The umbrella initiative for girl’s education: a randomized field experiment in Bangladesh

Last registered on July 29, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The umbrella initiative for girl’s education: a randomized field experiment in Bangladesh
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014058
Initial registration date
July 22, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 29, 2024, 4:32 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Imrul Kayes
Affiliation
Monash University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Liang Wang
PI Affiliation
Monash University
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PI Name
Asad Islam
PI Affiliation
Monash University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-01-15
End date
2026-02-28
Keywords
Education, Health
Additional Keywords
Girl's Education, Climate Change, Extreme Weather, Bangladesh
JEL code(s)
O15, I24, I25
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In partnership with the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) and an education-focused NGO, Global Development and Research Initiative (GDRI), this randomized controlled trial (RCT) will evaluate the impact of the provision of umbrellas to adolescent female students in Bangladesh. Bangladesh suffers frequent rainfall during the monsoon for about three months and extreme heat for another four months. Such conditions disproportionately affect female students due to social and cultural mobility restrictions. The intervention aims to mitigate weather-induced challenges for girls to improve school attendance, reduce dropout rates, enhance academic performance, and decrease seasonal illnesses. The study will involve 500 secondary schools and approximately 6,000 female students. By providing experimental evidence on this low-cost intervention, the study intends to demonstrate scalable solutions to improve educational outcomes for girls in environmentally challenging settings.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Islam, Asad, Imrul Kayes and Liang Wang. 2024. "The umbrella initiative for girl’s education: a randomized field experiment in Bangladesh." AEA RCT Registry. July 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14058-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

Partner

Name
Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Bangladesh
Type
government
URL
https://dshe.gov.bd
Name
Global Development & Research Initiative Foundation (GDRI)
Type
ngo
URL
https://gdri.org
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date
2025-02-01
Intervention End Date
2025-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. School attendance: Measured using daily attendance records from schools.
2. Dropout rates: Measured through school records at the beginning of the next academic year.
3. Academic performance: Evaluated using standardized literacy and numeracy test scores before and after the intervention.
4. Seasonal sickness: Collected through surveys by asking questions on weather-induced sickness incidence during the year.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In consultation with the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, 500 secondary schools will be selected from a list of nearly 2000. The selected schools will be randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the control group. Randomization will be conducted at the school level to avoid contamination between the groups.Within each selected school, around 12 girls from grades 8 and 9 will be chosen to participate in the study. Selection criteria would be no more than one workable umbrella in the household.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done by a computer software.
Randomization Unit
School will be the unit of randomization
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
500 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
6000 female students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
250 schools in the treatment group; 250 schools in the control group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Utilizing the Optimal Design Software, we conduct a power calculation to determine the optimal sample size needed for this study. Since we lack pre-intervention data on variables of the students, we are unable to estimate the expected effect size of the intervention precisely. As such, we are conservative in our estimates and hypothesize a low to medium effect size (0.15 - 0.2) in our power calculations, assuming to a modest improvement in student outcomes due to the interventions. Such an effect size is commonly observed in low-cost educational research (Kraft, 2020). Given that the students belong to similar socio-economic backgrounds and come from the same locality, we expect a moderate intra-cluster correlation coefficient (0.25), suggesting sizeable similarity among students within each school. This similarity implies a larger sample size to achieve the desired statistical power. Given the sample size of 6,000 from 500 clusters and expected values for relevant parameters, our study will achieve more than 85% power in detecting an effect of 0.15 to 0.2.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan