Improving Enrollment and Learning through Videos and Mobiles : Experimental Evidence fromNorthern Nigeria

In northern Nigeria, half of primary school-age children attend school, half of girls are marriedbefore turning 15, and one in five people can read a whole sentence. Conducted in rural, low literate communitiesgoverned by traditional norms, this paper presents the results of a cluster randomized controlled trial that testedcommunity screenings to reshape parental aspirations and attitudes toward education, and as a reinforcing arm, thedistribution of mobiles with engaging apps to teach 6-9-year-old children to read. Twelve months after thescreenings, children were 42 percent less likely to be out of school, but as expected, their learning levels did notimprove. In the communities that were provided the mobile reinforcer, literacy and numeracy skills increased by 0.46and 0.63 standard deviation, respectively. The impacts of the combined intervention on school attendance and learninggains were similar for boys and girls. For non-targeted older siblings, the intervention increased learning by 0.34and 0.47 standard deviation and reduced the likelihood of teenage pregnancy and early entrance into the labor marketby 13 and 14 percent, respectively. The mechanisms behind these effects include improved parental aspirations andexpectations, improved attitudes and social norms, higher self-efficacy beliefs of parents, and increased time forhome learning activities. Relative to other educational investments that have been evaluated in developingcountries, the combined intervention is highly effective and cost-effective.