This study reports evidence from anunusual policy intervention- The Reaching Out of SchoolChildren (ROSC) project in Bangladesh where school grantsand education allowances are offered to attracthard-to-reach children to schools comprised of a singleteacher and a classroom. The operating unit cost of theseschools is a fraction of that of formal primary schools.Panel data is used to investigate whether ROSC schools areeffective in raising enrolment and learning outcomes. Thefindings suggest that there is a modest impact on schoolparticipation: ROSC schools increase enrolment probabilitybetween 9 and 18 percent for children in the two age cohorts6 to 8 and 6 to 10. They perform as well as non-ROSC schoolsin terms of raising test scores, and even have positiveimpacts on academically stronger students. There is alsostrong evidence of positive externalities on non-ROSCschools in program areas. These results point to theeffectiveness of a new model of non-formal primary schoolsthat can be replicated in similar settings. This paperconsists of following sections: section one givesintroduction. The context for the country and the programdescription is provided in section two, and the data isdescribed in section three. The impacts of the ROSC projecton education outcomes as measured by student enrolment andtest scores are discussed in section four and other programeffects are considered in section five, with the empiricalestimation frameworks being respectively detailed in eachsection. The relative efficiency of ROSC schools versusnon-ROSC schools is discussed in section six and sectionseven gives conclusion.
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