Raising primary school enrolment in developing countries: The relative importance of supply and demand

Abstract

Few policies are as universally accepted as raising primary school enrolment in developing countries, but the policy levers for achieving this goal are not straightforward. This paper merges household survey data with detailed school supply characteristics from official sources, in order to estimate the relative impact of demand and supply side determinants of rural primary school enrolment in Mozambique. Policy simulations based on a set of ‘plausible’ interventions show that in rural Mozambique, building more schools or raising adult literacy will have a larger impact on primary school enrolment rates than interventions that raise household income. When relative costs are considered, adult literacy campaigns are nearly 10 times more cost-effective than the income intervention and 1.5 to 2.5 times better than building more schools.