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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Main Author:	Moshoeshoe, Ramaele
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT EDUCATION QUALITY
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

id	okr-10986-34502
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-345022022-09-20T00:08:58Z Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho Moshoeshoe, Ramaele FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT EDUCATION QUALITY 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. 2020-09-24T18:36:51Z 2020-09-24T18:36:51Z 2020-09 Working Paper 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 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9404 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Lesotho
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT EDUCATION QUALITY
spellingShingle	FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT EDUCATION QUALITY Moshoeshoe, Ramaele Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
geographic_facet	Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Lesotho
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9404
description	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.
format	Working Paper
author	Moshoeshoe, Ramaele
author_facet	Moshoeshoe, Ramaele
author_sort	Moshoeshoe, Ramaele
title	Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
title_short	Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
title_full	Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
title_fullStr	Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
title_full_unstemmed	Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho
title_sort	long-term effects of free primary education on educational achievement : evidence from lesotho
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	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
_version_	1764481038761852928

Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho

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