Do Education Incentive Programs Work? Evidence from IFPRI Studies in Bangladesh

1. Do Education Incentive Programs Work?Evidence from IFPRI Studies in Bangladesh Akhter U. Ahmed International Food Policy Research Institute “What Works for the Poorest? Knowledge, Policies, and Practices” BRAC Centre for Development Management Rajendrapur, Bangladesh 2-5 December 2006

2. Storyline • School enrollment and child labor • Opportunity costs of schooling • Food and cash incentives for schooling • Impacts on enrollment and learning • Ability to reach the poorest • The way forward • Policy options for improving program performance Page 2

3. For rural boys, school enrollment declines and child labor increases as they get older Page 3

4. Out-of-school boys work outside the home much more than those enrolled in school Page 4

5. For rural girls, the relationship between enrollment and labor force participation is weak Page 5

6. Girls do not sit idle at home even when not working outside or not enrolled in school Page 6

7. Opportunity costs of attending school are higher for the poor, for boys, and for secondary education Page 7

8. Both food- and cash-based incentive programs worked! Net primary education enrollment rates increased FFE = Food for Education Program PES = Primary Education Stipend Program SFP = School Feeding Program ROSC = Reaching Out-of-School Children Project - Ananda schools Page 8

9. Enrollment increase was greater for girls than for boys % Changein enrollmentfrom before (1992) to during (1994) FFE Page 9

10. Better resource allocation could attain the desired quantity and qualityof primary education • Providing a higher level of resources to “grants-only” Ananda schools boosts the education quality of Ananda students, but not the enrollment rates in the catchment areas. • On the other hand, stipends to “grant-plus-allowance” Ananda students enhance enrollment rates in the communities, but not the quality of education. The smaller size of grants to these schools may not be enough to improve the quality of education. • Combining educational allowances with higher level grants will likely achieve the dual goal of enticing out-of-school children to school and improving their learning. Page 10

11. Short-term hunger alleviation in the classroom improves children’s learning • Hunger is a barrier to learning—a hungry child cannot concentrate • Bangladesh’s school feeding program (SFP) provides a mid-morning snack of high-nutrient biscuits to children in school • Participation in the SFP increased achievement test scores by 15.7% • Participating students did especially well in mathematics Other findings: • SFP raises enrollment by 14.2% and reduces dropout by 7.5% • SFP improves nutritional status (BMI) of school children • Calories from SF biscuits are almost entirely (97%) additional to the child’s normal diet. The child’s family does not give him or her less food at home for eating SF biscuits at school. Page 11

12. Girls’ secondary school stipend programs over-achieved gender equity in schooling • These programs started in 1993 in rural areas. From 1992 (before program) to 2002, girls’ enrollment overtook that of boys at both primary and secondary levels of education. • However, the difference is larger at the secondary level, which indicates that the girls’ secondary education stipend programs over-achieved the gender equity. Page 12

13. How effective are education incentive programs at reaching the poorest? Page 13

14. The way forward • Care must be taken with targeting • Incidences of poverty and school enrollment rates vary widely across upazilas • Currently, the primary education stipend program targets 40% of children from poor households in each of the 460 rural upazilas. The girls’ secondary school stipend program is universal in rural areas • To achieve maximum benefit for cost, consider a two-step targeting mechanism. First, target resources to those upazilas where enrollment rates are low and poverty incidences are high. Second, within upazilas, use a reliable “proxy means test” method to select children from the poorest households. Page 14

15. The way forward • The school feeding program could be scaled up to benefit many more Bangladeshi children • Urban slums, in particular, are promising areas for expansion • Enrollment rates are considerably lower in urban slum communities than in rural communities, and dropout rates are higher • Urban slum children are threatened by violence and other social disruptions. Some of these can be mitigated if children can be drawn to school. Page 15

16. The way forward • Consider providing secondary education stipends to boys from poor households • At the secondary level of education, enrollment rates are extremely low for boys from poor families, and significantly lower than the rates achieved for girls • Child labor is much more prevalent among boys, particularly for older boys, than among girls. Attracting these boys to secondary school would reduce the incidence of child labor. Page 16