Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper presents evidence on the cost-effectiveness of early childhood education pathways in rural Indonesia. It documents the existence of substantial differences in school readiness between 6 to 9 year old children. Using detailed enrollment histories, it unpacks whether and how early education experiences explain these gaps. The analysis considers not only the sequence of services children enroll in, but also the age at which they enroll and the duration for which they enroll. The differences in primary school test scores between a child who has no early education exposure and a child who completes a full sequence at the developmentally appropriate age are 0.42 standard deviations in language and 0.43 standard deviations in mathematics, roughly equivalent to an additional 0.9 to 1.2 years of primary schooling. The paper analyzes the cost-effectiveness of various early education pathways in Indonesia to show that providing access to both playgroups and kindergartens to young children at developmentally appropriate ages can optimize public investments in early childhood education. The paper subjects the analysis to a variety of robustness checks, and concludes that children enrolled in play-based early education programs (playgroups) at age 3 or 4, followed by the country's more academically structured programs (kindergartens) at age 5 or 6, are more likely to be ready for primary school than children who do not follow this sequence. Compulsory pre-primary education policy should consider incorporating both playgroups and kindergartens.

Costeffectiveness --- Duration --- Early Childhood Education --- Primary School --- Sequence --- Timing

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Despite a sharp increase in the share of girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some countries. This paper argues that one explanation for this gender gap is the degree of social exclusion within these countries, as indicated by ethno-linguistic heterogeneity, which triggers both economic and psycho-social mechanisms to limit girls' schooling. Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity initially was applied to explaining lagging economic growth, but has emerged in the literature more recently to explain both civil conflict and public goods. This paper is a first application of the concept to explain gender gaps in education. The paper discusses the importance of female education for economic and social development, reviews the evidence regarding gender and ethnic differences in schooling, reviews the theoretical perspectives of various social science disciplines that seek to explain such differences, and tests the relevance of ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity in explaining cross-country differences in school attainment and learning. The study indicates that within-country ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity partly explains both national female primary school completion rates and gender differences in these rates, but only explains average national learning outcomes when national income measures are excluded.

Completion rates --- Disability --- Education --- Education for All --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Female education --- Gender --- Gender and Education --- Gender Gap --- Girls --- Human Development --- Learning --- Primary Education --- Primary school --- Primary school completion --- Schooling --- Social development --- Social Protections and Labor

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper uses a prospective randomized trial to assess the impact of two school feeding schemes on health and education outcomes for children from low-income households in northern rural Burkina Faso. The two school feeding programs under consideration are, on the one hand, school meals where students are provided with lunch each school day, and, on the other hand, take-home rations that provide girls with 10 kg of cereal flour each month, conditional on 90 percent attendance rate. After running for one academic year, both programs increased girls' enrollment by 5 to 6 percentage points. While there was no observable significant impact on raw scores in mathematics, the time-adjusted scores in mathematics improved slightly for girls. The interventions caused absenteeism to increase in households that were low in child labor supply while absenteeism decreased for households that had a relatively large child labor supply, consistent with the labor constraints. Finally, for younger siblings of beneficiaries, aged between 12 and 60 months, take-home rations have increased weight-for-age by .38 standard deviations and weight-for-height by .33 standard deviations. In contrast, school meals did not have any significant impact on the nutrition of younger children.

Adolescent Health --- Adolescents --- Age --- Boys --- Child labor --- Children --- Children and Youth --- Education --- Education for All --- Educational outcomes --- Educational Sciences --- Enrollment --- Enrollment rates --- Gender --- Gender and Education --- Girls --- Health Monitoring and Evaluation --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human development --- Interventions --- Investment --- Nutrition --- Primary Education --- Primary school --- Primary school attendance --- Primary school fees --- School feeding programs --- Schooling --- Street Children --- Students --- Tertiary Education --- Urban Development --- Youth and Government

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The authors report on a survey of primary public and private schools in rural Pakistan with a focus on student achievement as measured through test scores. Absolute learning is low compared with curricular standards and international norms. Tested at the end of the third grade, a bare majority had mastered the K-I mathematics curriculum and 31 percent could correctly form a sentence with the word "school" in the vernacular (Urdu). As in high-income countries, bivariate comparisons show that higher learning is associated with household wealth and parental literacy. In sharp contrast to high-income countries, these gaps decrease dramatically in a multivariate regression once differences between children in the same school are looked at. Consequently, the largest gaps are between schools. The gap in English test scores between government and private schools, for instance, is 12 times the gap between children from rich and poor families. To contextualize these results within a broader South Asian context, the authors use data from public schools in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Levels of learning and the structure of the educational gaps are similar in the two samples. As in Pakistan, absolute learning is low and the largest gaps are between schools: the gap between good and bad government schools, for instance, is 5 times the gap between children with literate and illiterate mothers.

Adult Literacy --- Adult Literacy Rate --- Children --- Curriculum --- Education --- Education for All --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Enrollment --- Formal Schooling --- Gender --- Gender and Education --- Girls --- Groups --- Human Development --- Knowledge --- Learning --- Literacy --- Net Enrollment --- Numeracy --- Participation --- Primary Education --- Primary School --- Primary School Completion --- Private Schools --- Public Schools --- Secondary Education --- Student Achievement --- Tertiary Education

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

School health and nutirion programs can contribue to achieving the goals of the Education for All initiative (EFA) by helping children enroll on time, complete their education, and realize their cognitive potential. Achieving these goals depends on reaching the children most in need. One strong feature of school health and nutrition programs is that they benefit the poor, sick, and hungry children far more that better-off children. However, poor children can only benefit if the programs reach them. This book describes how schools have been used as a platform for delivering safe and simple heal

School health services --- School children --- School hygiene --- Evaluation. --- Planning. --- Health and hygiene --- Elementary school students --- Primary school students --- Pupils --- Schoolchildren --- Health services, School --- School health care --- Education --- Children --- Students --- Medical care