Your search

The most desirable Kenyan secondary schools are elite government schools that admit the best students from across the country. We exploit the random variation generated by the centralized school admissions process in a regression discontinuity design to obtain causal estimates of the effects of attending one of these elite public schools on student progression and test scores in secondary school. Despite their reputations, we find little evidence of positive impacts on learning outcomes for...

We examine the impact of the Kenyan Free Primary Education program on student participation, sorting, and achievement on the primary school exit examination. Exploiting variation in pre-program dropout rates between districts, we find that the program increased the number of students who completed primary school, spurred private school entry, and increased access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We argue that the program was welfare enhancing as it promoted educational access...

We identify the impact of the 2003 Kenyan Free Primary Education (FPE) programme on gender imbalances in the number of students graduating from primary school and achievement on the primary school exit examination. Our identification strategy exploits temporal and spatial variations in the pre-programme dropout rates between districts in a difference-in-differences strategy. We find that the programme boosted primary school completion rates of both boys and girls, but had a larger effect for...

School choice systems designed to help disadvantaged groups might be hindered by information asymmetries. Kenyan elite secondary schools admit students from the entire country based on a national test score, district quotas, and stated school choices. We find even the highest ability students make school choice errors. Girls, students with lower test scores, and students from public and low quality schools are more likely to make such errors. Net of observable demographic characteristics,...

The most desirable Kenyan secondary schools are elite government schools that admit the best students from across the country. We exploit the random variation generated by the centralized school admissions process in a regression discontinuity design to obtain causal estimates of the effects of attending one of these elite public schools on student progression and test scores in secondary school. Despite their reputations, we find little evidence of positive impacts on learning outcomes for...

The benefits of school choice systems designed to help disadvantaged groups might be hindered by information asymmetries. Kenyan elite secondary schools admit students from the entire country based on a national test score, district quotas, and stated school choices. We find even the highest ability students make school choice errors. Girls, students with lower test scores, and students from public and low quality primary schools are more likely to make such errors. Net of observable...

Abstract This paper presents evidence on teacher opinions regarding performance pay from a large experimental evaluation that included three interventions: a school grant program, a teacher performance pay program and a combination of both programs. The experimental evaluation was conducted in a nationally representative sample of 350 public primary schools across 10 districts in Tanzania. We report four sets of results. First, approximately 96% of teachers support the idea of teacher...

In 2015, the Tanzanian government implemented a curriculum reform that focused instruction in Grades 1 and 2 on the “3Rs”—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Consequently, almost 80 percent of the instructional time in these grades was mandated towards foundational literacy in Kiswahili and numeracy skills. Other subjects such as English were no longer taught. Using student-level panel data, we evaluate the effect of this policy on learning outcomes using a difference-in-differences approach...

We use a field experiment in Tanzania to compare the effectiveness on learning of two teacher performance pay systems. The first is a Pay for Percentile system (a rank-order tournament). The second rewards teachers based on multiple proficiency thresholds. Pay for Percentile can (under certain conditions) induce optimal effort among teachers, but our threshold system is easier to implement and provides teachers with clearer goals and targets. Both systems improved student test scores....

In 2013, Tanzania introduced Big Results Now in Education, a low-stakes accountability program that published both nationwide and within-district school rankings. Using data from the universe of school performance from 2011-2016, we identify the impacts of the reform using a difference-in-differences estimator that exploits the differential pressure exerted on schools at the top and bottom of their respective district rankings. We find that BRN improved learning outcomes for schools in the...

Abstract We use a nationally representative field experiment in Tanzania to compare two teacher performance pay systems in public primary schools: a ‘pay-for-percentile’ system (a rank-order tournament) and a ‘levels’ system that features multiple proficiency thresholds. Pay for percentile can potentially induce socially optimal effort among teachers, while levels systems can encourage teachers to focus on students near passing thresholds. Despite the theoretical advantage of the tournament...

School participation in Tanzania has increased dramatically over the past two decades: primary school enrolment increased from 4.9 million in 2001 to 10.9 million in 2020. While 81 percent of primary-school-age children are currently enrolled, over the last ten years, the primary completion rate has dropped and remains below 70 percent since 2015 (data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics).1 Despite improvements in enrolment, indicators of foundational learning remain low. According to the...

We use a field experiment in Tanzania to compare the effectiveness on learning of two teacher performance pay systems. The first is a Pay for Percentile system (a rank-order tournament). The second rewards teachers based on multiple proficiency thresholds. Pay for Percentile can (under certain conditions) induce optimal effort among teachers, but our threshold system is easier to implement and provides teachers with clearer goals and targets. Both systems improved student test scores....

In 2013, Tanzania introduced "Big Results Now in Education", a low-stakes accountability program that published both nationwide and within-district school rankings. Using data from the universe of school performance from 2011-2016, we identify the impacts of the reform using a difference-in-differences estimator that exploits the differential pressure exerted on schools at the top and bottom of their respective district rankings. We find that BRN improved learning outcomes for schools in the...

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Vocational education voucher delivery and labor market returns: a randomized evaluation among Kenyan youth, conducted during the time period covered fees for a training course lasting up to two years in Kenya. The study observed that the demand for vocational training and the impacts of the information intervention on institution and course selection, participant attendance, the short term impacts of training on...