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Berkeley A,RESEC C253 - Homework Assignment

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Josiah Johnston and Suzie Shin December 5, 2008ARE253 Homework Assignment 3Impact Evaluation of the PROGRESA Program in MexicoI. The schooling situation in control villagesThis section illustrates and discusses the problems of low enrollment in school and high failure rates in rural Mexico. Table I.a below shows the proportion of children in control villages that were not enrolled in school in 1998. The proportion of children that were not enrolled increases with age—the older the child, the less likely he or she is to be enrolled in school. Table I.a. Proportion of Children Not Enrolled in 1998Age in 1998 % Not Enrolled11 3.2%12 12.5%13 22.2%14 35.5%15 50.9%16 67.8%Table I.b below shows the dropout rate in control villages by grade level in 1998.1 The dropout rate is extremely high between primary school and junior high (33.6%) and between junior and senior high (50.7%). It is interesting that dropout rates are lowest in the second to last year of primary school and junior high, immediately preceding the years with the highest dropout rates. This suggests that students are motivated to complete primary school or junior high, but not to enter the next phase of schooling. The dropout rate in the second grade of senior high is 0%, but this is only out of 20 students, as opposed to over 1,300 students in the sixth grade of primary school. Table I.b. Dropout Rate by Grade Level in 1998SchoolGrade Level in 1998Dropout Rate2 26.2%3 13.4%4 9.0%5 7.5%6 4.0%1 33.6%2 7.4%3 2.8%1 50.7%2 18.6%3 0.0%PrimaryJunior highSenior high1 The grade level indicates the grade that the child would have entered if he or she had not dropped out. For example, the dropout rate for the second grade of primary school was 26.2% in 1998, meaning that 26.2% of students that were enrolled in first grade in 1997 were not enrolled in school in 1998.Table I.c shows the failure rate in 1997 by grade level in control villages.2 Either the first grade of primary school is so easy that all children pass, or teachers have a policy of not failing their students in the first grade. The failure rates throughout primary school are fairly consistent, ranging from 11.8% to 18.2%. The relatively high failure rate in second grade may compensate for the fact that all children passed first grade, including some that should have stayed back. Thefailure rate jumps to 24.4% in the first grade of junior high, perhaps due to a more difficult curriculum or the shock of entering a new school, before settling between 15 and 17%. The failure rate again jumps in the first year of senior high to 40.2%, which is extremely high compared to any of the previous years. Indeed, the failure rate in any grade of senior high is greater than the failure rate in any grade of primary school or junior high. The failure rate for thethird grade of senior high was 100%, meaning that neither of the two children enrolled in the third grade managed to graduate. The high failure rates in high school suggest that greater attention should be given to enabling children to advance through high school in a timely fashion.Table I.c. Failure Rate in 1997 by Grade LevelSchoolGrade Level in 1997Failure Rate1 0.0%2 18.2%3 17.0%4 17.0%5 11.8%6 13.0%1 24.4%2 15.1%3 16.6%1 40.2%2 28.0%3 100.0%PrimaryJunior highSenior highTable I.d shows the dropout rate in 1998 for children that completed the sixth grade of primary school by gender, poverty status, and distance to secondary school. The p-values, obtained by running a two-group test of proportion in Stata, are less than 2% for all three categories, which means that we can reject the null hypotheses that there is no difference in dropout rate according to gender, poverty status, and distance to secondary school.Table I.d. Dropout Rate in 1998 for Children Having Completed 6th Year of Primary SchoolCategoryDropout RateSimple Differencep-value from prtestGirl 36.8%Boy 30.4%Poor 36.9%Non-poor 27.8%> 1km to secondary school 40.5%<= 1km to secondary school 15.3%0.00079.2%25.2%00.01456.4%2 The grade level indicates the grade that the student failed in that year.Based on these results from control villages, it is clear that older children are less likely to be enrolled in school, which suggests that PROGRESA should target older children to maintain enrollment. However, the conditional cash transfers are only available to households with children enrolled in grades 3-9. If the transfers were extended to children enrolled in senior high,there is reason to believe that enrollment rates would improve for older students. The dropout rate is extremely high in the transition years from primary school to junior high and from junior to senior high. The PROGRESA program specifically targets the transition from primary school to junior high by increasing the amount of the cash transfer by 50% in the first year of junior high, which increases the incentive for parents to continue sending their children to school into junior high. Since PROGRESA does not cover students enrolled in senior high, there is no immediate financial incentive to send one’s children to school past junior high. If the cash transfers were expanded to include at least the first year of senior high, it is reasonable to expect that the dropout rate would decrease going into senior high. Lastly, it is important not only to improve the continuation rate into junior and senior high, but also to ensure that those children who do continue receive the educational support necessary to pass into the next grade. The failure rates in the control villages indicate that many children in the first year of junior or senior year fail to advance to the next grade. Although incentivizing regular school attendance mitigates the problem of enrollment and dropout rates, it does not adequately address the problem of high failure rates.II. Impact analysis on continuation rate and performance based on random assignment of the programThis section compares the continuation rate in 1998 for eligible children (i.e. those from poor families) in the treatment and control groups. The simple difference between the treatment and control populations is an indicator of the average impact of the program. Table II.a shows the difference in continuation rates for eligible children in the control and treatment populations


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Berkeley A,RESEC C253 - Homework Assignment

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