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Student achievement can be influenced by different types of educational inputs with results varying across time and context. Studies of educational inputs and student achievement in a variety of contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationships between educational inputs and student achievement depend upon local context and specific circumstance of education. Cambodian education is distinctive with its high prevalence of community financing of education which results not by the government's deliberate policy but rather by the government's inability to meet the needs of all school-aged children. Cambodian households find that if they want schooling of a reasonable quality especially in primary school level, then they must provide much of the necessary resource. This study attempts to identify the educational inputs which make the greatest impact on student achievement using survey data from school principals, teachers, students and their parents. The study employs multiple regression analysis to build a model for the relationship between educational inputs and student achievement. The result of the analysis shows that the availability of instruction materials has a relatively large impact on student achievement.

This paper seeks to understand what drove the trends in learning outcomes in Argentina between 2000 and 2012, using data from four rounds of the Program for International Student Assessment. A year-specific education production function is estimated and its results used to decompose the changes in learning outcomes into changes in inputs, parameters, and residuals via microsimulations. Estimates of the production function show the importance of socioeconomic status, gender, school autonomy, and teacher qualifications to determine learning outcomes. Despite an important increase in the level of resources invested in public education, learning outcomes in public schools decreased vis-à-vis private schools. According to the results presented here, the increase in the number of teachers in the system, pushing the pupil-teacher ratio in Argentina to 11, had no effect on learning outcomes. The microsimulation further confirms that changes in the system’s ability to transform inputs into outcomes accounted for most of the changes in test scores. Overall, the study shows the ineffectiveness of input-based education policies to improve learning outcomes in Argentina.

This study presents evidence from a randomized control trial (RCT) in Mongolia on the impact of in-service teacher training and books, both as separate educational inputs and as a package. The study tests for the complementarity of inputs and non-linearity of returns from investment in education as measured by students test scores in five subjects. It takes advantage of a national-scale RCT conducted under the Rural Education and Development project. The results suggest that the provision of books, in addition to teacher training, raises student achievement substantially. However, teacher training and books weakly improve test scores when provided individually. Students whose teachers have received training and whose classrooms have acquired books improved their cumulative score (totaled across five tests) by 34.9 percent of a standard deviation, relative to a control group. Students treated only with books improved their total score by 20.6 percent of a standard deviation relative to a control group of students. On the other hand, extra teacher training did not have a statistically significant effect on the total test score. In addition, providing both inputs jointly improved test scores in most subjects, which was not the case when either input was provided individually. This study sheds light on the relevance of supplementing teacher training schemes with appropriate teaching materials in resource-poor settings. The policy implication is that isolated education investments, in settings where complementary inputs are missing, could deliver minimal or no return.

This paper analyzes the relation between public, education-related infrastructure and the quality of education in schools. The analysis uses a case study of the establishment of two large, high-quality public libraries in low-income areas in Bogotá, Colombia. It assesses the impact of these libraries on the quality of education by comparing national test scores (SABER 11) for schools close to and far from the libraries before (2000–02) and after (2003–08) the libraries were opened. The paper introduces a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition on difference-in-differences estimates to assess whether variation of traditional determinants of mathematics, verbal, and science test scores explains the estimates. The analysis finds differences that are not statistically different from zero that could be attributed to the establishment of the libraries. These results are robust to alternative specifications, a synthetic control approach, and an alternative measure of distance.

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the local level may offset gains from local information. This paper reports the results of a four-year, large-scale experiment that provided a grant and comprehensive school management training to principals, teachers, and community representatives in a set of schools. To separate the effect of the training from the grant, a second set of schools received the grant only with no training. A third set of schools served as a control group and received neither intervention. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. The program was implemented through the government education system. Three to four years into the program, the full intervention led to a 21 percent reduction in student absenteeism and a 23 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism, but produced no impact on student test scores. The effect of the full program on learning outcomes is strongly mediated by baseline local capacity, as measured by adult literacy. This result suggests that, in villages with high literacy, the program may yield gains on students learning outcomes. Receiving the grant alone had no impact on either test scores or student participation.

