Free education and student test scores in Chad

A constitutional amendment in 2006 made education and training free for all Chadians and education compulsory for children aged 6 to 14 years old. This paper examines changes in human capital formation as measured by student performance after this policy was implemented. The analysis is based on data from the Program for the Analysis of Education Systems (PASEC) in Chad which include student’s characteristics, school inputs, and teacher characteristics, along with unified mathematics and literacy tests. The identification strategy exploits the disparities in pre-policy completion rates across regions in a difference-in-differences approach. I find that the policy led to a significant decrease in mathematics test scores. The decrease in literacy scores is not significantly different from zero. With a more disaggregated analysis by pre-policy performance quartiles, only the highest achieving regions before the policy experienced a positive and significant impact of the policy on test scores. These results suggest that eliminating tuition alone may not suffice to reduce the education gap between the poor and the rich, girls and boys, or across geographical regions. A comprehensive set of supportive actions is needed including teacher recruitment and training, and an increase in the supply of schools to the community. I also analyze the determinants of a teacher’s effectiveness using a value-added model. The estimates point to the importance of teacher’s training and status in the job on their students’ learning. Government teachers who are more likely to hold professional degrees improve student’s scores in mathematics significantly more than community teachers who constitute a large proportion of the teaching personnel in Chad, particularly in community schools.