School Subsidies as a Commitment Device

The intervention evaluates the demand for subsidies as a commitment device and the relative effectiveness of subsidies versus cash transfers in supporting educational investment. The study takes place in 30 government-run primary schools in Jinja District, Uganda, with a sample of 2,000 pupils entering Primary 5 and Primary 7.

At baseline, caregivers complete an incentive-compatible multiple price list (MPL) in which they make repeated choices between a direct subsidy (UGX 35,000, approximately equal to Term 1 school dues) and varying amounts of cash. For a randomly selected subset of households, one choice from the MPL is implemented to ensure truthful preference elicitation.

Following preference elicitation, pupils are randomly assigned to one of four groups:
(a) Subsidy (Treatment 1): A direct payment to the school covering Term 1 dues.
(b) Cash at Term 1 (Treatment 2): An unconditional transfer to the caregiver of equivalent value, disbursed at the start of Term 1.
(c) Cash Today (Treatment 3): An unconditional transfer of equivalent value to the caregiver, disbursed immediately at the time of the survey.
(d) Control: No transfer.

This design is motivated by a pilot conducted in January 2025 with approximately 450 pupils across 9 schools in Jinja District. In the pilot, subsidies were offered directly to schools, and caregiver preferences between subsidies and cash were elicited through an MPL exercise. While the pilot documented strong stated demand for subsidies, it did not experimentally compare subsidies to cash. The larger trial therefore expands on the pilot by directly randomizing between subsidies, cash at fee time, and immediate cash, allowing for causal comparisons across financial instruments as well as measurement of the underlying demand for commitment.

2025-12-12

2026-05-02

The study will measure the following domains of primary child outcomes:

Language and Cognitive Abilities
- Uwezo English Z-Score
- Uwezo Numeracy Z-Score
- Raven’s Test Z-Score

Behavior and Socio-Emotional Development
- Resilience Scale: constructed as the sum of 11 child survey items (e.g., aspirations, perseverance, belonging, fairness, coping)
- CES-DC Scale: child depression scale, constructed as the sum of items on emotional well-being (e.g., feeling bothered, unhappy, unable to pay attention).

Schooling Outcomes
- Weekly attendance: proportion of days present during Term 1, measured through random enumerator visits.
- Enrollment in the same school: indicator equal to 1 if the child officially enrolled in the same school as the previous year.
- Enrollment in any school: indicator equal to 1 if the child officially enrolled in any school.
- Transfer to another school: indicator for moving to a different school.
- Amount of school fees paid: total fees paid by end of Term 1.

Food Security
- Food Security Index: standardized composite measure from survey questions on household food security.

Child Labor
- Child Labor Index: standardized index based on survey reports of child participation in work activities (farm work, household chores, wage labor such as cutting sugarcane).

All z-scores and indices will be standardized using the control group distribution.

The study will be conducted in government-run primary schools in Jinja District, Uganda. The target sample consists of pupils who were enrolled in Primary 4 or Primary 6 during Term 3 of the 2025 academic year, as recorded in official class registers. We target pupils enrolled in Term 3 in order to capture dropout that may occur during the transition between school years.

In August 2025, 30 schools will be randomly selected from the set of government primary schools in Jinja District. Within these schools, 2,000 pupils will be selected in November 2025 using stratified sampling by school, grade, and gender (targeting equal numbers per school and balance across grade × gender within schools). Treatment will then be assigned at the pupil level.

Data collection will take place at multiple points in the school year. Baseline surveys will be conducted during the long holiday between December 2025 and January 2026, prior to the start of the new school year. Endline surveys will be conducted in May 2026, at the end of Term 1. In addition, enumerators will carry out unannounced school visits throughout Term 1 to measure attendance and collect information on school fee payments and assessments.

Not available

In August 2025, 30 schools will be randomly selected from the set of government primary schools in Jinja District using R (seed: 7195872). Within these schools, 2,000 pupils will be selected in November 2025 from the P4 and P6 class registers (seed: 7195872). Sampling will be stratified by school, grade, and gender, with an equal number of pupils drawn from each school.

Once the sample is identified, treatment assignment will occur at the pupil level. Pupils will be randomly assigned to one of four groups: (i) a subsidy, (ii) cash at Term 1, (iii) cash today, or (iv) control. Randomization into treatment will be conducted in SurveyCTO at the end of the baseline survey. To ensure incentive compatibility in the MPL preference elicitation, a random subset of households will instead receive one randomly chosen MPL choice implemented.

Pupil level

No

0

2,000 pupils

500 pupils