| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Abstract | Before The objective of this trial is to analyze the effect of a secondary school scholarship on secondary school enrollment and other youth outcomes of interest (academic performance, engagement in economic activities, and early marriage) among a sample of youth in households that are beneficiaries of the Productive Safety Net Program (and thus among the poorest 10-15% of rural households) in Amhara and Oromia regions, Ethiopia. The evaluation is a randomized controlled trial implemented using randomization at the subdistrict (kebele level), including an estimated 2000 youth in 94 kebeles in 13 woredas. Eligible youth will be either youth in PSNP households currently enrolled in seventh or eighth grade and thus potentially eligible to enter secondary school in September 2023 or September 2024, conditional on successfully passing the primary school leaving exam (the grade seven and grade eight cohorts); or youth in PSNP households who passed the primary school leaving exam in 2021 or 2022 but subsequently failed to enroll in secondary school (the dropout cohort). The primary intervention is a scholarship valued at around $300 per year for two years, an amount designed to meet the costs of transportation to and/or boarding at school for students who, on average, reside at least eight kilometers (as the crow flies) from the closest secondary school. Students in treatment kebeles will have access to the scholarship conditional only on their enrollment in secondary school. Outcomes will be tracked for two years using both school-based administrative data collection and a detailed endline survey. | After The objective of this trial is to analyze the effect of a secondary school scholarship on secondary school enrollment and other youth outcomes of interest (academic performance, engagement in economic activities, and early marriage) among a sample of youth in households that are beneficiaries of the Productive Safety Net Program (and thus among the poorest 10-15% of rural households) in Amhara and Oromia regions, Ethiopia. The evaluation is a randomized controlled trial implemented using randomization at the subdistrict (kebele level), including an estimated 2000 youth in 116 kebeles in 13 woredas. Eligible youth will be either youth in PSNP households currently enrolled in seventh or eighth grade and thus potentially eligible to enter secondary school in September 2023 or September 2024, conditional on successfully passing the primary school leaving exam (the grade seven and grade eight cohorts); or youth in PSNP households who passed the primary school leaving exam in 2021 or 2022 but subsequently failed to enroll in secondary school (the dropout cohort). The primary intervention is a scholarship valued at around $300 per year for two years, an amount designed to meet the costs of transportation to and/or boarding at school for students who, on average, reside at least eight kilometers (as the crow flies) from the closest secondary school. Students in treatment kebeles will have access to the scholarship conditional only on their enrollment in secondary school. Outcomes will be tracked for two years using both school-based administrative data collection and a detailed endline survey. |
| Field Last Published | Before March 03, 2023 05:10 PM | After May 17, 2023 01:02 PM |
| Field Experimental Design (Public) | Before The objective of this trial is to answer the following research questions using a randomized controlled trial. The target sample of interest for the trial is youth from households participating in the Productive Safety Net Program, the primary social protection program in rural Ethiopia; these households are generally among the poorest 10-15% of rural Ethiopian households. 1) What is the impact of a secondary school scholarship (announced in March 2023) on the primary outcome of interest, secondary school enrollment, for three cohorts of students from PSNP households? These cohorts include the grade eight cohort, who will complete grade eight in spring 2023 and may be eligible to enroll in secondary school in fall 2023, conditional on passing the primary school leaving certificate exam; the grade seven cohort, who will complete grade eight in spring 2024 and may be eligible to enroll the following fall, conditional on passing the exam; and the dropout cohort, students who passed the exam in spring 2022 or spring 2021 but failed to enroll in secondary school, or may have enrolled and later dropped out, and who will now have an opportunity to return one year later in fall 2023. 2) What is the impact of the secondary school scholarship on secondary outcomes including passing rates on the primary school leaving exam; attendance and academic performance in secondary school, once enrolled; engagement in economic activities among youth; and early marriage? 3) Do the effects of the secondary school scholarship differ across cohorts? (Note, this comparison will not exploit a dimension of randomization, but will entail a comparison of the treatment effects for different cohorts; if there are other time-varying shocks to youth enrollment patterns in this period, that may be a source of bias in these comparisons.) The proposed design is a randomized controlled trial with randomization at the kebele level: i.e., scholarships will be made available in some kebeles and not others. Given that the scholarship targets only PSNP households, eligibility will be communicated directly to eligible youth and their parents (i.e., there will not be a general school-wide or community-wide announcement). This communication process will roll out in March 2023 immediately following the baseline survey: accordingly, for the eighth grade cohort, they will be aware of the scholarship around three months prior to the primary school leaving exam. (The seventh grade cohort, however, will have more than a year’s advanced notice of the availability of the scholarship, and may adjust their engagement in school accordingly; we will plan to remind this cohort about their potential eligibility for the scholarship in March 2024, again around three months prior to their scheduled primary school leaving exam). The dropout cohort has, by definition, already passed the primary school leaving exam, but they will likewise be informed of the scholarship in March 2023 and thus will be aware around six months prior