Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
Many Sub-Saharan African countries have instituted free primary education policies, and this has led to a significant increase in the primary school enrollment rate. However, many children who are in school are not learning. It is not clear whether...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/189351600697452644/Long-Term-Effects-of-Free-Primary-Education-on-Educational-Achievement-Evidence-from-Lesotho http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34502 |
| Summary: | Many Sub-Saharan African countries have
instituted free primary education policies, and this has led
to a significant increase in the primary school enrollment
rate. However, many children who are in school are not
learning. It is not clear whether free primary education
policies have contributed to the decline in the quality of
education and whether these learning effects are
long-lasting. This paper addresses the latter question and
estimates the long-term effects of free primary education on
educational achievement in Lesotho where the program was
phased-in on a grade-by-grade basis, beginning with grade
one in 2000. The timing of the implementation created
changes in program coverage across age (and grade) groups
over time. A semiparametric difference-in-differences
strategy is employed that exploits these variations to
identify the long-term effects of the free primary education
policy on educational achievement, using university
examinations records data for student cohorts with and
without free primary education. The results indicate that
the effect of free primary education on academic performance
is bounded between 2 and 19 percentage points, implying that
the program increased enrollment without hurting education quality. |
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