from EVIDENCE to POLICY Learning what works, from the Human Development Network Update February, 2013 75761 Can Scholarships Help Keep Kids in School? Providing children with a quality education is a prior- from poor families were offered scholarships if they ity of policymakers and education experts around the continued beyond primary school. An evaluation of world. Creating a successful education system requires the project found that scholarships worked as a way more than good teachers and the right infrastructure. of getting children to stay in school. But it also found Children must be encouraged to stay in school long that children who were offered scholarships did not enough to benefit from the offerings. Making this hap- do measurably better on vocabulary or math tests than pen is a critical step in education reform. A variety of peers who were not offered scholarships—despite the research questions remain unanswered, however. Can fact that the former group had higher enrollments and scholarships help students extend their education be- attendance. Based on the results of the evaluation, yond primary school in low income countries? Should the Government of Cambodia expanded the pro- payments be made directly to the children or to their gram at a scholarship amount of $45, which had parents? Is there an optimal scholarship amount? And proved as effective as giving students $60. The gov- do boys and girls need the same encouragement? ernment also has piloted a primary school scholarship EDUCATION The World Bank is committed to assisting develop- program to reach the poorest students. Researchers ing countries raise their educational standards, part of hope that future reviews of the students in Cambodia, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. along with evaluations of similar programs in other de- Our work includes supporting projects that explore veloping countries, will help policymakers and educa- how best to support children staying in school. One tion experts better understand the interplay and use of recent project was in Cambodia, where boys and girls scholarships, schooling and learning. Case Study Cambodia Cambodia has had numerous scholarship programs families annual cash “scholarships�—which could be funded by the government and outside donors. One used for any purpose— during the first three years of project, funded by the Japan Fund for Poverty Re- secondary school (seventh through ninth grades). The duction, tried to keep girls in school by giving their project covered the 2003-2006 school years and raised school attendance rates by 20 to 30 percentage points. Did You Know… Building on that experience, a government program About 80 percent of girls and boys who start primary school supported by the World Bank’s Cambodia Education in Cambodia complete it Sector Support Project was launched in such a way as By secondary school, net enrollment drops to 36 percent for to test the optimal scholarship amount and measure the boys and 32 percent for girls effect on both boys and girls. The project covered the The literacy rate for males aged 15-24 is 90 percent and 2005-2010 school years and included two scholarship 83 percent for females levels—$60 a year for the poorest recipients and $45 for (World Bank EdStats, 2008) the others. The program targeted 100 lower secondary (middle) pares extremely similar applicants—who differ only in schools that were not participating in other scholarship that the former were offered a scholarship. programs, focusing on those in poor areas and where The grants were offered to 6th grade students as non-enrollment was high. All 6th grade students in the they entered the 7th grade, and were renewable for the local feeder elementary schools filled out a scholarship 8th and 9th grades. In total, there were 26,537 appli- application. Questions focused on the make-up of the cations and just over 3,800 scholarships offered. Two- household, from number of family members to avail- thirds of recipients were girls. The money was given to ability of running water and ownership of household the families in three tranches over the school year, in durables. To come up with a drop-out risk score, the public award ceremonies. The grants were made con- answers were analyzed in conjunction with data drawn ditional on enrollment, attendance and satisfactory from Cambodia’s nationwide household survey. grade progress. During the first year of the program, An impact evaluation was built into the design, based researchers conducted a household survey of 3225 ap- on how students were selected for the scholarship. The plicants (about 60 percent of whom had received a 6th grade applicants were ranked according to a drop- scholarship), and four unannounced school visits to out-risk score—from those most likely to drop out of check applicants’ attendance. As part of the house- school to those least likely to drop out. In each school, hold survey, children—regardless of whether they a fixed number of scholarships were awarded to children were enrolled in school—were given vocabulary and with the highest dropout-risk. Comparing applicants math tests. During one of the school visits, students “just below� to “just above� the cutoff effectively com- were given a math test. EDUCATION The Findings The scholarships had a “substantial� effect Likewise, giving children $45 to stay in school on student enrollment and attendance in 7th proved as effective as giving them $60. and 8th grades. There was no significant incremental impact on the The enrollment rate among non-recipients was about enrollment rate between children who received the $45 60 percent by the end of 7th grade; it was 80 percent annual grant compared with those who were given $60. among students who received scholarships, an increase of 20 percentage points. This compares to impacts rang- The money could be used on anything and ing from zero to 13 percentage points for comparable how it was used was not monitored. cash transfer educational programs around the world. * However, families that received grants spent more money on school… The impact was the same for girls and boys. The amount of money was not a lot for the families: It rep- More girls than boys received grants because they ranked resented about two to three percent of the child’s household higher for the risk of dropping out. But the study found consumption and the $45 scholarship was about equal to no difference in the effect of the grant on encouraging the direct costs of attending lower secondary school. Fami- children, whether girls or boys, to stay in school. lies that received the grant did spend on average about $10 *see: