Zambia : Can Financial Incentives Improve the Last-Mile Delivery of Textbooks?
Zambia has invested heavily on education with an allocation of about 20 percent of the government budget, but this investment has not translated into better student learning outcomes in primary education. Among the main reasons for this is the seve...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/136311591119785233/Zambia-Can-Financial-Incentives-Improve-the-Last-Mile-Delivery-of-Textbooks http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34216 |
| Summary: | Zambia has invested heavily on education
with an allocation of about 20 percent of the government
budget, but this investment has not translated into better
student learning outcomes in primary education. Among the
main reasons for this is the severe shortage of learning
materials, particularly textbooks in both English and local
languages. A public expenditure review of the Zambian
education system has shown that 91 percent of schools lack
textbooks and on average five to six pupils share less than
one textbook, including textbooks in local languages To
address this shortage, the REACH Trust Fund provided a grant
to investigate the factors related to the availability of
textbooks in schools and to evaluate a set of financial
incentive mechanisms for improving the last-mile delivery of
textbooks. The questions that the research set out to answer
were: What is the current status of textbook distribution
in Zambia and what are the factors that influence their
availability? Do financial incentives have any impact on
textbook distribution and availability? What kind of
financing scheme might be effective in improving the
last-mile delivery of textbooks? Does providing information
to schools about textbook availability increase the numbers
that are available in schools? A study was conducted in
2018–2019 with the objective of answering these questions.
It focused on textbooks procured for use in Zambian literacy
and English courses for students in grade two in 2016 and
grade four in 2018. The study surveyed 243 schools in 27
districts in Zambia that had not received grade four Zambian
language literacy course books until July 2019 as a result
of the severe resource constraints that they were
experiencing. The study used the difference-in-difference
estimation methodology to identify the causal links among
the factors contributing to availability and delivery of
textbooks to schools. |
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