We estimate the impact of two early commitment of financial aid (ECFA) programs—one at the start and one near the end of junior high school (seventh and ninth grades, respectively)—on the outcomes of poor, rural junior high students in China. Our results demonstrate that neither of the ECFA programs has a substantive effect. We find that the ninth-grade program had at most only a small (and likely negligible) effect on matriculation to high school. The seventh-grade program had no effect on either dropout rates during junior high school or on educa- tional performance as measured by a standardized math test. The seventh-grade program did increase the plans of students to attend high school by 15%. In examining why ECFA was not able to motivate significant behavioral changes for ninth graders, we argue that the competitiveness of the education system successfully screened out poorer performing students and promoted better performing students. Thus by the ninth grade, the remaining students were already committed to going to high school regardless of ECFA support. In regards to the results of the seventh grade program, we show how seventh graders appear to be engaged in wishful thinking (they appear to change plans without reference to whether their plans are realistic).
The goal of this study is to examine whether promising a conditional cash transfer (conditional on matriculation) at the start of junior high school increases the rate at which disadvantaged students matriculate into high school. Based on a randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 1418 disadvantaged (economically poor) students in rural China, we find that a CCT voucher has no effect on increasing high school matriculation for the average disadvantaged student. The CCT voucher also has no differential impact on students at any point in the distribution of baseline academic achievement. This result suggests that CCTs, while shown to be effective in many contexts, do not always work.
This article is part of a 12-part Caixin Magazine column series by REAP co-directors Linxiu Zhang and Scott Rozelle. Read the full series here.
China’s vocational education is training technical workers for skills that will soon no longer be needed.
About ten years ago, policymakers universally agreed on “China’s shortage of skilled workers,” and China invested a large amount of money into vocational education and training.
The government decided that not only did academic high schools need to expand recruitment, but that a new brand of vocational education should also be spread across the country. The goal was to allow half of students graduating from middle school to enroll in vocational schools and become the skilled workers that enterprises need.
Policymakers believe this is already benefitting students, as well as factories and enterprises within China. Therefore, China successively invested several hundred billion dollars in the program.
However, we think this was not a wise choice.
We believe that the vocational education and training system is the least effective component within China’s education system. Even if China’s vocational schools could do as well as those in Germany, the current plan for sustaining and expanding vocational education has many flaws. In many places in China, vocational education and training is simply pulling China’s development into decline.
Most importantly, the goal behind China’s push to develop vocational education is fundamentally flawed.
Recently, Harvard University’s William Peterson and Stanford University’s Eric Hanushek published a book emphasizing that many countries, including China and the US, all fall prey to the same errors. For these countries, the goal of education is present advancement or short-term economic development. In contrast, Peterson and Hanushek believe that the purpose of developing education should be to advance economic development in 20 years and to prepare students to work 20 years in the future.
These two scholars point out that countries that have successful education systems are not those countries that vigorously prepare technical workers for today’s economy, but those countries that foresee the economic picture as it will be in 2030.
This does not mean that all vocational education and training systems suffer from myopia. Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands all have very successful vocational education and a large number of vocational schools.
However, the vocational education systems in Germany and China have fundamental differences. The Germans have known for decades that the role of vocational education is not to develop skilled workers trained for special jobs. Their vocational education system was designed so that students could meet success in the future in a number of areas. Therefore, students are required to comprehensively study many subjects, including math, science, Chinese, integrated circuitry, etc. Most of the jobs that were crucial to the economy 20 years ago no longer exist. Everything changes quickly, thus “learning mastery” is more important than learning a single skill that may change in a short time from being considered specialized to vanishing as a job altogether.
As a result, students at Germany’s vocational schools spend 80% of their time learning comprehensive knowledge and skills. German vocational schools don’t just teach students specialized skills so that they can immediately go out and find a technical job. Students have a strong grounding in basic skills, ensuring that they can continuously learn.
Compared to Germany’s vocational students, who spend 20% of their time learning “specialized” knowledge, China’s vocational students spend essentially all of their time learning specific skills. Therefore, when China’s vocational students intern, they do nothing more than repeatedly practice the specific skill they have learned. While Germany’s vocational education system is training human capital for the future, China’s vocational education is training skilled workers for requirements that will soon fade away.
However, new research shows that even farsighted vocational education is still inferior to attending academic high school everyday.
