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School dropout is a growing concern in Central America, and in Latin America as a whole, because of its consequences for economic productivity, the inclusiveness of growth, social cohesion, and increasing youth risks. This paper utilizes more than two decades of household survey data to construct a systematic overview of school dropout at the primary and secondary levels in Central America, including recent trends, causes and consequences, and evidence on what works to reduce dropout. Within each country, poverty, rurality, and indigenous group membership are the strongest correlates of dropout, reflecting several underlying factors that affect the marginal benefits and costs of staying in school. Global and regional evidence increasingly points to common policy priorities for reducing dropout across Central America, including addressing remaining gaps in access at the pre-primary and secondary levels, improving the quality of education at all levels, and strengthening the coverage, targeting, and coherence of existing programs aimed at improving education outcomes. However, additional rigorous evaluations, including cost data, are needed to identify the most effective specific approaches in each country.
Dropout --- Education --- Education for All --- Educational Attainment --- Effective Schools & Teachers --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Secondary Education --- Tertiary Education --- Costa Rica --- El Salvador --- Guatemala --- Honduras --- Nicaragua --- Panama
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How can countries make sustainable gains in student learning at scale? This is a pressing question for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)--and the developing world more broadly--as countries seek to build human capital to drive sustainable growth. Significant progress in access has expanded coverage such that nearly all children in the region attend primary school, but many do not gain basic skills and drop out before completing secondary school, in part due to low-quality service delivery. The preponderance of evidence shows that it is learning--and not schooling in and of itself--that contributes to individual earnings, economic growth, and reduced inequality. For LAC in particular, low levels of human capital are a critical factor in explaining the region's relatively weak growth performance over the last half century. The easily measurable inputs are well-known, and the end goal is relatively clear, but raising student achievement at scale remains a challenge. Why? Part of the answer lies in management--the managers, structures, and practices that guide how inputs into the education system are translated into outputs, and ultimately outcomes. While management is often mentioned as an important factor in education policy discussions, relatively little quantitative research has been done to define and measure it. And even less has been done to unpack how and how much management matters for education quality. This study presents new conceptual and empirical contributions that can be synthesized in four key messages: 1. Student learning is unlikely to improve at scale without better management. 2. Management quality can be measured and should be measured as a catalyst for improvement. 3. Management affects how well every level of an education system functions, from individual schools to central technical units, and how well they work together. 4. Several pathways to strengthening management are open to LAC countries now, with the potential for significant results. The study elaborates on each of these messages, synthesizing recent data and research and presenting the results of several new research initiatives from across the region.
Coronavirus --- COVID-19 --- Education Management --- Education Outcomes --- Education Quality --- Education Spending --- Education Systems Reforms --- Learning Loss --- Public Schools --- Student Learning
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School dropout is a growing concern in Central America, and in Latin America as a whole, because of its consequences for economic productivity, the inclusiveness of growth, social cohesion, and increasing youth risks. This paper utilizes more than two decades of household survey data to construct a systematic overview of school dropout at the primary and secondary levels in Central America, including recent trends, causes and consequences, and evidence on what works to reduce dropout. Within each country, poverty, rurality, and indigenous group membership are the strongest correlates of dropout, reflecting several underlying factors that affect the marginal benefits and costs of staying in school. Global and regional evidence increasingly points to common policy priorities for reducing dropout across Central America, including addressing remaining gaps in access at the pre-primary and secondary levels, improving the quality of education at all levels, and strengthening the coverage, targeting, and coherence of existing programs aimed at improving education outcomes. However, additional rigorous evaluations, including cost data, are needed to identify the most effective specific approaches in each country.
Dropout --- Education --- Education for All --- Educational Attainment --- Effective Schools & Teachers --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Secondary Education --- Tertiary Education --- Costa Rica --- El Salvador --- Guatemala --- Honduras --- Nicaragua --- Panama
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Across many low- and middle-income countries, a sizable share of young people drop out of school before completing a full course of basic education. Early warning systems that accurately identify students at risk of dropout and support them with targeted interventions have shown results and are in widespread use in high-income contexts. This paper presents impact evaluation results from an early warning system pilot program in Guatemala, a middle-income country where nearly 40 percent of sixth graders drop out before completing ninth grade. The pilot program, which was implemented in 17 percent of Guatemala's primary schools and largely leveraging existing government resources, reduced the dropout rate in the transition from primary to lower secondary school by 4 percent (1.3 percentage points) among schools assigned to the program, and by 9 percent (3 percentage points) among program compliers. Although the effect size is relatively modest, the low cost of the program (estimated at less than US$3 per student) and successful implementation at scale make this a promising and cost-effective approach for reducing dropout in resource-constrained contexts like Guatemala.
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Despite impressive gains in increasing access to school over the past 20 years, an estimated 57 million children worldwide do not go to school. Abolishing school fees has increased enrollment rates in several countries where enrollments were low and school fees were high. However, such policies may be less effective, or even have negative consequences, when supply-side responses are weak. This paper evaluates the school-level impacts of a tuition waiver program in Haiti, which provided public financing to nonpublic schools conditional on these schools not charging tuition. The paper concludes that a school's participation in the program results in having more students enrolled, more staff, and slightly higher student-teacher ratios. The program also reduces grade repetition and the share of students who are over-age. Although the increase in students at participating schools does not directly equate to a reduction in the number of children out of school, it does demonstrate strong demand from families for the program, and a correspondingly strong supply response from the nonpublic sector.
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Across Latin America, school dropout is a growing concern, because of its negative social and economic consequences. Although a wide range of interventions hold potential to reduce dropout rates, policy makers in many countries must first address the basic question of how to target limited resources effectively for such interventions. Identifying who is most likely to drop out and, therefore, who should be prioritized for targeting, is a prediction problem that has been addressed in a rich set of research in countries with strong education system data. This paper makes use of newly established administrative data systems in Guatemala and Honduras, to estimate some of the first dropout prediction models for lower-middle-income countries. These models can correctly identify 80 percent of sixth grade students who will drop out in the transition to lower secondary school, performing as well as models used in the United States and providing more accurate results than other commonly used targeting approaches.
Dropout --- Early Warning --- Prediction
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