Financial Constraints and Girls' Secondary Education : Evidence from School Fee Elimination in The Gambia
This study analyzes the impact of large-scale fee elimination for secondary school girls in The Gambia on the quantity, composition, and achievement of students. The gradual rollout of the program across geographic regions provides identifying vari...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/131321481039247615/Financial-constraints-and-girls-secondary-education-evidence-from-school-fee-elimination-in-the-Gambia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25807 |
| Summary: | This study analyzes the impact of
large-scale fee elimination for secondary school girls in
The Gambia on the quantity, composition, and achievement of
students. The gradual rollout of the program across
geographic regions provides identifying variation in the
policy. The program increased the number of girls taking the
high school exit exam by 55 percent. The share of older test
takers increased in poorer districts, expanding access for
students who began school late, repeated grades, or whose
studies had been interrupted. Despite these changes in the
quantity and composition of students, there are robustly
positive point estimates of the program on test scores, with
suggestive evidence of gains for several subgroups of both
girls and boys. Absence of learning declines is notable in a
setting where expanded access could strain limited resources
and reduce school quality. The findings suggest that
financial constraints remain serious barriers to
post-primary education, and that efforts to expand access to
secondary education need not come at the expense of learning
in low-income countries like The Gambia. |
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