative performance of Algeria's education districts: The Influence of colonial legacy through cultural capital," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Colonial investment; Primary education; Tunisia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania
    • N47 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Africa; Oceania

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