Another article written by Hanushek and others points out that there are major differences in the long-term labor market between most countries that accept students into vocational education (i.e. Germamy and Denmark) and those countries that require practically every student to attend academic high school (i.e. the US, France, and Canada). The unemployment rate, retirement age, and income for older-age workers in Germany and Denmark are higher, earlier, and lower, respectively, than those in the US, France, and Canada. The most rational reason for this is that workers in Germany and Denmark are not learning enough in vocational school, which impacts their ability to adapt and learn new skills. This in turn influences their ability to take on new work.
Considering Germany and Denmark’s combined experience, we can see that even with the best vocational education, the labor market performance of workers graduating from vocational schools is still inferior to that of those with an academic high school education.
In other words, the lesson is the same: what workers need most from education is to develop a solid comprehensive foundation of fundamental skills; otherwise, it will be difficult to adapt and learn new knowledge. In China, education is wrongly treated as part of the economic plan. It is our assessment that China’s government should evaluate the current goals and scope of vocational education and training; otherwise, the pernicious effects of inappropriate policies will be felt in the not so distant future.
About this series:
REAP co-directors Scott Rozelle and Linxiu Zhang wrote a ten-part series for Caixin Magazine titled, "Inequality 2030: Glimmering Hope in China in a Future Facing Extreme Despair." See below for more columns in this series:
This article is part of a 12-part Caixin Magazine column series by REAP co-directors Linxiu Zhang and Scott Rozelle. Read the full series here.
Over one million middle school students in rural China drop out every year. Though the reasons for dropping out are clear, it is difficult to find any way to improve.
Education, especially at the secondary school stage, is considered the most important driver of a country’s economic development. Since World War II, many countries have transitioned from middle-income to high-income countries, and secondary school enrollment rates have increased alongside economic development. However, this is not so for China. Especially in rural China, the proportion of students in impoverished areas that complete secondary school is very low, with less than 40% of students attending high school. In cities, the percentage is 90%.
Although high school is very important, it still does not fall within the category of compulsory education in China. The more serious problem is that the dropout rate of rural Chinese students is also extremely high. The Rural Education Action Program (REAP) research team understands that the dropout rate for middle school students in rural China is much higher than official statistics show.
We have engaged in numerous research projects related to the rural middle school student dropout problem. The results of five large-scale randomized controlled trials conducted at 262 middle schools across 3 provinces, show that the problem is clearly getting worse. Over the past five years, we have interviewed a total of 18,474 middle school students across different grades. In September, we first interviewed students who had just started middle school. 10 months later, in June of the next year, we followed up. Although we frequently encountered challenges, we were able to confirm the whereabouts of every student. The results of the five studies revealed high dropout rates.
Between the start of the first and second semesters, 4%-13% of students dropped out; between the start of the second and third semesters, 9%; and before graduation a further 4%-9% of students dropped out. Using these statistics, we can estimate the average middle school student dropout rate to be 24%, with an upper bound of 31%. Thus, the average dropout rate for all the areas in our study is estimated to be over 18%. This is much higher than the most recent official middle school dropout rate—2.6%—published by the Chinese government.
Based on our research, over one million rural middle school students in China drop out every year. With their current education, once China enters the next level of development in which wages and the requirements of workers are both higher, they will inevitably lack competitive power in the job market.
Why do middle school students drop out? REAP is the first organization to use progressive quantitative economic tools to conduct an analysis of this issue. Of REAP's five research programs related to middle school drop out, four explored the factors that influence school drop out. These four programs reached consistent conclusions. Students that drop out from school often have four characteristics: poor academic performance, male sex, comparatively older, and poor conditions at home. Additionally, our research also found that middle school students with emotional problems were more likely to drop out of school.
Middle school drop out is a big problem. The majority of students that drop out do not return to school. Their math, Chinese, English, history, and computer skills are very poor.
We conducted further one-on-one interviews to better understand the specific factors influencing middle school students' education. We deduced the following notes from our recording tapes and notes.
The cost of schooling is an important reason behind why students drop out. “My parents have to work hard in order to pay for my schooling, and because of my low academic performance, attending school is a waste of money. If I don’t study and go to work, even if I cannot earn that much, I will at least be able to support myself.”
