Recent anecdotal reports suggest that dropout rates may be higher and actually increasing over time in poor rural areas. There are many reasons not to be surprised that there is a dropout problem, given the fact that China has a high level of poverty among the rural population, a highly competitive education system and rapidly increasing wages for unskilled workers. The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness that a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program could have on dropouts (and mechanism by which the CCT might affect drop outs). To meet this objective, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a CCT using a sample of 300 junior high school students in a nationally-designated poor county in Northwest China. Using our data, we found that the annual dropout rate in the study county was high, about 7%. We find, however, that a CCT program reduces drop outs by 60%; the dropout rate is 13.3%  in the control group and 5.3 % in the treatment group. The program is most effective in the case of girls, younger students and the poorest performing students. 

China's central government incrementally introduced various kinds of student financial aid since the late 1990s in response to public concerns about the rising burden of college prices. Despite the marked increase in financial assistance from governmental as well as non-governmental sources in recent years especially, little is known about how well aid is currently distributed across Chinese universities and whether it is successfully reaching needy students.

We use a unique randomly-sampled dataset of all local senior college students in one northwest province and a combination of non-parametric, semi-parametric and fixed effects methods to examine how various types of financial aid are currently distributed to students of different backgrounds across the university system. We also evaluate whether aid is reaching the main target population of low-income students. We primarily find that government-financed aid is allocated evenly across universities of varying selectivity and is reaching its target population of low-income students within universities. By contrast, university- and society-financed aid is not reaching low-income students. In addition, students in the most selective universities receive large implicit subsidies as they have high instructional costs, get more aid, and pay low tuition fees. Finally, a significant proportion of disadvantaged students do not seem to receive any type of aid.

Background: To study how misaligned supply-side incentives impede health programs in developing countries, we tested the impact of performance pay for anemia reduction in rural China. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to evaluate performance pay for actual health improvement.

Methods: We conducted a cluster randomised trial of information, subsidies, and incentives for school principals to reduce anemia among fourth and fifth grade students in 72 randomly-selected rural primary schools across northwest China. Our experiment included a control and three treatment arms: (1) an information arm in which principals received education about anemia; (2) a subsidy arm in which principals received information and unconditional subsidies; and (3) an incentive arm in which principals received information, subsidies, and financial incentives for reducing anemia among students. Students, parents, nursing teams, and survey enumerators were blind to arm assignment. Primary outcomes were student hemoglobin concentrations; secondary outcomes were behavioral responses to the interventions.

Findings: Mean student haemoglobin concentration rose by 1.5 g/L (95% CI –1.1 to 4.1) in information schools, 0.8 g/L (–1.8 to 3.3) in subsidy schools, and 2.4 g/L (0 to 4.9) in incentive schools compared with the control group. This increase in haemoglobin corresponded to a reduction in prevalence of anaemia (Hb <115 g/L) of 24% in incentive schools. Interactions with pre-existing incentives for principals to achieve good academic performance led to substantially larger gains in the information and incentive arms: when combined with incentives for good academic performance, associated effects on student haemoglobin concentration were 9.8 g/L (4.1 to 15.5) larger in information schools and 8.6 g/L (2.1 to 15.1) larger in incentive schools.

Interpretation: Financial incentives for health improvement were modestly effective. Understanding interactions with other motives and pre-existing incentives is critical.

Background. Despite growing wealth and a strengthening commitment from the government to provide quality education, a significant share of students across rural China still have inadequate access to micronutrient-rich regular diets. Such poor diets can lead to nutritional problems, such as iron-deficiency anemia, that can adversely affect attention and learning in school.

Objective. The overall goal of this paper is to test whether simple nutritional interventions lower rates of anemia and to assess whether this leads to improved educational performance among students in poor areas of rural China.

Approach: We report on the results of a randomized control trial (RCT) involving over 3600 fourth grade students, mostly aged 9 to 12, from 66 randomly-chosen elementary schools in 8 of the poorest counties in Shaanxi Province in China’s poor northwest region. The design called for random assignment of schools to one of three groups: two different types of treatment/intervention schools; a non-intervention, control group. The two interventions were designed to improve hemoglobin (Hb) levels, which is a measure of iron deficiency. One intervention provided a daily multivitamin with mineral supplements, including 5 milligrams of iron, for 5 months. The other informed the parents of their child’s anemia status and suggested several courses of action (henceforth, the information treatment).

Findings: Some 38.3 percent of the students had Hb levels of below 120 g/L, the World Health Organization’s cutoff for anemia for children 9 to 12 years old. In the schools that received the multivitamins with mineral supplements, Hb levels rose by more than 2 g/L (about 0.2 standard deviations). The standardized math test scores of the students in the schools that received the multivitamin with mineral supplements also improved significantly. In schools that received the information treatment, only students that lived at home (and not the students that lived in boarding schools and took most of their meals at schools) registered positive improvements in their Hb levels. The reductions in anemia rates and improvements in test scores were greater for students that were anemic at the beginning of the study period. Overall, these results should encourage China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) to begin to widen its view of education (beyond teachers, facilities and curriculum) and provide better nutrition and health care for students.