Accounting for repetition and dropout in contemporaneous cross-section learning profiles: Evidence from Rwanda

Abstract

Highlights Learning profiles allow us to trace learning progress through schooling. In this paper I estimate a learning profile for Rwanda using a household-based survey of children. I use a detailed schooling history to show that observational learning profiles that don’t explicitly account for repetition and dropout may substantially over-state learning gains per year.

The potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on learnings

“…( Agostinelli et al, 2022 , Amato and Anthony, 2014 , Arceo-Gómez et al, 2022 , Bansak and Starr, 2021 , Beatty et al, 2021 , Boruchowicz et al, 2023 , Cas et al, 2014 , Corak, 2001 , Crawfurd, 2021 , Dietrich et al, 2021 , Filmer and Pritchett, 2001 , Gertler et al, 2004 , Hernández-Bringas, 2020 , Hevia et al, 2022 , Hillis et al, 2021 , Jaume and Willén, 2019 , Jordan et al, 2021 , Kuhfeld et al, 2020 , Lichand et al, 2021 , Meng and Zhao, 2021 , Miranda-López, 2018 , Orlov et al, 2021 , Poirier et al, 2020 , Pritchett and Justin Sandefur, 2020 , Prix and Erola, 2017 , Ramírez-Raymundo et al, 2021 , Rivera-Hernandez et al, 2021 , Rodriguez-Planas, 2020 , Rodriguez-Abitia, 2021 , Sacerdote, 2012 , Santibañez and Cassandra, 2021 , Steele et al, 2009 , Wittenberg and Liebbrandt, 2017 )…”

Modeling the Learning Impacts of Educational Disruptions in the Short and Long Run

“…Recent studies on the relationship between learning acquisition and schooling progression question this assumption. Evidence from Indonesia (Beatty et al, 2021), Rwanda (Crawfurd, 2021), multiple African countries (Pritchett and Sandefur, 2020;Kaffenberger and Pritchett, 2020), and Pakistan (Bau, Das, and Chan, 2021) indicates that the increase in the average number of school years in those countries has not been matched by an increase in the stock of learning of children as measured by standardized tests. Thus, this evidence suggests that the impacts of a transitory instructional disruption on the human capital of those affected are not necessarily captured in the schooling dimension, and thus they should be modeled in the learning dimension or in outcomes linked to the stock of learning, such as labor earnings as Jaume and Willén (2019) do.…”