The World Bank is committed to assistingdeveloping countries raise their educational standards, partof the United Nations millennium development goals. The workincludes supporting projects that explore how best tosupport children staying in school. One recent project wasin Cambodia, where boys and girls from poor families wereoffered scholarships if they continued beyond primaryschool. The project's evaluation, which ran over twoschool years, showed that scholarships worked as a way ofgetting children to stay in school. But it also found thatchildren who were offered scholarships did not do measurablybetter on vocabulary or math tests than peers who were notoffered scholarships-despite the fact that the former grouphad higher enrollments and attendance. Cambodia has hadnumerous scholarship programs funded by the government andoutside donors. One project, funded by the Japan fund forpoverty reduction, tried to keep girls in school by givingtheir families annual cash 'scholarships'-whichcould be used for any purpose- during the first three yearsof secondary school. The project covered the 2003- 2006school years and raised school attendance rates by 20 to 30percentage points. Building on that experience, a governmentprogram supported by the World Bank's Cambodiaeducation sector support project was launched in such a wayas to test the optimal scholarship amount and measure theeffect on both boys and girls.
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