Kenya

[Impact Evaluation] This brief summarizes the impact of distributing school uniforms on children's education in Kenya. Uniforms were provided in 2002. The author evaluates the impact of an educational intervention, in which a Kenyan non-governmental organization distributes school uniforms to children in poor communities. The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) used a lottery to determine who would receive uniforms. Although compliance with the lottery was not perfect, we use winning the lottery as an instrumental variable to identify the impact of receiving a uniform.

The STEP survey instruments include : (i) a background questionnaire developed by the WB STEP team; and (ii) a reading literacy assessment developed by Educational Testing Services (ETS). All countries adapted and translated both instruments following the STEP Technical Standards: two independent translators adapted and translated the Background Questionnaire and Reading Literacy Assessment, while reconciliation was carried out by a third translator. The survey instruments were both piloted as part of the survey pretest.

Without consistent and accurate information on the quality of services, it is difficult for citizens or politicians (the principal) to assess how service providers (the agent) are performing and to take corrective action. The service delivery indicators (SDI) provide a set of metrics to benchmark the performance of schools and health clinics in Africa. The indicators can be used to track progress within and across countries over time, and aim to enhance active monitoring of service delivery to increase public accountability and good governance.

[Impact Evaluation] This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled School meals, educational achievement, and school competition : evidence from a randomized evaluation, conducted between 2000 and 2002 in Kenya. The study observed the impact of subsidized school meals on school participation, educational achievement, and school finance in a developing country setting that was implemented in 25 randomly chosen preschools in a pool of 50 schools on the child level.

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled School governance, teacher incentives, and pupil-teacher ratios : experimental evidence from Kenyan primary schools, conducted between 2005 and 2006 in Kenya. The study observed the impact of a program under which Kenyan parent-teacher associations (PTAs) at randomly selected schools were funded to hire an additional teacher on a renewable contract, outside normal ministry of education civil service channels, at one-quarter normal compensation levels on the student, teacher, and school level.

In this report, we discuss the findings from the application of SABER-Teachers in Kenya. Our goal is to enable policymakers learn about how other countries address the same policy challenges related to teacher management and thus how to make well-informed policy choices that will lead to improved learning outcomes.

This brief summarizes worms: identifying impacts on education and health in the presence of treatment externalities in Kenya for the period 1998-99. Intestinal helminthes includes hookworm, roundworm, whipworm, and schistoso-miasis-infect more than one-quarter of the world's population. Studies in which medical treatment is randomized at the individual level potentially doubly underestimate the benefits of treatment, missing externality benefits to the comparison group from reduced disease transmission, and therefore also underestimating benefits for the treatment group.

A growing number of countries are reforming how schools are managed and are working to involve parents and com?munities more directly into the school management process. The idea behind school-based man?agement reform is that devolving responsibility to schools and to those who use the schools will improve ac?countability, transparency and ensure that resources are allocated properly. In this way, the quality of education will improve and so will learning. However, evidence on the effective?ness of school-based management remains mixed and parental involve?ment is often weak.

[Impact Evaluation] This paper investigates the effects of intermittent screening and treatment of malaria on the health and education of school children in an area of low-to-moderate malaria transmission. A cluster randomized trial was implemented with 5,233 children in 101 government primary schools on the south coast of Kenya in 2010-12. The intervention was delivered to children randomly selected from classes 1 and 5 who were followed up twice across 24 months. Once during each school term, public health workers used malaria rapid diagnostic tests to screen the children.

Youth unemployment is a problem in many developing countries, where labor market opportunities may be further squeezed by rapid rural migration into big cities, the cost of higher education and job seekers' limited information about the best opportunities. Policymakers and aid organizations trying to reduce youth unemployment have a variety of approaches they can use, including vocational training programs to give job seekers necessary skills to be employed. But what works best is still not clear: should governments subsidize job training programs for young adults?