Increasing school quantity versus quality in kenya: impact on children from low-and high-income households

Abstract

A common dilemma facing educational planners engaged in educational reform in developing countries is the allocation of sharply-reduced resources to the expansion of school facilities versus improvement of existing school facilities (say, by raising the teacher/pupil ratio). The empirical results presented in this paper for Kenya suggest that the two interventions have diametrically opposite effects on poor and nonpoor children. An expansion of school facilities increases the enrollment of children in the poorest expenditure quintiles but has no impact on the enrollment of children in the top quintiles. On the other hand, an improvement in the teacher-pupil ratio increases the enrollment rate of children in the top quintiles, and actually reduces the enrollment of children in the poor quintiles. These findings suggest that in situations where there is less than universal primary enrollment (UPE) and the government has set a time-bound goal of UPE, such as in Kenya, policies that serve to expand the number of school facilities may make more sense than interventions that increase the teacher-pupil ratio.