Long-Term Impacts of Alternative Approaches to Increase Schooling : Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia
This paper reports on a randomized experiment to investigate the long-term effects of a primary school scholarship program in rural Cambodia. In 2008, fourth-grade students in 207 randomly assigned schools (103 treatment, 104 control) received scho...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/838871535033752683/Long-term-impacts-of-alternative-approaches-to-increase-schooling-evidence-from-a-scholarship-program-in-Cambodia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30318 |
| Summary: | This paper reports on a randomized
experiment to investigate the long-term effects of a primary
school scholarship program in rural Cambodia. In 2008,
fourth-grade students in 207 randomly assigned schools (103
treatment, 104 control) received scholarships based on the
students' academic performance in math and language or
their level of poverty. Three years after the program's
inception, an evaluation showed that both types of
scholarship recipients had more schooling than
nonrecipients; however, only merit-based scholarships led to
improvements in cognitive skills. This new study reports
impacts, nine years after program inception, on the
educational attainment, cognitive skills, socioemotional
outcomes, socioeconomic status and well-being, and labor
market outcomes of individuals who are, on average, 21 years
old. The results show that both types of scholarships led to
higher long-term educational attainment (about 0.21-0.29
grade level), but only merit-based scholarships led to
improvements in cognitive skills (0.11 standard deviation),
greater self-reported well-being (0.18 standard deviation),
and employment probability (3.4 percentage points). Neither
type of scholarship increased socioemotional skills. The
results also suggest that there are labeling effects: the
impacts of the scholarship types differ even for individuals
with similar characteristics. |
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