Financial Constraints and Girls' Secondary Education: Evidence from School Fee Elimination in the Gambia

39 Pages Posted: 4 Sep 2015

See all articles by Moussa Blimpo

Moussa Blimpo

University of Toronto - Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

Ousman Gajigo

World Bank - African Development Bank

Todd Pugatch

Oregon State University; IZA

Abstract

We assess 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 access to secondary education substantially without harming learning outcomes. We find an increase of around 50% in the number of girls and boys taking the high school exit exam from a low baseline, as well as a 0.1 standard deviations gain in test scores in response to the program. This result is notable in a setting where expanded access could put additional strains on limited resources and the quality of schools. These 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.

Keywords: secondary school, school fee elimination, gender gap, Gambia

JEL Classification: O15, I21, C93

Suggested Citation

Blimpo, Moussa and Gajigo, Ousman and Pugatch, Todd, Financial Constraints and Girls' Secondary Education: Evidence from School Fee Elimination in the Gambia. IZA Discussion Paper No. 9129, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2655078 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2655078

Moussa Blimpo (Contact Author)

University of Toronto - Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy ( email )

Toronto, Ontario
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/mpblimpo/

Ousman Gajigo

World Bank - African Development Bank

15 Avenue du Ghana
P.O.Box 323-1002
Tunis-Belvedère
Tunisia

Todd Pugatch

Oregon State University ( email )

Corvallis, OR 97331
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/toddpugatch/

IZA ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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