IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5659.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

School Access, Resources, and Learning Outcomes: Evidence from a Non-formal School Program in Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Dang, Hai-Anh H

    (World Bank)

  • Sarr, Leopold

    (World Bank)

  • Asadullah, Niaz

    (University of Reading)

Abstract

This study reports evidence from an unusual policy intervention – The Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC) project – in Bangladesh where school grants and education allowances are offered to attract hard-to-reach children to schools comprised of a single teacher and a classroom. The operating unit cost of these schools is a fraction of that of formal primary schools. We use panel data to investigate whether ROSC schools are effective in raising enrolment and learning outcomes. Our findings suggest that there is a modest impact on school participation: ROSC schools increase enrolment probability between 9 and 18% for children in the two age cohorts 6-8 and 6-10. They perform as well as non-ROSC schools in terms of raising test scores, and even have positive impacts on academically stronger students. There is also strong evidence of positive externalities on non-ROSC schools in program areas. These results point to the effectiveness of a new model of non-formal primary schools that can be replicated in similar settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Dang, Hai-Anh H & Sarr, Leopold & Asadullah, Niaz, 2011. "School Access, Resources, and Learning Outcomes: Evidence from a Non-formal School Program in Bangladesh," IZA Discussion Papers 5659, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5659
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5659.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Shawn Cole & Esther Duflo & Leigh Linden, 2007. "Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1235-1264.
    2. Deon Filmer, 2007. "If you build it, will they come? School availability and school enrolment in 21 poor countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(5), pages 901-928.
    3. Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1, June.
    4. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Rukmini Banerji & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Stuti Khemani, 2010. "Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30, February.
    5. M. Niaz Asadullah, 2005. "The effect of class size on student achievement: evidence from Bangladesh," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 217-221.
    6. Glewwe, Paul & Kremer, Michael & Moulin, Sylvie & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2004. "Retrospective vs. prospective analyses of school inputs: the case of flip charts in Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 251-268, June.
    7. Niaz Asadullah, Mohammad & Chaudhury, Nazmul & Dar, Amit, 2007. "Student achievement conditioned upon school selection: Religious and secular secondary school quality in Bangladesh," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 648-659, December.
    8. Paul Glewwe & Nauman Ilias & Michael Kremer, 2010. "Teacher Incentives," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 205-227, July.
    9. Sylvie Moulin & Michael Kremer & Paul Glewwe, 2009. "Many Children Left Behind? Textbooks and Test Scores in Kenya," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 112-135, January.
    10. Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel & Rebecca Thornton, 2009. "Incentives to Learn," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 437-456, August.
    11. Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2, June.
    12. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1209-1238, December.
    14. David Newhouse & Kathleen Beegle, 2006. "The Effect of School Type on Academic Achievement: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(3).
    15. Michael Kremer & Alaka Holla, 2009. "Improving Education in the Developing World: What Have We Learned from Randomized Evaluations?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 513-545, May.
    16. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597.
    17. Hai-Anh Dang & F. Halsey Rogers, 2008. "The Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring: Does It Deepen Human Capital, Widen Inequalities, or Waste Resources?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 23(2), pages 161-200, April.
    18. World Bank, 2011. "World Development Indicators 2011," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2315.
    19. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuki, Takako & Kameyama, Yuriko, 2014. "Challenges of Quality of Learning Outcomes for Countries with the Unfinished Agenda of Universal Primary Education and Gender Parity: The Case of Yemen," Working Papers 73, JICA Research Institute.
    2. Dahal,Mahesh & Nguyen,Quynh T., 2014. "Private non-state sector engagement in the provision of educational services at the primary and secondary levels in South Asia : an analytical review of its role in school enrollment and student achie," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6899, The World Bank.
    3. Gee, Kevin A., 2015. "Achieving gender equality in learning outcomes: Evidence from a non-formal education program in Bangladesh," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 207-216.
    4. M. Niaz Asadullah, 2016. "Do Pro-Poor Schools Reach Out to the Poor? Location Choice of BRAC and ROSC Schools in Bangladesh," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(4), pages 432-452, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Masino, Serena & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "What works to improve the quality of student learning in developing countries?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 53-65.
    2. Alejandro J. Ganimian & Richard J. Murnane, 2014. "Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations," NBER Working Papers 20284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Miguel Urquiola, 2015. "Progress and challenges in achieving an evidence-based education policy in Latin America and the Caribbean," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-30, December.
    4. David K. Evans & Anna Popova, 2016. "What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 31(2), pages 242-270.
    5. Masino, Serena & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "What works to improve the quality of student learning in developing countries?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 53-65.
    6. Vegas, E & Ganimian, A. J., 2013. "Theory and Evidence on Teacher Policies in Developed and Developing Countries," Working Paper 104291, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    7. Ama Baafra Abeberese, 2011. "Improving Reading Skills by Encouraging Children to Read: A Randomized Evaluation of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Reading Program in the Philippines," Working Papers id:4312, eSocialSciences.
    8. Ama Baafra Abeberese & Todd J. Kumler & Leigh L. Linden, 2014. "Improving Reading Skills by Encouraging Children to Read in School:: A Randomized Evaluation of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Reading Program in the Philippines," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 611-633.
    9. Patrick J. McEwan, 2012. "Cost-effectiveness analysis of education and health interventions in developing countries," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 189-213, June.
    10. Pedro Carneiro & Oswald Koussihouèdé & Nathalie Lahire & Costas Meghir & Corina Mommaerts, 2020. "School Grants and Education Quality: Experimental Evidence from Senegal," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(345), pages 28-51, January.
    11. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2009. "The Experimental Approach to Development Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 151-178, May.
    12. Benjamin A. Olken, 2020. "Banerjee, Duflo, Kremer, and the Rise of Modern Development Economics," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 853-878, July.
    13. MacLeod, W. Bentley & Urquiola, Miguel, 2012. "Competition and Educational Productivity: Incentives Writ Large," IZA Discussion Papers 7063, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Pedro Carneiro & Oswald Koussihouèdé & Nathalie Lahire & Costas Meghir & Corina Mommaerts, 2015. "Decentralizing education resources: school grants in Senegal," CeMMAP working papers CWP15/15, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    15. Heath, Rachel & Mushfiq Mobarak, A., 2015. "Manufacturing growth and the lives of Bangladeshi women," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-15.
    16. Asadul Islam, 2017. "Parental Involvement in Education: Evidence from Field Experiments in Developing Countries," Monash Economics Working Papers 02-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    17. Eduard Marinov, 2019. "The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 78-116.
    18. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Elizabeth M. King, 2016. "Incentives and teacher effort," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 621-660, October.
    19. David K. Evans & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2008. "Prioritizing Educational Investments in Children in the Developing World," Working Papers WR-587, RAND Corporation.
    20. Jörg Peters & Jörg Langbein & Gareth Roberts, 2018. "Generalization in the Tropics – Development Policy, Randomized Controlled Trials, and External Validity," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 34-64.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    multiple treatments; impact evaluation; non-formal school; learning outcomes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5659. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.