Üretim fonksiyonları, belli bir çıktının üretimine tek tek girdilerin katkısını ölçmede kullanılan ekonomik bir araçtır. Kavram, bu anlamda e itime de uygulanabilir. Ekonomistler ve di er ara tırmacılar, e itimsel girdilerin çıktılarla ili kilerini ortaya koyan üretim fonksiyonlarını tahmin etmek üzere dikkate de er düzeyde çaba harcamaktadırlar. Bununla birlikte, bir çok ara tırma, ö retmen ücretleri ya da ö retmen-ö renci oranı gibi girdiler ile okul çıktıları arasında güçlü ve tutarlı ili kileri göstermede ba arılı olamamı tır. Ö rencilerin sosyo-ekonomik geçmi i kontrol edildi inde dahi, özellikle ö renci ba ına harcama ile ba arı arasında do rudan bir ili ki kurmak güç gözükmektedir. Buna kar ın ara tırmacılar, alma ık (alternatif) ara tırma stratejilerini geli tirmek üzere çalı malarını sürdürmektedirler

Systems approach for better education results (SABER) school finance collects, analyzes, synthesizes, and disseminates comprehensive information on school finance policies in primary and secondary education across a range of different education systems. The goal is to enable policymakers to learn about how other countries address the same policy challenges related to school finance and thus how to make well informed policy choices that will lead to improved learning outcomes. SABER school finance is a framework that guides the collection of standardized data to characterize and assess school finance systems around the world. The project primarily examines education finance policies, relying on key informants and official document review to map out the policy landscape. To describe the essential functions of an education finance system, SABER school finance collects information in five data collection areas: (i) school conditions and resources; (ii) allocation mechanisms; (iii) revenue sources; (iv) education spending; and (v) fiscal control and capacity. After identifying how a particular education finance system functions, SABER school finance determines the extent to which the system effectively provides resources so that all children can learn, using six policy goals widely shared across countries: (i) ensuring basic conditions for learning; (ii) monitoring learning conditions and outcomes; (iii) overseeing service delivery; (iv) budgeting with adequate and transparent information; (v) providing more resources to students who need them; and (vi) managing resources efficiently. This country report uses this framework to characterize and assess the education finance system in Guinea.

Although the availability of financial resources does not guarantee quality education, it is impossible to achieve this goal without adequate resources which often come from public sources. Understanding how to use resources for education wisely should thus be a top priority for education policymakers. Systems approach for better education results (SABER) school finance informs this conversation with a focus on the policies that drive performance in a school finance system. SABER school finance collects, analyzes, synthesizes, and disseminates comprehensive information on school finance policies in primary and secondary education across a range of different education systems. To describe the essential functions of an education finance system, SABER school finance collects information in five data collection areas: (i) school conditions and resources; (ii) allocation mechanisms; (iii) revenue sources; (iv) education spending; and (v) fiscal control and capacity. SABER school finance determines the extent to which the system effectively provides resources so that all children can learn, using six policy goals widely shared across countries: (i) ensuring basic conditions for learning; (ii) monitoring learning conditions and outcomes; (iii) overseeing service delivery; (iv) budgeting with adequate and transparent information; (v) providing more resources to students who need them; and (vi) managing resources efficiently. This country report uses this framework to characterize and assess the education finance system in Jamaica.

This study reports evidence from an unusual policy intervention- The Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC) project in Bangladesh where school grants and education allowances are offered to attract hard-to-reach children to schools comprised of a single teacher and a classroom. The operating unit cost of these schools is a fraction of that of formal primary schools. Panel data is used to investigate whether ROSC schools are effective in raising enrolment and learning outcomes. The findings suggest that there is a modest impact on school participation: ROSC schools increase enrolment probability between 9 and 18 percent for children in the two age cohorts 6 to 8 and 6 to 10. They perform as well as non-ROSC schools in terms of raising test scores, and even have positive impacts on academically stronger students. There is also strong evidence of positive externalities on non-ROSC schools in program areas. These results point to the effectiveness of a new model of non-formal primary schools that can be replicated in similar settings. This paper consists of following sections: section one gives introduction. The context for the country and the program description is provided in section two, and the data is described in section three. The impacts of the ROSC project on education outcomes as measured by student enrolment and test scores are discussed in section four and other program effects are considered in section five, with the empirical estimation frameworks being respectively detailed in each section. The relative efficiency of ROSC schools versus non-ROSC schools is discussed in section six and section seven gives conclusion.