Assessing the Impacts of Mais Educacao on Educational Outcomes : Evidence between 2007 and 2011

Almeida, Rita ; Bresolin, Antonio ; Borges, Bruna ; Mendes, Karen ; Menezes-Filho, Naercio

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SKILLS;    SANITATION;    ACADEMIC SKILLS;    SCHOOL SYSTEM;    SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7644
RP-ID  :  WPS7644

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

To address the educational gap, manyLatin American countries are focusing on extension of theschool day and enrichment of the curriculum. In Brazil, anationwide policy -- Mais Educação -- was implemented in2008 with this objective. This paper explores the nationwiderollout of the program across the country and compares theperformance of schools before and after implementation ofthe program. The paper quantifies the impacts of the programon student learning and dropout rates in urban areas, andinvestigates the heterogeneity of impacts by severalcharacteristics of the program's implementation.Participating schools are compared with nonparticipatingschools after controlling for school selection into theprogram based on observable characteristics using propensityscore matching. The analysis finds that participation inMais Educação has on average no impacts on school dropoutrates and average negative impacts on mathematics testscores. The negative impacts on student achievement arestronger in the short term, which suggests that the negativeeffects may be reduced as the program improves itsimplementation. In addition, especially for fifth-gradeschools, the level of student spending is associated withreduced dropout rates. Interestingly, in schools choosingthe fields of Portuguese and/or sports in the added hours,the program is associated with lower test scores inPortuguese and mathematics.Finally, for the sample offifth-grade schools, heterogeneous impacts are seen in theprogram according to the GDP per capita of the city wherethe school is located. The higher the GDP per capita, thegreater the positive impact of the program on mathematicstest scores and on dropout rates.