Some students expressed concern over uncertain costs and said that it was their choice to drop out of school despite the wishes of their family. Looking at our analysis, it could be that low performing students think that the benefits of continuing to attend school are rather low. They say, “even if I could get a scholarship to cover all the expenses, it is still very difficult to attend high school. My academic performance is too poor and attending high school is a waste of money, so the best course of action is to find work and earn some money.”
The majority of students think that academic performance is the most important reason their classmates choose to drop out. Some students with decent academic performance think the problem lies in the poor quality of the school, saying “I am not happy at this school. The teacher does not care about me at all. No one takes education seriously. No one should attend this school.”
Additionally, we discovered that middle school students also face emotional pressure that could lead them to feel compelled to drop out of school. “I regret the path I chose that day. However, at the same time, I did not know that the work I would get after dropping out would be this bad.”
In reality, the main factors leading students to impulsively drop out of school are the emotional pressures and anxiety of attending school. This kind of pressure comes from many places, including the indifferent attitude of teachers, prejudice and playground bullying of classmates, friends urging friends to drop out, a lack of parental guidance, etc.
Our research shows that the reasons behind why middle school students drop out are already clearly developed. Furthermore, because rural parents often have no choice but to part from their children, it is difficult to overcome these obstacles. For the time being, there remains a shortage of quick effective solutions, however these problems are solved. However, if decisive measures are not adopted now, this problem will continue, ultimately leading to human capital shortages in China’s future development that will be difficult to recover from.
About this series:
REAP co-directors Scott Rozelle and Linxiu Zhang wrote a ten-part series for Caixin Magazine titled, "Inequality 2030: Glimmering Hope in China in a Future Facing Extreme Despair." See below for more columns in this series:
One simple action—placing eyeglasses on a nearsighted child’s face—can help that child to learn almost twice as much in a single school year. Yet only one out of seven children in rural China who needs glasses actually has them. Researchers at Stanford’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP) are now partnering with local government in China to address this problem. Targeting underserved rural primary school students in particular, they have implemented a sustainable pediatric vision care system in two counties. REAP is now preparing to launch a social enterprise based on this model to upscale across the country.
Matthew Boswell, Seeing is Learning’s Project Manager, explains, “We’ve tested our vision care model in the field and know that it’s effective at making care accessible, and makes a big difference in children’s education. By expanding into a social enterprise, we’re hoping to sustainably reach the millions of rural kids in China who need vision care.”
Yang Wenqing is one such child. A fourth grader at Helong Primary School in China’s rural northwestern Shaanxi province, Yang was struggling so much in school that she wanted to drop out. When the REAP team checked Yang’s vision, they found that she could not distinguish the largest letter on an eye chart 20 feet away—the same distance from her desk to the blackboard, where class notes and homework assignments are written. Having never had her vision checked, Yang thought this was normal. When the REAP team fitted Yang with her first pair of glasses, her jaw dropped and she whispered, “Can I keep these?”
At the end of her eye appointment, Yang told the REAP optician that receiving glasses had given her a new outlook on life. When her parents, who are migrant workers, return to visit Yang during the Chinese New Year, she is looking forward to showing them not only a new pair of glasses, but also an improved report card.
Students whose vision problems were corrected learned almost twice as much in a single academic year as myopic children who did not receive glasses.
Having never had their vision tested, many rural children are unaware that they have poor vision, and that their eyesight is holding them back in school.
She is not alone. Over half of the world’s cases of uncorrected vision occur in China, where the lack of vision care in rural areas is obvious to even the casual observer. In response, REAP researchers launched the Seeing is Learning program in 2012, with the goal of using a simple intervention to transform the education and life opportunities for children like Yang.
The REAP team found that the vast majority of children with vision problems in rural China remain untreated. Furthermore, uncorrected vision is causing these students to fall far behind in school. As a Beijing ophthalmologist told the REAP team, “Eye care is sort of like cars in China. In the cities, people have luxury sedans, and in the countryside many still only have donkeys.” Why is vision care readily available in China’s urban areas, but failing in rural areas—and exacerbating the already substantial rural-urban education gap?
REAP identified both supply- and demand-side obstacles to vision care in rural China. On the demand side, widespread misconceptions hinder uptake of vision care. Rural parents, teachers, school administrators, and even government officials often believe that glasses harm children’s vision. Due to pervasive suspicion of eyeglasses and endorsement of eye exercises, a practice of rubbing around the eyes, rural families often do not seek care.
