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Primary Education Expansion and Quality of Schooling: Evidence from Tanzania

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  • Valente, Christine

    (University of Bristol)

Abstract

The rapid increase in primary enrollment seen in many developing countries might worsen schooling quality. I estimate the effect of enrollment growth following the removal of primary school fees in Tanzania and find that it led to large increases in the pupil-teacher ratio and a reduction in observable teacher quality, but rule out a substantial effect on test scores overall. These results are robust to instrumenting enrollment growth using predetermined fertility and migration decisions, and not driven by compositional changes. In urban areas, however, where baseline achievement was higher, test scores deteriorated where enrollment growth was larger.

Suggested Citation

  • Valente, Christine, 2015. "Primary Education Expansion and Quality of Schooling: Evidence from Tanzania," IZA Discussion Papers 9208, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9208
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    Cited by:

    1. Isaac Mbiti & Karthik Muralidharan & Mauricio Romero & Youdi Schipper & Constantine Manda & Rakesh Rajani, 2019. "Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1627-1673.
    2. Thomas Ferreira, 2018. "Does education enhance productivity in smallholder agriculture? Causal evidence from Malawi," Working Papers 05/2018, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    universal primary education; pupil-teacher ratio; test scores; Tanzania;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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