Lighting Aspirations in Schools: The Impact of Providing Lights and a Role Model on Educational Outcomes

In developing countries, secondary school completion rates tend to be low, particularly in rural areas. One explanation for this is that in rural households without access to electricity, insufficient lighting impedes students from studying effectively at night. Another explanation is that students have low aspirations due to years of living in poverty.

This study is a randomised control trial which involves two interventions targeted at secondary school students in rural Togo before their end-of-year examinations. The first intervention is a screening of the inspirational film "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind", which is aimed at raising the students' aspirations. The film depicts the true story of William Kamkwamba, a young boy from rural Malawi who, despite facing poverty and famine, overcame various challenges to build a windmill that generated electricity for his household. The second intervention is the provision of solar-powered lamps.

The study measures the combined effect of these two interventions on educational outcomes. To disentangle the contribution of each intervention, students are also randomised to only receive the first treatment, allowing for the identification of the individual effect of the film screening. Through follow-up surveys, it also investigates the underlying mechanisms at play. Additionally, by measuring pre-existing study networks, this study also explores the spillover impacts of providing lamps to students.