On the supply side, vision care professionals and eye doctors are located exclusively in the county seat. No clinicians, either public or private, have any incentive to visit rural areas to conduct screening or examinations. Because 7 out of 10 residents in rural areas live a long distance from the county seat, seeking care can be costly.
Since documenting these challenges, REAP has designed practical means to address them. The research team conducted a series of randomized controlled trials and unequivocally found that glasses slow, rather than speed up, the progression of myopia (nearsightedness), and that eye exercises have no measurable impact on vision.
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Teachers are generally a trusted source of advice in rural communities. When they buy in to vision care, families often do too.
They also demonstrated that teachers can form a key component in the vision care system. After a half-day training session, teachers in rural schools screened their students for visual acuity with greater than 90 percent accuracy. Teachers can also supervise glasses wear effectively, guaranteeing that the vast majority of nearsighted students wear their glasses in class, where they are most needed.
Finally, the REAP team found that a student’s first pair of glasses must be free (or close to free) for rural households to uptake vision care. When offered free glasses, 8 out of 10 rural families accepted them, even when they had to travel long distances to obtain them. After receiving a voucher for free glasses, the parents of one nearsighted fifth-grade student told the REAP team, “We would travel a thousand miles to restore our daughter’s vision and brighten her future—we just didn't know she had a problem.”
Yongshou, Shaanxi province (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
Qinan, Gansu province (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
With research in hand, in early 2014 REAP partnered with local governments in Yongshou county, Shaanxi province, and Qinan county, Gansu province to implement a new pediatric vision care system. REAP provided donated equipment (including autorefractors and lens edging machines) and high-quality glasses, and helped the hospitals transform space in their outpatient buildings into the vision centers. Four hospital staff were selected to run the clinics, and attended an intensive training program with REAP’s partners at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, returning as certified refractionists and opticians. The local Bureaus of Education then trained primary school teachers to screen their students and refer them to the new vision clinics.
This model met with strong success. During the 2014-2015 academic year, 80 percent of children who failed their vision tests went to the clinics in Qinan and Yongshou, where the newly trained optometrists were able to correct 96 percent of vision problems.
“Some students never raised their hands in class because they could not read the blackboard,” explained a primary school teacher in Shaanxi province. “Now that they can see clearly, they are eager to be called on.” Moving forward, these children will likely achieve far more in school, generating greater life opportunities and the ability to participate in China’s fast-changing economy.
REAP is now preparing to launch an innovative social enterprise based on the vision care system they tested in Qinan and Yongshou. The REAP team aims to use this social enterprise, called Learning in Focus, to end China’s rural vision care crisis, and do so sustainably.
As a part of Learning in Focus, REAP will assist county hospitals in building vision centers and provide necessary equipment. REAP will then arrange for four hospital staff members to be trained in ophthalmology and vision center management at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, China’s leading ophthalmology hospital. These new optometrists will train local teachers to vision screen their students in a monthly rotation.
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A view inside Seeing is Learning's Yongshou vision clinic: newly certified refractionists and opticians diagnose and treat rural children.
Once Learning in Focus vision centers are up and running, they will give away the first pair of glasses to referred rural primary school students for free, while also providing refraction and eyewear to a fraction of the urban market and junior high students on a fee-for-service basis. This “first pair free” model is not just charity, it also helps build access to the huge and untapped rural market.
The vision centers will repay REAP’s initial investments in monthly installments. After three years, the vision centers will have recouped all start-up costs (equipment, renovation, training, and free glasses), and will begin to earn a profit. Through this market-driven approach, Learning in Focus will rapidly become self-sustaining.
In May, the REAP team met with government officials from 18 counties near Qinan and Yongshou to discuss starting Learning in Focus programs in their localities. County officials were highly interested, as the social enterprise both provides county hospitals with a new revenue stream and helps local governments tackle a key health and education issue. The REAP team is now laying the groundwork to implement Learning in Focus in these areas. In the next several years, they look forward to expanding across rural China, transforming education and opportunities for rural kids like Yang Wenqing in the process.
This Seeing is Learning project is a part of REAP’s broader goal to improve the health, nutrition, and education of China’s rural poor families. Under the direction of Scott Rozelle, the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, REAP evaluates the impact and effectiveness of development projects and seeks to upscale programs that work. To learn more about REAP’s diverse projects across rural China, visit their website.
Students whose vision problems were corrected learned almost twice as much in a single academic year as myopic children who did not receive glasses.
