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This paper examines the full-time school program in Rio de Janeiro's municipal schools. The program, called as the "Single-Shift" schools (Turno Unico), extends the time students spend in municipal schools and seeks to improve the quality of education provision by creating a diverse curriculum for the use of the extra time in school. Unlike the model prevalent in most Brazilian public schools, in which the school day is divided in two shifts of four to five hours each, Single-Shift schools provide education in a format in which students attend a seven-hour daily shift. A subset of Single-Shift schools was certified when they included aspects such as having all teaching staff fully dedicated to a single school. Difference-in-differences estimates, including school and time fixed effects, as well as restrictive school-by-time controls, indicate sizable and robust positive results for the certified Single-Shift program in middle schools. The results indicate that just extending the school day does not grant positive impacts on student performance if it is not also coupled with a more comprehensive and careful consideration on how the additional school hours are used and organized, which requires a well-structured and integrated curriculum, teachers fully dedicated to one school, and focused teacher training.

Dropout Rates --- Extension Of The School Day --- Full-Time School --- Impact Evaluation --- Student Learning

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This study examines trends in school dropout at the upper secondary education level across Latin America over the past two decades, and attempts to identify factors influencing these rates. The methodology contributes to the existing literature by employing repeated cross sections of data to track the life cycle path of representative groups of individuals belonging to a birth cohort, by constructing and analyzing a synthetic data base of household survey data from 18 countries. A key finding is that while upper secondary enrollment rates increased in the region, the proportion of upper secondary age youth dropping out of school has remained persistently high, despite relatively favorable macroeconomic conditions. Furthermore, the study traces the moment in the life cycle at which the majority of dropout takes place to reveal differences between countries. Finally, to explain the trends in upper secondary dropout rates, the study examines the impact of three groups of factors: (i) shifts in the cohort size and socioeconomic composition of the population eligible for entering upper secondary education; (b) the macroeconomic environment and labor market opportunities; and (c) the returns to schooling. A series of regressions shows that an important factor that may be driving higher dropout levels has been the higher numbers of students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds reaching the upper secondary level. In addition, high returns to education have been a pull factor into the schooling system, while, especially in countries where the majority of youth dropout early (prior to upper secondary education), the data confirm an apparent substitution effect due to the opportunity cost of forgoing employment opportunities. Overall, the findings confirm the importance of policy makers' focus on upper secondary education across Latin America and suggest implications for focusing the policy agenda.

Dropout --- Dropout Rates --- Education --- Education for All --- Education Policy --- Environmental Economics & Policies --- Household Surveys --- Income Effect --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Public Policy --- Returns to Education --- Secondary Education --- Substitution Effect

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There is increasing evidence that conditional cash transfer programs can have large impacts on school enrollment, including in very poor countries. However, little is known about which features of program design - including the amount of the cash that is transferred, how frequently conditions are monitored, whether non-complying households are penalized, and the identity or gender of the cash recipients - account for the observed outcomes. This paper analyzes the impact of one feature of program design - namely, the magnitude of the transfer. The analysis uses data from a program in Cambodia that deliberately altered the transfer amounts received by otherwise comparable households. The findings show clear evidence of diminishing marginal returns to transfer size despite the fact that even the larger transfers represented on average only 3 percent of the consumption of the median recipient households. If applicable to other settings, these results have important implications for other programs that transfer cash with the explicit aim of increasing school enrollment levels in developing countries.

Disability --- Dropout rates --- Education --- Education for All --- Education sector --- Enrollment levels --- Enrollment of children --- Enrollment rates --- Human development --- Ministry of education --- Papers --- Primary Education --- Research institute --- Research report --- Scholarship program --- Scholarships --- School enrollment --- School quality --- Schooling --- Schools --- Secondary school --- Smaller ones --- Social Protections and Labor --- Student transfer --- Teachers --- Tertiary Education

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The authors report results from a randomized evaluation comparing three school-based HIV/AIDS interventions in Kenya: (1) training teachers in the Kenyan Government's HIV/AIDS-education curriculum; (2) encouraging students to debate the role of condoms and to write essays on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS; and (3) reducing the cost of education. Their primary measure of the effectiveness of these interventions is teenage childbearing, which is associated with unprotected sex. The authors also collected measures of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding HIV/AIDS. After two years, girls in schools where teachers had been trained were more likely to be married in the event of a pregnancy. The program had little other impact on students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, or on the incidence of teen childbearing. The condom debates and essays increased practical knowledge and self-reported use of condoms without increasing self-reported sexual activity. Reducing the cost of education by paying for school uniforms reduced dropout rates, teen marriage, and childbearing.

Access and Equity in Basic Education --- Adolescent Health --- Aids Epidemic --- AIDS HIV --- Cost of Education --- Curriculum --- Dropout Rates --- Education --- Education for All --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Gender --- Gender and Education --- Grants --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Learning --- Ministry of Education --- Papers --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Research --- School --- Schools --- Science --- Secondary Education --- Students --- Teacher --- Teacher Training --- Teachers --- Teaching --- Tertiary Education --- Textbooks --- Training --- University

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June 2000 - Economic incentives have a powerful effect on the work behavior of women with children in Kenya. In addition to increasing the future productivity of children, government subsidies of low-cost early childhood development programs would increase the number of mothers who work, thus increasing the incomes of poor households and lifting some families out of poverty. They would also increase older girls' enrollment in school, by releasing them from child care responsibilities. About 20,000 early childhood development centers provided day care for and prepared for primary school more than 1 million children aged three to seven (roughly 20 percent of children in that age group) in Kenya in 1995. The number of child care facilities reached 23,690 by the end of 1999. Lokshin, Glinskaya, and Garcia analyze the effect of child care costs on households' behavior in Kenya. For households with children aged three to seven, they model household demand for mothers' participation in paid work, the participation in paid work of other household members, household demand for schooling, and household demand for child care. They find that: A high cost for child care discourages households from using formal child care facilities and has a negative effect on mothers' participation in market work; The cost of child care and the level of mothers' wages affect older children's school enrollment, but these factors affect boys' and girls' schooling differently. An increase in mothers' wages increases boys' enrollment but depresses girls' enrollment; Higher child care costs have no significant effect on boys' schooling but significantly decrease the number of girls in school. This paper - a joint product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group; Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, South Asia Region; and Human Development 1, Africa Technical Families - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to study the role of gender in the context of the household, institutions, and society. The authors may be contacted at mlokshin@worldbank.org, eglinskaya@worldbank.org, or mgarcia1@worldbank.org.

Age --- Boys --- Child Care --- Child Development --- Children --- Children and Youth --- Day Care --- Dropout Rates --- Early Child Development --- Early Childhood Development --- Education --- Enrollment --- Enrollment Of Girls --- Exams --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Girls --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Participation --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Primary School --- Schooling --- Street Children --- Unemployment --- Urban Development --- Wages --- Women --- Youth and Government