Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho

Many Sub-Saharan African countries have instituted free primary education policies, and thishas led to a significant increase in the primary school enrollment rate. However, many children who are in schoolare not learning. It is not clear whether free primary education policies have contributed to the decline in thequality of education and whether these learning effects are long-lasting. This paper addresses the latter question andestimates the long-term effects of free primary education on educational achievement in Lesotho where the program wasphased-in on a grade-by-grade basis, beginning with grade one in 2000. The timing of the implementation createdchanges in program coverage across age (and grade) groups over time. A semiparametric difference-in-differencesstrategy is employed that exploits these variations to identify the long-term effects of the free primary educationpolicy on educational achievement, using university examinations records data for student cohorts with andwithout free primary education. The results indicate that the effect of free primary education on academic performanceis bounded between 2 and 19 percentage points, implying that the program increased enrollment without hurting education quality.