Download
1 / 15
150 likes | 278 Vues
What do we know about school bursaries? Targeting evidence from Kenya Katie Conn Africa Impact Evaluation Initiative (AIM), World Bank. School bursaries are an excellent example of the need for impact evaluation Potential questions that can be answered with an impact evaluation:
E N D
What do we know about school bursaries? Targeting evidence from Kenya Katie Conn Africa Impact Evaluation Initiative (AIM), World Bank
School bursaries are an excellent example of the need for impact evaluation Potential questions that can be answered with an impact evaluation: What amount of bursary is necessary to increase enrollment? What is impact of schooling on a student’s future earnings or health outcomes? What is the best way to target bursaries? What do we need to know?
Bursary Targeting • Merit bursaries • Relatively easy to assign • Disproportionately benefit wealthier students • Bursaries targeting the poor • Need-based bursaries more equitable • Difficult to target the poorest of the poor • Evidence from the Africa Program for Education Impact Evaluation on bursaries: Kenya
Kenyan Context • June 2007: Ministry of Education officials met with technical experts (Pascaline Dupas and the Poverty Action Lab) in Abuja, Nigeria, and decided to evaluate targeting of bursaries • January 2008: Government announced secondary school subsidy of $160 per student • Intended to cover the cost of day school • April 2008: Still, 20% of eligible students in Western Kenya did not enroll in 2008 • Most cited insufficient means • November 2007 – May 2008 : Targeting Exercise
Kenya’s traditional secondary school bursary targeting system • Current system of allocating bursaries • Proportionate amount allocated to political constituencies (districts, more or less) • They distribute applications and bursary amounts as they wish • Anecdotes: Not wanting to favor a single child, committees spread funding across so many children that it fails to be useful • Further concern: favoritism
The Reform: a new form of targeting • Ministry of Education two-part form: • Class 8 teacher Form & Student Guardian Form • Participatory Meetings with School Community • Participatory rural appraisals with School Management Committee & teachers only • PRAs with SMC, teachers, and parents of class 8 students (Facilitated by locally based agency: IPA) • Exhaustive household survey (Gold standard? ) • Implemented by IPA
The evaluation • Using Poverty Maps select 36 poorest “locations” in Western Kenya • Randomly select 1 school from each “location.” • Randomly split them into 2 groups • Then, with this information in hand, checked to see who actually went on to go to school in 2008
Results (preliminary) • Neither the MoE form measuring assets nor the detailed household survey did a good job of predicting who would not attend without a scholarship • Need more than assets to identify the needy! • The PRAs with parents were very poor at predicting enrollment.
Concrete recommendations for MoE forms • Difficult to distinguish among the poor: Needs better measures of lower income • Certain assets were owned by (almost) no households and so could be removed • Questions where teachers ranking students could be improved
What about the traditional method? • Remember the Constituency Committees disbursing funds as they please? • Anecdotes: Spread to everyone • In fact: only 4% of students received • 41% of government bursaries were given to students ranked in the less needy group by the PRA methods • Timeline • First disbursements: May (2nd term) • September 2008: 4 of 9 committees had not disbursed funds!
Final Thoughts/ Questions • What kind of results will we get from other measures of income/ poverty (apart from assets)? • Did a student’s rank in class influence his/her neediness ranking? • What are some other methods of student identification that could be used in PRA poverty targeting meetings? • Are these results externally valid? How would this work in your country/ community?
Cautionary note from Cambodia:Am I even studying the right thing? • Students in Grade 6 apply for a scholarship for Grade 7: mix of need and merit • Scholarships of $45 and $60 • Scholarships led to • 20% higher attendance • 15% higher enrolment Filmer & Schady 2008 • Learning? No effect!
