Abstract
In many developing countries, the education system is failing millions of children. Even though they attend school, they are not learning basic skills like reading and math. For example, in Bangladesh, about half of the 10-year-old children cannot read a simple sentence. This issue, known as "learning poverty," is a major obstacle to achieving global education goals by 2030.
To address this, we need to understand why children are not learning. Our study will focus on the role of effort in school performance, building upon the ethical concept of equality-of-opportunity. This concept distinguishes between sources of inequality related to consequences of effort within one's control and sources related to circumstances beyond one's responsibility. In previous research (Asadullah et al., 2021), we found effort was positively correlated with achievement in Maths and English. Drawing on this literature, we hypothesize that effort, which encompasses both hard work at school and skills like motivation and perseverance, is a key determinant of learning outcomes. Moreover, we argue that effort is not innate but can be stimulated.
To test this, we conduct a large survey in rural Bangladesh, collecting data on students, teachers, and parents. We also carry out a lab-in-the-field experiment in which we randomly assign an intervention designed to encourage students' effort and we assess its impact on academic performance, especially mathematics. Our study aims to provide valuable insights into how personality traits, cognitive skills, and effort from the entire education community (students, teachers, parents) affect school performance. We also explore whether encouraging effort can improve learning outcomes.