Supporting Learning In and Out of School: Experimental Evidence from India

Abstract: Programs and policies aimed to improve learning outcomes in low- and middle- income countries have mostly focused on what happens in school. Less attention has been put on out-of-school programs even though they might provide complimentary opportunities to strengthen children’s learning. In this paper we study an innovative education program that targets primary school children in rural India and combines an in-school pedagogical intervention with the creation of out-of-school study groups managed by parents. We rely on experimental design to assess the effectiveness of the full program as well as of its two components separately. Results show that the full program significantly increases children’s test scores in both mathematics and language. When implemented in isolation, the two components do not have any impact on learning. The cost-effectiveness analysis confirms that there are high returns from adopting a multidimensional approach that supports children’s learning process both in and out of school.