Fiszbein, A., N. Schady, F.H.G. Ferreira, M. Grosh, N. Kelleher, P. Olinto, and E. Skoufias, Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty. 2009, Washington, D.C.: World Bank. This bulletin summarizes the results of the Policy Research Working Paper 4998, “School Enrollment, Selection and Test Scores,� by Deon Filmer and Norbert Schady. The work was conducted through the World Bank’s Development Research Group, Human Development and Public Services Team. The full paper can be found at http://www-wds.worldbank.org/ more on on schooling-related expenses, such as books or The Cambodian government decided that, other educational materials. for now at least, the jump in school enroll- ment was important enough to continue the …and scholarship recipients were less likely model, incorporating the lessons from the to work for pay while attending school. evaluation, and expanding the reach of secondary school scholarships. Students who were offered the grants were about 10 per- centage points less likely to engage in paid work, com- The increase in school enrollment among high-risk stu- pared with those who did not receive the money. dents was sufficiently compelling evidence of the value of the program that the Cambodian government sought Siblings did not have to make up the difference. to expand it. Because of the findings that $45 scholar- There was no sign that parents of students who re- ships were as effective at $60 scholarships, the govern- ceived the grants to stay in school pulled their sib- ment increased the number of $45 scholarships instead lings out of school to make up the difference in lost of raising the amount of each grant when additional wages or other services. But while grants boosted enrollment among high-risk students, this did not translate into measurable better learning outcomes. Students who were offered a scholarship did not do any better in math and vocabulary assessment tests than those who were not offered a scholarship despite their higher enrollment and attendance rates. The reason may be that the scholarships not only help economically- poor students stay in school, they also help the academ- ically-weak ones. “(The program) means I won’t be skipping school regularly money became available. The project now has been like before, because my parents havestopped pushing me to find jobs to earnmoney to support the family,� said one folded into the country’s national scholarship program, female recipient. which also has been adjusted to incorporate the project’s design features. The program found that students who enrolled in 7th grade despite being turned down for a scholar- Involvement in economic activity in Cambodia starts very ship were more likely to drop out of school before 8th early and rises sharply with age, inducing late school entry and early school dropout. About 16 percent of children are al- grade if they had low test scores. Scholarship students, ready economically active at age six years, and over half of all in contrast, stayed in school even if they had similarly children are economically active by the age of 10 years. By the poor test results in 7th grade. But the scholarships, ap- age of 15, the share of children working in economic activity parently, were not enough to ensure that low-perform- surpasses that of children attending school. School enrollment, on the other hand, peaks at 91 percent at age 11 years; there- ing students could do better in school—the money after, attendance declines as children begin leaving school and simply helped them stay in school. working exclusively. The researchers cautioned that follow-up assess- —“Children’s Work in Cambodia: A Challenge for Growth and ments were needed to ensure that this finding is not Poverty Reducation,� Inter-agency research project with the World Bank, Dec. 2006 due to the relatively short-run nature of the study. Conclusion Making policy from evidence Development groups and policymakers are turning ability students, or specialized tutors may need to be to conditional—and sometimes unconditional—cash mobilized. At the same time, policymakers must keep transfers as a way to encourage poor and otherwise dis- in mind that some of the poorest students may drop advantaged groups to take better advantage of educa- out even before completing primary school. Scholar- tion, health and social protection offerings. The Cam- ship programs might have to target lower levels of edu- bodia study shows that scholarships can be an effective cation in order to capture everyone. Cambodia is now tool for encouraging students to stay in school after exploring this through a pilot scholarship program tar- completing primary school—even in a low income set- geting the last three grades of primary school. ting. The results also indicated that, in Cambodia, boys The project’s researchers plan a second round of and girls can benefit equally and that encouraging great- data gathering to assess whether the students who er school attendance does not mean that the students’ benefited from the lower secondary school scholar- siblings will be expected by their families to make up the ships end up doing better on learning assessments lost household or outside work time. once more time has passed. In addition, longer term The study also showed that attending school is not impacts—such as on labor market success or on the always enough to ensure a good education. Policymak- timing of marriage and childbearing—can be studied. ers intent on making a difference may need to comple- Success depends on finding the optimal way to sup- ment such demand-side programs with interventions port children who might otherwise drop-out, both in that focus on school and teacher quality. For example, terms of encouraging enrollment and ensuring that teachers may need to be trained to better teach low- once in school, they can learn. The Human Development Network, part of the World Bank Group, supports and disseminates research evaluating the impact of development projects to help alleviate poverty. The goal is to collect and build empirical evidence that can help governments and development organizations design and implement the most appropriate and effective policies for better educational, health and job opportunities for people in developing countries. For more information about who we are and what we do, go to: http://www.worldbank.org/sief. This Evidence to Policy note series is produced with the generous support of SIEF. THE WORLD BANK, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT NETWORK 1818 H STREET, NW WASHINGTON, DC 20433 Produced by Office of the Chief Economist, Human Development Network, Communications/Aliza Marcus This is an update of a policy note issued in October 2010.