Does Technology in Schools Affect Repetition, Dropout and Enrollment? Evidence from Peru

Abstract

Many developing countries are allocating significant resources to expand technology access in schools. Whether these investments will translate into measurable educational improvements remains an open question because of the limited existing evidence. This paper contributes to fill this gap exploiting a large-scale public program that increased computer and internet access in secondary public schools in Peru. Rich longitudinal school-level data from 2001 to 2006 is used to implement a differences-in-differences framework. Results indicate no statistically significant effects of increasing technology access in schools on repetition, dropout and initial enrollment. Large sample sizes allow ruling out even modest effects.