to the date on which they may re-enroll (September). Based on review of existing data collected by IFPRI as well as school roster data, we estimate that in a kebele including around 300 PSNP households (the average number of beneficiary households in the target sample kebeles), around 5 to 10% of PSNP households will have youth meeting the eligibility criteria, or around 15 to 25 youth per kebele. There is considerable variation in the estimated cluster size across kebeles. Data collection The trial was launched with school-based data collection to constitute the sample in January 2022. The baseline survey will be conducted in February and March 2023. First, the survey team EconInsight visited all primary schools in the target kebeles to compile lists of current eighth and seventh graders as well as demographic information for those students; and lists of students who passed the eighth grade exam from those schools in the two previous years. For current students who were present on the visit, they were also asked to self-report their household's PSNP status. For current students who were absent that day, teachers or school staff reported the student's information including parental names, but information on self-reported PSNP status was not available. For graduates, only the student's name is available, allowing us to infer the father's name. Second, a sample of potentially eligible households was constructed for screening to identify eligibility. For youth who were present and self-reported PSNP status, all of their households were included in the screening sample. For the samples of absent youth and eighth grade graduate youth, information from the school survey will be merged with PSNP beneficiary lists to identify households that plausibly have an eligible youth, and these households will be visited and screened. Youth who enter the sample will be those who meet the following criteria: they are resident in a household that is a current PSNP beneficiary; and they were enrolled in seventh or eighth grade as of the school visit, or graduated from eighth grade in 2022 or 2021. Following the screening process, a survey will be conducted with a youth and his/her parent or caretaker to collect information about household socioeconomic status, youth educational history, time allocation, non-cognitive skills, and future aspirations for education, work, marriage, and fertility. A full-scale endline survey is planned approximately 2.5 years post-baseline, in fall 2025. The endline survey will collect data on a range of outcomes of interest, primarily targeting the youth, but may also include surveys with parents or caretakers. | After The objective of this trial is to analyze the effect of a secondary school scholarship for youth from the poorest households in a set of relatively remote and food-insecure kebeles in rural Ethiopia on secondary school enrollment and progression, as well as a set of related non-academic outcomes of interest. More specifically, the trial seeks to address the following research questions: 1) What is the impact of a secondary school scholarship (announced in March 2023) on the primary outcome of interest, secondary school enrollment, for eligible students in the poorest 10—15% of households in rural Ethiopia (specifically, households eligible for the Productive Safety Net Program or PSNP)? Eligible students include the grade eight cohort, who will complete grade eight in spring 2023 and may be eligible to enroll in secondary school in fall 2023, conditional on passing the primary school leaving certificate exam; the grade seven cohort, who will complete grade eight in spring 2024 and may be eligible to enroll the following fall, conditional on passing the exam; and the dropout cohort, students who passed the exam in spring 2021 or 2022 but failed to enroll in secondary school (or enrolled and later dropped out), and who will now have an opportunity to return in fall 2023. (In all cases, students must also be in households currently receiving PSNP benefits to be eligible.) 2) What is the impact of the secondary school scholarship on secondary outcomes including passing rates on the primary school leaving exam; attendance and academic performance in secondary school, once enrolled; engagement in economic activities among youth; and early marriage? 3) Do the effects of the secondary school scholarship differ across cohorts? (Note, this comparison will not exploit a dimension of randomization, but will entail a comparison of the treatment effects for different cohorts; if there are other time-varying shocks to youth enrollment patterns in this period, that may be a source of bias in these comparisons.) |
| Field Planned Number of Clusters | Before 94 kebeles | After 116 kebeles |
| Field Planned Number of Observations | Before The estimated sample size at baseline is 2,068 students (an average of 22 students per kebele) | After The baseline sample includes 2,141 youth. |
| Field Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms | Before 49 kebeles assigned to treatment, 45 kebeles assigned to control | After 60 kebeles assigned to treatment, 56 kebeles assigned to control |
| Field Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes | Before The primary outcome is enrollment in secondary school, for which the mean is estimated to be 66%. We assume an intracluster correlation of .02 and attrition of 10% at endline. The coefficient of variation in cluster size, based on the variation across kebeles in the projected number of eligible youth, is estimated to be .6. Given these parameters, the trial can detect a 16 percentage point increase in the secondary school enrollment rate. | After The primary outcome is enrollment in secondary school. Data from screening surveys conducted part of the baseline suggests that among primary school graduates identified in the school listing process, around 52% are currently enrolled in school. Allowing for 10% attrition and a mean cluster size of 16 at endline, the minimum detectable effect ranges between 19 and 33 percentage points. |
| Field Public analysis plan | Before No | After Yes |
| Field Pi as first author | Before No | After Yes |
| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Document | Before |
After
Pre analysis plan final.docx
MD5:
6b015b20b3c84096c4294074cf9e8dd3
SHA1:
3b97c6fb453bdf64b8b2c4b390d40a94c63c77ed
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