Grade repetition, school dropout, and student achievement in Ethiopia: a waste of resources?

Crawford School of Public Policy | Arndt-Corden Department of Economics

Event details

PhD Seminar (Econ)

Date & time

Friday 16 December 2016
9.30am–11.00am

Venue

Seminar Room 3, Level 1, JG Crawford Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU

Speaker

Samuel G Weldeegzie, PhD scholar, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, Crawford School, ANU.

Students are sometimes made to repeat a grade under the rationale that doing so will lead to improved learning outcomes. This paper uses student-level survey data from Ethiopia to examine the effect of grade repetition on achievement in maths and verbal test scores and its correlation with school dropouts. The results provide no indication that grade repetition improves student achievement in maths. Evidence on improvement in verbal test scores is relatively weak. Grade repetition is highly correlated with dropping out of school. The findings have important policy implications because the decision to repeat a grade should be based on whether the marginal benefit of repeating outweighs the marginal cost.

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